12 DEC 2013 (THU) | 19:00 - 20:00

THE IMPLICATIONS OF TRAVEL-BASED MULTITASKING FOR MODELING & POLICY: A CONCEPTUAL EXPLORATION AND SOME SURVEY FINDINGS

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SPEAKER:

PROFESSOR PATRICIA MOKHTARIAN

Professor, Georgia Institute of Technology, USA

DATE:

12 DECEMBER 2013 (THURSDAY)

TIME:

19:00 - 20:00

VENUE:

WANG GUNGWU THEATRE, GRADUATE HOUSE, THE UNIVERSITY OF HONG KONG

ORGANIZED BY:

Institute of Transport Studies, The University of Hong Kong

ABSTRACT:

Whether embraced or tolerated, multitasking is a hallmark of modern life. This talk introduces a conceptual framework for the systematic analysis of nearly any type of multitasking behavior, and the corresponding degree of preference for doing multiple activities simultaneously ("polychronicity"). Professor Mokhtarian will show how four archetypes of mono/multitasking behavior emerge from consideration of the two dimensions "share of time" and "share of resources" allocated to each task, and will discuss other elements of a typology of multitasking behavior. Turning to activities conducted while traveling (or, "travel-based multitasking") as one region within the entire "multitasking landscape", she will present the motivation for increasing our understanding of such behavior. Professor Mokhtarian will also introduce the survey data collected by her research team to study these issues, and present some key descriptive results from the survey.

ABOUT THE SPEAKER:

Professor Patricia Mokhtarian is a Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology. Prior to August 2013, she held the same title at the University of California, Davis, as well as being Associate Director of the Institute of Transportation Studies and founding Chair of the interdisciplinary MS/PhD program in Transportation Technology and Policy there. She joined UC Davis in 1990, after nine years in regional planning and consulting in Southern California. Prof. Mokhtarian has specialized in the study of travel behavior for more than 30 years. Key research interests include the impacts of land use on travel behavior (particularly including residential location and residential self-selection issues), the impact of telecommunications technology on travel behavior, commuters' responses to congestion and to system disruptions, attitudes toward mobility, and travel multitasking. She has authored or co-authored more than 200 refereed journal articles, technical reports, and other publications; her Google Scholar profile can be viewed at http://scholar.google.com/citations?user=84jTPKEAAAAJ.She is a North American editor of the journal Transportation, and serves on the editorial boards of five other journals.

17 OCT 2013 (THU) | 19:00 - 20:00

PORT PERFORMANCE EVALUATION: A PORT SERVICE CHAIN PERSPECTIVE

SPEAKER:

PROFESSOR WAYNE K. TALLEY

Frederick W. Beazley Chair Professor of Economics, Old Dominion University, USA

DATE:

17 OCTOBER 2013 (THURSDAY)

TIME:

19:00 - 20:00

VENUE:

WANG GUNGWU THEATRE, GRADUATE HOUSE, THE UNIVERSITY OF HONG KONG

ORGANIZED BY:

Institute of Transport Studies, The University of Hong Kong

ABSTRACT:

The performance of a port has been evaluated heretofore in the literature from the perspective of a single port service provider (i.e., the port operator). Specifically, the values of the port's operating options (i.e., the means by which the port operator can vary the quality of its service) are compared to the values of the port operator's operating options (or operating-option benchmark values) for which a port operator's operating objective is optimized, e.g., the maximization of profit. If the values of the port operator's operating options are approaching their benchmark values over time, the port is approaching over time the optimization of the operating objective. Examples of a port operator's operating options include - loading/unloading service rates for containerships (containers loaded/unloaded to/from a containership per unit of time) and accident damage/theft loss to container cargo in port.

The lecture will present a model for evaluating the performance of a port from a port service chain perspective i.e., from the perspective of a port's service providers as opposed to that only of the port operator. A port service chain is defined as a spatial and communication network over which a port's service providers provide services to the port's users (i.e., carriers and shippers). One difficulty in evaluating the performance of a port from a port service chain perspective is that the operating options of the port's service providers are expected to be linked or interrelated, i.e., an operating option of one port service provider may be a function of the operating option of another port service provider. The performance of a port over time from a port service chain perspective is evaluated by comparing the values of the operating options of the port's service providers over time to those operating-option benchmark values for a common operating objective. The benchmark values are those operating-option values of the port service providers for which a common operating objective is jointly optimized, e.g., the joint maximization of profits for the service providers of the port service chain.

In addition to the port operator, other providers of port services include, for example: 1) harbor pilots providing services for ships (of shipping lines) while in port, 2) towage companies providing services for ships (of shipping lines) while in port, 3) third-party brokers providing services for cargo (of shippers) while in the port (e.g., freight forwarders, 3PLs and customs brokers) and 4) third-party brokers providing services for ships (of shipping lines) while in port (e.g., ship agents).

ABOUT THE SPEAKER:

Professor Wayne K. Talley is the Frederick W. Beazley Chair Professor of Economics, Eminent Scholar and Executive Director of the Maritime Institute at Old Dominion University, Norfolk, Virginia. He is an Honorary Chair Professor at the Institute of Traffic and Transportation, National Chiao Tung University, Taipei, Taiwan; Honorary Visiting Professor at the Centre for Shipping, Trade and Finance, City University, London, United Kingdom; and Honorary Guest Professor at Shanghai Maritime University, Shanghai, China. He is Honorary Editor-in-Chief of Transportation Research Part E: Logistics and Transportation Review; Editorial Board Member of the Asian Journal of Shipping and Logistics; and Associate Editor of the Journal of Business Logistics.

28 MAR 2013 (THU) | 19:00 - 20:00

USING ADVANCED DISCRETE CHOICE MODELLING TECHNIQUES TO VALUE TRANSPORT RELATED EXTERNALITIES

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SPEAKER:

PROFESSOR JUAN DE DIOS ORTÚZAR

Professor, Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile, Chile

DATE:

28 MARCH 2013 (THURSDAY)

TIME:

19:00 - 20:00

VENUE:

WANG GUNGWU THEATRE, GRADUATE HOUSE, THE UNIVERSITY OF HONG KONG

ORGANIZED BY:

Institute of Transport Studies, The University of Hong Kong

ABSTRACT:

This lecture will present a series of case studies related with the valuation of transport related externalities. We will discuss issues associated with the experimental design, data collection and model estimation in several cases, ranging from the statistical value of life, valuing reductions in noise and atmospheric pollution (in a residential location context), willingness-to-pay (WTP) for reducing the fear of walking though potentially dangerous streets, and WTP for mitigating/avoiding community separation. Issues discussed range from defining the best "payment mechanism" to use of images in stated choice experiments, to modelling issues such as the most appropriate form to compute WTP in the presence of highly flexible discrete choice models in the state of practice.

ABOUT THE SPEAKER:

Professor Juan de Dios Ortúzar (Civil Eng., M.Sc., Ph.D.) works at the Department of Transport Engineering and Logistics, Pontificia Universidad Catolica de Chile (PUC). He has pioneered the development of discrete choice modelling techniques and, more recently, their application to determine willingness-to-pay for reducing externalities (accidents, noise and atmospheric pollution). In 2010 he received the first PUC Engineering Prize for his outstanding academic trajectory, and also the prestigious Humboldt Research Award in Germany. He has published over 100 papers in archival journals, co-authored Modelling Transport (Wiley, 2011) a book with over 14,000 copies sold in its four editions, and also co-authored Micro-GUTS, a simulation game to train transport planners, used by more than 50 academic institutions worldwide. He is Co-Chairman of the International Association for Travel Behaviour Research (IATBR) and Co-Editor in Chief of Transportation Research A; he also serves in the Editorial Board of several other important journals in the field. Finally, he has managed large urban transport projects in Latin America and Europe, in particular, the design and implementation work for the largest metropolitan O-D surveys in Chile (Santiago 1991, 33,000 households; Santiago 2001-2007, 30,000 households) and, more recently, the Bogota 2011 O-D survey involving over 15,000 households.