The CATT Laboratory was originally established in 2002 as an academic applied research and development laboratory. The mission of the lab is to support national, state, and local efforts to provide safe and efficient transportation systems through improved operations and management by means of research and development, technology implementation, training, and education. The CATT Lab’s research and development activities provide a bridge between the intelligent transportation systems (ITS) community, the information technology community, and other disciplines essential to the successful application of ITS.

We are an interdisciplinary group of full-time faculty developers, engineers, graduate students, and undergraduate students in the fields of computer science, computer engineering, geographic information systems, electrical engineering, civil engineering, telecommunications, digital entertainment & simulation, graphics, and systems engineering. In addition to the full-time staff and students, the CATT Lab can also draw on professional staff and professors from all disciplines within the University of Maryland System for additional resources as needed.

The CATT Lab specializes in:

  • Transportation Data Fusion
  • Transportation Data Archiving
  • Performance Measurement
  • Data Mining
  • Data Visualization
  • Safety Analysis
  • Business Process
  • User Interface Design
  • TMC/EOC Design

  • Software Development
  • 3D/4D Modeling
  • Traveler Information Systems
  • Training
  • Transportation Operations
  • Human Computer Interface Design
  • Work Zone Management
  • Incident Management

The CATT Lab provides its research and design services to both the public and the private sector.

The CATT Laboratory operates three independent data centers with over 12-full racks of primarily Linux database and application servers with hundreds of terabytes of storage capacity. These data centers are used, in part, to collect and archive nearly 60 incoming transportation data feeds from agencies across the country. The CATT Lab is connected to these agencies via the University of Maryland’s high-speed internet backbone and directly connected fiber to multiple state agencies. The CATT Lab serves this data to thousands of researchers, planners, operations specialists and homeland security officials across the country including:

  • US Office of Personnel Management
  • US Senate
  • US Capitol Police
  • State and Local Emergency Operations Centers
  • U.S. Army, Coast Guard, Air Force, Joint Forces Headquarters, NorthCom, National Guard
  • Local and State Police Departments
  • Departments of Transportation
  • Transit Agencies (e.g., bus, rail, Amtrak)
  • US Secret Service
  • National Security Agency
  • NOAA
  • FHWA

  • State and Local Emergency Operations Centers (EOCs) and Emergency Management Agencies
  • Department of Homeland Security
  • FEMA
  • University Researchers
  • TSA Office of Intelligence
  • Metropolitan Planning Organizations
  • USDA
  • Department of Health and Human Services
  • Pentagon Force Protection
  • US Treasury
  • Oak Ridge National Laboratory
  • JHU Applied Physics Laboratory
  • Private Sector Consultants

Collectively, the CATT Laboratory team has experience in using technologies, frameworks, and languages such as:

  • JavaScript (React)
  • Python (Django)
  • Java (Spring and Hibernate)
  • PHP (Symfony)

  • Distributed computing platforms (Hadoop, Storm, HBase)
  • Relational databases (PostgreSQL, Oracle, SQL Server, etc.)
  • Clojure
  • GIS
  • Android