SCIENTIFIC PROGRAMS AND ACTIVITIES

March 29, 2024

Feb. 21, Mar. 20, Apr 24, May 15, 2008
Fields Symposia on the Mathematics of Transportation


The Fields Symposia on the Mathematics of Transportation
Thursday May 15 11:30-14:30
Board Room of the Fields Institute
222 College Street, Toronto

The final Fields Symposium on the Mathematics of Transportation will look at (perhaps) the most important issue of all: once we have designed a better transportation network, how do we pay for it and how do we ensure it is used efficiently?

Market-based solutions to transportation problems
Matheus Grasselli, Department of Mathematics & Statistics, McMaster University

Pollution and transportation problems are special cases of market distortions (benefits for individuals or organizations that force unwanted costs on other people). It therefore makes sense to seek market-based solutions. We discuss market-based solutions to environmental problems in three general categories: environmental taxes (the polluter-pay principle), subsidies (incentives to behavior change) and cap-and-trade systems. Specifically for transportation, we discuss how pricing principles can be used to rationalize the use of resources. These include traditional road and parking pricing, but also the use of novel strategies such as congestion charges, cordon areas, managed lanes and pay-as-you-drive vehicle insurance.

Additional topics for discussion:

how do people respond to incentives/disincentives?
how to price negative externalities (i.e. Pigovian tax)?
real time pricing (connection with data)
relation of transit to economic development
the relation of density to wealth generation (the multiplier effect inherent in dense, tightly coupled cities).

About the speaker
Dr Grasselli's reseach is focused on Financial Mathematics - the use of modern mathematical tools from stochastic analysis, probability theory and statistics to understand, model and make decisions in Financial Markets. As a member of PhiMac he is involved in a number of research projects in this area, such as optimal portfolio selection in incomplete markets (mainly based on duality techniques from convex analysis), positive interest rates for defaultable bonds (as an extension of the Flesaker-Hughston framework) and discrete time hedging strategies (particularly the differences between quadratic and linear risk minimization).


I hope to see you again at the Fields Institute on Thursday May 15 11:30-14:30.

Don't hesitate to let others know about this series! However, please let me
know in advance (at least a week if possible) if you (or other members
of your group) will be attending so we can arrange for lunch.
kevlahan@mcmaster.ca


This is the last meeting of the transportation symposium for the year


Thursday April 24 11:30-14:30
Boardroom of the Fields Institute
222 College Street, Toronto

The theme of the next Transportation Symposium is "Integrating Transportation and Urban Planning", and will feature the following talk:

Integrated Transportation and Land Use Models (ITLUMs): The McMaster Experience

Pavlos S. Kanaroglou, Canada Research Chair in Spatial Analysis Center for Spatial Analysis (CSpA), McMaster Institute for Transportation and Logistics (MITL), McMaster University

The interest in using computer simulation models to support the urban planning process has a long history that can be traced to the mid 1950s. Urban planners and practitioners have been using such models to simulate the impacts of proposed new land use and transportation infrastructure projects. These models have also been used to assess the ramifications of future urban population and economic growth policies. Several schools of thought have emerged over time to develop such models, which are also known as Integrated Transport and Land Urban Models (ITLUMs). A key feature of these models is their ability to simultaneously forecast changes in transportation flows and land-use patterns in a metropolitan area. In recent years, there has been an increased interested in developing and using such models to assess the interaction between land use, transportation and the environment. As a result, these computer simulation models are progressively becoming an essential component of the urban planning process in many Metropolitan Planning Organizations (MPOs) in Canada and elsewhere around the world. This seminar presents the experience of a group of researchers at McMaster University in developing and applying such models to study land use and transportation problems in Canadian cities.

About the speaker:
Pavlos S. Kanaroglou is Professor of Geography at McMaster University and holds a Tier 1 Canada Research Chair in Spatial Analysis. His formal education includes degrees in Mathematics (B.Sc), Computer Science (M.Sc) and Geography (M.A, Ph.D). He combines several years of industrial experience with academic teaching and research. Dr. Kanaroglou has held faculty positions at Wilfrid Laurier University, the University of Aegean (Greece) and McMaster University. He is the founder and director of the Centre for Spatial Analysis (CSpA) at McMaster. His research, funded by Canadian councils (NSERC, SSHRC), as well as ministries and municipalities in Canada, focuses on sustainable transportation at the urban and regional level, on urban air quality and on the relationship between air quality and health. He has been the principal investigator and participated in several national and international projects. He has published extensively on transportation issues and is a member of the editorial board for several transportation related journals. Recently, Dr. Kanaroglou spearheaded the establishment of the McMaster Institute for Transportation and Logistics (MITL) that is designed to bring together the private and public sectors with academia for the development of relevant and high quality research in transportation and logistics.

I hope to see you again at the Fields Institute on Thursday April 24 11:30-14:30.

Don't hesitate to let others know about this series! However, please let me know in advance (at least a week if possible) if you (or other members of your group) will be attending so we can arrange for lunch.


Thursday March 20 11:30-14:30
Boardroom of the Fields Institute
222 College Street, Toronto

The theme of our next meeting is the appropriate use of models to guide planners and managers of transportation systems. In particular, we will examine how optimization theory might improve (or even optimize!) transportation networks.

We will begin with a short introductory talk:

"Stable Traffic Equilibria: Properties and Applications"
Yurii Zinchenko (Advanced Optimization Lab, McMaster University)
We present Nesterov's theory of static equilibrium in congestedtransportation networks. The theory postulates that under some natural assumptions, the Wardrop principle leads to a very strong relation between the loading of the arc, arc flow and arc travel time. This
relation allows us to simplify significantly the arc performance model. It is shown that instead of fixing a functional form of travel time function, one can obtain equilibrium solutions for static traffic assignment models using only some natural bounds for arc travel time and arc flow. We compare the results of Nesterov's model with the results of standard Beckmann model.

Discussion topics:
-prediction and design of network systems (capacity, performance, robustness)
-combining transportation and urban planning
-anticipating large and sudden changes
Mathematics:* optimization, dynamical systems, qualitative analysis of sudden changes.

Don't hesitate to let others know about this series! However, please let me know in advance (at least a week if possible) if you (or other members of your group) will be attending so we can arrange for lunch.


Thursday February 21 11:30-14:30
Boardroom of the Fields Institute
222 College Street, Toronto

Modelling

-microscale (agent) to macroscale.
-traffic flow
-urban growth models

Mathematics: derivation of macro and micro scale models (including PDEs and kinetic-type equations), determining correct averaging
procedures to connect the micro and macro scale models, appropriate measures to interpret the results of these models, assessing
errors/stability/convergence properties of the models (confidence levels).



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