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The Travel Behavior and System Modeling Lab studies human and freight mobility in cities and urban environment, with a focus on the fundamental mechanism of interactions between people, economic activities and the physical and social forms of urban systems. Cities provide places for people to live, work, social and interact with the urban environment, while transportation infrastructure connects these places and serves as the bloodlines to support the economic, social, cultural and other functions of cities. We design our roads and cities, in turn they define how we live and travel.

 

Encompasses areas in behavioral econometrics, large scale computational models, data analytics, Geographic Information Systems (GIS), and statistics and survey methods, our research aims to advance the understanding of 1) human and freight mobility choices as influenced by the urban systems, and constrained by individual’s socio-economic and demographic status, 2) the role of users’ adaptive cognitive process in view of smart technologies and emerging mobility options, and 3) the consequent effects on the urban systems, and the economic, social and environmental outcomes. 

 

Sharing economy, on-demand user centric services, autonomous and connected vehicles may forever change the way we live and travel. At the same time, major demographic and societal trends across America are transforming future urban mobility. In this era of change as well as great uncertainty over the future, deep understanding of travel behavior that addresses the fundamental needs for physical mobility and spatial proximity is more essential for planning and policy making than ever before. Our research advances the understanding of mobility needs and user behavior in the urban environment, and contributes to advanced modeling framework for multi-modal system analysis in light of smart city technologies and emerging mobility options.