Congestion Reduction in the Smart Mobility Era
NICR Workshop
Wednesday, September 15, 2021
11:00 AM – 2:30 PM EST
The first annual National Institute for Congestion Reduction (NICR) Student Council Workshop was held on September 15, 2021, on Microsoft Teams. “Congestion Reduction in the Smart Mobility Era” invited international speakers to discuss their research with transportation students.
The workshop began with opening remarks from Fred Mannering, Ph.D., interim executive director of the University of South Florida’s (USF) Center for Urban Transportation Research (CUTR). Dr. Mannering is a professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering at USF, and he also acts as the editor-in-chief of Analytic Methods in Accident Research. Dr. Mannering gave a brief discussion concerning smart mobility and the importance of equity and behavioral changes associated with COVID-19.
The technical session began with Jonas Eliasson, Ph.D., director of Transport Accessibility at the Swedish Transport Administration, professor of Transport Systems at Linköping University, and chair of the Civil Engineering Committee at the Royal Academy of Engineering Sciences. Dr. Eliasson spoke on congestion, congestion charging, public acceptability, and government implications
Carlos F. Daganzo, Ph.D., is a chancellor’s professor at the Graduate School of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the University of California, Berkeley. Dr. Daganzo is a member of the National Academy of Engineering. His discussion focused on transportation issues and solutions for large cities including root causes of congestion, reorganization of resources, and improving technology.
Workshop attendees participated in a discussion with Xiaobo Qu, Ph.D. Dr. Qu is a chair professor in the Department of Architecture and Civil Engineering at Chalmers University of Technology in Gothenburg, Sweden. He is a member of Academia Europaea. Dr. Qu explained emerging transportation technologies including the evolution of transportation engineering, new modes, individualized data, and systems within systems.
Finally, the workshop concluded with a panel session and workshop summary. Panelists expanded on their research efforts and answered questions from participants. NICR Student Council members directed the discussions and inquired about their research interests.
More than 60 attendees participated in the workshop, and the NICR Student Council looks forward to planning discussions and workshops in the future. The NICR Student Council would like to thank the presenters, Xiaopeng Li, Ph.D., Kristine Williams, Christina Van Allen, and everyone involved in making this workshop a success.
Links from Discussion
Jonas Eliasson
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Xiaobo Qu, Ph.D.
Communications in Transportation Research: Vision and scope
Agenda
Time | Description |
11:00-11:10 (10 min) | Opening Remarks by Dr. Fred Mannering |
11:10-11:45 (25 min presentation + 10 min Q&A) | Presentation by Dr. Carlos F. Daganzo: New Solutions to Congestion for Large Cities |
11:45-12:20 (25 min presentation + 10 min Q&A) | Presentation by Dr. Deb Niemeier: When Congestion Matters |
12:20-12:55 (25 min presentation + 10 min Q&A) | Presentation by Dr. Jonas Eliasson: Lessons learned on Congestion Pricing |
12:55-13:30 (25 min presentation + 10 min Q&A) | Presentation by Dr. Xiaobo Qu: Review on Emerging Transportation Technologies |
13:30-14:30 (60 min) | Panel Session and Workshop Summary (NICR Student Council) |
*11:00 AM -2:30 PM chaired by Dr. Xiaopeng (Shaw) Li
Carlos F. Daganzo
Member, National Academy of Engineering
Chancellor’s Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering
University of California, Berkeley, California, United States
Carlos F. Daganzo is a Chancellor’s Professor of the Graduate School in civil and environmental engineering at the University of California, Berkeley. A member of the National Academy of Engineering, he was a co-founder, chairperson of the board, and principal scientist of Via Analytics, a California benefit corporation devoted to improving mobility through technology. He has served as convenor of the oldest international symposium on transportation and traffic theory (the ISTTT) and as an associate editor of Transportation Research and Transportation Science. Daganzo’s former students hold faculty positions at top-ranked schools of engineering, business and management all over the world. Noted for his contributions to econometrics, logistics, freight operations, network theory, traffic flow, and transit operations, Daganzo has authored five internationally used and translated books. In particular, his latest book on public transit describes the blueprint for Barcelona’s new high-performance bus system, which Daganzo invented and co-designed. The Universitat Politecnica de Catalunya, Barcelona, Spain, bestowed on him an honorary doctorate, partly in recognition for this work. The ISTTT Symposium of 2011 was dedicated to him in recognition of his cumulative contributions to transportation science. In 2018, Daganzo was appointed Overseas High Talent Strategic Scientist to the city of Beijing with the charge of conceiving and overseeing the transit and transportation master plans for the city. In 2019, Daganzo was recognized as “the most remarkable author” in the 50-year history of the prestigious Transportation Research journal series.
ABSTRACT
This presentation will explain why cities do not scale well in size and why this inevitably leads to congestion. The understanding of this root cause suggests new solutions for large cities. Three of these will be described. All include innovative twists and almost no expense. The first consists in reorganizing the resources a city already controls, such as its buses and subways, in targeted ways; the second in expanding these resources without spending money by recruiting to the cause independent operators such as TNCs; and the third in expanding the capacity of existing technologies by a factor of two and more without building anything. Other possibilities will also be discussed.
Deb Niemeier
Member, National Academy of Engineering
Clark Distinguished Chair of Sustainability
Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering and Affiliate Professor in the College of Information Studies
University of Maryland, Maryland, United States
Jonas Eliasson
Director, Transport Accessibility – Swedish National Transport Administration
Professor of Transport Systems at Linköping University
Chair of the Civil Engineering Committee of the Royal Academy of Engineering Sciences
Jonas Eliasson is director for transport accessibility at the Swedish National Transport Administration, professor of transport systems at Linköping University and chair of the Civil Engineering committee of the Royal Academy of Engineering Sciences. He was director of the Stockholm City Transportation Administration 2016-2018 and professor of transport systems analysis at the Royal Institute of Technology (KTH) 2007-2016. Eliasson directed the design and evaluation of the Stockholm congestion pricing system, in operation since 2006, and has worked extensively with evaluation and redesign of it since then. He was also involved in designing and evaluating the Gothenburg congestion pricing system, in operation since 2013, and has been employed as an advisor on congestion pricing to a large number of other cities and national governments worldwide. He has published a large number of scientific publications on congestion pricing, covering a broad range of topics such as scheme design, modeling the effects, political economy and public acceptability. Eliasson has a broad experience in analyzing, developing and applying transport policies and appraisal methodologies, often acting as an expert advisor on strategic transportation issues to cities, regional and national governments. His research interests include cost-benefit analysis of transport projects and policies, decision making in the transport sector, transport pricing, transport modeling, public and political acceptability of transport policies, valuation of travel time and reliability, and railway capacity allocation.
ABSTRACT
Congestion pricing has been advocated by economists and planners for a long time, but still only a handful of cities have introduced it. This presentation summarizes lessons learned from research and practical experience, centered around the three most common questions decision makers ask – in order: Does it work? Is it possible to get public and political support? What are the main obstacles for introduction?
Xiaobo Qu
Member, Academia Europaea
Chair Professor of Urban Mobility Systems
Chalmers University of Technology, Gothenburg, Sweden
Xiaobo Qu is a chair professor (permanent basis) in the Department of Architecture and Civil Engineering, Chalmers University of Technology in Sweden. His research is focused on improving large, complex and interrelated urban mobility systems by integrating with emerging technologies. More specifically, his research has been applied to the improvement of emergency services, and operations of electric vehicles and connected automated vehicles. He has authored or co-authored over 120 journal articles published in top-tier journals, many of which were journals with a broader impact than his own research community. Before his current appointment, he was a professor (permanent basis) at Chalmers (2018-2019), and a senior lecturer/lecturer (permanent basis, 2012-2017) in two Australian universities. He is an elected member of Academia Europaea–the Academy of Europe since August 2020.
ABSTRACT
In this talk, the speaker will review the revolution from traditional transportation engineering to intelligent transportation systems, which is triggered by rapid development of vehicular, tele-communications, data collection and processing technologies. Then three trends will be discussed: high-resolution big data (due to the paradigm change in data collection and processing), emerging mobility modes and their integration with existing systems (e.g., connected and automated vehicles, modular buses, flying cars, boring), and systems of multiple systems (e.g., interactions with electricity grid, tele-communications systems). These three trends will play important roles in the planning, design, operations and control of our next generation transportation systems. A series of case studies of these three trends will be introduced, and their benefit in relieving congestion reduction will be presented.