Daniel Ruiz began his junior year in the Fall of 2015 with the burning desire to apply the knowledge gained from his classes to real world applications. So, when the opportunity presented itself, he immediately gravitated towards the Cuba Infrastructure Scholarship Competition, hosted by the Association of Cuban-American Engineers. In thinking about Colombia’s pitfalls in mass transit – that’s where he’s from – an idea blossomed, which would lead him to focus the competition project on bringing bus-rapid-transit (BRT) to Havana, Cuba.
But if he wanted to compete, he needed more group members then just himself. The first addition to his team was David Lerom, a senior in one of the classes that Ruiz was pitching the idea to. Like Ruiz, Lerom had a deep interest in transportation that he had yet to fully explore and was intrigued by the project.
However, they still needed one more member for a complete team, as well as an environmental prospective for the competition requirements. They ended up reaching out via email to the students in the Herbert Wertheim College of Engineering’s Department of Environmental Engineering (EE). Senior EE major Judith Labrada answered with interest and became their third person, and then the real work began.
“We’d never done anything like this before,” Lerom said. “I’d never even written a research paper before, and that was one of the big things we had to do for the competition.”
Their inexperience did not discourage them though. In fact, the more they learned the more interested in the transportation field they became.
“So much of the research was just figuring out the background information…” Ruiz said. “We’d spend hours looking at lane configurations in Havana and I just loved it.”
But once that initial research was done, it was time to develop a plan for their BRT system, and to do that they needed true industry prospective from an adviser.
“It was intimidating to reach out to Dr. Elefteriadou at first, but she was so welcoming and excited to help.” Lerom said. “From the moment we came into her office she was right there with us.”
Dr. Lily Elefteriadou is a professor in the Department of Civil & Coastal Engineering, specializing in transportation. She is the director of the UFTI and the STRIDE Center. STRIDE is the 2012 US Department of Transportation grant-funded regional (Southeastern) University Transportation Center (UTC) housed at UF.
“I thoroughly enjoyed helping this very motivated group of students refine the concept they had already developed,” Elefteriadou said. “I was so impressed with their professionalism and dedication, and I am very proud they are Gators!”
She served as their adviser through the rest of the process, and even suggested to them that they do a practice run of their presentation before the competition. She put together for them a group of individuals for feedback that included herself, Ph.D. students Yinan Zheng and Pruthvi Manjunatha, STRIDE Center coordinator Ines Aviles Spadoni, and Dr. Paolo Spadoni, a political economist from Augusta University in Georgia specializing in Cuba’s political environment and economy.
Then, it was finally time to present their work in the competition, which was held February 27, 2016 at the University of Miami. One immediate revelation they had was that their group was the only team comprised only of undergraduates. Over all though, it was a great experience and networking opportunity for them.
“I want to do it again next year,” Ruiz said. “We’ve learned so much and we have the advantage of doing it once before already.”
Check out their project’s abstract below:
Today, Cuban citizens have to live with one of the most pressing issues in Cuba, their transportation system. Public transportation is not only disorganized but also inaccessible for parts of the community, especially those living in the outskirts of the city. Simultaneously, motor vehicles make a significant contribution to the level of contamination due to their poor sustainability. Therefore, a Bus Rapid Transportation System (BRT) would be an innovative solution to these problems, consisting of massive buses that have their own lane, designated routes and established stations, rather than having normal buses that are overloaded, stop regularly at any point, and create traffic congestion. By implementing “feeder” buses, which are smaller buses that “feed the established stations, people from the outskirts will have a reliable method of transportation. Also, using alternative fuels such as biofuels, low CO2 emissions engines, and reduced traffic, contamination levels could significantly drop.
Photo credits: Association of Cuban-American Engineers