2017 Events
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Dynamic Modeling and Perimeter Control in Large-scale Urban Networks
FMRI & FAU ITE Student Chapter Lecture Series
December 20, 2017
The FMRI and the FAU ITE Student Chapter is receiving the guest speaker Nikolas Geroliminis, Ph.D., Associate Professor at École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne and Head of Urban Transport Systems Laboratory, EPFL. Traffic is a strongly time-variant process and it needs to be studied in the spatiotemporal dimension. Investigating the clustering problem over time help us reveal the hidden information during the process of congestion formation and dissolution. The primary motivation of this seminar is to study the spatiotemporal relation of congested links in large networks, observing congestion propagation from a macroscopic perspective, and finally identifying critical congestion regimes to aid the design of peripheral control strategies and improve mobility. This is not a straightforward task as transport networks despite spatial correlations in congestion are in principle heterogeneous due to road hierarchy and spatial distribution of demand. Thus, it is not always possible to treat congestion as a continuum in space. An example is directional flows towards a city center in the morning peak. The dynamic clustering framework will be capable of replicating how clusters expand or shrink in the process of congestion formation and dissolution. Moreover, it will be able to find new pockets of congestion and merge clusters with similar traffic conditions. In this framework, we will be able to chase where congestion originates and how traffic management systems affect its formation and the time it finishes. To achieve these goals, first, we formulate the problem of partitioning networks to the desired number of regions as mixed integer linear optimization. Connectivity of clusters is explicitly enforced by imposing some constraints and the homogeneity of clusters is maximized in the objective function. In the 2nd part of the presentation, different perimeter control strategies are developed based on principles of control theory. The validation of the clustering methodologies and the perimeter control schemes are conducted in various and complex city structures scenarios using data from field experiments and micro-simulations.
Applications of Game Theory to Container Terminals
FMRI & FAU ITE Student Chapter Lecture Series
December 6, 2017
The FMRI and the FAU ITE Student Chapter is receiving the guest speaker Dr. Mihalis M. Golias, Associate Professor of the Department of Civil and Engineering at the University of Memphis. Marine container terminals are essential components of global supply chains and terminal operators face many challenges to remain efficient and competitive. Game theory provides promising avenues to advance our understanding and modeling of container terminal planning and operations (and freight and maritime transportation in general). It allows us to develop mathematical-empirical relations and models that describe and emulate the behavior of the various stakeholders utilizing market-based mechanisms. In this presentation, we first provide a brief overview of maritime transportation and game theory basics. We then present applications of game theory to marine container terminals operations and planning including handling uncertainty, customer differentiation, and contract negotiations.
Improve the Level of Service of Free-Floating Bike Sharing: Its Connectivity with Freight Applications
FMRI & FAU ITE Student Chapter Lecture Series
November 8, 2017
The FMRI and the FAU ITE Student Chapter is receiving the guest speaker Dr. Yu Zhang, Associate Professor at the University of South Florida (USF). Bike Sharing is a sustainable mode of urban mobility, not only for regular commuters but also for casual users and tourists. Free-floating bike sharing (FFBS) is an innovative bike-sharing model, which saves on start-up cost, prevents bike theft with built-in GPS, and allows users to reserve bikes via smart phone APP. Nevertheless, the flexibility of FFBS also brings challenges to its operational management. At USF, we launched Share-A-Bull FFBS in 2015 and our research team has since worked closely with service provider to tackle the challenging problems. We study historical biking trajectory data of FFBS users for understanding their mobility patterns and the correlations with environment variables and the interactions of those variables. The outcomes provide insights on system design and operations, e.g. hub regions of bike sharing program, time for conducting static or dynamic rebalancing, and time available for different types of rebalancing, etc. We also propose a MILP and heuristic solution algorithm to solve bike rebalancing for FFBS. The experimental results show that the proposed algorithm outperforms existing methods. A smart phone app is developed for practical usage of the research results in daily operations as well.
Data-Based Decision Support: A Journey from Data to Information
FMRI & FAU ITE Student Chapter Lecture Series
October 25, 2017
The FMRI and the FAU ITE Student Chapter is receiving the guest speaker Dr. Yan Xiao, Research Associate at the Florida International University (FIU). With the wide deployment of ITS devices, big data can be collected from multiple sources, such as point detector, Bluetooth reader, Wi-Fi reader, connected vehicles, and so on. How to extract useful information from large amount of data is an urgent task facing transportation agencies. This presentation will provide a brief review of existing data collection technologies, discusses data processing procedures, and demonstrates how these data can be applied to support both planning and operational level decisions.
Evaluation of Pedestrian and Bicyclist Performance Measures by Using Crowd Monitoring Technologies in Southeast Florida
FMRI & FAU ITE Student Chapter Lecture Series
September 20, 2017
The FMRI and the FAU ITE Student Chapter is receiving the guest speaker Bratislav Ostojic, FMRI Research Associate, Florida Atlantic University. In order to create safer and attractive facilities for pedestrians and bicyclists it is necessary to collect data about activities of these multimodal users and develop performance measures which can be monitored and maintained. Manual traffic data collections are time and resource intensive and transportation agencies constantly seek for new technologies to collect data about multimodal users. Once such data are collected it is necessary to combine them in meaningful performance measures which will reflect safety, level of service and comfort of the non-motorized transportation users. Recent advances in crowd-monitoring and video feature extraction technologies have offered some opportunities to collect more and better data about pedestrians, bicyclists, and others users of shared facilities in urban transportation networks. This presentation presents findings from a study where data collected by two popular, yet different, crowd monitoring technologies (Placemeter and Strava) were assessed for their feasibility to collect data of the pedestrians and bicyclists in a number of locations in Southeastern Florida. In addition to the assessment of data collection, the FAU research team has also developed a set of performance measures based on the Highway Capacity Manual (HCM), in order to quantify the quality of provided services to the different transportation modes.
Opportunities for Enhancing the Robustness and Functionality of the Dedicated Short-range Communications (DSRC) Infrastructure Through the Use of Satellite Digital Audio Radio Service (DARS)
FMRI & FAU ITE Student Chapter Lecture Series
April 18, 2017
The FMRI and the FAU ITE Student Chapter is receiving the guest speaker Richard A. Michalski, Principal Chief Engineer at SiriusXM Innovation Center and Christa Petros, Vice President Product Development at SiriusXM. The USDOT has committed to using DSRC technologies for active safety involving vehicle to vehicle (V2V) and vehicle to infrastructure (V2I) communications, which relies on trusted certificates, sharing accurate position and velocity with nearby vehicles, and sharing information about road conditions. Satellite digital audio radio service (SDARS) provides nearly ubiquitous coverage over North America and is a proven technology with reliable coverage and high-penetration in vehicles. SDARS can enhance the reliability and effectiveness of DSRC infrastructure in several ways, including certification revocation list (CRL) distribution, distribution of traveler information messages (TIMs), distribution of GPS ephemeris data, and provision for alternative approaches to certificate distribution.
Introduction of Women’s Transportation Seminar (WTS)
FMRI & FAU ITE Student Chapter Lecture Series
April 12, 2017
The FMRI and the FAU ITE Student Chapter is receiving the guest speaker Dr. Somaye Fakharian, Transportation Engineer at WSP Parsons Brinckerhoff. The Women’s transportation seminar (WTS) is an international organization dedicated to building the future of transportation through the global advancement of women. With over 6,500 members, including women and men, WTS is turning the glass ceiling into a career portal through its professional programs, networking opportunities, and unparalleled access to industry and government leaders.
Guidance for Identifying Corridor Conditions That Warrant Deploying Transit Signal Priority and Queue Jump
FMRI & FAU ITE Student Chapter Lecture Series
March 1, 2017
The FMRI and the FAU ITE Student Chapter is receiving the guest speaker MD Sultan Ali, MITSL Graduate Research Assistant at the Florida Atlantic University (FAU). Roadways are getting more congested as a large number of cars are entering the transportation system due to rise in population. The high volume of vehicles and numerous signalized intersection the traffic congestion is causing huge problems to schedule reliability. As transportation demand is increasing various road networks are facing increasing congestion. Transportation management measures that provide more capacity out of the prevailing resources must be explored in order to obtain financially viable transportation solutions. Transit supportive strategies include intersection treatments such as transit signal priority (TSP), special signal phasing, queue jump lanes, and signals. To mitigate the high-density congestion transit signal priority is the significant solution. Transit signal priority is providing solutions according to many variables, and it is pursuing a number of valuable objectives such as reduced transit travel times, better schedule adherence, better transit efficiency, and increased road network efficiency by car mobility. TSP technique has been applied to improve transit service quality and increase bus ridership.