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College of Computer Science and Engineering

Computer Engineering Department

Presents Public Seminar

Empowering Citizens with Sustainable Transportation in the Cities of Today & Tomorrow

Date: Tuesday, 18 Feb, 2020       

Time:  9:00 am

Location: Building 22, Room 105

Speaker:

Dr. Ansar-Ul-Haque Yasar

Professor (Hoofddocent),

Hasselt University (Transportation Research Institute), Belgium,

Coordinator for the courses Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS) and Transport Modeling.

Abstract:

While some may argue that the added value of one research domain is more limited in terms of added economic value than the other, the contribution of transportation research towards the society as a whole is significant. According to several predictions, the transport sector will overtake industry as the largest energy user by 2020. Unfortunately, the sector has major negative economic, social and environmental side effects. The complexity of today's policy decision making has motivated several international research teams to develop policy frameworks which are finally aimed at mitigating these negative externalities of transport.

In several international policy frameworks, conventional transport models have been used for the quantification of these externalities. When an operational model is required to provide quantitative predictions about human behaviour, some kind of mathematical apparatus is adopted in models. In this talk, we will cover the research domain of activity-based models. In these models, using micro-simulation, full activity-travel patterns of people are predicted in a high resolution of time and space, offering a wealth of information for policy making. The models give us a behavioural insight at an unprecedented level and allow for many interesting interdisciplinary applications. In this talk, I will give a brief overview of the state-of-the-art in activity-based modelling and discuss the interesting developments in this field of research. In addition to applications in the domain of transportation research, I will focus on scientific interdisciplinary applications with several other scientific fields, such as emission and health impact calculations, traffic safety and future electric vehicle (market) projections. Also the talk will cover novel interesting trends in the research field such as the increasing availability of big data and the development of modern survey technology, which offers several opportunities for policy makers but also provides researchers with novel challenges and problems.

Speaker Bio:

Dr. Ansar-Ul-Haque Yasar is a Professor at the Transportation Research Institute (IMOB) – Hasselt University Belgium. IMOB is the one of the top European institutes focusing on the broader themes of road safety and transport management. At IMOB, he worked on the European FP7 project DATA SIM (2011 - 2014) & European ERA-NET Smart-PT (2014 - 2017). He is currently responsible for the H202- Track&Know (2018-2020) & H2020 iSCAPE (2016 - 2019) projects with a consortium of several international partners. He is responsible for the Intelligent Transport Systems (ITS) and Intelligent Topics in Transportation courses for the masters of transportation sciences students & related research around this topic at UHasselt. Furthermore, he is currently the Head of the Business Development Unit at the institute focusing on several applications including Safe Routes to Schools & Safe-Trucking system.

Dr. Yasar's broader research interests include smart cities & communities, connected & intelligent mobility, drones system management, road safety using smart transport solutions and mobility management. He received his BS degree in Software Engineering from Foundation University Islamabad, MS degree in Computer Science & Engineering from Linkoping University - Sweden and a PhD in Engineering in from Katholieke Universiteit Leuven - Belgium. He has authored more than 80 research articles in renowned international journals, conferences and workshops. As one of his accomplishments, Dr. Yasar has co-edited a book entitled "Data Science and Simulation in Transportation Research" published by IGI Global in December 2013. Furthermore, he has been involved in organization of many international peer-reviewed conferences, summer schools and other scientific events. Dr. Yasar is also a Technical Expert to evaluate project proposals submitted to the European R&D – EUREKA & COST frameworks.

All faculty, researchers and graduate students are invited to attend.

Computer Engineering Department, College of Computer Sciences and Engineering

Telephone: +966 (13) 860 2110, Email: c-coe@kfupm.edu.sa, Website: www.kfupm.edu.sa/departments/coe/

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