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Thomas Cornillie is an independent scholar who focuses on issues concerning railways and public transportation in the United States and around the world. Thomas’s research on planning, policy, engineering, and management issues has been published in transportation and law journals. He has a Master of Urban Planning from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign and a Bachelor of Arts from the University of Michigan at Ann Arbor. He was also the 2017 recipient of the Watford Fellowship from the American Railway Engineering and Maintenance-of-Way Association Educational Foundation.

Prior roles include serving Amtrak as its Principal Officer, Infrastructure Planning - West and leading the establishment of commuter rail and regional express buses for the Ann Arbor Transportation Authority. He was also a member of the New Starts planning staff for Chicago’s Metra commuter rail service and, most recently, for capital projects for the Capitol Corridor Joint Powers Authority.

He also serves on committees or has research affiliations with the Transportation Research Board of the National Academies, the American Railway Engineering and Maintenance of Way Association, the Watford Group of railway design professionals, and the SPARK research initiative of the Rail Service Safety Board of the United Kingdom and the Union Internationale des Chemins de fer.

Thomas Cornillie has diverse experience in transportation planning, project development and management, and public-private partnerships for large and small organizations. Some projects include:

Serving on the oversight panels for research projects organized by the Cooperative Research Programs Division of the Transportation Research Board of the National Academies, including a project of the National Cooperative Rail Research Program comparing passenger rail energy consumption with competing modes and Transit Cooperative Research Program projects examining green bond financing in the public transportation industry and transit safety risk assessment methodologies.

Leading the Carlsbad Double Track and Bridge Project - matching funding with a clear strategic purpose to bring a concept into reality. Situated along the second busiest intercity passenger rail corridor in the US, this project was the first corridor capacity improvement funded and built by Amtrak in the West.

Improving the Link, a downtown circulator bus that serves Ann Arbor, Michigan. Intended to stimulate patronage of local businesses, the route had been struggling to survive amidst low ridership and an unclear mission. Thomas developed a multifaceted strategy that created a funding partnership and an expanded route. This approach avoided an embarrassing service disruption and transformed the Link from last to first in terms of ridership. An article about this transformation was published in the Transportation Research Record.

Thomas Cornillie’s research topics range from transportation policy and planning to industrialization and community development. In peer-reviewed articles, lectures, and strategic planning for non-profits, he has clearly synthesized complex data and values for external audiences. Selected publications and research projects are listed here.

 

 

 

 

All material appearing on this website, unless explicitly noted otherwise, is the intellectual property of Thomas C. Cornillie copyright 2012