In recognition of his service to the Transportation Research Board (TRB), Dr. Chandra R. Bhat is the 2024 recipient of the W.N. Carey, Jr., Distinguished Service Award. Bhat, Joe J. King Endowed Chair Professor in engineering, university distinguished teaching professor, Department of civil, architectural, and environmental engineering at The University of Texas at Austin, is recognized for his more than 30 years of service to TRB and for his significant engagement in the transportation research management field. The Carey Award—named in honor of W.N. Carey, Jr., TRB’s executive director from 1967 to 1980—recognizes individuals who have given leadership and distinguished service to TRB.
The award will be presented on January 8, 2025, during the chair’s plenary session portion of the TRB Annual Meeting, January 5-9, 2025, at the Walter E. Washington Convention Center in Washington, D.C.
Bhat is recognized nationally and internationally as a leading expert in travel demand modeling and travel behavior analysis. His substantive research interests include the social and environmental aspects of transportation, planning implications of emerging technology and mobility options, and equity considerations in transportation safety. His methodological research interests and expertise are in econometric and mathematical modeling of consumer behavior, including discrete choice analysis, discrete-continuous econometric systems, and mixed data models.
His scholarly contributions are widely referenced in the economics, marketing, geography, statistics, and transportation fields, and have been included in econometric textbooks and software packages. Many of these works, published as refereed journal papers, have been listed in journals as highly cited papers, and two of his papers were included in a book compilation of the 46 most influential and innovative scholarly papers in the choice modeling field in the past 60 years (the book title is Choice Modelling: Foundational Contributions, 2011, Edward Elgar Publishing Ltd). At the same time, his works have had an important impact on practice, shaping the design of transportation systems today and into the future.
Bhat was co-chair of the TRB Standing Technical Committee on National Transportation Education and Training. During his tenure, the committee organized symposia, workshops, conferences, information sessions, and technology transfer seminars for K-12 and college students; developed partnerships for achieving workforce development and training goals and objectives; recruited young professionals and those changing careers; and produced continued learning opportunities. He was the national co-leader of the TRB’s curriculum task force on Mastering the Management of Transportation Research and Training Program (Ahead-of-the-Curve), which led to a national-level curriculum on transportation research management that is widely embraced by state DOT staff and other public agency staff.
While chair of the TRB Standing Technical Committee on Transportation Demand Forecasting, the committee developed the Innovative Travel Modeling (ITM) Conference series, which was designed to help bridge the gap between researchers and practitioners in the travel modeling arena. He has been a member of three National Academies of Sciences, Engineering, and Medicine committees that addressed issues related to travel forecasting, travel demand modeling, and the humane transportation of laboratory animals. He is also a past chair the TRB Travel Analysis Section and former member of several other TRB committees and task forces. He currently serves as a member of the editorial board for the Transportation Research Record: Journal of the Transportation Research Board (TRR). As importantly, his former students are now well-established leaders in the transportation profession.
Bhat is on the board of directors of the Research and Education Division of the American Road and Transportation Builders Association and has served as the president of the Council of University Transportation Centers (CUTC). He currently is the president of the ASCE Transportation and Development Institute, and is the editor-in-chief of Transportation Research – Part B. He is the director of the U.S. Department of Transportation’s National University Transportation Center on Travel Behavior and Demand. During his career, he has received more than 20 awards including the Lifetime Achievement in Transportation Research and Education Award (Academic) from CUTC, the Theodore M. Matson Memorial Award and the Wilbur Smith Educator Award from the Institute of Transportation Engineers, and the Frank M. Masters Transportation Engineering Award from the American Society of Civil Engineers. His graduate students have received over 50 national and regional awards, a testament to his close mentoring of the future leaders of the transportation profession.
Bhat earned a bachelor’s degree from the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Madras, a master’s degree in transportation engineering from the Virginia Polytechnic Institute and State University, and a Ph.D. in civil engineering from Northwestern University, Evanston.
Learn more about the Transportation Research Board (TRB) here.