Curtesy of the FHWA Local Aid Support Newsletter – WINTER 2023 Edition.
Introducing Yinhai Wang, the Director of the Northwestern TTAP Center and a professor at the University of Washington. As a professor in civil and environmental engineering, over the past years Yinhai has been researching transportation safety issues and using new technologies, like information technology, to address them. He was first introduced to TTAP in 2017 after reading a report and discovered the Native American Fatality rate was five times the national average. From there, his passion to improve safety within tribal transportation was born.
With the reestablishment of the Northwestern TTAP center, the first step Yinhai plans to take is listening to the tribes and building trust. Advancing existing tribal relations and developing new ones is a top priority. To do this, the Center plans to visit each tribe in person and then complete formal needs assessments to better understand the issues. The Center also plans to utilize the universities outstanding research and training programs. By developing the trust between the tribes and the center, they can understand their issues better and will be able to develop plans and solutions for each individual tribe. Yinhai is eager to begin transforming their tribal transportation and wants the tribal community to know that the TTAP Center is waiting to help them.
The success of the TTAP program will be identifying the transportation issues and providing the necessary resources and training to fix them. Using the Center to connect to researchers and industry solution providers, Yinhai is confident that the Center can find the best solution for tribes to see the change in both safety and mobility.
NW TTAP Center 