Event Type: Seminar

This study examines the spatial distribution of subsidized housing units to understand whether geographic patterns and trends are consistent with climate change and equity goals. The analysis compares the location of Housing Choice Voucher (Section 8) units available in 2012 to net changes from 2012-2019. The units of analysis are census tracts in California. The study focuses on two primary policy goals: transportation-environmental (as measured by vehicle miles traveled, pollution, and other transportation characteristics) and racial and economic equity (measured by levels of racial segregation, unemployment, and employment opportunity). The major finding is that changes in the supply of affordable housing create an inherent contradiction between achieving competing goals.

Professor Ong has done research on the labor market status of minorities and immigrants, displaced high-tech workers, work and spatial/transportation mismatch, and environmental justice. He is currently engaged in several projects, including an analysis of the relationship between sustainability and equity, the racial wealth gap, and the role of urban structures on the reproduction of inequality. Previous research projects have included studies of the impact of defense cuts on California’s once-dominant aerospace industry,
the impact of immigration on the employment status of young African Americans, and the influence of car ownership and subsidized housing on welfare usage.

Dr. Ong is the Director of the Center for Neighborhood Knowledge and editor of AAPI Nexus, and has served as an advisor to the U.S. Bureau of the Census, and to the California Department of Social Services and the state Department of Employment Development, as well as the Wellness Foundation and the South Coast Air Quality Management District.

He received a master’s in urban planning from the University of Washington, and a Ph.D. in Economics, University of California, Berkeley. Along with his quantitative research, his professional practice includes teaching and applying visual forms of communication.

The past decade has witnessed a rapid growth of e-hail service provided by transportation network companies (TNCs), such as Uber and Lyft. However, e-hail service not only suffers from unexpected efficiency losses under certain market conditions, but also intensifies traffic congestion in some big cities. Partly motivated by these concerns, TNCs introduced pooling to complement the regular e-hail service. In this talk, I will first present a physical matching model that distinguishes regular e-hail and pooling services, then incorporate it into the equilibrium analysis to investigate the platform’s operational strategies and the impact of regulations. The base model is further extended to discuss platform competition and congestion pricing targeted at TNC vehicles.

Dr. Kenan Zhang is a postdoctoral researcher in the Automatic Control Laboratory at ETH Zurich. She will join EPFL as a tenure-track Assistant Professor in September 2023. Kenan obtained her PhD in Transportation Engineering from Northwestern University in 2021, where she also received an MS degree in Statistics. She completed her master’s study at Carnegie Mellon University in 2015 and undergraduate study at Tsinghua University in 2014, both in Civil Engineering. Her research focuses on the mathematical modeling and optimization of urban transportation systems, with special interests in emerging mobility services and technologies. She is also broadly interested in the applications of game theory and machine learning in transportation.

I briefly describe selected law and policy on infrastructure with a special focus on equity, inclusion, and discrimination. I begin with a short historical overview, from early periods of clear discrimination to reforms in the last decades. We will then discuss ways engineers, planners, transportation specialists, and lawyers can hold themselves accountable to society, and discuss solutions to increasing equity and promoting social justice. Cases include urban freeways, waste facilities, open spaces and parks, rail systems, and others.

Disconnected urban street network – “street-network sprawl” – are strongly associated with increased vehicle travel, energy use and CO2 emissions. Moreover, since street layouts are essentially permanent, today’s choices on the connectivity of streets will restrict future resilience and lock in car dependence for a century or more. Using data on all 46 million km of mapped streets worldwide and a satellite-derived time series of urbanization, I present the first systematic and globally commensurable measures of street-network sprawl.
I then discuss an emerging transportation technology. I highlight the autonomous vehicle parking problem: because such vehicles can avoid parking charges, they could undermine a key plank of transportation demand management and nearly double vehicle travel in city centers. Moreover, autonomous vehicles may find cruising around to be a lower cost option while waiting for their next rider, exacerbating congestion and environmental impacts.

Mr. Adam Millard-Ball is associate professor of Urban Planning at the UCLA Luskin School of Public Affairs. His research and teaching are about transportation, the environment, and urban data science. Trained as an economist, a geographer, and an urban planner, he analyzes the environmental consequences of transportation and land-use decisions, and the effectiveness of policies to reduce greenhouse gas emissions. His research uses large-scale geospatial data analysis as well as econometric and qualitative methods.

This talk will describe developed mathematical and algorithmic approaches for quantifying and maximizing the resilience of transportation systems and the societal functions they support. Transportation networks are interconnected with other critical lifelines, such as power and water supply. Together, these lifelines support societal activities occuring within building facilities related by a common function, e.g. health care. Moreover, the abilities of system users, e.g. transit riders, play an important role in the services they experience. Thus, both the behavior of technical components and how these systems enable their varying users to adapt are crucial. These considerations are incorporated and resilience is discussed in the context of current application and a future with digital twinning and automation.

Dr. Elise Miller-Hooks holds the Bill and Eleanor Hazel Endowed Chair in Infrastructure Engineering at George Mason University, is an advisor to the World Bank Group, and the founding Editor-in-Chief of IFORS/Elsevier’s Sustainability Analytics and Modeling journal. Prior to this, Dr. Miller-Hooks served as a program director at the U.S. National Science Foundation and on the faculties of the University of Maryland, Pennsylvania State University and Duke University. Dr. Miller-Hooks received her Ph.D. (1997) and M.S. (1994) degrees in Civil Engineering from the University of Texas – Austin and B.S. in Civil Engineering from Lafayette College (1992). She has expertise in: disruption planning and response; multi-hazard civil infrastructure resilience quantification and protection; stochastic and dynamic network algorithms; transportation systems engineering; intermodal passenger and freight transport; real-time routing and fleet management, including paratransit, delivery, ridesharing and bikeways; and collaborative and multi-objective decision-making.

The carriage of cargo (mail and freight) was the initial focus of the fledgling commercial airline industry from the 1920s onwards. Carrying passengers emerged as the basis for airline operations in the 1930s in both Europe and North America. The COVID pandemic has decimated passenger traffic around the world. Airlines have returned to their origins to remain in business by carrying cargo in all-cargo freighters, in ‘preighters’ and in the belly holds of un-converted passenger planes. The presentation will examine the changes in the air cargo industry since the 1970s when the likes of FedEx disrupted the industry through the different stages and challenges which have culminated in the dominance of cargo in the international commercial aviation.

Mr. Edwards has over 50 years in the transportation, distribution, and logistics industry. He began his career as a truck driver in Toronto. Since then, he has worked in international freight forwarding in Canada and the UAE, numerous sectors of the airline industry, aviation design and manufacturing in Germany and the United States, ocean freight, rail management, economic development, and education. His career which has taken around the world has given him a deep appreciation of different cultures and business structures.

Charles Edwards joined Strategic Aviation Solutions International (SASI) in 2020 to focus on Learning and Development programs. SASI is engaged in global consulting and management services for airlines, airports, international trade organizations, and financial institutions. He is a member of the team which created and delivers the Safe Supply Chain course for the International Civil Aviation Organization, is project lead for the United Nations sponsored Cross Border Management – digital trade facilitation project and is Co-Principal Investigator of ACRP 03-63 – update to airport air cargo planning guidelines.

Prior to joining SASI, Mr. Edwards was the founding Director of the Office of Logistics + Freight at the North Carolina Department of Transportation and Director of the North Carolina Center for Global Logistics within the North Carolina Community College System.

Edwards’ aviation experience includes managing a commercial airport, member of a team which created and operated four allcargo airlines including UPS Airlines, operational introduction of a composite baggage container, and leadership of the team which designed one of the world’s largest air vehicles.

Edwards holds degrees from universities in Canada, England, and the United States. He serves on boards and committees in freight transport, research, and logistics education. Mr. Edwards is a Professor of the Practice at the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill in the Department of City and Regional Planning. He is a Scholar Fellow of the beta chapter of Sigma Chi Mu Tau (Supply Chain).

Transportation is vital. The Supreme Court has recognized the right to travel as one of the fundamental rights guaranteed by the Fourteenth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution. Given this important role, it would be expected that policymakers would battle over transportation policy. Too often, however, those battles are fought over what specific projects will be funded and in which states or congressional districts, and scant attention is paid to larger social and economic effects. This presentation highlights several challenges faced in achieving transportation equity.

Tom Sanchez earned his PhD in City Planning from Georgia Tech and is a Professor of Urban Affairs and Planning at Virginia Tech in the National Capital Region (Washington, DC/Northern Virginia). He conducts research in the areas of transportation, social justice, technology, and scholarly impact. His most recent books, Networks in the Knowledge Economy (with Denise Bedford) was published in 2021 and Planning Knowledge and Research, was published by Routledge in 2018. He has co-authored three other books including, Planning as if People Matter: Governing for Social Equity (2012), The Right to Transportation: Moving to Equity (2007), and The Social Impacts of Urban Containment (2007).