Arlington County’s start-up think-tank Mobility Lab received the President’s Award this morning at the Association for Commuter Transportation annual international conference in San Antonio, Texas.
Born two years ago as a project of Arlington County Commuter Services, the Mobility Lab researches and creates solutions for transportation options that are cool, healthy, fun, and efficient.
“This is a prestigious award that ACT gives, and we don’t award it every year – only if an individual or group truly merits it,” said Josh Kavanagh, president of ACT.
“Mobility Lab is doing industry-leading work and providing the research to back it up. Even as a local/regional program, Mobility Lab is striving to help lead and define the mobility-management industry, and it is making the effort to explain it in ways that even people outside of the transportation industry can understand and appreciate,” he added.
“Arlington County created Mobility Lab to widely share with others our experience to how you can provide travel options that persuade people to walk, bike, use transit, or rideshare to get where they want to go, and to bring smart transportation ideas to Arlington,” said Dennis Leach, the County’s Transportation Chief.
Mobility Lab conducts original research, highlights the research of others, and holds a regular series of events designed to encourage people to work together to find ways to move people other than single-occupancy car trips.
As the mobility-management industry is challenged to build a cohesive voice about what it does – moving people instead of just cars – Mobility Lab helps lead the way with the research, collaboration, and communications necessary to secure federal, state, and local funding for mobility-management initiatives.
Mobility Lab is one partner in a group of innovative mobility-management practitioners. Arlington Transportation Partners, BikeArlington, WalkArlington, Capital Bikeshare, The Commuter Store, Commuter Direct, and Arlington’s Car-Free Diet are the boots on the ground, while Mobility Lab documents and communicates their accomplishments to help different audiences understand the value of mobility management.
This release also appears at Arlington County’s Newsroom.