(with apologies for cross posting)
Centre for Transport Studies Imperial College London
PhD Studentship - A Carbon Aware Real-Time Personal Scheduling System for Optimised Urban Mobility
The overall aim of this project is to develop a carbon aware personal scheduling assistant, which would
enable individuals to substantially reduce their transport-related carbon emissions, whilst preserving the
achievement of personal objectives. This system would be a radical departure from the philosophy of
existing travel information systems in that it would focus on the individual rather than the transport
system. The specific objectives include:
1. The development of methods to explicate individual goals and underlying preference structures,
based on passive mobile network data.
2. The development of a computational platform to integrate historical and real time information
from the transport and energy systems with information about individual behaviour and intent.
3. The development of optimization tools to support the planning and re-planning of personal
itineraries in both the pre-trip and en-route context.
4. The application of these capabilities in one or more practical context in the UK.
5. The critical evaluation of this experience and recommendations for future deployments.
The PhD will be funded by the Grantham Institute for Climate Change. The studentship covers home/EU
student fees and a bursary to support living costs for three years and is open to UK and EU candidates,
as well as overseas candidates who would be able to pay the difference between home and overseas
fees.
The Centre for Transport Studies is the focus for transport research at Imperial. It comprises a vibrant
community of over 80 academics, post doctoral researchers and doctoral students undertaking research
across a broad range of topics including transport demand modelling, transport policy and regulation,
transport operations, transport and the environment, transport safety, intelligent transport systems,
railway operations and management, air transport operations and control, and maritime logistics.
Further information can be found on the Centre's website at www.imperial.ac.uk/cts.
The student will also be part of the diverse Grantham community and will be expected to contribute to
the wider activities of the Grantham community; further information about the Grantham Institute can
be found at www.imperial.ac.uk/climatechange. The research will also involve collaboration with various
UK and international partners, including Imperial“s partners in the European Institute of Innovation and
Technology“s Climate KIC initiative (www.climate-kic.org).
Applicants should hold or expect to obtain a first or upper second class honours degree or equivalent in
a relevant highly quantitative subject (e.g., engineering, mathematics, statistics, natural sciences,
economics) together with strong software and programming skills, ideally in a high level language such
as Java. Applicants should also have an interest in cities, planning and decision support processes, and
the analysis of interactions between human and technological systems. A Masters degree in a relevant
subject is desirable.
Background to the research
Successful climate change mitigation and adaptation in urban areas requires innovation both in urban
infrastructure and systems and in the behaviour of the individuals and businesses using these services.
In the short to medium term, behavioural change has the greatest potential to address the challenges
of climate change. The development of smart cities technologies (e.g., pervasive sensing, intelligent
decision support) creates enormous scope to develop new markets in digital information and services.
The impact of climate change on cities will give rise to wide range of new digital market opportunities
focused on incentivised behavioural change. Linking and aligning digital innovation to the requirements
of climate change related behavioural change offers enormous opportunities for both climate and
commercial impact. Transport offers an ideal context in which to explore these issues. The energy
efficiency of personal travel is a vital element in total energy use. The aim of reducing the carbon
emissions associated with personal travel raises two key questions. The first is how individuals identify
more carbon efficient patterns of behaviour and the second is how they adapt their behaviour to these
new regimes, whilst preserving their capacity to achieve their personal goals. Existing travel information
systems offer little support for these two tasks, both because they do not provide accurate carbon
accounting at the level of the individual and because they provide information related only to specific
trip movements or simple itineraries, rather than about the wide activity patterns and commercial and
economic activity in which such individual trip movements are embedded and upon which the
achievement of personal goals.
The core methodology would leverage and integrate a number of streams of work being undertaken in
CTS on (a) behavioural modelling and traveller learning using advanced discrete choice and machine
learning techniques (b) EPSRC supported research on the development of predictive decision support
tools for transport network managers and individual travellers (c) the RCUK supported Digital City
Exchange project, which is developing a platform for model-based digital service delivery and (d)
research on the use of mobile network data for the development of personalised digital services.
Applications
Applicants should send an up to date CV including details of their academic record, a covering letter
explaining their motivation and suitability for the topic, and the contact details of two academic referees
to Prof. John Polak, Centre for Transport Studies, Skempton Building, Imperial College London, London
SW7 2AZ. E: [log in to unmask]
The closing date for applications is 20 January 2012. Short listing will take place shortly after this date.
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Prof. John Polak
Chairman, Centre for Transport Studies
Director of Research, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering
Lead, Low Carbon Cities, Climate KIC
Imperial College London
www.imperial.ac.uk/cts
www.imperial.ac.uk/civilengineering
www.climate-kic.org
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