Category: Lab News

At the 2o24 TRB Annual Meeting, Dr. Xu presided a lectern session titled “Network Modeling in the Era of Shared Mobility” sponsored by AEP40 – Network Modeling Committee. The session spanned an informative 1 hour and 45 minutes and featured 10 captivating talks. The presented talks addressed the array of challenges and opportunities that emerge with new shared mobility services, using both traditional and emerging modes of transportation. It was a filled room with hundreds of engaged attendees from start to finish. The session is quite a success, offering valuable insights into the forefront of shared mobility research and practice.

Additionally, Dr. Xu and Dr. Xiaotong Sun from HKUST, Guangzhou, showcased their work through a poster presentation titled “Economic Analysis of On-Street Parking with Urban Delivery”. This research emphasizes the distinct effects that deliverers have on curb parking and evaluates the effectiveness of managerial measures commonly employed in this domain.

Dr. Xu was invited for a virtual talk at Lyft RideShare Seminar. In his talk, Dr. Xu shared their recent research on “Threshold-Based Incentives for Ride-Sourcing Drivers“.

Driver incentives have become a vital tool for ride-sourcing operators in tackling supply management challenges arising from a high degree of labor flexibility and scarcity. Threshold-based incentive programs, in particular, gain popularity for their effectiveness in encouraging drivers to extend their working hours. In such programs, drivers receive monetary rewards upon successfully completing specific supply tasks within predefined timeframes. In our research, we undertake a comprehensive analysis utilizing a vast ride-sourcing dataset to delve into the implications of threshold-based incentives on supply management and the welfare of drivers. This research has led to two publications in Transportation Research Part C: Emerging Technologies [URL1, URL2].

Bhagyashree has successsfully defended her master’s thesis, titled “Towards Equitable Electric Vehicle (EV) Adoption: A Structural Framework and Empirical Analysis” [URL]. In this thesis, she proposes to identify key EV equity indicators and their corresponding factors from various sources and develop an equity relationship framework to evaluate EV equity. Further, by matching the electric vehicle supply equipment (EVSE) data to the US census data, she runs numerical analyses to assess the availability and accessibility of EV charging facilities in different communities in space. Numerous managerial and policy recommendations related to EV infrastructure and programs in the field are reviewed for their feasibility, efficiency, effectiveness for the disadvantaged populations.

Bhagyashree joined our program at the George Washington University in Fall 2021 as a master’s student with a concentration in Transportation Engineering. Before joining GW, she had been a faculty member in Civil Engineering at the Kalinga Institute of Industrial Technology in India for seven years. She overcame all the challenges during the COVID-19 pandemic and transitioned overseas now as a student at GW. I believe her persistent attitude and zeal to explore will warrant her competitiveness in the future study, research, and career in the field of transportation. Wish her all the best on her future journey!

The SUM Lab received the FY24 University Facilitating Fund from the Office of the Vice Provost for Research at GW. The intramural fund will support initiating our research on the modeling and analysis of on-street parking systems with urban delivery. We look forward to the productivity and insights as a result of this award!

Linxuan is awarded the PhD Student Travel Grant supported by NSF to attend the INFORMS TSL Second Triennial Conference in Chicago on July 23 – 26, 2023. His paper, Dine in or Take out? Trends on Restaurant Service Demand amid the COVID-19 Pandemic, has been selected for oral presentation at the conference. Congratulations to Linxuan, and look forward to seeing many colleagues in Chicago!

Dr. Xu attended the NSF Workshop on Cyber-Enabled Carbon-Neutral Electricity and Mobility held at Texas A&M University. He gave a lightning talk and made a poster presentation for his collaborative research on An Empirical Analysis of Electric Vehicles’ Charging Patterns [URL].

A critical path towards carbon-neutrality relies on decarbonizing electric power generation and electrifying of a large portion of the transportation sector. This shift requires combined efforts from various disciplines as it will fundamentally change the way energy is utilized in the country. For the research community, there are unique characteristics associated with transportation and electric power sectors, respectively. The goal of this workshop is to establish the critical cyber infrastructure for research and education towards carbon-neutral electricity and mobility with the focus on the four major challenges.

 

Dr. Xu was invited to deliver a talk at CavHack held at Woodson High School. It was a wonderful opportunity to engage with a group of enthusiastic high school participants and share his views on the status quo of urban mobility. During the event, Dr. Xu discussed the various opportunities and challenges involved in advancing transportation system management to achieve goals such as efficiency, safety, equity, and sustainability.

CavHack is Woodson High School’s very own hackathon hosted by the Woodson Cybersecurity and Robotics 501(c)(3) non-profit organization. At CavHack, over 200 high school students from Fairfax County Public Schools in Northern VA come together to build mobile applications, websites, electronic devices, and more to address this year’s theme, Sustainability.

Dr. Xu hosted a group of high school seniors from the International School of the Americas in San Antonio, TX. The students are on a task to research, collaborate, and draft a paper on policies that will benefit our community. As a part of the project, they are visiting Washington, D.C. to conduct field research through local organizations, meet with congress persons, and speak with an NGO.

On the trip to GW, the group of students attended a lecture provided by Dr. Xu on transportation engineering and the current advances being made in the field of transportation. After the lecture, the team had a tour of GW transportation laboratories learning about the research done at GWTP.

Linxuan’s paper, titled “Dine in or take out? Trends on restaurant service demand amid the COVID-19 pandemic” [URL], is accepted for presentation at the TSL Conference 2023, that will be held in Chicago the upcoming July 2023. Well done, Linxuan!

The Transportation Science and Logistics Society Conference has been created to provide an opportunity for all members to gather on a triennial basis to present and to discuss the state-of-the-art in transportation science and logistics.