Category: News

Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering

How did you become interested in transportation? And what interests you most right now?

I became interested in transportation while studying Applied Mathematics at UC Davis, seeing it as a way to apply mathematical models to real-world problems. Currently, I’m most interested in developing innovative approaches to collect and analyze large-scale traffic data while prioritizing privacy.

What drew you to UCI/ITS-Irvine? What do you like best/find as strengths at UCI/ITS-Irvine?

I was drawn to UCI for its world-class transportation program and the Institute of Transportation Studies’ comprehensive approach. What I appreciate most is the academic freedom at UCI. This allows me to explore diverse research interests, from technical aspects to economic and social dimensions of transportation.

If you could give incoming students one piece of career advice, what would it be? 

Approach your field with a holistic perspective. In transportation, consider multiple angles – technical aspects, economic impacts, and social implications. Understanding how these interconnect can lead to more innovative solutions and a fulfilling career.

What are your research interests?

My research interests focus on developing innovative methods for collecting and analyzing large-scale traffic data while maintaining privacy, creating mathematical models for safe and human-like automated driving, and investigating the intersections of engineering, economics, and social aspects of transportation.

What do you consider your most significant research finding or accomplishment thus far? 

My most significant research accomplishment is developing the Generalized Bathtub Model, inspired by William Vickrey’s work. This model offers a novel approach to analyzing large-scale traffic patterns by focusing on macro-level inflow and outflow of traffic.

What are your other plans for future research?

My future research plans aim to contribute to a comprehensive understanding of transportation systems, leading to technically sound, economically viable, and socially beneficial solutions.

What issues in transportation keep you up at night?

Three critical issues in transportation keep me up at night:

• Privacy: Balancing the benefits of data-driven transportation improvements with the need to protect individual privacy.
• Equity: Ensuring that new transportation technologies (like high occupancy toll lanes) don’t exacerbate existing inequalities.
• Safety: Addressing new safety challenges introduced by automated vehicles and shared mobility options.

Is there someone or something that has inspired you?

A significant inspiration for my work has been the late Professor William Vickrey from Columbia University. His first principles-based approach to understanding urban traffic flow, particularly his work on traffic patterns in Midtown Manhattan, aligns closely with my research philosophy of seeking novel approaches to longstanding challenges in transportation.

What are you watching right now?

I enjoy a diverse range of content on YouTube. This variety often leads to unexpected connections and ideas that enrich my approach to transportation research, reflecting the complex, multifaceted nature of modern transportation challenges.

What are you reading right now?

I’m currently reading ‘Development as Freedom’ by Amartya Sen. Sen’s approach to development economics, emphasizing the importance of individual freedoms and capabilities, offers interesting parallels to transportation planning and policy. His ideas about how various factors interconnect to affect human welfare resonate with my view of transportation as a complex system influencing many aspects of life.

What is a fun fact about you?

I train both hands for badminton, allowing me to adapt my game to different opponents. I use my advanced right hand against skilled players and my beginner left hand against less experienced ones.

What is something about you that most people don’t know?

Most people don’t know that I’m practicing Tai Chi while simultaneously developing a mathematical model for it. This endeavor exemplifies my belief in holistic approaches, which I apply to both personal life and transportation research. It challenges me to think across disciplines, combining physics, biomechanics, and traditional Chinese philosophy with advanced mathematics.

What is your superpower?

My superpower is creating mathematical models that capture the essence of diverse, complex systems. This modeling superpower has led to significant contributions like the Generalized Bathtub Model for urban traffic flow. It allows me to bridge abstract mathematics and real-world applications, contributing to innovative solutions across various domains, from transportation to personal wellness practices like Tai Chi.

Professor (Joint Appointment) Electrical Engineering and Computer Science; Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering
Samueli School of Engineering

How did you become interested in transportation? What interests you most right now?  

I am a computer engineer by training. Since 2009, I have been concentrating on cyber physical systems. In cyber physical systems, more software and embedded computers are becoming integrated into the transportation system or becoming “smart”. With that, the intersections and control systems are becoming more software centric. 

I became more interested in transportation as an application. Specifically, I was  fascinated with the integration of technology – new vulnerabilities, policies and opportunities; the transportation challenges, how technology is helping, how technology can create challenges. Right now, I am working on the security aspects of transportation.

What are ITS-Irvine’s strengths? 

I came to UCI in 2012. Although I am from the electrical engineering department, I found it’s an inter-disciplinary research area. We have ideas that are similar, maybe we speak different languages, but eventually the problems we are trying to solve are solved together.

ITS-Irvine’s strength is its multidisciplinary nature. The people in ITS have interesting perspectives and have different expertise. Many faculty come from different backgrounds. I think that’s ITS’ biggest strength. 

If you could give incoming students one piece of career advice, what would it be?

I strongly believe that students should concentrate on their foundation. As an undergraduate or graduate student, having a strong foundation is very important. Be aware of new technologies, but not at the cost of foundational knowledge.  

What are your research interests and what types of projects are you currently working on?

My research interests are new technologies into transportation systems. Hardware, sensors like LiDAR, camera, or other technologies that are getting integrated and how these things can help into the safety and security of the transportation system.

As an example, I am currently working on a road intersection security project – increasing the safety of intersections. There are new machine learning and AI algorithms people are trying to integrate with intersections for identification. These technologies are also making intersections vulnerable to the outside world. I’m looking very carefully at these new technologies and the integration of these technologies into the transportation system for bringing human safety to the intersection and transportation system.

What are your plans for future research? 

I plan to continue working on the intersection of machine learning, security sensors, and transportation safety.

What issues in transportation keep you up at night?  

The security aspect of transportation keeps me up at night. On one hand, I’m excited that new technologies are getting into the transportation systems, but I’m scared that if we don’t integrate these technologies in a meaningful and understandable way, because this is a critical infrastructure, it could be detrimental. 

Transportation isn’t something that, if it’s not working, can be changed overnight. 

We have to make sure that safety is the first priority in every technology integration. I am also concerned that if any entity wants to find a critical infrastructure vulnerability and wants to harm the nation or can create economic, social and many other serious consequences. Safety and security of critical infrastructure like transportation are of utmost importance.  

What is your superpower? 

Determination. If I want to achieve something, I’ll do it. No matter how hard it is, I’ll figure it out. 

 

When I met Benjamin as a first-year civil engineering advisee, he impressed me immediately.  He’s an outstanding student with a strong motivation to specialize in transportation engineering. He volunteered in my group by contributing to a California Air Resources Board project on freight locomotive and rail car identification, as part of California’s transition to zero emission technologies. This experience stimulated his interest in decarbonization of rail freight transportation and estimated the benefit to disadvantaged communities, which he is pursuing in the TRIP program. Benjamin has been a terrific team player and asset to our research.

– Dr. Stephen Ritchie, Director, ITS-Irvine

 

How did you hear about this summer research program?

I was referred to the program by my advisor, Professor Stephen Ritchie.

What interested you most about it?

 I saw that this was an exciting opportunity to conduct and present research. I could also continue the research into the fall.

What are your career goals?

When I complete my degree in Civil Engineering, I hope to work in transportation planning. Specifically, in the rail, freight, or public transportation sectors.

Why are these kinds of summer research programs helpful to students like you?

These research programs allow first and second year students, who might not have taken major-specific classes or decided what they want to do, an opportunity to figure out what they’re interested in. In addition, these programs allow students to make connections with graduate students and faculty, who are interested in mentoring.

What intrigues you about research?

For me, research is so much more rewarding than simply taking classes.  You learn hands on and often at your own pace.  You can really delve into what you’re passionate about. When you run into obstacles with research and you overcome them, the lessons stick with you longer.

What intrigues you about transportation?

I am particularly intrigued by the many emerging technologies in the field, like more fuel-efficient, zero-emission, automated cars and trains. 

What do you like most about the project on which you are working?

This project gives me a chance to work with software that I have never used before, like ArcGIS/Python.  I was able to use it in real-world applications, which makes me feel like I’m learning something very relevant very fast.

What do you hope to learn and/or discover as part of this project?

My goal is to learn more about the freight industry in the US (and beyond), and in particular how it can and will adapt to environmental policy.

Assistant Professor Civil and Environmental Engineering

How did you become interested in transportation? And what interests you most right now? 

In short, what first interested me in transportation was my frustration with untimed traffic signals and congestion on the Interstate highway as a child. 

I am from a suburb a few miles east of the City of Pittsburgh. Congestion in Pittsburgh is not terrible, but the city has several tunnels on the Interstate that are huge bottlenecks despite having the same number of lanes as the non-tunnel portions of the highway. I wanted to understand why these tunnels cause congestion and how to fix it.  

Right now, I am interested in recent, emerging, and future innovations in the transportation space. I am particularly interested in driverless vehicles and shared mobility services, including ride-hailing, ride-pooling, robo-taxis, and shared micromobility (i.e., shared bikes and scooters). 

My research focuses on improving the design and operational efficiency of these shared mobility services and understanding their potential impacts on travelers and society.

What drew you to UCI/ITS-Irvine? What do you like best/find as strengths at UCI/ITS-Irvine?

When I interviewed here at UCI, I was impressed with the graduate students I met, the collegiality of the faculty in ITS and Civil and Environmental Engineering (CEE), and the breadth of transportation courses associated with the transportation undergraduate and graduate programs. 

After six years, I can say that my initial assessment was quite accurate. Our ITS graduate students are great; the ITS and CEE faculty are not only collegial but truly supportive, particularly when a fellow faculty member is facing challenging times; and I still believe we offer the best combination of graduate-level courses in transportation systems in the country.

If you could give incoming students one piece of career advice, what would it be?

For graduate students, choose a research topic that is both intellectually interesting AND important. To clarify what I mean by “important,” I will paraphrase Dimitris Bertsimas: If somehow you were entirely successful in answering your research question, will the answer actually impact the world around you (or our collective understanding of the world)? If the answer to that question is “no”, the research question is not worth pursuing. 

More practically, I find there is another benefit of pursuing research questions that are externally important. Research is challenging and my confidence in my abilities and research approach can wane during a project, but when I know that my research results could impact the world around me it is easier to push through.

What are your research interests and what types of projects are you currently working on?

Over the past three years, I have had several projects related to microtransit services and their relationship with fixed-route transit. We developed an agent-based simulation model that captures the dynamic relationship between the demand for transit services (microtransit and fixed-route transit) and the performance of these transit services. Among other features of the simulation model, it outputs a wide-range of useful metrics for a transit agency interested in microtransit, including mode share, vehicle miles traveled, change in mobility, accessibility to jobs, operational cost, and subsidy per transit user.  

Currently, we are using data from transit agencies in Sacramento and Atlanta, and from the San Diego Association of Governments to calibrate the model based on existing microtransit and fixed-route transit services.

Once we calibrate the model, we plan to evaluate a number of important integrated micro-transit and fixed-route transit design variables, including fare structure, fare values, microtransit fleet size, microtransit service region(s), and transit frequency. 

What do you consider your most significant research finding or accomplishment thus far? What are the next steps in this research/what do you have planned?

My most ambitious (i.e., high-risk, high-reward) research to date is the work I did with my former PhD student Navjyoth Sarma. We introduced a completely new concept that we called network flow shareability, which we define as “the extent to which travelers within a subregion can overlap in time and space on physical links in the subregion’s road network.” We also introduced a mathematical programming model to operationalize this definition. Finally, we partially validated the model by showing that as our measure of network flow shareability for an area increases, so does the efficiency of a last-mile transit feeder service operating in the area.

Going forward, we believe the model can help design both fixed-route transit networks and integrated microtransit and fixed-route transit systems. 

What are your other plans for future research?

I have an upcoming project with Waymo–the current leader in robo-taxi service in the United States. I will be doing some modeling and simulation work for them. 

I am also working on a new project for the California Air Resources Board (CARB). We are building a tool for them to help forecast the potential accessibility improvements of synergistic small-scale infrastructure and mobility investments in disadvantaged communities. This project definitely meets both the “intellectually interesting” and “important” criteria I mentioned earlier. We need to figure out how to incorporate small investments (e.g. tree shade on a few sidewalks, bike lanes, etc.) into our forecasting model. If we can address this challenge, the research project can really help CARB evaluate and select proposals to fund with taxpayer money.

What are you watching right now?

The Olympics! I really enjoy the Olympics–especially basketball. I remember watching them with my parents, siblings, and cousins when I was six. Of course, we were making up our own athletic competitions and competing during commercial breaks. Go Team USA!

“Geoffrey is an exceptional student with a passion for transportation. After his performance in my undergraduate course covering optimization in the context of civil engineering this past winter, I was excited for him to conduct research with me this summer through the TRIP program. Geoffrey has been an invaluable asset to our team, and I am excited to have him continue with us on a funded research project this fall.”

-Michael Hyland, Advisor

How did you hear about this summer research program?

I took a class with Professor Hyland and worked with him throughout the year. I was very interested in the subject matter of mathematical programming and optimization. Professor Hyland told me about this summer program and I was very happy to be selected.

What interested you most about it?

There was a lot of appeal to me about this program; my favorite part is being exposed to such cool and interesting research so early in my academic career. I didn’t know Transportation Systems Modeling and Analysis even existed as a field until about four months ago, and now I can spend the rest of my undergrad (and possibly grad school) studying it.

What are your career goals?

My end goal is to work for a public agency and help develop transportation solutions in a big metropolitan area. I also am interested in working in rail logistics for a freight rail company, or being employed at a large port could be great too.

Why are these kinds of summer research programs helpful to students like you?

This program helps me become a better researcher, student and engineer in many ways. Chief among them is how I am encouraged to think for myself and develop solutions without a right answer, which is much different from many classes I am taking. I am also learning hard skills including research, programming and writing that are applicable in my future.

How will this program help you in school and/or your eventual career?

The TRIP program helps me understand the world of research better and how to explore my interests deeper than before. It allows me to build connections that help in future academic or career pursuits.

What intrigues you about research?

Research in transportation explores the unknown worlds where we can design whole new systems, which I find fascinating. I love poking around in the hypothetical so that we can help industry and policymakers make decisions in the real world.

What intrigues you about transportation?

Transportation is so fundamental to how we live our lives.  Any improvement to transportation serves to enhance the lives of everyone, especially those who have been historically excluded. I love the challenge of serving the public by building up our systems.

What do you like most about the project on which you are working?

My current project, Quantifying “Shareability” in Transportation Networks using Graph Theory,  is teaching me a lot about computer science, high level math, and their intersections with civil engineering. I enjoy seeing how the fields connect and overlap, which allows us to solve incredibly complex problems.

What do you hope to learn and/or discover as part of this project?

I hope to discover a new passion for computer science. I always thought coding was something I would never grasp, but I am figuring out that it is a valuable skill that I can begin to master in this program.

What is something interesting few people know about you?

I hiked Half Dome in Yosemite with my good friend, Sheryl.

What is your superpower?

I am a certified lifeguard!

What is something unique about you?

I played water polo for six years, from middle school to the end of high school.