Cambridge Systematics

Cambridge Systematics, Inc.
Company typeIndependent
FoundedSeptember 27, 1972
HeadquartersMedford, Massachusetts
Area served
United States
Services
  • Policy, Strategic Planning, & Management
  • Economic Analysis
  • Environment and Transportation
  • Freight Systems & Intermodal Planning
  • Transit & Shared Mobility
  • Rail Planning
  • Travel Demand Forecasting & modeling
  • Operations & Simulation
  • Performance Management
  • Transportation Safety
  • Software & Information Technology Consulting
  • GIS & Data Management
Number of employees
~225 (2021)
Websitewww.camsys.com

Cambridge Systematics, Inc. is an independent, employee-owned transportation consultancy firm with corporate headquarters located in Medford, Massachusetts.[1] Cambridge Systematics provides strategic planning and management services, objective analysis, and technology applications for passenger, commercial, freight, and transit systems to public and private sectors both nationally and internationally.

Cambridge Systematics provides services in public transportation, urban design, climate change, environmental impact assessment, sustainability, sustainable transport, land use planning, forecasting, modeling, asset management, public-private partnership, infrastructure, and logistics.

The firm's staff members are associated with the Transportation Research Board, American Planning Association, ITS America, Governors Highway Safety Association, American Society of Civil Engineers, and the Institute of Transportation Engineers.

Company history

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The company was founded on September 27, 1972, by four Massachusetts Institute of Technology professors and a colleague who were leaders in systems analysis and disaggregate models for transportation.[2] The company was started in Cambridge, Massachusetts under the charter of “the application of systematic analysis to problems of transportation, the environment, urban development, and regional planning.”

The founding President, William Jessiman, had developed travel demand models and previously led the Boston office of Peat Marwick.[3] The founding Vice President, Wayne Pecknold had been on the faculty of MIT, along with co-founders Marvin Manheim, Paul Roberts, and A. Sheffer Lang. Manheim had directed the Transportation & Community Values project at MIT, and later founded WCTRS - the World Conference on Transport Research Society.[4] Roberts was founding director of the MIT Center for Transportation Studies. They were joined in 1973 by Moshe Ben-Akiva of MIT, who pioneered disaggregate travel demand methods[5], in 1976 by Daniel McFadden who started the California office and was later awarded the Nobel Prize for his work on discrete choice modeling, and in 1977 by Andrew Daly, who started the Netherlands office where he pioneered disaggregate tour-based travel demand models – an early form of activity-based models.[6] Cambridge Systematics was widely recognized for developing the first application of disaggregate travel demand modeling for a metropolitan area: Metropolitan Transportation Commission (San Francisco Bay Area) in 1978.[7]

The Europe office was subsequently spun off, and in 1994 the California office moved from Berkeley, California to its current location in Oakland, California. Since then, the company has relocated its corporate headquarters to Medford, Massachusetts and opened additional offices in Washington, D.C.; Chicago, Illinois; Tallahassee, Florida; Fort Lauderdale, Florida; New York, New York; Atlanta, Georgia; Austin, Texas; Denver, Colorado; Los Angeles, California; and Raleigh, North Carolina. Cambridge Systematics staff members also provide onsite client support at the offices of the Federal Highway Administration and the Volpe National Transportation Systems Center.

Services

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References

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  1. ^ "History". Cambridge Systematics. 2015-10-19. Retrieved 2021-08-09.
  2. ^ Chatzis, Konstantinos (2023). Forecasting Travel in Urban America: The Socio-Technical Life of an Engineering Modeling (PDF). MIT Press. pp. 113–122.
  3. ^ Jessiman, William; Ward, Donald (1970). Intercity Transportation Effectiveness Model, Final Report. Peat Marwick Mitchell for USDOT.
  4. ^ Rothengatter, W. (2008). ""Marvin Manheim: Founder of the World Conference on Transport Research Society and Spiritus Rector of the Integration of Human Resources and Technological Systems in Transport"". Recent Developments in Transport Modelling. Emerald Group, Leeds. doi:10.1108/9781786359537-002.
  5. ^ Ben-Akiva, Moshe; Koppelman, F. (1974). "Multidimensional Choice Models: Alternative Structures of Travel Demand Models" (PDF). Transportation Research Board, Special Report 149. National Academies Press.
  6. ^ Zuidvleugel (South Wing) Study, Report 7, Travel Demand Models. by Cambridge Systematics Europe for Netherlands Ministry of Transport and Public Works. 1981.
  7. ^ "Disaggregate Travel Demand Model for the San Francisco Bay Area: System Structure, Component Models, and Application Procedures" (PDF). Transportation Research Record (677). National Academies Press: 121–128. 1978.
  8. ^ November 13; Tonachel, 2017 Bruce Ho Luke (13 November 2017). "Clean Transportation Could Turbocharge Northeast's Economy". NRDC. Retrieved 2021-08-09.{{cite web}}: CS1 maint: numeric names: authors list (link)
  9. ^ "5 numbers to know about the recently approved Vermont Rail Plan". Saint Albans Messenger. 29 March 2021. Retrieved 2021-08-09.
  10. ^ "LA's Plan to Reboot Its Bus System—Using Cell Phone Data". Wired. ISSN 1059-1028. Retrieved 2021-08-09.
  11. ^ "Upgrade aims to make Metro Transit trip-info app more accurate". Star Tribune. Retrieved 2021-08-09.
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