Jorge Ugan, PhD, PE
Miami
Summary
- Transportation Safety Researcher and Traffic Engineer with over 7 years of experience in transportation safety research and traffic engineering, including current work as a Traffic Engineer at Miami-Dade County.
- Committed to promoting the safety of vehicles and vulnerable road users, with a strong track record of collaboration with the Florida Department of Transportation.
- Led multiple published research projects on topics such as bicycle safety, speed management, and driver behavior, and currently apply this expertise to real-world signal operations and safety improvements.
- Demonstrated commitment to ensuring compliance with safety standards and enhancing transportation infrastructure through both research and hands-on engineering roles.
Overview
1
1
Certification
8
8
years of professional experience
Work History
Traffic Engineer 3
Miami-Dade County
Miami
09.2025 - Current
- Supervise and coordinate the daily operations of the Traffic Management Center (TMC) Engineering Section, ensuring timely resolution of traffic signal operational issues and efficient support of countywide traffic management systems.
- Lead the review, approval, and implementation of Controller Timing Requests (CTRs), signal timing modifications, and special traffic signal operations to maintain safe and efficient intersection performance.
- Coordinate with zone engineers, maintenance personnel, contractors, consultants, municipalities, and state agencies to address traffic signal operational concerns, construction impacts, and emergency traffic control needs.
- Evaluated traffic signal performance through traffic engineering principles, field observations, operational data, and advanced traffic management software, leading to targeted operational improvements.
- Provided technical oversight and support for County's Advanced Traffic Management System (ATMS), ensuring effective controller integration, thorough system testing, accurate database management, and successful deployment of new technologies.
- Review traffic signalization plans, maintenance of traffic (MOT) plans, and transportation infrastructure projects to ensure compliance with Miami-Dade County standards, FDOT requirements, and applicable engineering practices.
- Conducted field investigations and operational assessments to diagnose traffic signal malfunctions, detection issues, and coordination deficiencies, recommending corrective actions to enhance safety and operational reliability.
- Provide engineering guidance and mentorship to junior engineers and technical staff, supporting professional development and ensuring consistency in engineering reviews and operational practices.
- Average of 40 hours/week
Adjunct Professor
Florida International University
Miami
01.2025 - Current
- Adjunct Professor for "Urban Transportation Planning" (TTE 4102) at Florida International University.
- Delivered lectures on multimodal planning, land use and transportation interaction, travel demand forecasting, and Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS), enhancing student understanding of critical transportation concepts.
- Developed course materials and assessments that equipped students with analytical tools for evaluating urban transportation systems and informing policy decisions.
- Average of 20 hours/week
Traffic Engineer 2
Miami-Dade County
Miami
01.2025 - 09.2025
- Develop, evaluate, and implement traffic signal timing plans, including phase sequences, coordination patterns, and operational strategies, to optimize traffic flow, enhance corridor progression, and reduce vehicular delays.
- Represented Traffic Signals and Signs Division in meetings with municipalities, consultants, contractors, and state agencies, providing technical expertise and resolving traffic signal operational and infrastructure-related issues.
- Conducted field investigations and operational assessments to evaluate traffic conditions, address citizen concerns, and implement signal timing and operational modifications that enhanced safety, mobility, and system performance.
- Ensured compliance with Manual on Uniform Traffic Control Devices (MUTCD), FDOT standards, Miami-Dade County policies, and accepted traffic engineering practices during development, review, and implementation of traffic signal operations.
- Average of 40 hours/week
Traffic Engineer
Kisinger Campo & Associates
Miami
08.2023 - 04.2024
- Managed and developed construction plans for highway signing, pavement markings, roadway lighting, signalization, and Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS), ensuring project alignment with design specifications.
- Analyzed crash data to recommend safety enhancements for arterials, improving safety compliance with MUTCD and FDM standards.
- Full-Time Position (40 hours/week)
- Average of 40 hours/week
Researcher (Transportation Safety)
University of Central Florida
Orlando
08.2018 - 08.2023
- Bicycle safety (05/2020 - 08/2020) [published in Transportation Research Record].
- Collected and organized data on speed management countermeasures to evaluate impact on bicycle crashes.
- Used modeling methods to examine effects of speed management countermeasures on bicycle crashes.
- Reducing speed on arterials (08/2020 - 08/2021) [published in Transportation Research Part F].
- Designed driving simulator experiment.
- Ran driving simulator study to review driver behavior at pedestrian crossings and inform treatment effectiveness for RRFB and PFIB.
- Drivers' individual journey (08/2021 - 08/2022) [published in IEEE OJ-ITS].
- Collected vehicle trajectory data in Seminole County, Florida.
- Analyzed individual factors associated with speeding, including time stopped at intersection and percentage of commercial or residential area traveled.
- Drivers' visual environment (08/2022 - 08/2023) [published in Accident Analysis & Prevention].
- Collected driver images across 15 cities in 5 states to examine visual factors affecting speeding behavior across diverse environments.
- Integrated vehicle image data with speed limit and weather data.
- Identified visual environment factors associated with speeding, including number of vehicles in image, percentage of streets, and percentage of buildings.
Education
Doctor of Philosophy - Civil Engineering
University of Central Florida
Orlando08-2023
Master Degree - Civil Engineering
University of Central Florida
Orlando12-2021
Bachelor Degree - Civil Engineering
University of Central Florida
Orlando08-2020
Skills
- Traffic Signal Timing
- Advanced traffic management
- Crash Data Analysis
- Traffic management systems
- Traffic signal operations
- Data Analysis
- Statistical Modeling
- Signal system operations
- Transportation research methods
Certification
- Part 107 Small UAS (Drone)
- Professional Engineer (PE), State of Florida
- FDOT Maintenance of Traffic (MOT) Advanced Certification
AWARDS
- SAFER SIM Excellence Award, Safety Research Using Simulation (SaferSim) University Transportation Center, For promoting interdisciplinary research using simulation techniques to address transportation safety issues, Iowa City
- USDOT Solving for Safety Visualization Challenge Winner, A 3-stage challenge that includes 1 month for ideation development, 1 month for proof of concept development, and 2 months for full working analytical visualization tool development., Developed an innovative analytical visualization tool to gain insights into fatalities and serious injuries on the U.S. road and rail systems that policymakers, providers, and operators can use to inform the development of safety solutions., Washington, D.C.
- UCF Presidential Doctoral Fellowship, Fellowships are awarded to students in acknowledgment of their impressive past achievements and in anticipation of their future successes at UCF and beyond., Orlando, FL
- USDOT Outstanding Student of the Year, The United States Department of Transportation Award, In recognition of Outstanding Achievement in the Contribution to Transportation Research and Education, Washington, D.C.
PUBLICATIONS
- Abdel-Aty, M., Ugan, J., & Islam, Z. (2024). Exploring the Influence of Drivers' Visual Surroundings on Speeding Behavior. Accident Analysis & Prevention
- Ugan, J., Abdel-Aty, M., & Islam, Z. (2024). Using Connected Vehicle Trajectory Data to Evaluate the Effects of Speeding. IEEE Open Journal of Intelligent Transportation Systems, 5, pp. 16-28.
- Ugan, J., Abdel-Aty, M., & Cai, Q. (2022). Estimating effectiveness of speed reduction measures for pedestrian crossing treatments using an empirically supported speed choice modeling framework. Transportation research part F: traffic psychology and behaviour, 89, 276-288.
- Ugan, J., Abdel-Aty, M., Cai, Q., Mahmoud, N., & Al-Omari, M. (2021). Effect of Various Speed Management Strategies on Bicycle Crashes for Urban Roads in Central Florida. Transportation Research Record.
- Guida, C., & Ugan, J. (2021). Ecological transition: perspectives from U.S. and European cities. TeMA - Journal of Land Use, Mobility and Environment, 14(2), 271-277.
- Cai, Q., Abdel-Aty, M., Mahmoud, N., Ugan, J., & Ma'en, M. A. (2021). Developing a grouped random parameter beta model to analyze drivers' speeding behavior on urban and suburban arterials with probe speed data. Accident Analysis & Prevention, 161, 106386.
- Yue, L., Abdel-Aty, M., Wu, Y., Ugan, J. and Yuan, C., 2021. Effects of forward collision warning technology in different pre-crash scenarios. Transportation research part F: traffic psychology and behaviour, 76, pp.336-352.
- Zhang S, Abdel-Aty M, Cai Q, Li P, Ugan J. Prediction of pedestrian-vehicle conflicts at signalized intersections based on long short-term memory neural network. Accident Analysis & Prevention. 2020 Dec 1;148:105799.
Timeline
Traffic Engineer 3
Miami-Dade County
09.2025 - Current
Adjunct Professor
Florida International University
01.2025 - Current
Traffic Engineer 2
Miami-Dade County
01.2025 - 09.2025
Traffic Engineer
Kisinger Campo & Associates
08.2023 - 04.2024
Researcher (Transportation Safety)
University of Central Florida
08.2018 - 08.2023
Doctor of Philosophy - Civil Engineering
University of Central Florida
Master Degree - Civil Engineering
University of Central Florida
Bachelor Degree - Civil Engineering
University of Central Florida