Mid-America Transportation Center receives $15 million grant

The University of Nebraska–Lincoln’s Mid-America Transportation Center has won a five-year, $15 million grant to remain the transportation research and workforce development hub for the U.S. Department of Transportation Region 7, comprised of Nebraska, Iowa, Missouri and Kansas. MATC will receive $3 million per year for the next five years to improve transportation safety and equity.

Aemal Khattak, the center’s director and professor of civil and environmental engineering, said the grant title reflects not only a focus on transportation safety issues, but on equity in transportation safety.

“The Mid-America Transportation Center for Transportation Safety and Equity shows our emphasis on equity-related safety issues,” Khattak said. “It reflects our recognition that different population groups may be impacted in various ways by transportation safety improvements. We are going to focus on equity issues in transportation safety, but also look at issues that affect Region 7 in unique ways, such as climate change and supply chain vulnerability.”