Future Transportation in a Connected World

Today was a great day for transportation!

In my morning class in Logistics & Transportation, we had a surprise guest from India - a consultant in Transportation & Logistics who was in the US for the first time, and had spoken recently in Los Angeles at the International Conference of Women Engineers and Scientists. Many of my undergraduate students are interested in the consulting profession and, after an introduction, they asked her numerous questions not only about consulting but also about transportation in India and the challenges. Her talk in LA was on non-motorized last mile deliveries and associated challenges, including congestion. She told us about plans for new subway systems in India as well as the inroads that the Japanese are making in the transport sector from trains to logistics. She also talked about being the only female in her group initially and about the competition among top consulting firms for business. She noted the importance of competing on price and credentials, which I would call "quality." and experience.

Then it was time to go to lunch with a group of the Transportation faculty from the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at UMass Amherst since the group was hosting a faculty member from RPI, Professor Jeff Ban, whose advisor was Dr. Bin Ran at the University of Wisconsin Madison, and whose advisor, in turn, was Professor David E. Boyce. Academics tend to track their academic family trees or genealogy. Ran and Boyce co-authored the book, Modeling Dynamic Transportation Networks.

Information on Professor Ban's talk that took place this afternoon is below:

 Future Transportation in A Connected World

Xuegang (Jeff) Ban

Associate Professor, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering

Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute (RPI)

Abstract: Emerging technologies (such as mobile sensing, connected vehicles, and new social media) make transportation components more connected. This includes connections/ communications among vehicles, and between vehicles and the infrastructure, as well as more close connections among transportation users. Such connections are transforming and will continue to further transform the transportation system. This talk will focus on certain aspects of these transformations, including (i) how mobile sensing data can be collected and used for urban traffic modeling applications; and (ii) what system analysis models may be developed to account for the connections among users.

I enjoyed his talk a lot and he emphasized issues of privacy and big data in transportation. Also, how not to just gather data but to glean knowledge from the data through algorithms, while preserving travellers' privacy.

I very much enjoyed the discussion on urban freight and the benefits of night-time deliveries in urban settings, including NYC, with some of the benefits including improved travel times and the lowering of emissions. However, a major challenge remains that the consumers, including retailers, want the deliveries to take place in the daytime and they hold the power - so discussions centered also on incentives.

Since several of my doctoral students also came to the talk I was very pleased that he mentioned the need for different behavioral models, which, coincidentally, we have been researching. And, of course, I was thrilled when he noted game theory and variational inequalities!

I took the photos below at Professor Ban's presentation and afterwards.

Logistics Companies that Recognize Academic Research with Major Awards

I heard the wonderful news the evening after the 2013 NOFOMA Logistics Conference in Gothenburg, Sweden had come to an end.

DB Schenker Award 2012 goes to Dr. Sönke Behrends

My colleague, Professor Johan Woxenius, who is also Head of the Department of Business Administration at the School of Business, Economics and Law at the University of Gothenburg, shared with me that his former doctoral student, now Dr. Behrends, received the 2012 DB Schenker Award valued at 10,000 euros and the great news is spreading virally in the transport and logistics media:

According to the DB Schenker website:

The DB Schenker Award 2012 goes to Dr. Sönke Behrends of the Chalmers University of Technology in Gothenburg, Sweden. The academic was recognized for his dissertation “Urban freight transport sustainability. The interaction of urban freight and intermodal transport.” The international logistics prize for up-and-coming academics, worth 10,000 euros, was handed over to Behrends at the transport and logistics trade fair in Munich by Karl Nutzinger, responsible for European Land Transport on the Schenker AG Board of Management.  

The work deals with the question of how rail freight and road freight can be integrated to minimize the impact of transports in towns and densely populated regions. Karl Nutzinger: “Mr. Behrends’ work unites fields that were, until now, analyzed separately and, moreover, incorporates logistical topics into urban development, thus demonstrating a high degree of innovation and a great deal of practical relevance.”

Isn't it fabulous that logistics companies are recognizing the importance of academic research and when practitioners and academics work together anything is possible!

You can read more about Dr. Behrends and his research on his homepage at the Chalmers University of Technology, where, coincidentally, is where the 2013 NOFOMA Conference took place.

And, I might add, that another logistics company, UPS, is also putting financial support to recognize outstanding academic research and programs.

UPS has been funding the UPS George D. Smith Prize for the past two years, and the winners are announced at the Edelman Gala held at the INFORMS Analytics Conference. This prize is awarded to an academic program or department and is named in honor of the late UPS Chief Executive Officer who was a champion of operations researchers at this leading Fortune 500 corporation. According to the INFORMS page on this award: The UPS George D. Smith Prize is created in the spirit of strengthening ties between industry and the schools of higher education that graduate young practitioners of operations research. 

The UPS Prize is for $10,000US and the 2013 and 2012 winners are:

2013 Winner(s)

Naval Postgraduate School

2012 Winner(s)

Tauber Institute for Global Operations at University of Michigan
 

For a photos of Professor Woxenius and me taken at NOFOMA, see my post here. He also is one of the two with the colorful socks.

Congratulations to Dr. Behrends and to the Naval Postgraduate School and the University of Michigan!

Thanks to these top logistics companies not only for all the goods that they deliver but also for recognizing academic research (and education) in logistics and supply chains, of course!

 

Advancing Research and Practice for Urban Freight for Livable Cities

This past week I had the honor and privilege of being a participant at the Future Urban Transport Symposium in Gothenburg, Sweden with the provocative theme Urban Freight for Livable Cities.

I have been writing about this symposium and today am focusing on some of the highlights of the last day's events.


What impressed me most was the openness of the discussions that took place among the academics, practitioners, policy-makers, and even the top transport journalist in the United Kingdom, Christian Wolmar, who was a moderator for the final day's discussion and his humor had us laughing out loud! For example, since one of the major themes was that of the sharing of urban space by passengers as well as freight he noted that when an ambulance brings you to the hospital it is doing passenger transportation and when the hearse carries you out, that is freight transportation!

Mr. Christian Wolmar being introduced (he is seated).


In his commentary, he emphasized the importance of scientists cultivating relationships with journalists and how words are important -- a lively discussion ensued when he said that he did not like such awkward to him language as multicriteria decision-making  with multiple actors. Professor Cathy Macharis of Belgium, who also is a Visiting Professor at the University of Gothenburg in the group that I am visiting, spoke on this topic. I even congratulated her on her recent research paper in the European Journal of Operational Research on the subject.

One colleague in support of such language, which we in operations research use frequently, defended such terminology and said that we should not be "dumbing down" our concepts, language, and methodologies and the educational systems!

I was on the final panel of the symposium, which was moderated by Professor Michael Browne of the University of Westminster who is also a Visiting Professor at the University of Gothenburg, as I am. He was heavily involved in the transport and logistics studies surrounding the 2012 Olympic Games in London and, as we heard, on the first day, from Peter Hendy, the Commissioner of Transport  for London, despite the negativity in the press prior to the Games and concern for gridlock and that beer would not make it to the pubs, money would not make it to the cash machines, and blood to the hospitals, they all did!

However, the behavior of passengers and freight carriers did change and it is believed that 1 out of 3 have permanently changed their travel behavior, which is a great success from the transport demand management perspective. For example, cash (ATM) repair folks used the tube (subway) to maintain the machines (since without money the economy grinds to a halt) rather than driving around in vans and taking up more of the urban space. They found that this was also more efficient, which is great. Many van operators have now switched to using public transportation.

Participants in this symposium came from 6 continents and we heard from our colleagues in India, where certain cities only allow freight to come into the city at night! We heard from my colleague at RPI, Dr. Jose Holguin-Veras about his work in NYC which has led to off-time deliveries and the challenges of instituting such changes as well as the positives -- from truckers feeling less stress and the flow of freight improved.

We discussed the importance of context, whether local, regional, or national.

There was also a lot of discussion as to the size of trucks that should be allowed into cities and the impacts on efficiency and emissions.

I spoke on our work on supply chain networks -- from analysis to design from a sustainability perspective and the importance of a system-wide and holistic point of you. I also emphasized the importance of methodologies from game theory (both competitive and cooperative) as well as optimization and network analysis.

The Forward Looking Panelists (l-r): Dr. Michael Browne, moderator, Dr. Bengt Holmberg, Dr. Rosario Macario, Mr. Michael Replogle, me, and Mr. Anders Roth

It was great to hear language such as that of equilibrium, optimization, different criteria, carbon imprint, the minimization of emissions, equity, accessibility and mobility being used so fluidly in the discussions.

Many disciplines were represented at the symposium from economists and urban planners to transportation professionals and logisticians to operations researchers and management scientists to design architects.

It was also fascinating to hear about the initiatives taken by certain cities (although still rare) in taking freight transport, front and center. The initiatives in Berlin were especially laudatory.

One of our discussion groups on Sharing the Urban Space

Freight has been rather invisible in terms of policy-making and even data collection, which is ironic but many cities and regions have focused exclusively on passenger transportation. Freight's impact on local, national, and global economies is immense as is its impact on congestion and environmental emissions and, hence, research in this area and collaboration among corporations, universities, policy-makers, and even politicians, and citizens is sorely needed.

I'd like to thank and to congratulate Volvo, VREF, and the city of Gothenburg as well as the International Program Committee, led by Dr. Arne Wittlow, for the success of this symposium.

 

Dr. Arne Wittlov concluding the conference

A group of us enjoying the last lunch at the conference, which took place at the Clarion Post Hotel

More Photos from the Future Urban Transport Conference in Gothenburg

The presentations and discussions have been fabulous at the Future Urban Transport Conference in Gothenburg, Sweden, which is being funded by Volvo, the city of Gothenburg, and VREF.

There are numerous important and fascinating issues that have been raised regarding urban freight logistics and the perspectives brought to bear by the conferees from around the globe have been eye-opening.

 

 There are so many challenging research issues, policy approaches, as well as stakeholder issues that we have been discussing. With more than half of the world's population now residing in urban areas, freight logistics and sustainability and critical to our future.

This has been an incredibly stimulating conference and the above photos show the interest of all the participants.

Tomorrow the conference will conclude.