Academy of Distinguished Alumni
Samuel C. Tignor, Academy of Distinguished Alumni Award 2000
B.S. 1958
Technical Director for Safety R&D
Federal Highway Administration

After earning his undergraduate degree in Civil Engineering at Virginia Tech in 1958, Sam Tignor joined the Bureau of Public Roads three-year Highway Trainee Program. He was one of about 20 Virginia Tech CE graduates hired at that time to help build the nation's interstate highway system. Amidst bears and other wildlife, Mr. Tignor worked on the Tioga Road across the scenic Sierra mountain range in Yosemite National Park. Subsequent assignments included road building through national forests near Fresno and San Bernadino, California.



During this training period, he also discovered the traffic operations research office in Washington, D.C. Finding the research to be exciting, Mr. Tignor set out on a career that has culminated in more than 40 years of scientific inquiry and study. He also began graduate studies and earned a Ph.D. in Transportation Engineering from the University of Michigan.



Currently the Technical Director for Safety R&D with the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA), Dr. Tignor has led multi-million dollar research programs in a variety of nationally significant highway safety efforts. These programs, which have focused on driver needs and highway safety, have included research on freeway management and incident detection, freeway merging control systems, railroad-highway grade-crossing safety, visibility of changeable message signs, condition-responsive work-zone traffic control, and truck overturn-warning systems. Dr. Tignor led development of the Highway Safety Information System, an eight-state crash, traffic volume, and highway inventory database used in identifying new areas for research and safety studies.



During the 1990s, his responsibilities broadened to include nighttime highway safety, smart technology, and human factors research. Half of all U.S. traffic fatalities occur after dark, Dr. Tignor notes, although only 25 percent of traffic occurs at night. He has been a leader in studying ways to improve nighttime visibility for drivers, including developing guidelines for determining when signs and pavement markings have ended their useful life, and launching a program to study the efficacy of ultraviolet headlights. He also has led research programs on the use of smart technology to provide drivers with real-time information on traffic control, traffic management, and routing and navigation. One smart technology project, a visual collision avoidance system, was implemented in 1998 at a hazardous intersection in Prince William County, Virginia.



Dr. Tignor served 12 years on the Transportation Research Board (TRB) Travelers Services Committee and three years in the TRB Operation, Safety, and Maintenance of Transportation Facilities Group. In 1998 he lead an Innovative Traffic Controls group to Europe to access new technologies and traffic controls, and he is currently co-chair of the TRB joint subcommittee for development of an international human factors guideline for road systems design. He is a member of Chi Epsilon, American Society of Civil Engineers, Institute of Transportation Engineers, Operations Research Society of America, and Intelligent Transportation Society of America. Since 1972, Dr. Tignor has served as an adjunct professor of transportation at Virginia Tech, University of Maryland, and George Washington University.



A long-time supporter of Virginia Tech, Dr. Tignor has served on the CEE Alumni Board for six years. Of special note, he says, is his penchant for Virginia Tech football-he has been a season ticket holder since the early 1960s. Sam and his wife, Bertha, a 1976 Virginia Tech MBA graduate, reside in northern Virginia and have two sons, Eric and Sammie. Sam and Bertha served as Boy Scouts leaders for many years, and both sons are Eagle Scouts.