PPC Students Take Second Prize in APA Poster Contest

Adweta Joshi and Suyun Ma, both graduate research assistants in the PPC Transportation Policy program, were awarded the second prize in a poster contest sponsored by the American Planning Association (APA). Their study was entitled, "Identifying Spatial Relationship between Elderly Population Distribution and Crashes Related to Elderly Drivers in Des Moines, Iowa." It used GIS technology to identify elderly population clusters and then examine the effect of these on crash locations involving elderly drivers. The results showed that crashes were grouped in areas with high counts or low counts of elderly residents; area with a random distribution of elderly citizens showed no crash clusters.