Erik C.B. Olsen

Currently as BT Transportation Planner I:
• Plan, manage, & implement projects & new route/stop requests
• Support Director/Management w/regional transportation projects
• Coordinated an expanded bus service for Christiansburg, with a household survey, outreach, new routes & a commuter route
• Championed the implementation of "The Tuesday Route," a pilot bus route focusing on transportation for seniors

Recent projects also include:
• Coordinated a 6-yr transit development plan w/stakeholders
• Facilitating a pilot route between a hospital & a retirement community
• Development of a bus stop inventory database
• Creation and supervision of an Internship Program

Other projects, research efforts, and interests include:
• Conducting, supporting, and leading a variety of research efforts-focus groups, surveys, and laboratory/field experiments
• Serving on regional transportation advisory committees
• Involvement with vehicle, bicycle, & pedestrian safety
• Various climate/sustainability efforts
• Leadership across various domains

• Preventing motor vehicle crashes and injuries among children and adolescents

  • Injury Prevention for Children and Adolescents: Research, Practice, and Advocacy (ISBN: 0-87553-068-0)
  • April 20, 2006
  Authors: Erik C.B. Olsen, Bruce Simons-Morton, Angela D. Mickalilde

  Book chapter describing how many motor vehicle crashes (fatalities and injuries) could be prevented through the combination of strict policies, improved technology, enhanced enforcement, and effective education, including greater involvement and education of parents to better manage their children in the first years of driving.

• Job-Finding for Planners, Part 1: Writing a Resume That Works

  • American Planning Association, The New Planner
  • September 1, 2010
  Authors: Erik C.B. Olsen

  This is the first in a two-part series on job-finding for planners. The purpose of Part 1 is to highlight several important keys to finding a job — keys that are applicable to students in school, recent graduates, and experienced planners (or for anyone in any field). These include evaluating your experience and creating a resume that will get you the job you want.

• Integration themes in multimodal human-computer interaction

  • International Conference on Spoken Language Processing
  • September 18, 1994
  Authors: Erik C.B. Olsen, Sharon Oviatt

  This research examines how people integrate spoken and written input during multimodal human-computer interaction. Three studies used a semi-automatic simulation technique to collect data on people's free use of spoken and written input.

• Eye glance behavior during lane changes and straight-ahead driving

  • Transportation Research Record: Journal of the Transportation Research Board, No. 1937
  • September 7, 2005
  Authors: Erik C.B. Olsen, Suzie Lee, Walter W. Wierwille

  Understanding drivers' eye behavior before lane changing is an important aspect of designing usable, safe lane-change collision-avoidance systems (LCAS) that will fit well with drivers' expectations. This understanding could lead to improvements for LCAS as well as for a variety of other collision avoidance systems. Findings regarding driver eye glance behaviors are presented in a comparison of lane change maneuvers with straightahead (baseline) driving events.

• Town of Christiansburg Bus Survey – Final Report

  • Town of Blacksburg and Blacksburg-Christiansburg-Montgomery Area Metropolitan Planning Organization
  • January 28, 2010
  Authors: Erik C.B. Olsen

  The Town of Christiansburg Bus Survey was completed in alignment with the goals stated in various planning documents. The purpose of the Bus Survey was to receive feedback from citizens, market that expanded bus service is “around the corner,” and to develop proposals for expanded bus service in the Town of Christiansburg.

• Job-Finding for Planners, Part 2: Networking Your Way into Planning Jobs and Opportunities

  • American Planning Association - The New Planner
  • December 1, 2010
  Authors: Erik C.B. Olsen

  This article (part 2 of 2) discusses the importance of networking, for the inexperienced and experienced alike. It also reviews the importance of further education and certification, as well as some resources for planners and anyone else interested in staying motivated while seeking not just a job, but a dream job in planning.

• The New Millennium Electronic Surveillance Interface Suite (NEMESIS) A future interface for the U.S. Navy Airborne Early Warning (AEW) E-2C Hawkeye workstation

  • Human Factors & Ergonomics Society
  • July 2000
  Authors: Erik C.B. Olsen

  Purpose: To develop an idealized, future Human-Machine Interface (HMI) design for the U.S. Navy’s E-2C Naval Flight Officer (NFO) workstation.
  
  To develop a user-centered HMI design that incorporated and extended all functions currently performed, including the functionality of Command, Control, Communication, Computers and Intelligence (C4I) Tactical display systems.
  
  These slides were prepared for a paper that described a 2-year design effort completed under sub-contract for the U.S. Navy while employed by Monterey Technologies, Inc. The bulk of the work was completed during the 1995-1997 time period with final deliverables in August 1997.

• Evaluating driver performance on the road and in a simulator

  • August 1, 1996
  Authors: Erik C.B. Olsen

  Abstract: The purpose of this study was to determine if a driving simulator can replace on-road evaluation in the context of an Occupational Therapist (OT) Driver Assessment and to identify the differences between road and simulator environments. The benefits of using a simulator to perform driver assessment are many-fold and include: 1) a more time- and cost-efficient method for evaluations 2) the ability to evaluate drivers under complex conditions and 3) the improvement of driver safety.
  With this in mind, the present study focused on differences between environments and compared driver evaluations conducted on-road to those conducted in a medium-fidelity driving simulator. Overall, the data shows that some parts of the driver evaluation process may be better performed in a simulator. Continued research is proposed, addressing the differences between actual and simulated vehicle environments and the establishment of OT evaluation techniques in conjunction with simulation.