four students sitting at table on stage doing hook 'em hands

2014 Traffic Bowl Champs (L-R): Megan Hoklas, Tyler Beduhn, Jake Gutekunst, and Solomon Nyanhongo.

Aug.14, 2014

Four CAEE students recently won the 2014 Institute of Transportation Engineers (ITE) Collegiate Traffic Bowl Grand Championship. Graduate students Jake Gutekunst, Tyler Beduhn, Megan Hoklas, and undgraduate student Solomon Nyanhongo represented The University of Texas at Austin at the competition. The students are also researchers at the Center for Transportation Research (CTR).

The ITE Collegiate Traffic Bowl is a competition amongst ITE student chapters with transportation planning and engineering topics for the clues, questions, and answers. The team was coached by Ph.D. student Meredith Cebelak and CTR researcher Mason Gemar (Ph.D. 2013).

The objective of the competition is to encourage students to become more active members of the Institute, to enhance their knowledge of the traffic/transportation engineering and planning profession, to strengthen the programs of ITE students chapters, and to foster a collegial spirit amongst the students.

More than 190 student members of ITE representing 62 schools from the U.S. and Canada comprised the teams that competed in 2014. All teams compete in section and district-level events for a chance to compete in the Grand Championship. The UT Austin team became district champions in May 2014, ending Texas A&M's four-year winning streak.

For the Grand Championship, the UT Austin team competed against Brigham Young University, Clemson University, Penn State University, Purdue University, UMass-Amherst, University of Florida, University of Kansas, and University of Toronto at the ITE 2014 Annual Meeting and Exhibit in Seattle, WA.