08 AUG 2023 (TUE) | 11:00-12:00

On-Demand Shared Mobility Management for Smart Cities

SPEAKER:

Prof. Xiqun CHEN

Department of Civil Engineering,

Zhejiang University, China

DATE:

August 8, 2023 (Tuesday)

TIME:

11:00 a.m. – 12:00 p.m.

VENUE:

Room 612B, 6/F Haking Wong Building, The University of Hong Kong

Abstract

On-demand ride-sourcing services (e.g., Uber, DiDi) receive praises from consumers and investors. This presentation focuses on the ride-sourcing system optimization modeling and behavioral analysis for smart cities. Under governmental regulation of ride-sourcing platforms, pricing and subsidies on passengers and drivers have become an effective incentive to coordinate supply and demand. A multi-stage game-theoretic model is formulated to reveal the coupling game among heterogeneous passengers, heterogeneous drivers, and the ride-sourcing platform in the on-demand ride services market regulated by the government. Ride-sourcing platforms offer incentive subsidies and set pricing strategies to ensure stable supply capacity for on-demand ride services. Understanding the causal effects is a prerequisite for deploying related activities, as well as the heterogeneous and stochastic responses to subsidy and pricing. Data-driven agent-based modeling and simulation for large-scale transportation networks are implemented to investigate how regulatory policies impact the ride-sourcing market, which goes beyond existing approaches by employing data-driven multi-objective deep learning to train ride-sourcing drivers' offline/online behavior. Those research initiatives of the presenter’s research team have the potential to help decision-makers and ride-sourcing platforms to optimize regulatory policies and operations management strategies in the era of shared mobility.

About the Speaker

Dr. Xiqun (Michael) Chen is Tenured Professor of Zhejiang University, Director of Institute of Intelligent Transportation Systems, Vice Dean of Zhejiang University-UIUC Institute, and Deputy Director of Zhejiang Provincial Engineering Research Center for Intelligent Transportation. Prof. Chen’s research interests include shared mobility on demand, simulation-based optimization, transportation big data analytics, and intelligent transportation systems. He received the National Excellent Young Scholars Award of National Natural Science Foundation of China and Distinguished Young Scholars Award of Zhejiang Provincial Natural Science Foundation, and was an awardee of Young Elite Scientists Sponsorship Program by China Association for Science and Technology. Currently, he serves as the Chairman of Transportation Management and Control of World Transport Convention, Transportation Consultant for World Bank, Board Member of ASCE Greater China Section, Board Member of Society of Management Science and Engineering of China, Associate Editor of IEEE Transactions on Intelligent Vehicles, Editorial Advisory Board Member of Transportation Research Part C: Emerging Technologies, and Senior Associate Editor of Digital Transportation and Safety. Prof. Chen has published 1 book, 3 book chapters, over 110 peer-review international journal papers on Nature Sustainability, Cell Press journal Patterns, Cell Press partner journal The Innovation, Management Science, Manufacturing & Service Operations Management, Transportation Science, Transportation Research Part B, etc. In 2022, he was ranked in the list of World’s Top 2% Scientists by Stanford University. He received the Science and Technology Innovation Youth Award of China Communications and Transportation Association, Science and Technology Award of China Intelligent Transportation Systems Association, Best Ph.D. Dissertation Award of IEEE Intelligent Transportation Systems Society, and Best Paper Awards at seven international conferences.

Hosts:

DEPARTMENT OF CIVIL ENGINEERING

JOINTLY ORGANIZED WITH

HONG KONG SOCIETY FOR TRANSPORTATION STUDIES

And INSTITUTE OF TRANSPORT STUDIES, HKU

28 JUL 2023 (FRI) | 17:00-18:00

New Evolutionary Algorithms to Solve the Competitive Maximal Covering Location Problem

SPEAKER:

Prof. Abdullah Konak

Distinguished Professor of Information Sciences and Technology The Pennsylvania State University, Berks, USA

Date: July 28, 2023 (Friday)

Time: 5:00 pm – 6:00 pm

Venue: Room 612B, 6/F Haking Wong Building, The University of Hong Kong

Abstract:

This presentation introduces two evolutionary algorithms called the Game-Theoretic Genetic Algorithm (GTGA) and Regret-Based Nash Equilibrium Sorting Genetic Algorithm (RNESGA) for analyzing combinatorial optimization game theory problems where it is computationally infeasible to enumerate all decision options of the players involved in the game. Although evolutionary algorithms are widely used to solve combinatorial optimization programs, their applications to game theory have been limited to specific types of games. The GTGA and RNESGA can solve different types of game theory problems using multiple populations and alternating fitness evaluation methods. We will demonstrate how these algorithms can be applied to solve various versions of the Competitive Maximal Covering Location Problem as well as other game theory problems such as Cournot's Model, Pricing Games, Numerical game, Hotelling Game, etc. Computational experiments demonstrate their performance in terms of converging equilibria in Nash and Stackelberg games.

About the Speaker:

Dr. Abdullah Konak is a Distinguished Professor of Information Sciences and Technology at the Pennsylvania State University, Berks. Dr. Konak also teaches graduate courses in the Master of Science in Cybersecurity Analytics and Operations program at the College of Information Sciences and Technology, Penn State World Campus. Dr. Konak’s primary research focuses on modeling, analyzing, and optimizing complex systems using computational intelligence combined with probability, statistics, data sciences, and operations research. His research also involves active learning, entrepreneurship education, and the innovation mindset. Dr. Konak published numerous academic papers on a broad range of topics, including network design, system reliability, sustainability, cybersecurity, facilities design, green logistics, production management, and predictive analytics. Dr. Konak held visiting positions at Lehigh University and Cornell University, as well as at the Chinese University of Hong Kong, where he taught engineering innovation for over a decade. He has been a principal investigator in sponsored projects from the National Science Foundation, the National Security Agency, the U.S. Department of Labor, and Venture Well. He is a member of INFORMS, IISE, and ASEE.

Hosts:

DEPARTMENT OF CIVIL ENGINEERING

JOINTLY ORGANIZED WITH

HONG KONG SOCIETY FOR TRANSPORTATION STUDIES

AND

INSTITUTE OF TRANSPORT STUDIES, HKU

Prof. Abdullah Konak

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03 JUL 2023 (MON) | 10:00-11:00

Planning of Substitute Bus Service for Metro Disruption Management

SPEAKER:

Dr. ZHANG Shuyang

Wuhan University of Technology, China

DATE & TIME:

July 3 (Monday) 10:00-11:00 HKT

VENUE:

Room 612B, 6/F Haking Wong Building, The University of Hong Kong

ABSTRACT:

Often serving as the backbone for public transport in metropolitan areas, any major disruption in the metro system will have a severe impact, affecting tens of thousands of passengers. Even for the most reliable metro systems, such as the Mass Transit Railway (MTR) in Hong Kong, on average there are hundreds of service disruptions every year, with some lasting for a few hours. It is, therefore, imperative to develop contingency plans for disruption management. This is particularly important for metro systems running on single tracks, without parallel lines, wherein any rail blockage would require Substitute Bus (SB) for bridging the disrupted railway sections. This study will address three important issues in the development of SB contingency plans for metro system disruption management. The first issue regards the initiation time for SB service. As the duration of a metro disruption varies and cannot be predicted perfectly ahead of time, the response timing is critical. Initiating SB service too early would confuse passengers and have cost implications; initiating too late, on the other hand, would exacerbate the problem as the unsatisfied demand accumulates. The second one pertains to the routings of SB service and the fleet sizes upon their initiation. The analysis should consider demand redistribution due to the disruption, which introduces uncertainty to the problem. Two types of SB services to cater for the affected demand are proposed: regular SB service and flexible SB service. The third concern regards the negotiation between the metro company and the bus company to put together of a fleet to serve as SB. The analysis will focus on developing cost-effective portfolios to supply the needed SB fleet. We will use Hong Kong and Shanghai case studies to demonstrate the modeling framework. This research will open up theoretically interesting and practically important topics to enhance the SB service for metro system disruption management.

ABOUT THE SPEAKER:

Dr. ZHANG Shuyang was born in Wuhan, Hubei, China in 1988. He received the B.S. and M.S. degrees in transportation engineering from Tongji University, Shanghai, China, in 2010 and 2013, respectively, and the Ph.D. degree in civil engineering from the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, Hong Kong, China, in 2018. From 2018 to 2019, he was a Post-doctoral Fellow in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering of the Hong Kong University of Science and Technology. Since 2020, he has been an Associate Professor with the School of Transportation and Logistics Engineering, Wuhan University of Technology. His research interests include public transit operations, bus bunching control, and substitute bus service design after metro disruptions. His research work has been published in various journals such as Transportation Research Part B, Transportation Research Part C, Transport Reviews, etc.

DEPARTMENT OF CIVIL ENGINEERING

JOINTLY ORGANIZED WITH

HONG KONG SOCIETY FOR TRANSPORTATION STUDIES

And

INSTITUTE OF TRANSPORT STUDIES, HKU