For further information call Professor Hai Yang at Tel.: 2358-7178
Please reserve your seat with Ms. Rebecca Yau at Tel.: 2358-7164

For further information call Professor Hai Yang at Tel.: 2358-7178
Please reserve your seat with Ms. Rebecca Yau at Tel.: 2358-7164

Professor S.C. (Chan) Wirasinghe

Department of Civil Engineering, Schulich School of Engineering, University of Calgary, Canada

11 September, 2010 (Saturday)

Jointly organized by

Department of Civil and Structural Engineering, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University

and

Hong Kong Society for Transportation Studies

Date : 11 September, 2010 (Saturday)

Time : 5:00 p.m. - 6:00 p.m.

Venue : Room W703d, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University

ABSTRACT

As a transit corridor evolves over time (over several decades) due to land use and other changes, the public transit mode (or mix of modes) that serves it may have to transition from one to another several times. Two of the significant characteristics that must be considered in the transition are the capacity and average speed of each mode since they impact the passenger waiting times and in-vehicle travel times respectively. Data on stated capacities, observed maximum flows and average speeds have been collected from many available sources and analyzed as part of this study. In addition to intrinsic variations, there is considerable variation in the data caused in part by lack of information about the differences in the transit systems for which the data is available, e.g. number of transit routes passing through a corridor. Various modes considered suitable for the South Calgary corridor are ranked in terms of the line capacity and average speed. The thresholds are those at which a mode transition is essential. However, mode transitions may occur well in advance of such thresholds if a new modal mix is optimal for the corridor in terms of minimizing the sum of the costs to the users and the operator. Some preliminary results on the optimal mix of regular and express bus services in a given corridor are also discussed. 

SPEAKER

Prof. Wirasinghe is currently a full Professor of Civil Engineering and the Academic Director of the Center for Transportation of the Van Horne Institute. He is an Honorary Professor at The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hong Kong and the University of Moratuwa, Sri Lanka. He obtained his B.Sc. in Civil Engineering from the University of Ceylon (now Sri Lanka) in Peradeniya in 1968. He won a four year US Fulbright Scholarship to study transportation engineering at the University of California at Berkeley. He completed his MS in 1973 and Ph.D. in 1976 at Berkeley. He moved to the University of Calgary in Canada in 1976 as an Assistant Professor in the Department of Civil Engineering. He became Dean of the Faculty of Engineering in January 1994 and held the post until July 2006. Prof. Wirasinghe's research interests are in public transportation, airport planning, transport in developing countries and mitigation of natural disasters. He is the Co-Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Advanced Transportation. He is currently writing a book titled Transit Systems - Analysis and Planning. He has about 190 publications and supervised 12 PhD students, 3 PDF's and 11 Masters students. He received a D.Sc. (Honoris Causa) from the University of Moratuwa in 2001. He was named Calgary's Citizen of the Year for 2005. He is a Fellow of the Canadian Academy of Engineering, the Canadian Society of Civil Engineers, the Institution of Engineers, Sri Lanka, and Engineers Canada.

- ALL INTERESTED ARE WELCOME -

Professor Anthony Chen

Department of Civil & Environmental Engineering, Utah State University, USA

9 June, 2010 (Wednesday)

Jointly organized by

Department of Civil Engineering, The University of Hong Kong

Institute of Transport Studies, The University of Hong Kong

Department of Civil and Structural Engineering, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University

and

Hong Kong Society for Transportation Studies

Date : 9 June, 2010 (Wednesday)

Time : 11:30 a.m. - 12:30 p.m.

Venue : Room 6-12B, 6/F, Haking Wong Building, The University of Hong Kong

ABSTRACT

Mean-excess travel time is a new route choice criterion recently proposed by Chen and Zhou (2010) to simultaneously consider both reliability (on-time arrival) and unreliability (late arrival) aspects of travel time variability when making route choice decisions under uncertainty. In this seminar, a multi-class mean-excess traffic equilibrium model with elastic demand will be presented. This model explicitly accounts for multiple user classes with different risk attitudes toward the travel time variability in the mean-excess traffic equilibrium framework. Furthermore, travel demand between each origin-destination (O-D) pair for each user class is assumed to depend on the corresponding minimal O-D mean-excess travel time. The proposed model is formulated as a variational inequity (VI) problem that can be solved by a route-based algorithm based on the modified alternating direction method. Numerical examples are also provided to illustrate the proposed model. 

SPEAKER

Dr. Anthony Chen is a Professor in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the Utah State University (USU). He is also the division head of the Transportation Program at USU. Dr. Chen's research interests include transportation systems modeling, modeling of route choice behavior under uncertainty, origin-destination trip table estimation, network equilibrium modeling and algorithm development, meta-heuristics for discrete network location and network design problems, and transportation network reliability and applications to infrastructure management and disaster management. He is a member of the Transportation Network Modeling Committee of the Transportation Research Board (TRB), an editorial advisory board member of the Journal of Urban Planning and Development, and an associate editor for Transportmetrica. Dr. Chen is a recipient of the 2002 National Science Foundation (NSF) Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) Award in the United States.

- ALL INTERESTED ARE WELCOME -

Professor Michael Anthony Peter Taylor

Director, Institute for Sustainable Systems and Technologies, University of South Australia, Adelaide, Australia

1 June, 2010 (Tuesday)

Jointly organized by

Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology

Hong Kong Society for Transportation Studies

and

Institute of Transport Studies, The University of Hong Kong

Date : 1 June, 2010 (Tuesday)

Time : 4:30 p.m. - 5:30 p.m.

Venue : Room 3574 (via Lift 27-28), The Hong Kong University of Science and Technology

ABSTRACT

This seminar discusses the feasibility for adopting electric vehicles (EV) for urban transport, replacing conventional private vehicles. Considerations need to be made of the potential greenhouse gas benefits of EV, the ability for EV to be used as direct replacements for present day vehicles, and the infrastructure and power supply implications of a wholesale shift to electric powered private transport. The paper presents the results of a feasibility study conducted for two major Australian cities, Sydney and Adelaide. The overall conclusion is that introduction of current technology electric vehicles could impact significantly on daily journeys made within a 100 km charge range. The case studies show that the large majority of motorised journeys are accomplished within this range. However, it must be emphasised that for a maximum benefit from electric vehicles, electricity should be acquired from renewable sources. The study findings should have implications for the adoption of EV technology in cities around the world. 

SPEAKER

Professor Michael Taylor is the Director of the Institute for Sustainable Systems and Technologies (ISST) and Professor of Transport Planning at the University of South Australia. He is internationally acknowledged as an expert on travel behaviour, travel demand modelling, and the environmental impacts of road traffic. His current research is in three areas: future urban transport systems, fuel and emissions modelling for road traffic and transport network reliability and vulnerability. He has 40 years professional experience, as a traffic engineer, a research scientist, and in academia.

- ALL INTERESTED ARE WELCOME -

Professor Roger Vickerman

Centre for European Regional and Transport Economics, University of Kent, UK

16 April, 2010 (Friday)

Jointly organized by

Department of Civil and Structural Engineering, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University

and

Hong Kong Society for Transportation Studies

Date : 16 April, 2010 (Friday)

Time : 6:00 p.m. - 7:00 p.m.

Venue : Room W703d, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hung Hom, Kowloon, Hong Kong

ABSTRACT

High Speed Rail was originally developed in France as substitute for air over longer distances and road over shorter distances with the ideal distance being seen as 400-600 km or a 2 to 3 hour journey time. This led to both mode substitution and trip generation, but concerted campaigns for regional connections led to two developments - off-route connections and the development of intermediate stations. These have had varying degrees of success. In Germany rather less emphasis has been placed on the development of new inter-city routes but rather gradual developments of laid over the existing inter-city rail service. Spain on the other hand has tended more towards the French model. Two major changes have however occurred to the original inter-city model with HSR as a complement to air with airport stations and the growth of longer distance commuting. In this paper we review these developments and assess the priorities for future developments concentrating particularly on the potential for using HSR as an instrument of regional economic development. This will provide some interesting contrasts with the current development of HSR in China. 

SPEAKER

Prof. Roger Vickerman is Professor of European Economics at the University of Kent, Canterbury, U.K., where he is also Director of the Centre for European, Regional and Transport Economics and Dean of the University of Kent's Brussels (Belgium) Campus where he directs the Brussels School of International Studies. He holds degrees in Economics from the Universities of Cambridge and Sussex and an honorary doctorate from the Phillipps-Universität Marburg. He is an Academician of Academy of Social Sciences, a Fellow of the Royal Society of Arts and a Chartered Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Logistics and Transport. His main research interests are the relationship between transport (especially infrastructure), regional development and integration in the European Union; and the role of migration and labour mobility in integration. He is particularly known for his studies on major infrastructure projects and their economic effects, particularly the EU's Trans-European Networks. He is currently working on questions relating to public-private partnerships, regulation in transport and the ex-post analysis of ERDF and Cohesion Fund expenditure on transport. He is a member of the Analytical Challenge Panel to HS2 Ltd which advises the UK Government on the development of high-speed rail. He has served as a member of SACTRA (Standing Committee on Trunk Road Assessment), as an advisor to Committees of both the House of Commons and House of Lords in the UK Parliament and acted as a consultant to the European Commission, various UK government departments and regional and local government authorities. He is the author of 6 books (including the textbook Principles of Transport Economics, with Emile Quinet) and over 150 chapters, journal articles and reports. He sits on the editorial boards of several journals in both transport and regional science.

- ALL INTERESTED ARE WELCOME -

Professor Robert Cervero

Professor of City and Regional Planning; University of California, Berkeley; Director, University of California Transportation Center, USA

26 February, 2010 (Friday)

Jointly organized by

Hong Kong Society for Transportation Studies

Department of Civil and Structural Engineering, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University

The Chartered Institute of Logistics and Transport in Hong Kong

and

The Hong Kong Institution of Engineers - Civil Division

Date : 26 February, 2010 (Friday)

Time : 5:30 p.m. - 7:30 p.m. (5:30 - 6:00 reception)

Venue : Room M1603, 16/F, Li Ka Shing Tower, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hung Hom, Kowloon, Hong Kong

ABSTRACT

Transport infrastructure is critical to the competitiveness of cities and regions in the global marketplace. With knowledge- and service-based industries driving economic growth in many sectors of the modern economy, creating functional yet livable cities is essential to global competitiveness. This presentation addresses the challenges of striking an appropriate balance between transport infrastructure as an economic conduit and broader place-making and community-building objectives, drawing lessons from Asian, European, and American contexts. 

SPEAKER

Prof. Professor Robert Cervero works in the area of sustainable transportation policy and planning, focusing on the nexus between urban transportation and land-use systems. He is Professor of City and Regional Planning and Director of the University of California Transportation Center at the University of California, Berkeley. Professor Cervero is a frequent advisor and consultant on transport projects, both in the U.S. and abroad. In 2004, Professor Cervero was the first-ever recipient of the Dale Prize for Excellence in Urban Planning Research and is a past Fellow with the Urban Land Institute and World Bank Institute. Presently, he is Chairman of the International Association of Urban Environments and the National Advisory Board of the Active Living Research Program of the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation. Professor Cervero currently serves on the editorial boards of six leading journals. Over the past year, he has conducted professional training workshops in Indonesia through the World Bank Institute as well as for the Ministry of Transportation in Argentina, the West Australia Department of Planning, and the American Planning Association.

- ALL INTERESTED ARE WELCOME -

24 February, 2010 (Wednesday)

Jointly organized by

Hong Kong Society for Transportation Studies

Department of Civil and Structural Engineering, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University

and

The Hong Kong Institution of Engineers - Civil Division

Date : 24 February, 2010 (Wednesday)

Time : 5:30 p.m. - 7:30 p.m. (5:30 - 6:00 reception)

Venue : Room HJ303, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hung Hom, Kowloon, Hong Kong

ABSTRACT

Efficient evacuation of populations to pre-designated safety destinations within the allowable time window during emergency has emerged as not only a priority research but also operational issue for many US major metropolises in recent years. Given the real-world constraints on the network monitoring and system control, the primary challenge during emergency evacuation lies in how to best direct evacuees from the incident impact zones to target transportation modes and to the assigned evacuation routes. Hence, in developing an effective plan for such applications, one shall take into account a variety of complex operational issues, including the inevitable conflicts between massive pedestrian and vehicular flows within the impacted zones, dynamic guidance of pedestrian flows to subway or bus stations, identification of optimal locations for buses to pick up evacuees, optimal supply of transit vehicles in response to the distribution of evacuation patterns, and responsive control of signals as well as ramps to direct traffic flows out of the direct and secondary incident impact zones. This seminar will illustrate an integrated multimodal emergency evacuation system for the City of Baltimore. The proposed system has been developed to address all those complex operational issues during emergency evacuation. The model framework, key module formulations, and demonstration of system applications will all be included in the presentation. 

SPEAKER

Prof. Gang-Len Chang is a Professor and the Director of Transportation program at the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of Maryland, U.S.A. and Manager of the Applied Technology for Traffic Operations and Safety Program between Maryland State Highway Administration and University of Maryland. He also serves as the Director of the Laboratory for Traffic Safety and Operations, and the Executive Committee Member of the Tier-I University Transportation Center by USDOT. Prof. Chang's primary research areas have been on traffic network analysis, intelligent transportation systems control and operations, and regional network planning and development. Over the past 10 years, Prof. Chang has been the principal investigator for more than 50 transportation projects and research funding of over 8 million dollars sponsored by both federal and state agencies. He has received the research excellence and support award from Maryland State Highway Administration, and Martin Marietta University Research Award for Intelligent Transportation Systems Development. He has served as editorial members for major transportation research journals such as Journals of Transportation Research Part B and Part A, Journal of Transportation Engineering. He is a member of several TRB technical committees, and is currently the Chief Editor for Journal of Urban Planning and Development (ASCE), the Associate Editor for Journal of Transportmetrica, and an Editor Board Member for Journal of Urban Technologies. Prof. Chang is also one of the publications committee members for Transportation and Development Institute of ASCE. He has worked as a technical advisor for many ITS programs in developing and developed countries including United Nations Developing Country program, World Bank, Taiwan Ministry of Communications and Transportation, The Korea Transport Institute, Intelligent Transportation Systems of Martin Marietta, Transportation Systems Division of Loral AerroSys, Maryland Toll Authority, and D.C. Capital Region for Emergency Evacuation.

- ALL INTERESTED ARE WELCOME -

14 December, 2009 (Monday)

Jointly organized by

Hong Kong Society for Transportation Studies

Department of Civil and Structural Engineering, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University

and

The Chartered Institute of Logistics and Transport in Hong Kong

Date : 14 December, 2009 (Monday)

Time : 5:30 p.m. - 7:30 p.m. (5:30 - 6:00 reception)

Venue : Room N001, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hung Hom, Kowloon, Hong Kong

ABSTRACT

Pedestrian fatalities and injuries are a growing concern in many countries, especially those that are rapidly transforming their cities to enable widespread car usage. This presentation will initially cover some of the fundamental theory associated with understanding road safety and mobility. A spatial analysis of pedestrian fatalities and injuries in the State of New Jersey will then be presented. Using geo-coded data on fatalities and injuries a maximum-likelihood negative binomial model is estimated to examine how various spatially defined variables, including road, demographic, and land use characteristics may be associated with fatalities and injuries. Due to suspected spatial correlation in the data we also employ a conditional autoregressive Bayesian model using Markov Chain Monte Carlo simulation, implemented with WinBUGS software. While the injury model did not reach a stable convergence, the fatality model is broadly similar to the maximum-likelihood estimate, but provides better inference on the distribution of parameter values. We supplement the statistical analysis with a demonstration of the power of Google StreetviewTM as a visual analysis tool and discuss future research using this technique. Overall results suggest that areas with greater population density have fewer fatalities, and that those with more intense employment have both greater fatalities and injuries. Lower income areas tend to have more victims, but those from lower income areas also tend to be victims in different areas. Our visual analysis suggests that large roads are likely associated with pedestrian fatalities, as supported by the multivariate results. Implications for road development and policy are discussed. 

SPEAKER

Robert Noland is a Professor at the Edward J. Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy and serves as the Director of the Alan M. Voorhees Transportation Center. He received his PhD at the University of Pennsylvania in Energy Management and Environmental Policy. Prior to joining Rutgers University he was Reader in Transport and Environmental Policy in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Imperial College London, a Policy Analyst at the US Environmental Protection Agency and also conducted post-doctoral research in the Economics Department at the University of California at Irvine. The focus of Dr. Noland's research is the impacts of transport planning and policy on environmental outcomes. This is defined very broadly to include not just air and water quality impacts, but also impacts on safety, climate, health, and other factors associated with overall quality of life. Active research areas include examining the impact of induced travel on vehicle emissions; understanding the policy implications of induced travel and behavioral responses to new transport capacity; investigation of policies to mitigate the climate impacts of aviation, in particular those associated with contrail formation; micro-simulation of pedestrian-vehicle interactions to provide an understanding of the costs and benefits associated with policies to improve pedestrian flow; analysis of behavioral issues associated with transport safety policies and empirical analyses of safety data, and assessment of the economic effects of transport investments. Dr. Noland's research has been cited throughout the world in debates over transport infrastructure planning and environmental assessment of new infrastructure. Dr. Noland is currently the Associate Editor of Transportation Research-D (Transport and Environment) and the International Journal of Sustainable Transportation and is Chair of the Transportation Research Board Committee's on Joint Sub-committee on Transportation and Global Climate Change.

- ALL INTERESTED ARE WELCOME -

12 December, 2009 (Saturday)

Jointly organized by

Hong Kong Society for Transportation Studies

and

Department of Civil and Structural Engineering, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University

Date : 12 December, 2009 (Saturday)

Time : 3:00 p.m. - 5:00 p.m. (3:00 - 3:30 reception)

Venue : Room AG710, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hung Hom, Kowloon, Hong Kong

ABSTRACT

Efficient transport systems are a necessary but not a sufficient condition for efficient travel. Equally important is the ability to accurately plan and execute a trip, as this determines the efficiency with which transport systems can be used, either by people or by freight. Recently vehicle navigation systems, particularly portable navigation devices, have achieved great popularity by offering drivers guidance at a reasonable price, even though the electronic maps and assumed link travel times have often been inaccurate. At the same time, journey planners have been become more widespread and available to travellers who can access the internet via their mobile phones. Advances in mobile phones open up the possibility of personal, multi-modal guidance systems that can navigate the traveller across transport systems from origin to destination. In addition, there have been advances in algorithms making guidance more reliable, user friendly and responsive to on-trip events. The construction of hyperpaths allows travellers to take advantage of variations in bus or tram arrival times or unforeseen variations in link travel times. Alternatively, hyperpaths can allow for taste variations by offering the driver the full set of Pareto optimal alternatives. This paper reviews the field and presents an algorithm for generating hyperpaths for journey planners. The paper closes with a vision of the future for personal, multi-modal guidance systems. 

SPEAKER

Prof. Michael Bell is Professor of Transport Operations at Imperial College London. Having graduated in 1975 from Cambridge University with a BA in Economics, he obtained an MSc in 1976 and a PhD in 1981, both in the field of transportation and both from Leeds University. Between 1979 and 1982 he worked as a Research Associate at University College London, before moving to the Institut für Verkehrswesen at the Technical University of Karlsruhe as an Alexander von Humboldt post-doctoral Research Fellow. He returned to the UK in 1984 to a New Blood lectureship at the University of Newcastle. In 1992 he became the Deputy Director of the Transport Operations Research Group (TORG), becoming its Director in 1996. He was promoted to a Personal Readership in 1994 and a Personal Chair in 1996. In January 2002, he moved to Imperial College London, and in 2005 he established the Port Operations Research and Technology Centre (PORTeC), of which he is Director. His research and teaching interests span transport network modelling, traffic engineering and control, intelligent transport systems, ports and logistics. An important methodological theme has been decision-making under uncertainty and transport network reliability. Recent projects include robust and adaptive algorithms for navigation in multi-modal networks.

- ALL INTERESTED ARE WELCOME -

11 December, 2009 (Friday)

Jointly organized by

Hong Kong Society for Transportation Studies

Department of Civil and Structural Engineering, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University

and

The Hong Kong Institution of Engineers - Civil Division

Date : 11 December, 2009 (Friday)

Time : 5:30 p.m. - 7:30 p.m. (5:30 - 6:00 reception)

Venue : Room AG710, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hung Hom, Kowloon, Hong Kong

ABSTRACT

The potentially dramatic impact of climate change is a rapidly increasing worldwide concern. Transportation may have a role to play in mitigating climate change. On the other hand, the potential impact of climate change may also influence the organization of activities and related travel in time and space. This seminar presents (i) summarize the current discussion, (ii) discuss alternative transportation-related solutions to mitigate climate change, (iii) reflect on the prospects of these alternative solutions and (iv) identify avenues of future research. 

SPEAKER

Dr. Harry Timmermans is Chaired Professor of Urban Planning at the Eindhoven University of Technology. His research interest is in modelling activity-travel patterns and developing decision support systems in a variety of applications areas, including transportation. His latest research projects concern the development of large-scale dynamic activity-based models, linking activity-travel patterns to energy use and environmental performance criteria and the application of pervasive technology in transportation. He has (co-)authored over 500 journal articles and several books in urban planning, transportation, marketing, tourism, operations research, artificial intelligence an applied computer science. He is founding editor of the Journal of Retailing and Consumer Services and serves on the editorial board of various journals in different disciplines. He also is member of the board of IATBR and several TRB committees.

- ALL INTERESTED ARE WELCOME -

29 October, 2009 (Thursday)

Jointly organized by

Department of Civil and Structural Engineering, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University

The Hong Kong Institution of Engineers - Civil Division

and

Hong Kong Society for Transportation Studies

Date : 29 October, 2009 (Thursday)

Time : 5:30 p.m. - 7:30 p.m. (5:30 - 6:00 reception)

Venue : Room M1603, 16/F, Li Ka Shing Tower, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hung Hom, Kowloon, Hong Kong

ABSTRACT

Reliability of public project construction cost estimates is a worldwide concern. Estimates made at the planning stage go through several revisions as projects pass through various stages before construction, often spanning a period exceeding 10 to 15 years or more. After the planning stage when a project is scheduled for future implementation, progressively detailed cost estimates are prepared at the remaining stages of project development, namely, design estimate, engineer's estimate, and bid estimate. The level of accuracy of such estimates has critical consequences on contract administration and public asset management. Most transportation agencies do not have a methodological framework that can reliably identify projects with cost over-(or under-) run during the transportation development process. This seminar presents a framework for identifying projects that are likely to experience cost overrun during the different stages of project development process. By analyzing cost escalation patterns during the period a project progresses from planning to construction, the risk of cost overrun can be reliably estimated. The information can allow transportation agencies to identify risky projects early and pre-empt potential cost overruns. A case study is presented to demonstrate the applicability of the developed framework. 

SPEAKER

Dr. Kumares C. Sinha is the Edgar B. & Hedwig M. Olson Distinguished Professor of Civil Engineering and Director of the Joint Transportation Research Program of Purdue University and the Indiana Department of Transportation. His research interest is in the areas of transportation planning, engineering and management. He has authored or co-authored over 400 journal articles and other publications including a recent book, Transportation Decision Making: Principles of Project Evaluation and Programming, published by John Wiley & Sons. He has mentored numerous graduate and post- doctoral students worldwide. He advises governments at all levels and consults for the World Bank on transportation and infrastructure issues. He is a registered Professional Engineer and Honorary Member of the American Society of Civil Engineers. He has served as the President of the Transportation & Development Institute of the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE), President of the Research and Education Division of the American Road and Transportation Builders Association (ARTBA), President of the Council of University Transportation Centers (CUTC), and as a member of the Federal Advisory Council on Transportation Statistics. He is currently the Editor-in-Chief Emeritus of the Journal of Transportation Engineering. Dr. Sinha has received numerous honors, including the Award for Distinguished Contribution to University Transportation Education and Research given by the CUTC (2005), Wilbur S. Smith Distinguished Transportation Educator Award (2002) given jointly by the ITE and several other professional organizations, ASCE Francis C. Turner Lecture Award (2001), ARTBA Steinberg Award (2000), ASCE Harland Bartholomew Award (1996), Engineering Alumni Award of the University of Connecticut (1995), ASCE Arthur Wellington Prize (1992), ASCE Frank M. Masters Award (1986) and Fred Burggraf Award of the Transportation Research Board (TRB) of the National Research Council (1972). He is a member of the U.S. National Academy of Engineering.

- ALL INTERESTED ARE WELCOME -

Dr. Richard Connors

Institute for Transport Studies, University of Leeds, UK

15 July, 2009 (Wednesday)

Jointly organized by

Department of Civil Engineering, The University of Hong Kong

Institute of Transport Studies, The University of Hong Kong

and

Hong Kong Society for Transportation Studies

Date : 15 July, 2009 (Wednesday)

Time : 11:00 a.m. - 12:00 p.m.

Venue : Room 6-12B, 6/F., Haking Wong Building, The University of Hong Kong, Pokfulam Road, Hong Kong

ABSTRACT

Transport models comprise a representation of the network infrastructure, and of transport users who decide how, where and when to travel. Naturally, the models used to optimise micro-scale/short-term measures (e.g. timing of traffic lights), are different from those used when planning major infrastructure (e.g. increasing motorway capacity), or designing long term policy (e.g. for sustainable future transport systems). However, we should expect such models to somehow 'agree' with each other; transport network models on large spatial and temporal scales should be consistent with those commonly used for smaller scale, nearer term forecasting. In fact there is little understanding of what difference a change in scale makes to model predictions, how to connect current transport models across different scales of analysis and different data resolutions, and what it means for them to be consistent.

In transport modelling, aggregation refers to the level of detail included in network and behavioural models, and the methods used to summarise characteristics of detailed models for larger scale analyses. For traffic flow dynamics on a single link, there is some theory on aggregating individual car-following models to give fluid flow PDEs and area speed-flow relationships. For transport networks there is no such theory of aggregation. A key challenge therefore is to establish theory and methods for the aggregation of network models; to connect existing models across different scales, and to provide aggregate representations of transport networks for large-scale, long-term analyses.

In this seminar I will outline an analytic method for network aggregation. With this in mind, I will consider how recent advances in the study of complex networks might be used in the large-scale, long-term analysis of transport networks.

SPEAKER

Dr. Connors gained his first degree in Mathematics (Oxford) and his PhD in Quantum Chaology (Bristol). This was followed by 3 years working as a MATLAB developer (Cambridge). In 2003 Dr Connors returned to academic research, joining the Institute for Transport Studies (Leeds). His current research concerns the representation of network infrastructure and human behaviour within transport network models across different scales of analysis, and the consistency of these mathematical formulations.

- ALL INTERESTED ARE WELCOME -

17 March, 2009 (Tuesday)

Jointly organized by

Department of Civil and Structural Engineering, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University

and

Hong Kong Society for Transportation Studies

Date : 17 March, 2009 (Tuesday)

Time : 5:00 p.m. - 6:00 p.m.

Venue : Room W601, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hung Hom, Kowloon, Hong Kong

ABSTRACT

This seminar discusses about the theory and methodology for estimating economic values of development projects. Willingness-to-pay studies of two development projects - the Pune Non-Motorized Transport Project and the Yunnan Urban Environment Project, will be used to illustrate the concept, the theory, as well as the methodologies. The potential issues and the ways to solve them will be presented and discussed. 

SPEAKER

Dr. Hua Wang is a Senior Environmental Economist of the World Bank's Development Research Group, working on economics and policy of sustainable development in developing countries. He holds a Ph.D. in Environmental Economics, Management and Policy from the University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill, and a B.S. in Astrophysics from Nanjing University. He taught in Nanjing University for 8 years before he went to the United States. He joined the World Bank's Development Research Group in 1995. He has published widely in the areas of environmental, ecological, resource, infrastructure and development economics.

- ALL INTERESTED ARE WELCOME -

Dr. Anthony Chen

Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Utah State University, Logan, Utah, USA

12 December, 2008 (Friday)

Jointly organized by

Department of Civil Engineering, The University of Hong Kong

Institute of Transport Studies, The University of Hong Kong

and

Hong Kong Society for Transportation Studies

Date : 12 December, 2008 (Friday)

Time : 6:30 p.m. - 7:30 p.m.

Venue : Room 6-12B, 6/F., Haking Wong Building, The University of Hong Kong, Pokfulam Road, Hong Kong

ABSTRACT

The uncertainty of an O-D trip table estimate is affected by two factors: (i) the errors of traffic counts and (ii) the multiplicity of solutions due to the underspecified nature of the problem. In this seminar, a new quality measure for assessing the O-D trip tables estimated from traffic counts will be presented. This new quality measure consists of two parts: (i) a generalized demand scale (GDS) measure for quantifying the intrinsic underspecified nature of the O-D estimation problem at various spatial levels, and (ii) confidence intervals to quantify the contribution of input errors (traffic counts) to the estimation results. Initial results using PFE (path flow estimator) as the O-D estimator show that the new quality measure is able to separate the two sources of uncertainty in constructing the confidence intervals at various spatial levels. Simulation results also confirm that the proposed quality measure indeed contain the true estimates within the defined confidence intervals. 

SPEAKER

Dr. Anthony Chen is currently an Associate Professor in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the Utah State University (USU). He is also the division head of the Transportation Program at USU. Dr. Chen's research interests include transportation systems modeling, modeling of route choice behavior under uncertainty, origin-destination trip table estimation, network equilibrium modeling and algorithm development, meta-heuristics for discrete network location and network design problems, and transportation network reliability and applications to infrastructure management and disaster management. He is a member of the Transportation Network Modeling Committee of the Transportation Research Board (TRB), an editorial advisory board member of the Journal of Urban Planning and Development, and an associate editor for Transportmetrica. Dr. Chen is a recipient of the 2002 National Science Foundation (NSF) Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) Award in the United States.

- ALL INTERESTED ARE WELCOME -

Professor Yupo Chan

University of Arkansas at Little Rock, USA

12 December, 2008 (Friday)

Jointly organized by

Department of Civil Engineering, The University of Hong Kong

Department of Management Sciences, City University of Hong Kong

Hong Kong Society for Transportation Studies

and

Institute of Transport Studies, The University of Hong Kong

Date : 12 December, 2008 (Friday)

Time : 5:30 p.m. - 6:30 p.m.

Venue : Room 6-12B, 6/F., Haking Wong Building, The University of Hong Kong, Pokfulam Road, Hong Kong

ABSTRACT

In this project, we are working toward building a Traffic Incident Management Center. It provides not only a shared database but an Incident Command Center (ICC) to motorists and operators alike. All interested agencies can use the center, enhancing mutual cooperation and coordination. Similar to other communities, incident-management activities in Central Arkansas consists of Motorist Assistance Patrol, Towing and Wrecker Service, Emergency Medical Services, Traffic Management at Work Zones, and Traveler Information System.

We have four goals in our study. The first is to investigate advanced incident-detection techniques. The second is to model the distribution of incidents. The third is to choose the appropriate incident-response strategies. And the fourth is to perform benefit/cost analysis.

Working toward real-time monitoring of traffic conditions, we are developing routing algorithms to assist incident managers in decreasing response time and motorists in re-routing around incidents. Here are some salient features of our incident-management model:
o Provide a good tactic to allocate available response vehicles to serve reported incidents.
o Pay attention to potential incidents in ensuring a certain level of reliability in delivering quality service overall.
o Reduce the negative impact of incidents as much as possible.

In order to cater for potential incidents, available resources may not be committed to the closest-by reported incidents-a somewhat counterintuitive finding. The simulation result for Central Arkansas shows that the delay cost & work time are reduced by about 20%, while the workload is also decreased. The public is served better with less expenditure from the Arkansas State Police, assuming the towing contractors are paid by their work time, instead of by the number of dispatches.

In an Advanced Traveler Information System (ATIS), we study how to map a driver's interests to real-time routing decisions. Accounting for en-route delays and alternate routing, we found counter-intuitively that ATIS networks exhibit non-FIFO behavior-drivers who depart earlier may not arrive ahead of those who depart later. Given a time-dependent network, we consider waiting en-route for an incident to clear. Viewed as an advance in computational efficiency, we are able to model accurate arc travel-times yet using coarse simulation time-intervals. Accordingly, the algorithm has been shown to be operationally viable for real-time applications.

As a prototype, the proposed ICC serves three functions as follows.
o Publish public information on 511, variable message signs, or the web site to announce current incidents and dynamic travel time.
o Provide motorists with re-routing paths to go around incidents.
o Assist incident operators to arrive at incident scenes as quickly as possible, and advice managers in the judicious allocation of resources.

SPEAKER

Yupo Chan received his PhD from Massachusetts Institute of Technology in 1972. After 28 years of post-doctoral experience in industry, universities and government, he became the Founding Chair of the Department of Systems Engineering at the University of Arkansas at Little Rock (UALR) Donaghey College of Engineering and Information Technology (EIT College) in 2000.

Before coming to the UALR CyberCollege, Chan worked at The Air Force Institute of Technology, Washington State University, the State University of New York at Stony Brook, Pennsylvania State University, and Kates, Peat Marwick. Additionally, he was a Congressional Fellow in the Office of Technology Assessment in Washington, DC.

Chan's training and research focus on transportation systems, telecommunications, networks and combinatorial optimization, multi-criteria decision-making and spatial-temporal information. Chan has published numerous books and monographs, including Location Theory and Decision Analysis (Thomson/South-Western); Location, Transportation, and Land-Use: Modeling Spatial-temporal Information (Springer); Urban Planning and Development Applications of GIS (ASCE Press).

For more information, visit his home page at http://syen.ualr.edu/metalab/.

- ALL INTERESTED ARE WELCOME -

Professor Avishai (Avi) Ceder

Professor and Chair in Transportation and Director of Transportation Research Centre, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, University of Auckland, New Zealand

11 June, 2008 (Wednesday)

Jointly organized by

Department of Civil Engineering, The University of Hong Kong

Institute of Transport Studies, The University of Hong Kong

and

Hong Kong Society for Transportation Studies

Date : 11 June, 2008 (Wednesday)

Time : 6:30 p.m. - 7:30 p.m.

Venue : Room 6-12B, 6/F., Haking Wong Building, The University of Hong Kong, Pokfulam Road, Hong Kong

ABSTRACT

A bus rapid transit (BRT) system differs from more traditional rail and bus services by its features that can combine most of the qualities of light rail transit (LRT) with highly flexible service and advanced technologies to improve customer convenience and system reliability. BRT can thus be seen as a bus-based "rapid" transit system that combines vehicles stations, running way, and Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS) elements into a fully integrated system with a unique identity. The planning process of a BRT system can generally be divided into three interrelated stages:
1) Feasibility study or major investment study in which BRT is investigated among other alternatives, such as light-rail and heavy rail transit to determine the most cost-effective investment
2) Deployment planning that determines what BRT elements will be included and their deployment sequence
3) Operations planning including designing routes and stations, setting timetables, scheduling vehicles, and assigning crew.
While the first and third stages are essentially planning-specific for any transit service, the second stage has special features for a BRT system due to its flexibility in incremental deployment of BRT elements. This presentation proposes a deployment-planning framework that provides, in a sequence of steps, a general structure for optimal deployment of bus rapid transit systems. This framework and its formulation, once operationalized, would provide transit agencies a practical tool for determining the optimal deployment strategy or strategies given budgetary, institutional and other types of constraints associated with the corridor for which they have decided to deploy bus rapid transit. A case study example is provided to illustrate how the proposed framework would be utilized.

SPEAKER

Professor Avishai (Avi) Ceder has arrived in November 2007 to the University of Auckland to take the position of Professor-Chair in Transportation, within the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering. Avi has had a distinguished career at the Technion, Israel Institute of Technology, in the Faculty of Civil and Environmental Engineering where he was Head of the Transportation Engineering and Geo-Information Department. He was Visiting Professor twice at MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology), the University of California at Berkeley, the University of Science and Technology and PolyTechnic University in Hong Kong, and in the University of Tokyo; he also delivered courses in Sydney University and Monash University in Australia and in the University of Rome. Avi was Chief Scientist at the Israel Ministry of Transport from 1994 to 1997, Israel delegate to the Transport Program of the European Community and he is a member of organizing committees of various international symposia and workshops (e.g., TRB, International Conference on Advanced Systems for Public Transport, International Symposium of Transportation and Traffic Theory). He has just released a new book 'Public Transit Planning and Operation: Theory, Modelling and Practice' , Elsevier, 2007.

- ALL INTERESTED ARE WELCOME -

28 May, 2008 (Wednesday)

Jointly organized by

Department of Civil and Structural Engineering, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University

and

Hong Kong Society for Transportation Studies

Date : 28 May, 2008 (Wednesday)

Time : 5:00 p.m. - 6:00 p.m.

Venue : Room W703d, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hung Hom, Kowloon, Hong Kong

ABSTRACT

GradeX is a prototype decision-support tool that could be used by safety engineers and decision-makers in Canada to identify and target grade crossing hotspots, evaluate countermeasures, and prioritize safety improvement projects. This presentation provides an overview of this tool, mainly focusing on: a) the various decision support needs arising in grade crossing safety work; b) the system framework and components of GradeX; b) the alternative methodologies for hotspot identification, and d) the resource optimization model for prioritizing safety improvement projects. 

SPEAKER

Dr. Liping Fu is a Professor in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the University of Waterloo, Canada. Dr. Fu's research interest specifically focuses on evaluation and optimization of large, complex traffic and transportation service systems where uncertainty and dynamics play a major role, and on the development of decision support tools for use in managing these systems. Dr. Fu has a track record of research contributions to the areas of intelligent transportation systems, public transit, traffic safety, and winter road maintenance, including over 80 journal and conference publications. Dr. Fu has developed a commercial routing and scheduling system which has been implemented in US and Canada. He is also the developer of a simulation system that can be used to evaluate advanced paratransit systems equipped with GPS and fleet communication systems. He has provided technical services to many transportation agencies, including Transport Canada, City of Edmonton, and Ministry of Transportation Ontario. Dr. Fu is a member of the Transportation Research Board's Paratransit Committee, a member of the Editorial Advisory Board of the journal of Transportation Research, a member of the Intelligent Transportation Systems Society of Canada, Canadian Urban Transit Association, Institute of Transportation Engineers.

- ALL INTERESTED ARE WELCOME -

Dr. Anthony Chen, Ph.D.

Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Utah State University, USA

28 May, 2008 (Wednesday)

Jointly organized by

Department of Civil and Structural Engineering, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University

and

Hong Kong Society for Transportation Studies

Date : 28 May, 2008 (Wednesday)

Time : 4:00 p.m. - 5:00 p.m.

Venue : Room W703d, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hung Hom, Kowloon, Hong Kong

ABSTRACT

In this seminar, Dr. Chen will present an integrated transportation network reliability analysis framework for studying the reliability issues of a transportation system. This integrated analysis framework entails modeling, evaluation, design, algorithm development and implementation. The modeling aspect includes the estimation of the maximum capacity of a transportation network and the development of stochastic route choice models that account for both perception error and network uncertainty; the evaluation aspect involves the assessment of transportation reliability measures: travel time reliability is concerned with the probability that a trip between a given origin-destination pair can be made within a given time interval or a specified level-of-service, and capacity reliability is concerned with the probability that the network capacity can accommodate the required travel demand at a required service level; the design aspect addresses the issues of designing road networks that are both reliable and cost-effective; and, finally, the algorithm development and implementation aspects are crucial to making the framework operational and successful. Some potential applications using this integrated analysis framework will also be discussed in the seminar. 

SPEAKER

Dr. Anthony Chen is currently an Associate Professor in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the Utah State University (USU). He is also the division head of the Transportation Program at USU. Dr. Chen's research interests include transportation systems modeling, modeling of route choice behavior under uncertainty, origin-destination trip table estimation, network equilibrium modeling and algorithm development, meta-heuristics for discrete network location and network design problems, and transportation network reliability and applications to infrastructure management and disaster management. He is a member of the Transportation Network Modeling Committee of the Transportation Research Board (TRB), an editorial advisory board member of the Journal of Urban Planning and Development, and an associate editor for Transportmetrica. Dr. Chen is a recipient of the 2002 National Science Foundation (NSF) Faculty Early Career Development (CAREER) Award in the United States.

- ALL INTERESTED ARE WELCOME -

25 March, 2008 (Tuesday)

Jointly organized by

Department of Civil and Structural Engineering, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University

and

Hong Kong Society for Transportation Studies

Date : 25 March, 2008 (Tuesday)

Time : 5:00 p.m. - 6:00 p.m.

Venue : Room W601, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hung Hom, Kowloon, Hong Kong

ABSTRACT

In this presentation, Dr. Fu will provide an overview of several optimization problems that he and his research team have been involved over the past ten years. Most of these problems arise in the specific transportation engineering field called Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS), which is aimed at improving the management and operations of the existing transportation facilities by applying advanced sensors, telecommunication, and computer technologies. Example problems include vehicle routing and scheduling in dynamic and stochastic networks, real-time transit operation control, locating of traffic changeable measure signs, and scheduling of winter road maintenance vehicles, and hotspot identification and countermeasure analysis. His presentation will focus on how inherent uncertainties in these problems as well as availability of real-time information are treated. 

SPEAKER

Dr. Liping Fu is a Professor in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the University of Waterloo, Canada. Dr. Fu's research interest specifically focuses on evaluation and optimisation of large, complex traffic and transportation service systems where uncertainty and dynamics play a major role, and on the development of decision support tools for use in managing these systems. Dr. Fu has a track record of research contributions to the areas of intelligent transportation systems, public transit, traffic safety, and winter road maintenance, including over 80 journal and conference publications. Dr. Fu has developed a commercial routing and scheduling system which has been implemented in US and Canada. He is also the developer of a simulation system that can be used to evaluate advanced paratransit systems equipped with GPS and fleet communication systems. He has provided technical services to many transportation agencies, including Transport Canada, City of Edmonton, and Ministry of Transportation Ontario. Dr. Fu is a member of the Transportation Research Board's Paratransit Committee, a member of the Editorial Advisory Board of the journal of Transportation Research, a member of the Intelligent Transportation Systems Society of Canada, Canadian Urban Transit Association, Institute of Transportation Engineers.

- ALL INTERESTED ARE WELCOME -

25 March, 2008 (Tuesday)

Jointly organized by

Department of Civil and Structural Engineering, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University

and

Hong Kong Society for Transportation Studies

Date : 25 March, 2008 (Tuesday)

Time : 4:00 p.m. - 5:00 p.m.

Venue : Room W601, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, Hung Hom, Kowloon, Hong Kong

ABSTRACT

An introduction is given to natural disasters, and the related issues of probability of occurrence, warning time available, amount of devastation, and the manageability of evacuations. Some slides indicating the impact of the December 2004 Tsunami on the Sri Lankan coastal highways and railways are shown. A proposed Indian Ocean Tsunami Warning System is shown in network format. A proposed evacuation plan for coastal highways and railways is also shown as a network. The probability of a successful evacuation as a function of time from an earthquake (that causes a tsunami) is estimated for a coastal highway and railway respectively from Monte Carlo simulation. Some of the issues that have to be resolved in this study, which has been initiated recently, are discussed. 

SPEAKER

Professor S.C. Wirasinghe is at the Department of Civil Engineering, Schulich school of Engineering, University of Calgary, CANADA. His research interests are in transportation, natural hazard mitigation, and systems analysis. He is the Co-Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Advanced Transportation and the Founder of the International Institute for Infrastructure Renewal and Reconstruction, (IIIRR - www.iiirr.ucalgary.ca) a virtual network devoted to natural disaster mitigation. He is proud to be an Honorary Professor at the HK Polytechnic University.

- ALL INTERESTED ARE WELCOME -

Professor Richard Tay, P.Eng.

AMA/CTEP Chair in Road Safety, Department of Civil Engineering, University of Calgary, Canada

20 February, 2008 (Wednesday)

Jointly organized by

Department of Civil Engineering, The University of Hong Kong

The Hong Kong Institution of Engineers, Civil Division

and

Hong Kong Society for Transportation Studies

Date : 20 February, 2008 (Wednesday)

Time : 6:00 p.m. - 7:00 p.m.

Venue : Room 6-12B, 6/F., Haking Wong Building, The University of Hong Kong, Pokfulam Road, Hong Kong

ABSTRACT

Over the last fifty years, the loops and lollipop design have become the basic building block of many urban neighborhoods. In the field of traffic engineering, this combination of cul-de-sac and loop streets is designed to discourage through traffic and improve road safety and thus has the support of many traffic engineers. Perhaps due to its intuitive appeal, few studies were conducted to examine the impact of this design on road crashes. Using the City of Calgary in Canada as a case study, this study examines the effects of different neighborhood street pattern on the number of crashes. Our results suggest that currently popular road patterns such as warped parallel, loops and lollipops, lollipops on a stick and mixed shape are safer than traditional grid-iron pattern.

SPEAKER

Dr Richard Tay, P.Eng., is currently the AMA/CTEP Chair in Road Safety in the Department of Civil Engineering at the University of Calgary. He has taught in Singapore, Hong Kong, New Zealand and Australia, and was a visiting scholar at MIT. He is a firm believer in multidisciplinary theory and evidence based approaches to addressing road safety issues. He has been invited to many government panels, committees & task forces on road safety in Canada and around the world. He served on the editorial board of several scientific journals and has been invited to speak at and has chaired technical sessions at many road safety conferences around the world.

- ALL INTERESTED ARE WELCOME -