About Us

Company Overview

ATRC is an early stage scientific research and consulting company based in Severn, Maryland, specializing in transportation route optimization technology. It was founded in 2002 by Dr. Manoj Jha, P.E. with close assistance from Dr. Paul Schonfeld, P.E. of the University of Maryland, College Park. and Dr. Min-Wook Kang. These are highly accomplished and internationally recognized researchers in the field of transportation route optimization.

The company president Dr. Jha (who is also an associate professor of the Morgan State University) and their collaborators (Dr. Schonfeld and Dr. Min Wook Kang) have been working in developing a highway alignment optimization software since 1996. This software currently works on ArcGIS platform and can find optimized horizontal and vertical highway alignments while satisfying design, operational, and environmental constraints. State-of-the art artificial intelligence algorithms, such as genetic and ant algorithms have been developed for optimization. A trade-off analysis as well as multi-objective optimization can be performed to examine effects of varying land and environmental characteristics in alignment selection. The company’s revolutionary concept of integrating genetic algorithms with geographic information systems allows seamless integration of real geographic maps and databases for highway route optimization. Currently, there are no automated methods available for highway route optimization due to the complexity in devising an optimization algorithm for such problems. Note that the ATRC research work also includes adapting highway alignment optimization to rail transit optimization, rail station location optimization, and optimization of other transportation facilities, such as airports, and maintenance yards.

The initial highway route optimization research on which Drs. Jha and Schonfeld collaboratively worked was a result of a small university-based funding awarded to the University of Maryland, College Park from the Maryland State Highway Administration (MDSHA) in 1996. Since then successful refinements of the basic route optimization methodology have been made by Drs. Jha and Schonfeld with partial funding from the MDSHA and in recent years the researchers, in close co-operation with the potential customers, identified the need for developing a bilevel multiobjetive optimization approach for highway route optimization.

The integrated bilevel multiobjective optimization approach (which is a part of Dr. Kang's Ph.D. dissertation) will substantially improve the capability of the highway route optimization model previously developed by Drs. Jha and Schonfeld as it will allow optimized tradeoffs of highway user and agency costs, resulting in optimal routes with substantial improvements in life-cycle benefits and costs. Since 1996, Drs. Jha, Schonfeld, and Kang have accomplished a number of tasks, including:

	Development and documentation of the concept for rout optimization
	Publication of numerous peer-reviewed research articles and books on the highway design and route optimization technology
	Creation of a corporate structure, including board of directors
	Creation of a professional business plan that will be used as a “road map” for the development of the company, as well as for communicating the company’s goals and strategies to investors
	ATRC has retained a major law firm (Saul Ewing, a Baltimore-based law firm) to represent the Company in business matters as well as to ensure that all intellectual property assets are properly protected. In addition, Sharma Law group of Rockville, MD has been hired for immigration matters related to new employees that are non-U.S. citizens. The University of Maryland’s Office of Technology Commercialization will also assist in intellectual property and PATENT filing matters.
	ATRC with its university partner (University of Maryland, College Park) has applied for a provisional patent entitled “Methods for Optimizing Route Cross-Sections.”
	A collaboration commitment and investment in the amount of $100,000 has been made by KM InoTech, Inc., a Maryland-based firm, to assist with product development and marketing
	A collaboration agreement for international marketing of the product has been made with the already established South Korea-based highway design firm Pyong Hwa Data System, Pvt. Ltd.
	Research funds awarded from National Science Foundation (NSF) in years 2008 and 2009