Panos Prevedouros, Ph.D.
Civil Engineer
University of Hawai`i Professor
Engineers transform problems into real solutions.
Engineers are visionaries and problem solvers. They work to develop
economic and safe solutions to practical problems.
As a matter of fact, 20% of CEO's of Fortune 500 companies have an
engineer at the helm. And if you're wondering if an engineer can
manage a budget, the answer is yes. Engineering management includes
experience with engineering economy, financial management and
industrial and human resources.
Panos is an engineer who has lived in Hawaii for 20 years. Like you
and me, he has watched the roads deteriorate. He has watched taxes
go up. He has watched the traffic build. He has driven into more
than his share of potholes. He has watched bridges collapse,
streams overflow, untreated sewage flow into our beautiful oceans.
He has sat at one unsynchronized traffic light after another. He
has waited for recycling to become a reality. He has watched the
trash build up. And he is sick of it. He knows how much things
cost. He knows whether we need them. He knows whether we can afford
them. He knows whether we can maintain them.
Like most of us, Panos went to public school all his life. He
studied at the engineering college at Aristotle University, and
came to the United States where he received both his Masters and
Doctorate degrees in transportation engineering at Northwestern
University. Northwestern, by the way, is one of the top ten
engineering schools in the world. Panos joined the Civil
Engineering Department at the University of Hawaii in 1990. He is a
tenured professor. He has been the Chair of UH’s civil engineering
Graduate Program since 2003. He developed UH’s Traffic and
Transportation Lab in the late 1990s.
Panos is considered to be one of the preeminent authorities in his
field. Over the past ten years, he has been invited to give his
professional opinion in ten countries and 33 large cities
worldwide, including Beijing, Chicago, Houston, Las Vegas, Los
Angeles, London, Munich, New York, Paris, San Diego, Tokyo, Venice,
Vienna and Washington, D.C.
Since its opening before the 2004 summer Olympics in Athens, Panos
has been assisting the Attica Toll way Operations Authority with
freeway operations analysis to optimize its traffic flow. Attica
Toll way was built between 1998 and 2004 in the dense periphery of
Athens, Greece. Athens is a metropolitan area of five million
people. Attica Toll way’s length is longer than the H-1, H-2 and
H-3 combined. It was built as a public private partnership with
Greek, French and American partners with co-financing by the
European Union.
In 2006 it received the International Road Federation award as one
of the safest freeways in the world. It was forecasted that in 2008
Attica Toll way will have about 250,000 daily entries, but the most
recent count is 330,000 entries. A wide corridor in Athens has been
decongested and motorists have the option to pay a 2.7 euro flat
toll and drive 15 miles in 15 minutes, or they can use parallel
free arterials and make the same trip in 40 to 50 minutes.