Past Seminars

Peer-to-Peer Sharing of Supply in Transportation:  Possibilities and Algorithms
Prof. R. Jayakrishnan, Ph.D.
Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering & Institute of Transportation Studies
University of California at Irvine

Time: 2:00 pm - 3:00 pm, Friday, October 16, 2015
Location: Parkview Room (D-132), College of Engineering and Applied Sciences, Western Michigan University

Newer technologies and high market penetration of personal communication systems bring up many new possibilities for different paradigms of operation in transportation systems.  The users can consume transportation supply with more complete information and significantly more peer-to-peer (P2P) communication.  Several possibilities exist in such a world of shared economy, with regard to using road and vehicle space in temporally efficient manner.  Car-sharing and ride-sharing are two of the more well-known systems in this regard.  Autonomous vehicles bring up another dimension in terms of shared ownership as well.  There are also possibilities in using P2P communication for collaborative, competitive or negotiated consumption of other elements of transportation supply such as signal timings, and lane space availability.  This presentation focuses on the possibilities, and discusses recent research into shared-ride systems for passenger transport and auction-based mechanisms for signal and lane usage.  The presentation also lays out newer frameworks for supply, demand, and performance of transportation systems under these new paradigms and discusses algorithmic and mechanism-based details in solving real-world problems in ride-sharing and signal systems.

Latest GIS Technology to Promote Citizen Engagement for Livable Communities
Wansoo Im, Ph.D.
President of VERTICES

Time: Thursday March 17, 2015 1:00 pm - 2:30 pm
Location: Parkview Room, College of Engineering and Applied Sciences, Western Michigan University

Geospatial Science has begun to play an essential role in the fields of transportation planning and public health.  With greater interoperability between diverse software and hardware, geospatial data integration and sharing have become simpler and more affordable than ever before.  With an increasing number of content providers offering downloadable GIS data layers and web map services, GIS data is also becoming easier to acquire, customize, and integrate into interactive mapping applications.  Additionally, technology allows for field data to be easily collected and updated by the public or project participants to complement and enhance existing databases, while promoting citizen engagement. The amount of information that can be discovered and shared through web-oriented and crowdsourced geospatial technology is immeasurable. In this presentation, case studies with the latest GIS technology for livable communities will be presented, and the discussion will be followed by how various research needs can be met with new GIS technology.

Sustainable Transportation Systems: Transit-Oriented Development and Bicycle Environment Monitoring
Monday September 8, 2014 4:00 pm - 6:00 pm
Location: Room C-124, College of Engineering and Applied Sciences, Western Michigan University

Transit-Orient Development with High-speed Urban Express Railway System
Keechoo Choi, Ph.D.
Director of Transportation Research Center and Professor of Transportation Systems Engineering
Ajou University, Korea

This study presents recent development of high-speed urban railway system in conjunction with the transit-oriented development (TOD) in Korea. The system called GTX (Gyeonggi Train eXpress) will run between a new town and Seoul downtown at a commercial speed of 100 km per hour. Three parameters of TOD, such as density, diversity, and design are dependent on the speed of the GTX system. This study not only addresses design issues associated with the transit-oriented development, but also compare and contrast the TOD system with those of foreign countries. Some limitations and future agenda will be addressed in this presentation

A Novel Method to Monitor Bicycling Environments
Cheol Oh, Ph.D.
Professor of Transportation and Logistics Engineering
Hanyang University, Korea

A bicycle is a promising human-powered and emission-free transportation mode to address growing transportation and environmental problems. Bike-friendly environments should be constructed to innovatively increase the use of bicycles as a significant transportation mode. From this perspective, the scientific and effective monitoring of bicycling environments is of keen interest. An important technical challenge for monitoring is to evaluate the performance of bicycling environments. This study proposes a novel monitoring method that can be used for evaluating bicycle performance in terms of safety and mobility. An instrumented probe bicycle (IPB), which is equipped with a set of sensors including a global positioning systems (GPS) receiver, accelerometer, and gyro sensor, was used to develop the proposed monitoring method. The IPB provides useful bicycle maneuvering data for identifying longitudinal, lateral, and vertical maneuverings of the bicycle, which are affected by environmental factors such as heavy vehicle volume, surface conditions, grade, crossings, humps, and curbs. Regarding safety monitoring, an index to predict bicyclist’s perceived safety and comfort with the predictors derived from the measurements by the IPB was developed. A questionnaire survey was conducted to obtain actual responses from bicyclists for perceived safety and comfort during the field experiment. In addition, a method to evaluate the bicycle mobility using GPS speed data was devised. Then, a fault tree analysis (FTA) technique, which is a well-known technique for risk analysis, was adopted to integrate safety and mobility monitoring. As a result, the bicycling monitoring index (BMI) was proposed. Data obtained from the proposed method will be useful in developing various bicycle-related policies.