Select News Items by year
2012, 2011, Before and including 2010
June 2011
The final programme for the PORTeC/CTS conference on ‘Global Supply chain Security’ on 7 and 8 July 2011 is now available on-line.
Over 32 leading speakers from both industry and academia will contribute to the event. For further details about the conference and information on how to register, see the conference website at www.scs2011.org
Congratulations to Miss Busyairah Syd Ali for winning the 2011 award for the best presentation at the Royal Institute of Navigation`s New Navigators Seminar held at the University of Nottingham.
This is a special annual seminar dedicated to PhD students in the UK to showcase their research to universities, government agencies, NGOs and industry. The award consists of a financial reward and free membership of the RIN for 3 years. It is made on the basis of innovation, practical relevance and quality of presentation. Busyairah`s presentation was on the development of a novel approach for the assessment of the performance of Automatic Dependent Surveillance-Broadcast (ADS-B) system and specification of a robust and reliable safety case. Busyairah`s supervisors, Dr. Arnab Majumdar and Professor Washington Ochieng are delighted that her consistent hard work has been recognised through the award.
Congratulations to Miss Sabine Wilke for winning the 2011 award for the best PhD presentation at the 1ST International Conference on Application and Theory of Automation in Command and Control Systems held at the PILDO Laboratories, Barcelona, May 26-27.
This was the first annual conference dedicated to the impacts of automation in aviation, and involved participants from the European air traffic management industry, European agencies such as Eurocontrol, and major universities involved in aviation research. Sabine’s award was for her presentation on “The potential of technology and automation to improve airport surface safety” and was selected by a judging panel consisting of six academics, two industry representatives and a delegate from Eurocontrol. The judges noted both the relevance and innovative approach of her research, the excellent progress she has made and the quality of presentation. Sabine`s supervisors, Dr. Arnab Majumdar and Professor Washington Ochieng are delighted that her dedication and considerable talents have been recognised through the award.
May 2011
Miltiadis Kyriakidis was awarded the IDEA Scholarship to work with the Organization, Work and Technology group of ETH Zurich and Swiss Federal Railways (SBB) from 28/04/2011 to 28/06/2011.
Professor Washington Ochieng becomes a Chartered Engineer (CEng) and Fellow of the Institution of Civil Engineers (FICE).
Professor Ochieng`s significant and sustained contribution to the civil engineering profession has been recognised by election to the grade of Fellow of the Institution of Civil Engineers (ICE) and conferment of the status of Chartered Engineer. `Fellow` is the highest grade of membership that the ICE awards to professionals engaged in positions of responsibility in the promotion, planning, design, construction, maintenance or management of important engineering work.
April 2011
Jarlath Molloy has won the annual Institution of Civil Engineers (ICE) best transportation paper award.
Having qualified with his paper on assessing the options for mitigating aviation’s climate change impacts in January, Jarlath presented before a judging panel and audience.
March 2011
An article in Lloyd’s List (18 March 2011) discussing port infrastructure financing in the EU included comments and analysis from Dr. Khalid Bichou.
Referring to the launch of the EU consultation on a bond initiative aiming at funding port projects in the EU, Dr. Bichou praised the Europe 2020 project bond initiative but warned against any vague and non-transparent criteria in an EU port system where highly debated issues related to port competition, institutional structure, and economic regulation have yet to be resolved before any move towards bond-based financing takes place.
http://www.inail.it/repository/ContentManagement/information/P832108356/YATIV.pdf
February 2011
Miss Sofia Galligani gave the CTS Seminar title "Metro Demand: Multi-city Model and Cross Mode Impact", focusing on the key drivers of metro demand and their weights from a modelling perspective.
January 2011
Jarlath Molloy has successfully defended his PhD dissertation entitled “Mitigating aviation’s climate impact in Europe”.
Dr. Molloy was supervised by Dr. Washington Ochieng, Dr. Arnab Majumdar and Dr. Daniel Graham and supported by the CAATS II project, the Lloyds Register Educational Trust and the Centre for Transport Studies.
December 2010
CTS researcher Scott Le Vine will be speaking at the 90th Annual Meeting of the Transportation Research Board in Washington DC on 25 January 2011 with the assistance of a grant awarded by the Old Centralians Trust.
The presentation and article entitled “Design of a stated-choice survey methodology using a constructed avatar” report ongoing research into people’s strategic behaviour within the transport domain. The study investigates the circumstances in which people might consider alternate forms of car access in lieu of personal car ownership.
He will be presenting on behalf of co-authors Aruna Sivakumar, Martin Lee-Gosselin, and John Polak.
The Old Centralians Trust is the charitable arm of the City & Guilds College Association, the alumnus body for students and staff of the engineering school within Imperial College.
www.cgca.org.uk
November 2010
Dr. Shaojun Feng gave a keynote speech at the “2010 International Symposium on Inertial Technology and Navigation”. The speech titled “advanced receiver level integrity monitoring algorithm for carrier phase based GNSS positioning” was co-authored with Professor Washington Ochieng and Dr Carl Milner. This global conference was held in Nanjing, China, 18-20 October and covered the state-of-the-art in the research, development and application of inertial technology and integrated navigation systems. Dr Feng also chaired a session on “Integrated Navigation Technology".
October 2010
Dr. Wolfgang Schuster, Professor Washington Ochieng and Dr. Marco Porretta received a Best Paper Award at the 29th Digital Avionics Systems Conference (DASC), held in Salt Lake City, Utah, USA. The award was for the paper ‘High-performance four-dimensional trajectory prediction for civil aircraft’. The paper was presented by Dr. Schuster. Dr. Schuster also chaired a session on “Collision Avoidance”.
August 2010
Professor Washington Yotto Ochieng has been elected Fellow of the Chartered Institution of Highways and Transportation (CIHT). The CIHT is a learned society concerned specifically with the planning, design, construction, maintenance and operation of land-based transport systems and infrastructure. Fellow (FCIHT) is the highest class of Membership and is conferred on people working in transportation with proven ability and who have made a significant contribution to the profession.
July 2010
Dr. Khalid Bichou was appointed port policy advisor to the MEDA Logistics and Transport Forum. The forum is an annual platform that gathers global businesses, senior executives, and policy makers involved in transport and logistics in the Mediterranean.
June 2010
Dr. Khalid Bichou featured on the BBC4 TV programme ‘The Box that Changed Britain’. The 1-hour programme, which was broadcast on Sunday 16 May, looked at how the invention of the shipping container has revolutionised global shipping and supply chain systems and how it has helped to shape modern Britain. More details can be found at http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b00scpzn
Congratulations to Khalid Nur for winning this year's award for the best presentation at the Royal Institute of Navigation's New Navigators Seminar. This is a special annual seminar dedicated to PhD students in the UK to showcase their research to universities, government agencies, NGOs and industry. The award consists of a financial reward and free membership of the RIN for 3 years. It is made on the basis of innovation, practical relevance and quality of presentation. Khalid's presentation was on the use of sparse estimation techniques to support WLAN-based positioning, and is supervised by Prof. Washington Ochieng, and Drs. Cong Ling and Shaojun Feng.
April 2010
A study co-authored by Professor John Polak and Scott Le Vine of CTS, together with colleagues from University College London and Oxford University, was honoured with the Worshipful Company of Carmen’s 2009 Herbert Crow Memorial Award.
The award was presented by the City of London’s Lord Mayor at the Company’s annual dinner in March 2010.
The Carmen is a livery company [guild] in the City of London which dates from the early 16th century, and presently has more than 500 members from across London’s transport sector. Its Herbert Crow Memorial Award honours "achievement in transport scholarship, management systems, training, research, authorship and publication, or any other knowledge-enhancing transport activity."
The Car in British Society was commissioned by the Royal Automobile Club Foundation for Motoring to study changes in the nation’s car usage and attitudes to the motorcar in recent decades.
www.racfoundation.org/research/mobility/car-in-british-society
www.thecarmen.co.uk
March 2010
Dr Panagiotis Angeloudis will participate in the inaugural workshop of the EU-financed eFreight project in Athens. This project seeks to establish a new framework for data exchange among actors in the supply chain.
Prof. John Polak, Dr. Robin North and Dr. Lyoong Oh will be presenting results of the Cooperative Vehicle Infrastructure Systems (CVIS) project at the Cooperative Mobility Showcase 2010 in Amsterdam, 23-26 March 2010. The CVIS project was one of the large EU commissioned projects that started in 2006 in collaboration with a number of European partners. Imperial CTS have been focusing on the technical and impact validation of the London Test Site.
January 2010
Dr Dirk Briskorn from University of Kiel is visiting PORTeC later this month. During his stay he will collaborate with Dr Panagiotis Angeloudis and Prof Michael Bell on the control of automated container terminal equipment.
December 2009
An article in The New York Times Automobiles section (6 Dec 2009) discussing next-generation car-sharing systems included analysis from Scott Le Vine, a researcher at CTS. Referring to the introduction of an innovative car-sharing business model in Austin, Texas, Mr. Le Vine said that the service has been successful in Ulm, Germany, “but we’ll have to see how it plays out in Texas”.
http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9F00EEDE103FF935A35751C1A96F9C8B63
November 2009
Busyairah Syd Ali joined the Air Traffic Management Group at the Centre for Transport Studies, Imperial College London as a PhD research student in November 2009. She is investigating the impacts of a new surveillance technology called Automatic Dependant Surveillance Broadcast (ADS-B) on Air Traffic Management operations. At the end of the research, she will develop a framework to analyse the impacts of ADS-B implementation on Aviation Safety. Busyairah completed her MSc in Software Engineering at the Faculty of Computer Science and Information Technology, University of Malaya, Malaysia in August 2009. She worked as an Operation and Maintenance Engineer for Air Traffic Control Systems at Kuala Lumpur International Airport for five years.
October 2009
Miltiadis Kyriakidis joined the Centre for Transport Studies at Imperial College London as a Lloyds Register Educational Trust PhD scholar in October 2009, to research into Railway Safety and Human Reliability. He is investigating the role of human performance in Railway Safety, developing a model to assess human reliability to prevent and reduce risks in railways from variability in human performance arising from factors such as on the one hand: fatigue and stress; and on the other: training and motivation. Miltos completed his MSc in the ETH Safety Analysis Laboratory (D-MAVT), Zurich in May 2009. In 2005 he graduated from the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki in Greece with a diploma in Mechanical Engineering, specialising in Energy Production and Use.
Carl Milner adds a best presentation award to his success as a winner of the US Institute of Navigation's Research Student Paper competition. The award is for Carl's presentation on "Weighted RAIM for APV: An Optimised Protection Level" and is judged on the basis of innovation and quality of delivery. The annual conference, held this year in Savannah, Georgia, brings together academics, researchers, industrialists, service providers and users of positioning, velocity and timing information (PVT) to discuss the state-of-the art in the relevant technologies, applications, markets and relevant policies. Carl’s supervisor, Professor Ochieng is delighted that his hard work has been recognised by the two awards.
Carl Milner is one of this year's winners of the Student Research Paper competition of the United States Institute of Navigation (ION). The student research paper competition is a globally competitive and prestigious award that recognises the cutting-edge (novel) research that students conduct on positioning and navigation around the world. Carl’s award is for his paper entitled "Weighted RAIM for APV: An Optimised Protection Level". The paper proposes innovative algorithms for monitoring the integrity of GNSS for air navigation. In addition to a Certificate of achievement, the award covers registration, travel and subsistence.
Panagiotis Angeloudis has successfully defended his PhD thesis. His work was entitled “Uncertainty-aware assignment techniques for automated guided vehicles in maritime container terminals”
September 2009
Miss Patricia Melo has been awarded second prize co-winner of the Epainos Award for the best paper in Regional Science by a young scientist. The paper was presented at the 49th Congress of the European Regional Science Association, Lodz, Poland, and is entitled: “Agglomeration economies and labour productivity: evidence form longitudinal worker level data for GB’s Travel-to-Work Areas”.
April 2009
Dr. Khalid Bichou has been appointed Specialist Port Adviser to the Welsh Affairs Select Committee of the House of Commons. Dr Bichou will be advising the Committee, as part of an inquiry into Welsh Ports, on issues ranging from port security to port development and competition.
January 2009
Amado Crôtte has been awarded a co-winner of first prize for the 2008 BANAMEX (National Bank of Mexico) Economics Prize in the research category with his PhD thesis. “Estimation of Transport Related Demand Elasticities in Mexico City. An Application to Road User Charging.”
Congratulations to Amado Crôtte who successfully defended his PhD dissertation. The topic of his dissertation was "Estimation of Transport Related Demand Elasticities in Mexico City. An Application to Road User Charging.". Dr. Crotte was supervised by Dr. Robert B. Noland (Rutgers University) and Dr. Daniel J. Graham (Imperial College London).
Amado Crôtte was invited to give a talk on his recent work at the Public Policy Observatory, ICESI University, Cali, Colombia. The seminar was entitled “The use of taxation as a public policy alternative to reduce road congestion and air pollution”.
November 2008
On 8 and 9 January 2009 there will be a NATO-funded Advanced Research Workshop on “Security and Environmental Sustainability of Multimodal Transport”. Over 20 invited speakers will contribute to the event, which will be held in the Imperial Business School. For further details, see http://arw-london2009.com. If you wish to participate, please contact solmaz.haji06@ic.ac.uk.
October 2008
The fifth Imperial College/ Lloyd's Register Educational Trust Lecture was successfully held on Wednesday, 8 October. The presentation was given by Dr Chris Elliott, titled as "Transport safety – is the law an ass?". The detail of the presentation can be found on website of Llyod Register Educational Trust: http://www.cts.cv.ic.ac.uk/lr/News.asp
Dr. Shaojun Feng Chaired a session on “Electronic Payment Services" at IEEE Intelligent Transportation Systems Society Conference. He also gave a paper co-authored with Professor Washington Ochieng and Dr Robin North on Quantitative Measures for GPS Based Road User Charging. This global conference was held in Beijing, China and covered the state-of-the-art in the research, development and applications in intelligent transport systems.
July 2008
Congratulations to Professor Washington Ochieng for his re-election as Member of Council and Trustee of the Royal Institute of Navigation at the Annual General Meeting (AGM) attended by HRH The Duke of Edinburgh.
Congratulations to Dr Shaojun Feng for his election to the grade of 'Fellow' of the Royal Institute of Navigation. The Fellowship certificate was presented to Dr Feng by HRH The Duke of Edinburgh at this year's AGM.
May 2008
Congratulations to Dr Shaojun Feng for his promotion to Research Fellow (Level C), and for being elected Fellow of the Royal Institute of Navigation. These successes are in recognition of his sustained distinguished contribution to research in satellite positioning and navigation.
Congratulations to Piyapong "Joey" Jiwattanakulpaisarn who successfully defended his PhD dissertation on the 1st of May. His dissertation was entitled "The Impact of Transport Infrastructure Investment on Regional Employment: An Empirical Investigation" which was supervised by Bob Noland, Daniel Graham and John Polak. Joey will be working on various research projects at CTS over the next few months before returning to Thailand.
April 2008
Professor Stephen Glaister CBE has been appointed as the new Director of the Royal Automobile Club Foundation. Professor Glaister will lead the development of the Foundation’s policy and research programmes and be the Foundation’s principal spokesman. Commenting on the appointment, RAC Foundation Chairman David Holmes said: “We are delighted that we have secured someone of Stephen Glaister’s recognised distinction to be our new Director. This appointment will strengthen our reputation as an authoritative and independent contributor to the transport debate. Besides being one of the leading transport economists in the country, Stephen is an accomplished communicator on radio, TV and the press.” Professor Glaister will continue to hold the position of Professor in the Centre for Transport Studies, where he is Director of the Railway and Transport Strategy Centre.
February 2008
Congratulations to Rajesh Krishnan who successfully defended his PhD dissertation on 26 February. His research was entitled "Travel Time Estimation and Forecasting on Urban Networks" and was supervised by Prof. John Polak and Prof. Washington Ochieng. Rajesh will continue his research at CTS as a post-doc, working on the Freeflow project.
Congratulations to Tamara Pejovic who successfully defended her PhD dissertation. This was entitled "Implications of Climate Change for the Aviation Sector" and was supervised by Bob Noland and Ralf Toumi from the Dept. of Physics, with the assistance of Dr. Victoria Williams. Tamara is currently employed as a consultant with Helios, Ltd.
January 2008
Congratulations to Mr Rajesh Krishnan who has won the Smeed Prize at the 40th UTSG Annual Conference for his paper entitled "A Deductive Travel Time Estimation Method for Signalised Corridors using Single Loop Detector Data", based on his PhD research. The Smeed Prize is awarded to "recognise the best student paper and presentation at each annual conference of the UTSG". This is the second time in 3 years that a CTS research student has won the prize -- Jan-Dirk Schmöcker won in January 2006.
An article in the 9 January 2008 edition of the New York Times covering proposals to restructure New Jersey's toll road agencies featured analysis from CTS researcher Scott Le Vine. Referring to plans to quintuple the toll schedule over the next 15 years, extend tolling onto a section of NJ Route 440, and create a new public benefit corporation to manage the state's portfolio of toll facilities, he said "It lets them start tabula rasa with this new organization." The full article can be accessed at: http://www.nytimes.com/2008/01/09/nyregion/09toll.html
Congratulations to Tzu-Chang "Joe" Lee who successfully defended his PhD dissertation on 9 January. His research was entitled "An Agent-Based Model to Simulate Motorcycle Behaviour in Mixed Traffic Flow" and was supervised by Prof. John Polak and Prof. Michael Bell. Joe will continue his research at CTS as a post-doc, working on the Freeflow project.
December 2007
Congratulations to Zia Wadud who successfully defended his PhD thesis on 13 December 2007. The topic of his thesis was “Personal tradable carbon permits for road transport: Heterogeneity of demand responses and distributional analysis". Zia was supervised by Dr. Robert Noland and Dr. Daniel Graham and supported through a Commonwealth research scholarship. Zia is now a post-doctoral student at Cambridge University and will be spending six months at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology beginning in April.
November 2007
Congratulations are due to Marie-Dominique Dupuy and Marco Porretta for receiving a best paper award at the 26th Digital Avionics Systems Conference in Dallas, Texas in October, 2007. The paper entitled “Preliminary results for a robust trajectory prediction method using advanced flight data” was presented by Miss Dupuy. The Principal Investigator on the project, Professor Washington Ochieng is delighted that this work has been recognised in this way.
On the 28-30 November, Professor John Polak, Dr Stephane Hess and Dr John Bates delivered a short course on discrete choice modelling, covering both
theoretical and applied aspects of the field. The course attracted almost
30 participants from the UK and Europe including representatives of
central and local government, consultancies and academic and research
organizations. Professor Polak commented "Discrete choice modelling has
made enormous advances in recent years. This course was designed to enable
researchers and practitioneers to better understand and exploit these new
opportunites and to avoid potential pitfalls."
September 2007
Mr Piyapong (Joey) Jiwattanakulpaisarn is a co-winner of the Epainos Award at the 47th Congress of the European Regional Science Association, held in Paris. This is for his paper entitled “Granger causality and spatial spillover effects of highway infrastructure on regional economic development: Evidence from an application of spatial filtering in a panel vector autoregressive framework”. The prize is awarded to the best paper in Regional Science by a young scientist aged 33 or under.
August 2007
Mark Trompet has been assigned the position of Project Manager of the International Bus Benchmarking Group . This is a consortium of ten leading public transport bus organisations including : London Buses, Paris RATP and New York NYCT. The International Bus Benchmarking Group is one of the three benchmarking projects that are managed by the Railway and Transport Strategy Centre.
The London congestion charge may be having an adverse effect on motorcyclist and cyclist casualties, according to research now published online in the journal Transportation. Details about the research can be found at http://www3.imperial.ac.uk/newsandeventspggrp/imperialcollege/newssummary/news_17-8-2007-10-27-41?newsid=15914
July 2007
Bob Noland and Daniel Graham have been awarded a grant by the Volvo Research and Educational Foundation. This project will examine the relationships between road safety and deprivation using both GIS data and spatial econometric techniques. This will build on previous work conducted at the Centre that established links between deprived neighborhoods and traffic fatalities
Congratulations to Daniel Graham on his promotion to Principal Research Fellow (Reader). This is in recognition of his outstanding work in the area of transport economics and econometrics.
Congratulations to Washington Ochieng on his promotion to Professor of Positioning and Navigation Systems. This is in recognition of Prof. Ochieng's outstanding scholarship and contribution to the College.
June 2007
Dr David Levinson (Imperial College London and University of Minnesota) and Dr Kevin Krizek (University of Colorado) have launched a new web based open access journal at the intersection of transport and land use. The Journal of Transport and Land Use publishes theoretical and empirical papers from the domains of engineering, planning, modeling, behavior, economics, geography, regional science, sociology, architecture and design, network science, and complex systems. The journal website is http://jtlu.org
Professor Rod Kimber, Director of Science and Engineering at the Transport Research Foundation and Visiting Professor in the Centre for Transport Studies has been awarded the Order of the British Empire (OBE) in the Queen's Official Birthday Honours, for his services to road transport. Following the announcement, Professor John Polak, Head of CTS, commented, "This is a richly deserved honour and recognises Professor Kimber's outstanding contribution to the theory and practice of transport engineering over many years. We are all delighted for Rod and we pass on to him our congratulations and best wishes".
May 2007
Congratulations to Umar Bhatti who successfully defended his PhD thesis on 29 May 2007. The topic of his thesis was “Improved integrity algorithms for integrated GPS/INS systems in the presence of slowly growing errors”. Umar was supervised by Dr. Washington Ochieng and supported through a research scholarship from the Government of Pakistan.
Congratulations to Branka Subotic who successfully defended her PhD thesis on 30 May 2007. The topic of her thesis was “A framework for the analysis of controller recovery from equipment failures in air traffic control”. Branka was supervised by Dr. Washington Ochieng and supported through research scholarships from Imperial College London , Universities UK, and EUROCONTROL.
Dr Stephane Hess and Dr John Rose (ITLS Sydney) have launched a new web based open access journal dedicated to the field of choice modelling. The Journal of Choice Modelling publishes theoretical and applied papers, and is not limited to one area of study, such as transport or marketing, but invites contributions from across a range of disciplines where the analysis of choice behaviour is a topic of interest. The journal website is www.jocm.org.uk
April 2007
Dr. Shaojun Feng and Dr. Washington Ochieng of the Centre for Transport Studies in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering have been awarded the 2007 Royal Institute of Navigation (RIN) Michael Richey Medal for the Best Paper published in the Journal of Navigation in 2006. The award is for the paper entitled 'A Highly Accurate and Computationally Efficient Method for Predicting RAIM Holes'’. The research to develop a simple and effective method to facilitate the monitoring of the integrity (quality) of satellite based positioning and navigation systems was conducted in collaboration with Dr. David Walsh and Dr. Rigas Ioannides of the School of Electronics and Electrical Engineering at the University of Leeds. The medal will be presented to the winners at the RIN’s Annual General Meeting (AGM) at the end of June 2007.
Prof. Andrew Evans participated in a discussion on BBC Radio 4 on rail privatisation and safety. The show "More or Less" was broadcast on Monday 30 April, featuring a discussion between the presenter Andrew Dilnot, Christian Wolmar and Andrew Evans. More details can be found at http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/programmes/more_or_less/6607991.stm
March 2007
Miss Tamara Pejovic has been awarded a co-winner of first prize for the JMP Consulting Sustainable Development Student Award for 2006. This is for her paper entitled “UK Air Transport CO2 Emissions Estimate”. The prize committee stated that this was awarded for the clarity of presentation, topical relevance of the subject area and the methodology comparison with similar analyses. Miss Pejovic will receive a cash prize of £1500.
February 2007
EPSRC has awarded Professor Michael G H Bell and Dr Jan-Dirk Schmoecker a three-year grant to take forward dynamic hyperpath transit assignment work presented in Dr Schmoecker's PhD thesis and extend the dynamic hyperpath concept to traffic assignment. The grant, worth £0.34m, covers both a post-doctoral research assistantship and a PhD studentship. The research will be conducted in partnership with Transport for London and in collaboration with the University of Kyoto, Japan.
January 2007
Piyapong (Joey) Jiwattanakulpaisarn was invited to give a talk on his recent work at the Northwestern University Transportation Center. The seminar was entitled “Transport Infrastructure Investment and Its Effects On Employment: Theoretical Linkages, Estimation Issues, and Recent Evidence”.
Professor Michael Bell will be joining a World Bank mission to South Africa to perform a regulatory and structural review of the country's infrastructure sectors. The review is regarded by the World Bank as especially important because of the great influence that South Africa's economy exerts on the rest of the African continent. Prof. Bell will be focusing on the crucial ports sector during his visit.
December 2006
Congratulations to Didik Rudjito who successfully defended his PhD dissertation. The topic of his dissertation was "The Application of Fuzzy Logic to Multi-ClassTraffic Assignment in Developing Countries". Dr. Rudjito was supervised by Professor Mike Bell. He will be returning to his post in the Ministry of Public Works in Indonesia.
Congratulations to Robin North who successfully defended his PhD dissertation entitled "Assessment of real-world pollutant emissions from a light-duty diesel vehicle". Dr. North was supervised by Dr. Washington Ochieng, Dr. Robert Noland and Professor John Polak and supported through an EPSRC Doctoral Training Award. Additional research funding was provided by the Rees Jeffreys Road Fund. He will continue as a Research Associate at the Centre for Transport Studies, working on the MESSAGE project.
October 2006
Congratulations to Moazzam Ishaque who successfully defended his PhD dissertation. The topic of his dissertation was "Policies for Pedestrian Access: Multi-modal Trade-off Analysis Using Micro-simulation Techniques". Dr. Ishaque was supervised by Dr. Robert Noland. He has taken up employment with Jacobs Ltd. working as a Transport Engineer.
Congratulations to Jan-Dirk Schmöcker who successfully defended his PhD dissertation. The title of the dissertation was "Dynamic Capacity Constrained Transit Assignment" and Dr. Schmöcker was supervised by Prof. Mike Bell. Dr. Schmöcker continues to work at CTS as a Research Associate.
Prof. David Levinson from the University of Minnesota will be visiting CTS for the next 10 months to conduct research on The Co-Evolution of Transport Networks and Land Use. His visit and the project are being enabled by a research grant obtained from the Economic and Social Research Council by Dr. Robert Noland. This project will evaluate the growth of transport networks in Britain over the last 100 years and provide techniques for understanding how future growth may occur.
Professor Md. Jobair Bin Alam from the Bangladesh University of Science and Technology has commenced a 6 month visit to CTS, which is supported by a Postdoctoral Fellowship from the Association of Commonwealth Universities. Professor Alam will be working with Proferssor John Polak on projects concerned with the relationship between transport and economic development and on aspects of discrete choice modelling.
September 2006
Drs Washington Ochieng and Arnab Majumdar have been awarded full funding by NATS to support a PhD researcher in air traffic management. This prestigious and enhanced scholarship will make an important strategic contribution to NATS’ operations and Imperial’s research activities in ATM, by developing a reliable method to measure the impact of new technologies and procedures on en-route airspace capacity.
Seminar on demand modelling in Hong Kong. Professor John Polak has been invited to present a seminar on recent CTS work on demand modelling to the Hong Kong Society for Transport Studies. The seminar is entitled "Recent Experience in Modelling Risky Choice Behaviour: Expected Utility Theory and Alternatives".
August 2006
Dr Stephane Hess wins the Eric Pas Dissertation Prize. Congratulations to Dr Stephane Hess whose PhD thesis “Advanced Discrete Choice Models with Applications to Transport Demand” was completed in CTS under the supervision of Professor John Polak was awarded the 2005 Eric Pass Dissertation Prize at the 11th International Conference of the International Association for Travel Behaviour Research, held in Kyoto. The Eric Pas Prize is the most prestigious PhD award in the field of travel demand and travel behaviour research.
July 2006
Dr Dan Graham was invited to talk at the International Conference on Fuel Tax Development in Beijing. The purpose of the meeting was to help inform officials from the Chinese Government to promote cleaner and more efficient urban transport.
The Centre for Transport Studies, along with Imperial College London Consultants, have successfully won a Scientific Services Framework bid with Transport for London to carry out Health Impacts Assessment for the London Low Emissions Zone (LEZ). Work issued under this contract will be a joint effort between CTS, the Centre for Environmental Policy, and the Dept. of Epidemiology. Analysis of the London LEZ will allow a better understanding of the health benefits that may be achieved by reducing the emissions of heavy goods vehicles in London.
Zia Wadud was awarded an international travel grant by the Royal Academy of Engineering to attend a workshop on ‘Individual Choice Behaviour: Theory and Application of Discrete Choice Analysis’ at the Massachussetts Institute of Technology. This grant also allowed Zia to attend the Consumer Expenditure Survey Microdata Users' Workshop at the Bureau of Labor Statistics in Washington DC.
The Centre for Transport Studies is to join the European funded Cooperative Approach to Air Traffic Services (CAATS-II) project to develop best practice manuals for assessing new air traffic management concepts. CAATS-II has 11 partner organisations in 7 countries, including ISDEFE (Spain), Boeing Research and Technology (Spain), Stichting Nationaal Lucht- en Ruimtevaartlaboratorium (Netherlands), NATS (UK), Eurocontrol Experimental Centre (France) and Deep Blue (Italy). Bob Noland and Victoria Williams will lead the contribution from the Centre for Transport Studies, which will focus on environmental impacts. Recruitment of a research assistant/associate to join the project team is now underway. The project will run for 36 months.
June 2006
Jan-Dirk Schmöcker has returned from a one year research visit to Kyoto University. At Kyoto University he conducted research on
capacity constrained transit assignment and collaborated with Dr. Fumitaka Kurauchi.
Dr Dan Graham has been awarded funding for two new PhD scholarships to investigate the relationship between major transport investments and economic productivity. One studentship is funded by Transport for London and the other by the Department for Transport in collaboration with the Economic and Social Research council.
Panagiotis Angeloudis undertook an internship with the United Nations Conference for Trade And Development (UNCTAD) in Geneva. This involved studying the security measures taken by Governments and individual ports in response to the recent International Ship and Port Security (ISPS) code.
Dr Washington Ochieng is one of the recipients of the Imperial College Award for Excellence in Teaching in 2006. This award is given biennially to members of staff who have made the most outstanding contribution to teaching. We congratulate Dr. Ochieng for this significant achievement.
Dr. Shaojun Feng has been elected as an Associate Fellow of the Royal Institute of Navigation (AFRIN). The award is in recognition of his high level of professional achievement and experience in the advancement of navigation research.
May 2006
Mr. Umar Bhatti of the Centre for Transport Studies is one of this year’s Winners of the Student Research Paper competition of the US Institute of Navigation (ION). This is a globally competitive and prestigious award that recognises the cutting-edge (novel) research that students conduct on positioning and navigation around the world. Umar’s award is for his paper submission entitled "An Improved Sensor Level Integrity Algorithm for GPS/INS Integrated System". In addition to a Certificate of achievement, the award covers registration and a full travel (and subsistence) sponsorship to this year’s annual international conference on Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS) to be held in Fort Worth, Texas, USA in September. Umar’s supervisor is Dr. Washington Ochieng who is delighted that Umar’s hard work has been recognised in this way.
CTS wins £3.5m EPSRC grant to extend its work on modelling the environmental impacts of transport. Traffic makes a significant contribution to air pollution in inner cities. Governments devise policies and traffic management schemes to minimise the impact of air pollution. More detailed knowledge of how traffic-generated pollution behaves in the urban environment could greatly enhance these policies and schemes. A research consortium lead by the Centre for Transport Studies has been awarded a £3.5m grant under the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council’s e-Science demonstration programme to develop e-Science and grid technologies to enable data from a network of mobile environmental sensors to be gathered and interpreted. The project is jointly funded by the EPSRC and the Department for Transport. The Pervasive Environmental Sensor Grids (PMESG) project brings together leading research teams from Imperial College London, and the Universities of Cambridge, Southampton, Newcastle and Leeds who will work closely with one another and with a number of major industrial partners and local authorities. Professor John Polak, who heads the project comments “The PMESG project offers an enormously exciting opportunity for us to bring about a step change in the quality and timeliness of the data available for modelling the environmental impacts of traffic in urban areas. This is an opportunity that we relish”. Further information on the project can be obtained from www.pmesg.org.uk
CTS and China Academy of Transport Science jointly establish new China Urban Sustainable Transport Research Centre in Beijing. The Centre for Transport Studies is part of a successful consortium of European and Chinese research organizations, headed by the China Academy of Transport Sciences that has been awarded a grant from the Volvo Research and Education Foundations to establish the China Urban Sustainable Transport Research Centre. Professor John Polak was a guest at the inauguration of the Centre in Beijing and has been invited to serve Academic Advisory Committee of CUSTReC. During his visit, he also contributed a keynote presentation to China-EU workshop on sustainable urban transport, which was also held in Beijing.
Prof Marcus Wigan, who holds appointments at the University of Melbourne and Napier University has been appointed a Visiting Professor in the Centre for Transport Studies. Prof Wigan has extensive experience both in academe and in practice and has contributed to a number of recent CTS projects. Prof Wigan will contribute to the development of several areas of work within CTS including transport data methods, safety and logistics.
April 2006
Prof Martin Lee-Gosselin, until recently Director of the interdisciplinary research group on mobility, environment and safety (CRAD) at the University of Laval in Canada has been appointed a Visiting Professor in the Centre for Transport Studies. Professor Lee-Gosselin is a longstanding collaborator with Prof Polak in the area of transport data methods and travel behaviour. This appointment will enable the development of a number of new directions in this work, including the work of CTS in the BP-funded Urban Energy Systems project.
March 2006
CTS wins call-off contract to provide advice on rail modelling issues to UK Department for Transport. The Centre for Transport Studies, working as part of a consortium headed by the Jacobs Consultancy has been selected provide advice on a variety of transport modelling and analysis questions on a call-off basis to the Network Analysis and Modelling/Rail Technical and Professional Directorate of the UK Department for Transport, over the period 2006-9. Professor John Polak commented “We are delighted to have the opportunity to extend further our policy-related modelling work with the DfT, especially in the area of rail systems, where through the work of the Railway and Transport Strategy Centre, we have considerable experience of applied policy work in the rail sector”.
Prof. Mike Bell has been appointed a member of a Review Committee for the TU Delft Research Centres (one of which is in Transport). Other UK members include Prof Hankin (Pro Rector Research) and Prof David Bannister, from the Bartlett School.
Prof. Mike Bell has been appointed to a Board of Experts for the analysis of the travel demand forecasting and other transport-related impacts of the construction of the bridge over the Messina channel between Sicilly and the Mainland of Italy. When completed, this will be the largest single span suspension bridge in the world. The Board of Experts will review documents produced by transportation consultants and will give general advice at be 4 to 6 meetings over the next year.
Congratulations are due to Dr. Victoria Williams, Dr. Washington Ochieng, Prof. Mike Bell, and Prof. John Polak of the Centre for Transport Studies (CTS) who have been Elected Members of the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) Peer Review College with effect from January 2006 for a period of three years. The College assists the EPSRC with the review of research proposals and final project reports. Members also serve on special panels to rank proposals. Members of the College are recognised leaders in research in their fields.
Washington Ochieng, John Polak and Arnab Majumdar have been awarded a new EPSRC research project entited "Assessment of the impact of future air traffic management technologies and procedures on airspace capacity". The work will build on existing research within CTS to study in detail the main parameters that affect airspace capacity and to develop mathematical models relating these parameters to capacity. The models will benefit aviation authorities for the strategic planning of current and future airspace leading to reduced safety risks and costs associated with congestion. The project will be undertaken in collaboration with DERA and EUROCONTROL.
February 2006
Mr. Hongqian Liang has joined the Centre for Transport Studies to work with Professor John Polak on the development of the National Transport Data Framework. This is a two year project, funded by the UK Department for Transport, which will develop middleware for the processing and dissemination of large scale transport datasets, including real time datasets. Mr Liang is a graduate of Tsinghua University and has recently completed his doctoral studies on Computer Science at Napier University.
Congratulations to Mohammed A. Quddus who has been awarded a PhD degree for his dissertation entitled "High Integrity Map Matching Algorithms for Advanced Transport Telematics Applications". Dr. Quddus was supervised by Bob Noland and Washington Ochieng. His research developed and tested a series of map matching algorithms that provide a high degree of reliability and that can potentially be applied in numerous telematics applications.
CTS recognised for postgraduate training by ESRC. The Centre for Transport Studies has been awarded recognition as a postgraduate training outlet by the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) for the period 2006-9. Professor John Polak commented “We are delighted to receive this recognition from ESRC. CTS has a long tradition of multi-disciplinary work in transport and ESRC recognition will enable us to extend the scope of this work further”. In a related development, Dr Dan Graham has been awarded an ESRC PhD studentship to enable him to recruit a PhD student to further develop Dr Graham’s work on the agglomeration and productivity impacts of transport infrastructure investment.
Prof. John Polak and Rajesh Krishnan were invited to attend a meeting with the Department for Transport's Chief Scientific Advisor, Prof Frank Kelly. The meeting was on Data Accessibility and Real Time Travel Information and Services and Mr. Krishnan gave a presentation on the generation and presentation of travel information.
January 2006
CTS contributes to EU 6th Framework Integrated project on cooperative vehicle infrastructure systems. The Centre for Transpot Studies is a partner in a new EU 6th Framework Integrated project on cooperative vehicle infrastructure systems. The CVIS project aims to design, develop and test the technologies needed to allow road vehicles to communicate and network directly with the roadside infrastructure. CTS will be worrking closely with Transport for London in developing and evaluating a number of CVIS application in London. Further information on the CVIS project can be found at
http://www.ertico.com/en/activities/efficiency__environment/cvis.htm
Congratulations to Steve Robinson who has been awarded a PhD degree for his dissertation entitled "The development and application of an urban link travel time model using data derived from inductive loop detectors". The thesis first examined issues of data quality for Inductive Loop Detector (ILD) data and travel time data collected from Automatic Number Plate Recognition (ANPR) cameras. This was followed by development of a new urban link travel time (ULTT) model based on the k-nearest neighbors approach. The ULTT model was then applied to the study of travel time variability. The thesis was supervised by Professor John Polak. Dr. Robinson is currently employed with Transport for London.
Jan-Dirk Schmöcker was a recipient of the Smeed Prize for the best PhD student paper at the 2006 Meeting of the Universities Transport Studies Group in Dublin. The title of the paper was: "An approach to dynamic transit assignment with consideration of capacity constraints".
Bob Noland has received the Barry McNutt Award from the Transportation Research Board, Transportation Energy and Alternative Fuels Committees. This is in recognition of the 2005 TRB paper that best met the standards and spirit fostered by Barry McNutt during his 35 years of transportation and energy policy analysis, for “Travel Demand Policies for Saving Oil During a Supply Emergency”, co-authored with William A. Cowart and Lewis M. Fulton.
December 2005
Arnab Majumdar, Washington Ochieng and Peter Nalder received the President Abdul Kalam Award for the Best Presentation in the Aviation Operations Category at the 5s7th Aeronautical Society of India Conference in Mumbai December 2-3 2005. The presentation was entitled “The development of New Zealand Safety outcome targets” and was written by Dr. Arnab Majumdar and Dr. Washington Ochieng in conjunction wiweth Mr Peter Naxlder of the New Zealand Civil Aviation Authority, who sponsored the research.
The Air Traffic Management Research Team within the Imperial Engineering Geomatics Group (ICEGG) at the Centre for Transport Studies was presented with a special award from the Aeronautical Society of India. This was for the outstanding quality of poster presentations and participation at the 57th Aeronautical Society of India Conference in Mumbai December 2-3 2005.
November 2005
CTS wins call-off contract to provide advice on traffic issues to UK Department for Transport. The Centre for Transport has been selected to provide advice on a variety of transport modelling and analysis questions on a call-off basis to the Integrated Transport Economics and Appraisal Division of the UK Department for Transport, over the period 2006-9. Professor John Polak who led the CTS bid commented “We are delighted to have the opportunity to continue to provide the DfT with policy-relevant advice. Over the past three years we have we have contributed to the DfT’s research programme in a number of areas including advanced discrete choice modelling, peak spreading, travel time variability, social exclusion, project evaluation and appraisal, road user charging and the economic impacts of transport investment. We look forward to continuing to work with our colleagues in the DfT on the interface between research and policy, which gives rise to many rich challenges.
Dr Washington Ochieng became the Director of the Departmental MSc Programme in November 2005. He is responsible for the management, administration, quality, coordination of procedures, curriculum development and coherence of all twenty five courses offered within the Programme.
October 2005
Dr Washington Ochieng received the Rector’s Merit Award in October 2005. This Award was established by the Rector of Imperial College London to honour and reward achievement at the highest level in terms of sustained distinguished excellence in teaching and research.
Dr. Arnab Majumdar was the invited international guest speaker at the relaunch of the Confidential Aviation Hazard Reporting Scheme (CAHRS) by South Africa's Civil Aviation Authority (SA-CAA). Dr. Majumdar gave a presentation on the international experience with confidential aviation occurrences reporting schemes. In addition, during his time in South Africa he also visited the Occurrence Investigations section of the SA-CAA and also with the Air Traffic Navigation Services (ATNS) of South Africa.
Panagiotis Angeloudis has been undertaking an internship assignment at the Southampton Container Terminal (SCT), part of P&O Ports. Panagiotis was working on a project to optimize efficiency at the gate site between the container stacking area and the Freightliner rail terminal. Panagiotis joined PORTeC as a research student in October 2005.
September 2005
Khalid Bichou of PORTec was invited by the Department of Logistics of the Hong Kong Polytechnic University to undertake collaborative research and consultancy. The work involved a project for a global port operator in the region, and collaborative research on landside port logistics and maritime security issues.
A group of 10 third-year Civil Engineering students from Imperial College has spent a month working on a design project for a future container port in London. The project was supervised by PORTeC staff and an external industry expert.
August 2005
Congratulations to Jin Young Park who has been awarded his PhD degree for a thesis entitled Microscopic Modelling of Air Pollution from Road Traffic, completed under the supervision of Professor John Polak. The thesis developed new and improved methods of modelling the environmental impact of traffic management measures. Dr Park has recently taken up an appointment as a Research Associate at the Korea Transport Institute in Seoul. We wish him well in his future career.
Imperial College London and University College London will be organising and hosting the 17th International Symposium on Transportation and Traffic Theory (ISTTT17). The honour to host this prestigious international event was won in competition against two other offers. The venue will be the Institution of Civil Engineers at One Great George Street and the dates are 23 to 25 July 2007. This highly selective symposium provides a fertile environment for seminal contributions. Papers presented will have undergone a peer review process as rigorous as that provided by any international journal. Abstract submissions are due on the 15th of January, 2006. Following acceptance of abstracts, full papers will be required by the 30th of June, 2006 with authors being notified of acceptance by the 15th of October, 2006.
Congratulations to Stephane Hess who has been awarded his PhD degree for a thesis entitled 'Advanced Discrete Choice Models with Applications to Transport Demand', completed under the supervision of Professor John Polak. The thesis presents a number of new developments in the specification, estimation and interpretation of discrete choice models and applies these developments to the modelling of air travel demand.
July 2005
Arnab Majumdar was awarded the Imperial Volunteer Centre Award for the year 2004-2005, in recognition for the contributions made to the local community as an Imperial Volunteer.
Arnab Majumdar was awarded the Best Paper award in Airspace Management at the 6th USA/ Europe ATM 2005 R&D Seminar, held in Baltimore, USA, June 27-30. The paper was entitled “The factors affecting airspace capacity in Europe: A framework methodology based on cross-sectional time-series analysis”, and was written in conjunction with Dr Washington Ochieng, and Catalin Lepadatu and Jean Michel Lenzi from EUROCONTROL, Brussels.
June 2005
The Centre for Transport Studies hosted an international two-day workshop (25 and 26 May) on aviation safety. The workshop brought together the world's civil aviation authorities and air navigation service providers to look at how records of previous incidents and accidents can be used to prevent accidents in the future. The workshop, with financial assistance from Lloyd's Register, was the first to bring aviation authorities together to discuss and learn from their collective experience of safety incidents and to define a research programme in collaboration with a major research institution. Members of the organising Committee included Dr Washington Ochieng, Dr Arnab Majumdar, Professor Andrew Evans, Jackie Sime, Miss Branka Subotic and Miss Marie-Dominique Dupuy. More information can be found at http://www.imperial.ac.uk/p6395.htm
May 2005
Amado Crotte has been invited to participate in the Pan-American Advanced Studies Institute on Transportation Sciences (PASI) 2005 meeting that will take place from July 24 to August 7 2005 in the cities of Toluca and Querétaro, Mexico. PASI is primarily designed to provide the foundation for enhanced cooperation among Transportation Researchers in the Americas and is sponsored by the National Science Foundation (NSF), a US independent federal agency.
Professor David Nethercot, Professor John Polak, Professor Stephen Glaister and Professor Mike Bell have been elected Fellows of the Transport Research Foundation. The Foundation group of companies includes TRL Limited (TRL) and Viridis. It was established in April 1996 when TRL was privatised. As well as ensuring the satisfactory commercial performance of its companies, TRF re-invests each year into longer term research of fundamental transport issues. The Foundation ensures the excellence of science and engineering knowledge through the establishment of the Research Fellowship whose membership includes leading academics as well as important figures from industry and commerce.
Existing TRF Fellow include Professor Tony Ridley, Professor David Bayliss and Professor Rod Kimber.
An emergency 'toolbox' to help countries cope in an oil crisis is published this month in a new book, Saving Oil in a Hurry, based on a report by Imperial academic Dr Bob Noland. This book offers a range of methods to reduce oil consumption at short notice, from reducing motorway speed limits to having drivers take time off from driving on alternate days. Read more at http://www.imperial.ac.uk/P6375.htm
March 2005
Robin North has been invited to join the Transportation and Air Quality Committee of the Transportation Research Board (TRB). Dr. Bob Noland has also been invited to extend his tenure as an International Member. The committee aims to examine the full range of relationships between transportation and air quality including regulatory and policy considerations, modeling practices, health effects, new technologies and transportation management strategies.
Professor John Polak has recently been invited to join the US Transportation Research Board's Committee on Traveller Behavior and Values. Professor Polak already serves on the TRB International Committee and is a member of the TRB Task Force on Innovations in Freight Transportation Modelling.
February 2005
Dr Wolfgang Schuster has joined the Centre to work with Dr Ochieng and colleagues, on a European Commission project (ANASTASIA) to develop a flight management system (FMS) for the future. Dr Schuster will contribute mainly to the navigation unit which will exploit multi-frequency satellite navigation systems, micro-electro-mechanical system (MEMS) motion sensors, and spatial databases. He will also contribute to the transport telematics research area by developing innovative sensing technologies to monitor erratic driving and driver fatigue. Dr Schuster holds BA, MA and DPhil (PhD) degrees in High Energy Physics all from the University of Oxford. He came to the CTS from the University of California, San Diego where he was a Post-Doctoral Researcher.
Prof. Michael G H Bell led the annual Anglo-German Winter Seminar, this time in Bettmeralp, Switzerland. Jan-Dirk Schmoecker and Will Adeney also attended.
January 2005
The Highways Agency has awarded a contract to collect data using the VPEMS on-board emissions monitoring unit. This work, sub-contracted through the Transport Research Laboratory, will involve collaboration with Prof. Margaret Bell at ITS-Leeds and Prof. Chris Frey from North Carolina State University. The Clean Air Technologies on-board emissions monitor will be coordinated with the VPEMS unit, allowing us to collect real-time measurements of particulate emissions. This project will be led by Dr. Robert Noland, Dr. Washington Ochieng and Prof. John Polak and Mr. Robin North will conduct the research and coordinate efforts at CTS.
Miss Branka Subotic and Dr. Arnab Majumdar were invited to a three day international workshop at IIT Bombay, Mumbai, India from 4th to 6th January 2005 organized in association with the Aeronautical Society of India. This invitation included the delivery of three seminars: Computer-based models for the simulation of airspace and airport operations: A case study using TAAM software; Recovery from equipment Failures in ATM; and, Human Error in ATM: An Overview of the HERA-JANUS Technique.
Dr. Arnab Majumdar presented an invited seminar at the ITS, University of California, Berkeley, on "Developments in Airspace capacity and safety research", on January 14, 2005.
Dr. Arnab Majumdar invited to be a panel member for the "Open Skies Agreements and international competition" panel discussion at the Annual Conference of the Transportation Research Board, Washington D.C., January 2005.
Arnab Majumdar has been awarded a Daiwa Foundation Grant. This will enable him to take a 2-week study visit "to investigate airspace capacity evaluation and management in high traffic density areas in cooperation with the Japan Civil Aviation Bureau" in 2006.
December 2004
Dr Charles Lindveld, Mr Miles Logie and Mr Andew Westlake have joined CTS. They will work with Professor Polak on the EU 5th Framework project OPUS.
The Centre for Transport Studies ATC/ATM research group hosted a two-day seminar on December 16-17 2004 by Dr Jasenka Rakas. Dr. Rakas is a senior researcher from the University of California, Berkeley, working on Air Traffic Control infrastructure management.
Dr. Robert Noland and Moazzam Ishaque are working with OYBike Systems Ltd. on an evaluation of the potential changes in transport behaviour from this innovative bicycle rental system in Hammersmith & Fulham. This is part of the SME Innovation Support Programme, a £1.2M London Development Agency (LDA) initiative, part funded by the European Regional Development Fund. It is designed to raise the level of innovation and technology amongst small and medium sized enterprises (SMEs) by linking them with academic researchers. The Borough of Hammersmith & Fulham and Transport for London are also involved with this project. The OYBike project and the SME Innovation Support Programme are managed by ANGLE Technology, Ltd. Further information on OYBike is available at www.oybike.com, and on innovation support within the London area at www.london-innovation.org.uk
The Rees Jeffreys Road Fund has provided funding to conduct real-time on-board particulate monitoring of a diesel car in London. This will contribute to on-going research in the relationship between vehicle performance and emissions originally begun as part of the VPEMS project. This work will be conducted by Robin North under the supervision of Dr. Washington Ochieng, Dr. Robert Noland, and Prof. John Polak.
Prof. Michael G H Bell delivered two lectures in Munich on the impact of congestion charging in London, first to a public audience at the Transport Museum and then to a private audience at BMW.
November 2004
Prof. Michael G H Bell took part in a review of the Department of Civil Engineering at Auckland University, New Zealand.
Prof. Michael G H Bell held a talk at the Lighthill Institute on post-Lighthill traffic flow theory.
Prof Stephen Glaister was the keynote speake at the Ordnance Survey Transport Solutions Seminar on 30th November 2004. He discussed the contribution offered by scientific analysis towards improving national transport policy, using three case studies: cost benefit analysis, mapping location of pedestrian accidents and mapping the incidence of road user charging.
Dr. Washington Ochieng was elected a Member of the Institution of Civil Engineers on 22 November 2004.
Members of CTS have been invited to present work from the VPEMS and ContainerWorld projects at the Engineering and Physical Science Research Council (EPSRC) Showcase Presentation day. This was held at the Excel Centre in London on 17th November. The work was presented by Robin North (VPEMS), Dongping Song and Mohammed Raza (both ContainerWorld).
Mr. Robin North was invited to attend a workshop at the University of Leeds Institute of Transport Studies on the measurement of real-world vehicle emissions. The workshop was successful in sharing experiences and lessons learned from the Vehicle Performance and Emissions Monitoring project and the initial data collection from the instrumented vehicle developed at Leeds.
Mr Stephane Hess has been invited to present his work on air-travel choice-behaviour in London at an invitational workshop organised by the German Aviation Research Society at the University of Applied Sciences in Bremen, Germany
Dr. Arnab Majumdar was invited to present at a Seminar on SYNERGISING ATC-AIRPORTS-AIRLINES TO MEET CONTEMPORARY CHALLENGES IN CIVIL AVIATION, held in New Delhi, India, on 1 and 2 November 2004. The seminar was organised by the Air Traffic Controllers Guild (India). Dr Majumdar subsequently conducted workshops for air traffic controllers on behalf of the Airports Authority of India (AAI) in Kolkata (3rd November) and Mumbai (4th November).
October 2004
Dr. Arnab Majumdar presented an invited seminar at the Department of Aeronautics and Astronatics, MIT, on "Developments in Airspace capacity research", on October 5, 2004.
The Centre for Transport Studies ATC/ATM research group hosted a seminar on October 14 2004 by Professor Lena Martensson, KTH Sweden, on Air Traffic Control accident investigation.
Mr Stephane Hess has been awarded the Neil Mansfield award at the European Transport Conference in Strasbourg, for his paper entitled "A model for the joint analysis of airport, airline, and access-mode choice for passengers departing from the San Francisco Bay area". The prize is awarded for the best paper by a sole author aged 35 or under.
Washington Ochieng has been appointed International Member of the Research Management Committee (RMC) of the Canadian Geomatics for Informed Decisions (GEOIDE) Research Network. GEOIDE was established by the Canadian government to consolidate and expand Canadian expertise in Geomatics. It brings together many of the country's leading experts from academic, government and industrial institutions. The RMC is responsible for providing scientific leadership and research management. It must also ensure the quality and carry out the supervision of projects. Washington’s appointment is for 2 years effective from October 2004.
Dr Washington Ochieng was on 20 October 2004 elected Member of Council and Trustee of the Royal Institute of Navigation. The Institute's affairs are overseen by an elected president, Officers and Council, whose members are also the Trustees and supplemented by ex-officio representatives from the military services, Department for Transport and the Civil Aviation Authority.
Dr Fabian Bastin from the Transport Research Group at the University of Namur visited CTS for three months to work with Professor Polak and Stephane Hess on the development of improved methods for the estimation of discrete choice models, based on adaptive optimisation algorithms.
Prof. Andrew Evans represented UK as one of two UK speakers at UK/Korea Rail Research Seminar at Seoul in October 2004.
September 2004
Mr. Robin North was invited to present a poster on his work on the VPEMS project at the House of Commons as part of the Science Engineering and Technology (SET) for Britain "Science in September" Presentation Day. This event aims to showcase work from Britain's young scientists and engineers to Members of Parliament.
Bob Noland and Victoria Williams have been awarded an EPSRC grant to examine the impact of climate change on aviation in the UK. This work is in collaboration with Ralf Toumi in the Physics Department. The key objective of this research is to better understand how air travel will need to change in response to a changing climate. Changes in atmospheric conditions due to climate change will interact with air travel both in terms of how air travel affects climate and how these impacts can be minimized in the future. For example, changes in atmospheric conditions will affect the probability of contrails being formed by aircraft. This has major implications for climate change as contrails and the formation of cirrus clouds have been found to increase warming of the earth's atmosphere (i.e., by increasing radiative forcing). One way of dealing with these impacts is by changing flight trajectories, for example by flying lower or flying to avoid the atmospheric conditions that create contrails. This research will allow both the government and the airline industry to finds ways to reduce the impact of the aviation sector on climate change.
Congratulations are due to Washington Ochieng, Mohammed Quddus and Robert Noland for receiving a best paper/presentation award at this year’s international meeting on Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS) held in Long Beach, California. The paper entitled ‘Integrated Positioning Algorithms for Transport Telematics Applications’ proposes innovative algorithms for use with data from the Global Positioning System (GPS), Deduced Reckoning (DR) motion sensors and digital map data to provide highly accurate and continuous navigation even in the most difficult environments. The annual conference organised by the US Institute of Navigation (ION) brings together academics, researchers, industrialists, service providers and users of positioning, velocity and timing information (PVT) to discuss the state-of-the art in the relevant technologies and applications. The main criteria for this award are innovation and quality of delivery. The paper was presented by Washington Ochieng.
Prof. Michael G H Bell delivered a short course on transport network reliability at the Polytechnic of Bari, Italy.
Prof. John Polak was elected as a member of the Scientific Committee of the International Workshop on Optimisation of Urban Transport System, Guadalajara, Mexico, September 2004.
August 2004
The Centre for Transport Studies was strongly represented at the 13th World Clean Air and Environmental Protection Congress. Papers were presented by Dr. Robert Noland, Dr. Victoria Williams, Mr. Mohammed Quddus and Mr. Robin North covering a range of environmental research being pursued within the Centre.
Dr Victoria Williams has been selected to present a poster at the Festival of Science, sponsored by the British Association for the Advancement of Science. Her presentation will discuss the social and ethical issues relating to aviation and climate change. The Festival of Science is an annual event, bringing together scientists, science communicators and the public. This year's festival takes place in Exeter in September.
Mr Stephane Hess has been awarded the Epainos award for the second best paper in Regional Science by a young scientist at the 44th Congress of the European Regional Science Association, held in Porto. The paper, entitled "An analysis of airport-choice behaviour using the Mixed Multinomial Logit model", looks at the choice of airport for passengers departing from the San Francisco Bay area.
EPSRC Funding Secured for Transport Masters Courses.
The Universities’ Transport Partnership has secured funding totalling over £1.7m, from the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC) to support Masters training in transport for the next four years.
The Universities’ Transport Partnership (UTP) builds on the successful collaboration over the last four years between Imperial College London and University College London and the Universities of Leeds, Napier, Newcastle upon Tyne, Southampton and Westminster in the provision of Masters training under the National Masters Training Package. Over those four years, the number of UK students has more than doubled, reaching 130 “full time equivalents” in 2003/4. The UTP is coordinated by Professor John Polak.
The new EPSRC funding will cover fees and maintenance for up to 30 students a year studying full time for a Masters in transport at a Partnership institution. Most full time students are likely to be recent graduates, choosing to complete a Masters before entering the profession. In addition, an increasing number of Master students are now studying part time, funded by their employers, accounting for over half of UK students (“full time equivalents”) in 2003/4. The UTP institutions have also been highly successful in attracting students from outside the UK, with 103 “full time equivalents” in 2003/4, up 230% over the last four years.
Commenting on the news, Professor John Polak of Imperial College London, Chairman of the Partnership’s Management Group said “I am delighted at the success of the Partnership’s bid. This new EPSRC funding will enable us to continue to make a major contribution to meeting the national transport skills shortage. We have worked very hard together with employers to make sure that our courses meet their changing needs, both in the content of the courses and in the way they are delivered. The last four years have seen the introduction of a number of new Masters courses, many new and revised modules, as well as distance learning options and changes in the way that part time and continuing professional development students are accommodated, so as to better match their work schedules. This has been achieved largely by working with employers through the highly successful Employers’ Forum we have created”.
Martin Richards, Chairman of the Employers’ Forum and manager of the Partnership’s bid for EPSRC funding, said that “I am sure that being able to demonstrate the close links between the universities and employers has contributed to the Partnership’s success in obtaining future funding”. He added that “It makes it clear that the Partnership universities are meeting a market need.”
With EPSRC funding secured, the Employers’ Forum will be maintained by the Partnership, which will also be using some of the funds to support new initiatives in the provision of Masters level training in transport across the UK.
July 2004
Dr Dick Ettema from the Faculty of Geosciences, University of Utrecht, Netherlands, paid a short visit to the CTS to work with Professor Polak on the development of improved methods for the joint modelling of the spatial and temporal aspects of accessibility.
Prof. Andrew Evans gave Inaugural Lecture and First Lloyd’s Register Lecture in Transport Risk Management at Imperial College, entitled “Rail safety and rail privatisation in Britain”.
Congratulations to Dr Bob Noland on his promotion to Reader in Transport and Environmental Policy. This promotion recognises the outstanding contribution he has has made to the research, teaching, and administrative activities of the Centre.
Prof. Michael G H Bell spent 7 weeks at the University of Canterbury, Christchurch, New Zealand as an Erskine Fellow. During his visit he delivered a short course transport network reliability.
Prof. Michael G H Bell and Dr Walter KI Wong met at the “Behaviour in Networks” Conference in Soeul, Korea.
June 2004
Dr Fumitaka Kurauchi returned to Kyoto University after a 12 month stint, during which he worked closely with Prof. Michael G H Bell, Jan-Dirk Schmoecker and others on constrained transit assignment and door-to-door transport simulation.
Washington Ochieng is featured as one of this month’s Royal Society Scientists profiled on their website at http://www. royalsoc.ac.uk. The profile recognises the contribution that the Imperial College Engineering Geomatics Group is making to the management of airspace.
Dr Tomas Ruiz from the School of Civil Engineering and the Technical University of Valencia, Spain visited CTS for two months to work with Professor Polak on developing improved models of activity re-scheduling behavior.
May 2004
Prof. John Polak presented invited paper on tour based models for road pricing to conference entitled “Tarification urbaine. Après Londres : Paris et les grandes agglomérations françaises?” held at Université de Cergy-Pontoise, Paris, France.
Professor Andrew Evans will give the First Lloyds Register Transport Risk Management Lecture and his Inaugural Lecture in the Clore Lecture Theatre at Imperial College London at 17:30 on Wednesday 16 June 2004. The title will be "Rail safety and rail privatisation in Britain". The Lecture is open to all. Anyone who wishes to come is asked to contact Pamela Michael at p.michael@imperial.ac.uk
Dr Victoria Williams has presented a seminar at the Tyndall Centre for Climate Change Research at UMIST. The Centre is a national UK institution for trans-disciplinary research in climate change. The seminar, entitled “Aviation and Climate: Air traffic simulations to assess policy options for reducing the climate impacts of aviation”, discussed the policy challenges to controlling the climate impact of aviation and presented results from air traffic simulations and atmospheric data analysis undertaken to evaluate the trade-offs associated with a policy to reduce aircraft cruise altitudes.
Dr Victoria Williams has been invited to present a seminar to the Energy, Fluids and Turbomachinery Group at Cambridge University. The seminar will discuss the implications of changes in aircraft and engine design for the future climate impact of aviation and is scheduled to take place on 7th October 2004.
Prof. Gerd Sammer of BOKU, Vienna, visited Imperial College London for two weeks on an EPSRC Fellowship. While here, he delivered the Smeed Lecture.
April 2004
CTS hosted the Annual Dinner of the Transport Planning Society. This event attracted over 100 transport academics and professionals. The guest of honour was Mr Dave Wetzel, Vice Chair of Transport for London.
Professor John Polak and Stephane Hess have been invited by the UK Department for Transport to undertake a 12 month study to develop improved methods for the joint modelling of mode and time of day choice. The project will be carried out in collaboration with RAND Europe. The work will involve the detailed re-analysis of existing stated preference datasets from London, the Netherlands and the West Midlands. It is expected that the results of this research will in due course be integrated into the Department for Transport’s modelling guidance to UK Local Authorities.
Prof. Andrew Evans continued as Chairman of the Rail Safety Working Party of the Parliamentary Advisory Council on Transport Safety (PACTS).
March 2004
Prof. John Polak became Member of the Transportation Research Board Special Task Force on Innovations in Freight Transportation Modelling, AT016T (2003-2007).
Dr Victoria Williams has presented a seminar at the Space and Atmospheric Physics Group at Imperial College. The seminar discussed the impact of contrail and aviation cirrus cloud formation on climate and presented results of research into the carbon dioxide emission penalties and air space congestion problems associated with a policy to reduce contrail and cirrus cloud formation by restricting aircraft cruise altitudes.
Dr Victoria Williams has participated in the 3rd meeting of STELLA Focus Group 4. The STELLA (Sustainable Transport in Europe and Links and Liaisons with America) project promotes the trans-Atlantic exchange of research, ideas and experience to improve understanding of the issues associated with sustainable transport. Focus Group 4 considers the issues of Environment, Safety, Public Health, Land Use and Congestion. Dr Williams contributed a presentation on research priorities for developing effective emission control policies for aviation.
Mr Stephane Hess has been elected to become a fellow of the Royal Statistical Society.
Professor Michael Bell will give his Inaugural Lecture in the Clore Lecture Theatre at Imperial College London at 17:30 on Wednesday 10 March 2004. The title will be "Risk and Reliability in Transport: Quantifying the Unquantifiable”. For more information refer to the following URL: http://www.cts.cv.ic.ac.uk/html/ResearchActivities/publicationDetails.asp?PublicationID=380
The Imperial College Engineering Group (ICEGG) has been awarded a number of research grants by the EPSRC and Industry in the areas of satellite navigation and air traffic management. The grants will support 3 new Post-Doctoral and 2 PhD research positions over the next three years. Washington Ochieng who is the leader of the ICEGG stated that “this will enable the group not only to consolidate the existing research portfolio but also to explore new frontiers”.
The Centre for Transport Studies will be working with the Babtie Group on a project funded by Transport for London to evaluate the interactions between pedestrians and vehicles at street crossing points. This work, being conducted by Bob Noland and Moazzam Ishaque, will evaluate the travel time costs associated with different pedestrian prioritization policies considering the travel time effects on all modes of travel.
February 2004
Members of the VPEMS project team attended the Foresight Vehicle LINK presentation day at the University of Warwick. This was the final stage of a three year research program to develop an integrated on-board vehicle performance and emissions monitoring system. The project team presented the accomplishments of the the research which included the development and testing of a prototype on-board emissions measurement and vehicle tracking unit.
January 2004
Mr Stephane Hess has been invited to join the "Innovative Methods in Transport Analysis, Planning and Appraisal" committee of the European Transport Conference. The European Transport Conference, which is organised annually by the Association for European Transport, is a major international conference, attracting several hundred delegates from across Europe. The "Innovative Methods" committee reviews papers of a mathematical or statistical content that advance the state of the art in transportation research.
The Volvo Research Foundation has awarded Bob Noland a research grant to examine the increases in vehicle emissions associated with induced travel from road capacity expansions and traffic flow improvement projects. This work will use various micro-simulation and modal emissions models to determine whether induced traffic may off-set any short-term emissions reduction benefits. This is an important step in our understanding of the environmental benefits and costs of alternative transport projects. Mohammed Quddus will assist Dr. Noland in working on this project.
Dr. Victoria Williams has rejoined the Centre for Transport Studies under a five year EPSRC Research Fellowship. Dr. Williams will be working with Bob Noland and Ralf Toumi from the Dept. of Physics Atmospheric Physics group on simulation of air traffic and the effect on climate. This will include evaluation of policies that are most effective for mitigating the total impact of the aviation sector on climate.
Recovery from air traffic control system failures. Eurocontrol (the body responsible for the safe management of air traffic in Europe) is supporting a research project concerned with the analysis of possible failures of technical systems that support air traffic controllers (ATCOs) during their task of maintaining safe and efficient flow of traffic; controller response to such failures and recovery processes. The research will propose a generic predictive tool of human recovery during low probability system failures. The tool could be used during the design process for better understanding of human reactions and performance during the low-probability occurrences. Research should also point out problems with current emergency procedures and training, and suggest more robust intervention mechanisms. The research will be conducted by Miss Branka Subotic under the supervision of Dr Washington Ochieng.
Hazard analysis of Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS). The UK Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) is funding an 18-month project to assess the impact of GNSS system failures on aircraft navigation requirements. The research is being conducted jointly with the CAA Institute of Satellite Navigation (ISN) at the University of Leeds. Dr Shaojun Feng is the Imperial Researcher on the project working under the direction of Dr Washington Ochieng.
Mr Stephane Hess has been invited to join the "Innovative Methods in Transport Analysis, Planning and Appraisal" committee of the European Transport Conference. The European Transport Conference, which is organised annually by the Association for European Transport, is a major international conference, attracting several hundred delegates from across Europe. The "Innovative Methods" committee reviews papers of a mathematical or statistical content that advance the state of the art in transportation research.
Prof. Andrew Evans took up Lloyd’s Register Chair in Transport Risk Management at Imperial College in January 2004.
Professor John Polak has been invited by the Strategic Rail Authority to undertake a research project into the travel time reliability and variability by different modes, focusing in particular on rail, car, express coach and air. The objective of the research is to provide a comparable characterisation of variability in performance across these different modes. The project is being carried out in association with AEA Technology Rail.
December 2003
Colleagues at the Centre for Transport would like to congratulate Knut Sauer for successfully defending his PhD thesis on 30 October 2003. The thesis entitled ‘Integrated high precision kinematic positioning using GPS and EGNOS observations’ was supervised by Dr Washington Ochieng. Dr Sauer is currently working as a Systems Engineer for a global satellite navigation systems company (Trimble Terrasat GmbH) in Munich Germany.
November 2003
Professor Andrew Evans has been appointed as the first holder of the Lloyd's Register Chair in Transport Risk Management, and will take up his post on 1 January 2004. This Chair has been established by the College and funded by Lloyd's Register, the independent safety assurance and risk management organisation. It will be based in the Transport Section and will be funded for five years in the first instance. For more information refer to the following URL: http://www.imperial.ac.uk/P4740.htm
October 2003
Prof. John Polak joined the Editorial Advisory Board of the Journal of Intelligent Transportation Systems.
September 2003
Prof. John Polak was elected as a member, International Programme Committee of the IEEE 6th International Conference on Intelligent Transportation Systems, Beijing, China, September 2003.
Dr Takaji Suzuki has joined the Centre for Transport Studies as an academic visitor. He will research integrated transport systems and policy with Prof. Stephen Glaister and Dr. Daniel Graham. Dr Suzuki joins us from Chukyo University, Japan where he is an Associate Professor in the faculty of Economics. He holds a PhD degree in Civil Engineering from Gifu University, Japan.
August 2003
Academic promotions at Imperial College were recently announced and CTS Staff members were among those who received well deserved promotions. John Polak was promoted to Professor of Travel Demand. Dr. Washington Ochieng has been promoted to Reader in Geomatics and Transport Telematics. Dr. Robert Noland has been promoted to Senior Lecturer in Transport and Environmental Policy. All three are to be congratulated on their achievements in research, teaching, and administrative service.
Dr. Robert Noland has been awarded a grant from the International Energy Agency. This project will study short-term demand restraint policies for reducing consumption of petroleum by the surface transport sector. This will include development of methodologies for use by member nations of the IEA. This work will be done in collaboration with ICF Consulting, Ltd.
Prof. John Polak was elected as a member of the Scientific Committee of the 10th Conference of the International Association for Travel Behavior Research, Lucern, Switzerland, August 2003.
July 2003
Dr. Robert Noland was invited to speak in Washington DC at the Traffic Congesion: Issues and Options workshop. Dr. Noland summarized recent research on induced travel demand and discussed what this meant for transport policy focussing on evaluation of the distributional effects of new road capacity.
Prof. John Polak gave keynote addresses at two recent conferences. These were the EU Conference on "Behavioural Responses to Intelligent Transport Systems" at the Eindhoven University of Technology and at the10th Conference of the International Association of Travel Behaviour Research in Lucerne, Switzerland.
June 2003
Professor John Polak has been commissioned by the UK Department for Transport to undertake a 12 month study into the implications of income, taste and substitution effects for the assessment of user benefits using discrete choice models. This project forms part of the Department’s New Horizons research programme. Dr Elisabetta Cherchi has joined the Centre to work on this project.
May 2003
Dr Shaojun Feng has joined the Centre for Transport Studies. He will work with Washington Ochieng on various navigation projects. Dr Feng joins us from the Nanyang Technonolgical University in Singapore where he was a Research Fellow. He holds a PhD degree in Navigation, Guidance and Control from Nanjing University of Aeronautics & Astronautics, Nanjing, P.R. China
Mark Trompet has joined the RTSC to work for four months as a Research Assistant. Mark gained an MSc in Business Administration from the Erasmus University, Rotterdam, where his thesis was on rail infrastructure maintenance management. Prior to joining the RTSC he worked for Railinfrabeheer, the Dutch railway infrastructure company, where he was the contact researcher for the Improverail (Improved tools for railway capacity and access management) working together with the RTSC.
April 2003
Prof. John Polak gave keynote address entitled “Progress and Prospects in the Modelling of Traveller Learning” to Conference on “Behavioural Responses to Intelligent Transport Systems” held at Eindhoven University of Technology.
March 2003
Prof. John Polak visited the US as part of a UK technology delegation organised by the Department of Trade and Industry and the Foreign and Commonwealth Office. Gave presentations on the work of CTS to the Society of Automotive Engineers Conference in Detroit, US Environmental Protection Agency in Washington and the Georgia Institute of Technology.
Prof. John Polak was elected Member of the EPSRC Peer Review College (2003-2005).
Ben Condry has joined the Centre for Transport Studies to work as a Research Associate within the Railway Technology Strategy Centre (RTSC). After graduating from the University of Newcastle in September 2000 with an MSc in Transport Engineering and Operations, he joined the rail planning team at the engineering consultancy Mott MacDonald. Whilst at Mott MacDonald he worked on a range of projects for the UK rail industry, gaining experience of demand forecasting, economic evaluation and appraisal, transport modelling and railway operations, including demand forecasting and scheme appraisal for the East London Line Extension and domestic services on the Channel Tunnel Rail Link.
February 2003
Washington Ochieng has been invited to join the International Editorial Board of the Brazilian Journal of Cartography
January 2003
Washington Ochieng has been elected as a member of the Institution of Highways and Transportation.
Prof. John Polak gave keynote address entitled “Intelligent Transport Systems: Technology, Policy and Behavior” to a conference on “Living and Working in a Digital World” held at the London Business School.
December 2002
Dr Bob Noland, in collaboration with ICF Consulting, is evaluating the cost effectiveness of various European Union initiatives to improve road safety. The work, being conducted for DG-TREN, is evaluating the effectiveness of proposals to increase the usage of safety belts, enforcement of speeding legislation, and increased random alcohol testing of drivers.
November 2002
Washington Ochieng on 27 November 2002 gave a departmental seminar on 'What can Geomatics offer for Civil and Environmental Research? ' A copy of the presentation can be obtained at http://www.cts.cv.ic.ac.uk/documents/seminars/Seminar_20021127.pdf
October 2002
Dr Bob Noland was invited to participate in the UCLA Extension Lake Arrowhead Symposium on the Transportation/Land Use/Environment Connection. The focus of this year’s symposium was on Tackling Traffic Congestion. Dr. Noland provided a presentation on the environmental issues associated with various policy initiatives promoted as reducing traffic congestion.
Dr Washington Ochieng contributed to Channel 4 News on Wednesday 9th October on the on-going debate on the congestion charging scheme due to be introduced in London on February 17. The piece looked at both technological, political (including policy) and social aspects of the scheme. Dr Ochieng emphasised the importance of following a credible system acquisition and operational procedure if the public is to have confidence in the system. He also mentioned the importance of adopting a system that was expandable and flexible both to technological and policy changes. The piece (in text & video) can be accessed at http://www.channel4.com/news/home/z/stories/20021009/congestion.html#3. There was also a follow on article in the Daily on the Metro Newspaper and the Daily Telegraph (Business Section) on Sunday 13 October 2002.
Dr. Rod Kimber, of the Transport Research Laboratory, was appointed Visiting Professor to the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering from 1 October 2002 for three years. He has nearly thirty years experience of research, research management and national policy development in transport. He is currently Director of Science and Engineering at the Transport Research Laboratory, a position he has held for five years, and is on the main Board of the Transport Research Foundation (TRF), which has owned TRL since its privatisation in 1996. He is also Technical Director of the AA Foundation for Road Safety Research, and is Chairman of the TRF Fellowship. As a Visiting Professor, Rod will focus on traffic safety, making contributions at the undergraduate and postgraduate levels.
September 2002
Dr Washington Ochieng and a number of industrial and academic partners have been awarded over £2 million for a GNSS Applications Faraday Partnership. The Secretary of State for Trade and Industry, announcing this on Friday 6 September 2002 said that the Partnership will facilitate next generation GNSS applications and maximise the user benefits of GNSS infrastructure such as Galileo. It is to be coordinated by the National Physical Laboratory (NPL) with Imperial College as one of the founding members. It brings together government, industrial and leading academic institutions with the objective of positioning the UK at the forefront of GNSS applications developments by fostering the knowledge, skills and resources necessary to exploit the landmark opportunities currently being created by new GNSS signals and services. The Geomatics Research Group Leader at the Centre for Transport Studies, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering Dr Washington Ochieng will lead the College's contribution to the Partnership. His reaction to the news was that “the Partnership is an excellent opportunity for us to carry on with cutting edge research in navigation systems design and applications, and to provide the training and skill to enable UK industry to compete within and outside Europe in this exciting and rapidly expanding area. We very much look forward to this challenge! ”
Washington Ochieng chaired a session on satellite augmentation systems at the annual international conference organised by the United States Institute of Navigation in Portland, Oregon, USA in September 2002.
June 2002
The new Centre For Transport Studies website has been launched. Dynamically driven by database content, this website will give up-to-date news on the research and events at CTS. The website has been developed and designed by Steve Robinson and the webmaster is Bob Noland.
May 2002
The Centre for Transport Studies football team had their first 5 a side game on Monday 20 May in Hyde Park. It was extremely competitive and well played. No yellow or red cards were issued. We hope to make this a regular event and at some stage be in a position to challenge other sections within Civil and Environmental Engineering.
Washington Ochieng was quoted extensively in an article in the New Scientist Magazine (04 May 2002) entitled 'Global Fix - What's wrong with GPS that Europe's spending billions on an alternative? The article identified both the strengths and weaknesses of GPS and attempted to justify the need for Europe's Galileo system, and at the same time pointed out some of the challenges ahead of the Galileo development and use. If you want to read more on this and you are an authorised Imperial College user, the article can be accessed via INTRINSIC on the college website.
John Polak was one of a number of Imperial College staff invited to make a presentation to Dr Rajendra Pachauri Director of the Tata Energy Research Institute (TERI) and chair of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Polak presented an overview of CTS and described a number of specific projects in the area of energy, environment and transport.
Jan-Dirk Schmöcker has joined the Centre for Transport Studies to work on a number of projects related to traffic operation and travel behaviour. He first studied at the Technical University of Berlin and then graduated from the University of Newcastle in September 2000 with an MSc (Distinction) in Transport Engineering and Operations. Before joining CTS he worked on a number of research projects at the University of Newcastle in the areas of network modelling and microsimulation, network reliability and traffic control.
April 2002
On the 10 April, the Centre for Transport Studies hosted the second UK VISSIM User Group meeting. Proceedings were opened and closed by Professor Mike Bell. Around 50 people attended 10 presentations, including one from CTS researcher Jin-Young Park in which he described the development and application of emissions and dispersion sub-models for use with VISSIM.
On the 8 April, the Centre for Transport Studies hosted the third meeting of the Employers' Forum of the National Masters Training Package in Transport. The Employers' Forum brings together representatives of leading Consultants, Local Authorities, Central Government Departments and Transport Operators who employ graduates in Transport Studies. The meeting attracted over 40 senior-level participants, who heard presentations from a number of the NMTP Universities on current developments in MSc teaching. The NMTP consortium is coordinated by Imperial College London and comprises additionally, University College London, Leeds University, Napier University, University of Newcastle, University of Southampton and the University of Westminster.
As part of our research seminar series, Prof. Markos Papageorgiou, Director of the Dynamic Systems and Simulation Laboratory at the Technical University of Crete presented a entitled “Can Ubiquitous Ramp Metering Eliminate Motorway Congestion? ”
John Polak has been invited to serve on the Management Group of the Transport Planning Society’s Transport Planning Skills Initiative. This initiative, which was formerly launched at a seminar held at the Institution of Civil Engineers on 29 April, aims to address the shortage of skilled transport planners through a range of activities designed to increase the attractiveness of transport planning as a career. Further information of the initiative can be found at http://www.tps.org.uk/
March 2002
In consortium with ICF Consulting, CTS has been awarded an on-call contract with the European Commission (DG-TREN). This work will provide support to the Commission on both transport and energy policy analysis, GPS and transport technology issues, environmental impacts of transport, and analytical work in travel behaviour.
As part of our research seminar series, Dr Geoffrey Gosling from the Institute for Transport Studies at the University of California Berkeley presented a seminar entitled “Analysis of Factors Affecting the Occurrence and Severity of Air Traffic Control Operational Errors”.
Washington Ochieng has been invited by the United States Institute of Navigation to Chair a session on augmented navigation systems at this years world-wide institute of navigation GPS conference to be held in Portland, Oregon in September. This is a prestiguous annual event where the state-of-the art and futuristic research in positioning and navigation is presented and discussed.
February 2002
On 13 February, Imperial College played host to the Annual Dinner of the Transport Planning Society. The guest speaker at the dinner was Mr Bob Kiley, Commissioner of Transport for London. He described and contrasted his experiences of running major urban transport systems in New York and London and set out his views on the key issues confronting Transport for London over the coming years, including the proposed Public Private Partnership for London Underground.
On 19 February, Imperial College played host to the Annual Paviors’ Lecture, organised by the Worshipful Company of Paviors. The lecture was given by Mr Norman Haste OBE, FREng, Project Director for the Terminal 5 project at Heathrow. The lecture gave a wide ranging overview of the T5 project in all aspects including planning, weighing the economic factors, the transport issues, environmental factors, the major engineering challenges, and the organisation of a multi billion pound undertaking together with an understanding of the risks for the airport operator.
The Centre for Transport Studies has been commissioned by Transport for London to undertake an analysis of patterns of variability in bicycle traffic in London. The aim of the work is develop a set of seasonal and weather related adjustment factors that can be used to assist in the identification of the impacts of local cycle policies. The project will be led by John Polak, with contributions from Xiao-Liang Han.
January 2002
John Polak and Bob Noland gave invited presentations to a seminar organised by the DTLR into the implications of recent research findings on the modelling of departure time choice. Polak presented his recent work on the application of OGEV models to peak spreading and Noland presented work on the modelling of HOV lane use.
John Polak and Bob Noland gave invited presentations to a seminar organised by the DTLR into the implications of recent research findings on the modelling of departure time choice. Polak presented his recent work on the application of OGEV models to peak spreading and Noland presented work on the modelling of HOV lane use.
John Polak has been awarded a new project under the EPSRC/DTLR Future Integrated Transport research programme entitled “Scoping a Model Travel Behaviour Dataset Programme to Address Research and Policy Needs in Transport”. The aim of this project is to identify the key shortcoming in existing travel behaviour data and to scope a programme of research aimed at addressing these needs. The work will be carried out in collaboration with Professor Marcus Wigan of the Transport Research Institute at Napier University.
A second new project was also awarded under the EPSRC/DTLR Future Integrated Transport research programme entitled “Optimising Personal Logistics: Improving the Efficiency of Travel by Improved Household Activity Scheduling”. The principal aim of this 3 year project is to develop a personal activity scheduling function to support individuals and households in the activity scheduling behaviour. The work will be carried out in collaboration with Professor Kay Axhausen (ETH Zurich), Professor Sean Doherty (Wilfred Laurier University) and with industrial collaborators including Saturn Technology and PTV. The project will be carried out under the direction of John Polak with contributions from Mike Bell.
Washington Ochieng and Lin Zhao have been awarded a contract by Transport for London to contribute to the review of the Countdown system by carrying out an assessment of the capability of stand-alone and augmented navigation space-based systems to support the navigation functionality of the Countdown system. Currently, the system uses roadside beacons and distance information from odometer to determine the location of buses.
Professor M.G.H. Bell, formerly Professor of Transport Operations and Director of the Transport Operations Research Group in the Department of Civil Engineering at the University of Newcastle, has been appointed to a Chair in Transport Operations, with effect from 1 January 2002. The appointment has been partly facilitated through financial support from the Rees Jeffrey's Road Fund. Mike Bell is a leading international figure in the field of transport network analysis and operations and will contribute in these areas across the full range of the Centre's teaching and research activities. We are delighted to welcome Mike to the Centre and look forward to a long and fruitful association.
December 2001
John Polak was invited to take part in a high level seminar organised by the DTRL to explore the implications for demand modelling and project appraisal of recent research findings on the value of travel time savings.
RAE Result: Five-Star Rated Research
In the results of the latest Research Assessment Exercise (RAE) published
on 14 December, the Department of the Civil and Environmental Engineering
was awarded the top (5-star) rating for the quality of its research. This
is the third time in succession that the Department has achieved this
distinction. As one of the most active research groups in the Department,
CTS is delighted to have been able to contribute to this success and to
benefit from the recognition it brings. As a whole, Imperial College is
now ranked as the best University in the UK, with the exception of
Cambridge, in which to undertake research. Imperial College achieved an
RAE rating of 6.68 (out of a possible maximum of 7.0), which was only
0.01 of a point behind Cambridge and 0.1 of a point ahead of the third
placed university, Oxford. Further information can be obtained from the
RAE website at www.rae.ac.uk
November 2001
The Centre for Transport Stuidies is part of a consortium headed by Marcial Echenique & Partners that has been commission by the Department of Transport, Local Government and the Regions to undertake a thorough review of freight transport modelling techniques for use in Great Britain. The review will cover road freight and other modes and well as light goods vehicles. The Imperial College work will be led by John Polak.
The Centre for Transport Studies working in association with WS Atkins has been appointed by the Strategic Rail Authoritiy to its Freight Panel. The Freight Panel will provide advice to the SRA over the next 3-5 years on a wide range of research issues including rail freight demand modelling and economics, studies of the different freight markets, design and evaluation of intermodal facilities and various aspects of the rail freight supply industries. The Imperial College work will be led by John Polak and will involve contributions from Dan Graham, Will Adeney and Richard Anderson.
Dr. Lin Zhao has joined the Centre to work on various navigation related projects. Initially he will contribute to the development of algorithms for the navigation function of the Vehicle Performance and Emissions Monitoring System (VPEMS). He holds BSc and MSc degrees in Automatic control theory and application from the Harbin Engineering University (HEU), and a PhD degree in Flight Vehicle Control, Guidance and Simulation from the Harbin Institute of Technology (HIT) in China. Dr. Zhao has carried out research on intelligent navigation systems and data fusion techniques, integrated navigation systems and transport telematics.
On the 27 November, the Centre for Transport Studies hosted the second meeting of the Employers' Forum of the National Masters Training Package in Transport. The Employers' Forum brings together representatives of leading Consultants, Local Authorities, Central Government Departments and Transport Operators who employ graduates in Transport Studies. The meeting attracted over 40 senior-level participants, who heard presentations from a number of the NMTP Universities on current developments in MSc teaching. The NMTP consortium is coordinated by Imperial College London and comprises additionally, University College London, Leeds University, Napier University, University of Newcastle, University of Southampton and the University of Westminster.
The Centre for Transport Studies as been awarded a grant from the Department of Trade and Industry to explore the potential application of VPEMS to transport and environmental management in India. The work will involve collaboration between CTS and the Tata Energy Research Institute (TERI) in New Delhi. The project will be led by John Polak, with contributions from Washington Ochieng and Bob Noland.
John Polak has been awarded a new project entitled “Optimising the Use of Partial Information on Urban and Regional Systems”, under the European Commission’s 5th Framework programme. The aim of this 3 year project is to develop, apply and test a generic statistical methodology for the combination of transport, environmental and health related behavioural data. The tests will be carried out in London and Zurich. The project is coordinated by CTS and involves collaboration with a number of institutions and authorities throughout Europe.
October 2001
Washington Ochieng has been awarded a contract by the UK Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) Safety Regulation Group (SRG) to study the strengths and weaknesses of the global positioning system (GPS) of satellites as a navigation tool for civil aircraft. The study will quantify the level of integrity (safety) afforded by GPS both at system and user levels, relate this to civil aircraft navigation requirements and finally, propose techniques for improving the performance of GPS to meet the requirements.
The Centre for Transport Studies working in association with AEA Technology have been appointed by the Department of Transport, Local Government and the Regions to undertake an evaluation of the Department's traffic modelling and appraisal research projects. The work will involve the review both of individual projects and of the Department's research programme as a whole.
September 2001
John Polak and Heike Link were awarded the Admiral de Ruyter Prize at the 2001 European Transport Conference for their paper entitled "How acceptable are transport pricing measures? Empirical studies in nine European countries". This prize is awarded each year to the paper presented at the confernence judged to contribute most towards the promotion of cooperation in European transportation planning practice.
Mr. Steve Robinson has joined the Centre for Transport Studies to undertake PhD research, supported by the EPSRC, into the measurement and analysis of network performance and reliability, under the supervision of John Polak. This work will be based on using real time traffic data from the London SCOOT system and will form part of the ongoing collaboration between the Centre for Transport Studies and the Department of Computing in the analysis of large scale transport datasets. Stephen is a graduate of the University of Warwick and has practical IT experience in the financial sector, having worked for DBS bank in Singapore for 2 years.
August 2001
Mr. Mohammed Quddus has joined the Centre for Transport Studies on an EPSRC funded project to examine the impact of road infrastructure and improvements in medical technology on traffic fatalities. This work will seek to examine statistical relationships to understand the effect of both factors on traffic fatalities in the UK. Mr. Quddus has an MSc in Engineering from the National University of Singapore.
Transport for London (TfL) has launched the London Transport Skill Initiative. This initaitive, which has been developed by TfL jointly with the Centre for Transport Studies and the Transport Studies Group (TSG) at the University of Westminster, is aimed at improving the transport planning skills base in London by supporting the training of TfL and London Borough staff to Masters level. It will involve both the development of dedicated training activities and the participation of TfL and Borough staff on the existing Master courses offered by CTS and TSG. The first cohort of entrants will embark on their studies in October. Further information about the Masters course is available at www.ulcts.cv.ic.ac.uk
July 2001
John Polak gave an invited presentation at a seminar organised by the Integrated Transport Economics and Appraisal Division of the UK Department of Transport and Local Government on the subject of the modelling and appraisal of travel time variability. The presentation described past CTS work in this area, provided an overview some major remaining research issues and outlined a number of new projects underway within CTS.
Dr. Victoria Williams has joined the Centre for Transport Studies working on an EPSRC FIT Feasibility study to integrate an airspace simulation model with aircraft emissions databases. This work will evaluate the climate change impact of contrail formation and various emissions to determine various policies for reducing this impact from the aviation sector. Dr. Williams has a PhD from the Dept. of Physics at Imperial College. This project is jointly supervised by Dr. Robert Noland from CTS and Dr. Ralf Toumi from the Dept. of Physics.
The Centre for Transport Studies is a new UK subscriber to the International Road Traffic and Accident Database. This database allows analyses of international trends in traffic accidents and other road traffic variables. This provides a valuable resource for research assistants and students at the Centre.
June 2001
John Polak and Robert Noland were invited to participate in an international workshop in Paris organised by the Shell Foundation, on the topic of Sustainable Transport. The workshop drew together key experts in transport, energy and sustainability from around the world. It was the latest in a series of workshops organsied by the Shell Foundation considering various aspects of sustainability.
Dan Graham and Stephen Glaister have been commission by the UK Department of Transport, Local Government and Regions to undertake a review and further development of models of the response of the transport sector to fuel price changes.
New research assistants Dr Kimberly Schumacher and Dr Dongping Song have joined the Centre, working with John Polak and colleagues in the Department of Computing and the Department of Earth Science and Engineering on the modelling of the UK Container market.
May 2001
Robin Hirsch, working in collaboration with Chris Wills from the School of Information Systems at Kingston University, has completed a report on 'Best Practive in Managing Software Development and Procurement' for the Electrical Installations and Safety Systems subcommittee of the UITP (International Union of Public Transport). The work reviewed the use and the perceived utility of management and procurement methods/methodologies in metros, compared with a selection of other sectors. It measured success in the use of IT/software and compared success rates with the methods used and with organisational structures and management roles. Further research will investigate the reasons why some metros find success in using particular methods and tools, and others using the same methods and tools do not.
A consortium consisting of Imperial College and European industry has been awarded a contract by the European Space Agency (ESA) under the Long Term Development of Earth Observation Market initiative. The project will develop further and validate the technique of Permanent Scatterer Interforemetry Synthetic Aperture Radar (PSInSAR) for the purpose of deriving high precision maps of ground displacements over time. Imperial College teams will be led by Drs Washington Ochieng and Julian Bommer, who will both contribute to the validation, analysis and interpretation aspects of the project.
April 2001
John Polak and Bob Noland have been commissioned by Transport for London to advise on the collection and analysis of data on pedestrian and cycle behaviour in London. The work will form part of the development of TfL's strategy for the monitoring of transport policies in London. The work will be undertaken in collaboration with RAND Europe and Accent.
March 2001
On the 26 March, the Centre for Transport Studies hosted the first meeting of the Employers' Forum of the National Masters Training Package in Transport. The Employers' Forum brings together representatives of leading Consultants, Local Authorities, Central Government Departments and Transport Operators who employ graduates in Transport Studies. The meeting attracted over 40 senior-level participants, who discussed ways of addressing the skills shortage in transport.
The National Masters Training Package in Transport is a consortium of leading British Universities, funded by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council to deliver Masters level training in transport engineering and planning. The award, totalling £1.7m over 4 years, is being used to support students' participation in Masters level training and to develop new course content and methods of teaching.
The NMTP consortium is coordinated by Imperial College London and comprises additionally, University College London, Leeds University, Napier University, University of Newcastle, University of Southampton and the University of Westminster.
Dan Graham, Richard Anderson and Stephen Glaister have completed research for the Corporation of London which provides an up-to-date Benefit-Cost assessment of the proposed CrossRail scheme; an east west rail link under Central London from Paddington to Liverpool Street. The research finds that the economic case for CrossRail is now stronger than ever. The report is available from here.
February 2001
Dr. Robert Noland has received an EPSRC grant through the Future Integrated Transport Feasibility Study scheme to develop a Model of Aviation Air Space, Emissions and the Impact on Climate Change. This research will utilize the RAMS air space simulation model to evaluate various air travel growth scenarios for the impact on total emissions, defined in three dimensional space and across time, for air space above Europe. Dr. Ralf Toumi of Imperial College's Dept. of Physics is a co-investigator on this project and will use the emissions output to examine the climate forcing impacts of the aviation sector.
John Polak has received an award under the Research Council's Joint Research Equipment Initiative (JREI) to provide computing infrastructure for the storage and analysis of very large scale (multiple Tb) datasets. The award, which is held jointly with colleagues in the Department of Computing and the Imperial College Medical School, will enable CTS to undertake new analyses of a range of very large spatio-temporal datasets arising in a number of areas of its activity, including data from instrumented vehicle fleets, the simulation traces of highly detailed microsimulation models of traffic systems and large-scale Monte Carlo simulation work.
John Polak has been invited to join the Editorial Board of the International Journal of Transport Management, published by Elsevier Science. The first issue of the journal is expected to appear in 2002.
January 2001
Dr. Washington Ochieng has been elected to the Editorial Board of the prestigious "GPS Solutions Journal". This is an international journal that contains original papers contributing to the subject of Space Geodesy, with particular emphasis on the Global Positioning System (GPS) and its applications.
The Council of the Royal Institute of Navigation at its meeting on 20 May 2001 elected Washington Ochieng to Fellowship of the Institute. In a letter from the Council to Washington, the Director of the Institute Group Captain David Broughton said that this prestigious accolade was in recognition of Washington's valuable contribution to the development and application of the civilian uses of Global Navigation Satellite Systems (GNSS), in particular his work on Space Based Augmentation and Transport Telematics Systems. The letter adds that Washington can now use the letters FRIN and if appropriate, wear the Fellows' tie.
December 2000
The Centre for Transport Studies has been awarded a contract from the DETR to develop new methods to integrate concepts of social exclusion into existing transport modelling and appraisal techniques. The research will entail a review of relevant UK and US practice leading to the development and demonstration of new methods to model and appraise the impact of transport policies on social exclusion. The project will be led by John Polak, with contributions from Bob Noland and Stephen Glaister and will also involve collaboration with Mott MacDonald, the Institute for Transport Studies University of Leeds and Dr Brian Morton.
John Polak and Bob Noland have been invited by the DETR to join the Advisory Group overseeing the research programme being undertaken by the DETR and the Highways Agency into the effects of variability in travel times. Polak and Noland are already contributing to this research programme through ongoing work being undertaken jointly with Mott MacDonald and the University of Leeds into the modelling of incidents and the introduction of variability concepts into traffic assignment models and through complementary work supported by the EPSRC.
John Polak has been invited by the DETR and the Office of National Statistics to join the Steering Group responsible for overseeing a Quality Assurance Review of Road Freight Surveys. This is one a series of reviews of major national statistical resources currently being carried out by the Office of National Statistics, in conjunction with relevant Departments. The Review will aim to identify the needs of users of road freight statistics and to determine to what degree these needs are adequately met by the current program of freight surveys and to make recommendations, as appropriate.
Washington Ochieng has been elected to the committee of the Satellite Navigation Group (SNG) of the Royal Institute of Navigation. The SNG aims to promote an overall awareness of satellite navigation systems and their uses and limitations. The group participates in the United State's Civil GPS Service Interface Committee (CGSIC) and its International Information Sub-Committee (IISC). Through this, the SNG is able to reflect the views of UK civil GPS users to the US government. Another major activity of the SNG is to facilitate the dissemination of information on satellite navigation primarily by means of one-day focused meetings and seminars.
November 2000
Dr. Robert Noland has been awarded an EPSRC fast-stream research grant to investigate the influence of transport infrastructure and medical technology on traffic fatalities. This research will investigate how various road infrastructure improvements, normally associated with improving the safety of the road network actually effect system-wide fatalities. This will be done while controlling for other factors, such as changes in demographic mix, vehicle design, and improved medical technology. The latter is hypothesized to have had a major impact on reducing total fatalities. An analysis of these factors on pedestrian fatalities and injuries will also be conducted as well as the impact on fatalities and injuries to children.
Dr. Robert Noland has received a travel grant from the Royal Society to present four papers at the 80th Annual Meeting of the Transportation Research Board in Washington, DC.
Dr Shoichiro Nakayama from the Department of Civil Engineering Systems at Kyoto University has jointed the Centre as an Honorary Research Fellow, to undertake research with John Polak into the development of models of network dynamics, focusing in particular on the characterisation and modelling of travellers' learning. Dr Nakayama will be based in CTS until May 2002.
October 2000
The Centre for Transport Studies has been commissioned by the Freight Transport Association to investigate the impact on the freight industry of the current proposals for road pricing in London. The work will involve a review of the existing model-based assessments and the development of a new framework to assess the economic impacts on the freight industry of savings in travel time. The work will be led by Dan Graham, with contributions from John Polak and Bob Noland.
The Transport Operations Research Group of the University of Newcastle and the Centre for Transport Studies at Imperial College London has been commissioned by Transport for London and the Commission for Integrated Transport to study the behavioural adaptation stemming from restrictions in car availability, in the wake of the fuel crisis of September. The research will employ focus groups and a telephone survey to explore the mechanisms, the barriers, the consequences, and the sustainability of the adaptations made to activities and travel behaviour in response to restrictions in car availability. The results of this research are intended to inform future policy toward multi-modal transport. The work at Imperial College will be led by John Polak with contributions also from Bob Noland.
September 2000
John Polak has been re-elected to serve a second 3 year term as a member of the Council of the Association for European Transport.
At the end of September, David Abraham retired as Lecturer in Highway Enginerring after over 9 years service at Imperial College. During his time at Imperial, David played a key role in both the Undergraduate and Postgraduate teaching programmes of the Department and was for many years the Organiser of the Intercollegiate MSc course in Transport. We wish David a long and happy retirement.
Bob Noland has been awarded a contract with DETR to review and assess methods for modelling High-Occupancy Vehicle lanes. This work will focus on reviewing current practice in the US and will go on to suggest techniques that may be applicable to the UK.
July 2000
A Foresight Vehicle LINK project has been awarded to a consortium including Imperial College, Sira Technologies Ltd and Saturn Technologies Ltd, to develop a real time vehicle performance monitoring system (VPEMS). The VPEMS will be fitted within vehicles to monitor driver/vehicle performance and the level of emissions internal and external to the vehicle. Potential applications of VPEMS include; monitoring of environmental compliance, identification of polluters and effective management and maintenance of vehicles, provision of real-time pollution maps, promotion of the development of in-cabin anti-pollution measures, real-time route guidance and fleet management incorporating vehicle emission data.
The principal investigator at Imperial College is Dr Washington Ochieng supported by co-investigators John Polak, Dr Bob Noland and Professor David Briggs of the Imperial College School of Medicine.
For more information, please visit the VPEMS website.
John Polak has been elected a member of the EPSRC Peer Review College for the period 2000-2002.
In a second new LINK project, awarded under the DETR/EPRSC Future Integrated Transport programme, John Polak, Bob Noland and Xiaoliang Han will be developing new methods of characterising and predicting the reliability of multi-modal transport networks. This project involves collaboration with industrial partnres including AEA Technolgies, Railtrack, the Train Operating Companies and Trafficmaster and with the University of Westminster and Dr John Bates. The work will extend earlier work undertaken separately on the reliability of road and rail systems.
John Polak has been awarded a new Foresight LINK project entitled "Modelling Decision Making Processes in UK Container Transport". The project is jointly funded by DTI, EPSRC and a consortium of eight leading companies involved in the container business and involves collaboration between the Centre for Transport Studies, the Department of Computing, the Huxley School of the Environment and Napier University. The work will apply agent-based microsimulation technologies (of the sort previously applied by Polak to modelling passenger transport systems) to develop a model of assess stragetic infrastructure investment decisions in the UK container industry. Dr. Sheila Farrell, Honorary Research Fellow in the Centre, will be amongst those contributing to the work.
Washington Ochieng was, on 27 July 2000, elected Fellow of the Institute of Civil Engineering Surveyors. This is in recognition of his contribution to the design and application of space based navigation and positioning systems to civil engineering.
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