Dr. Wei Lu, Postdoctoral Research Associate
Geographic Information Science and Technology Group
Computational Science and Engineering Division
Oak Ridge National Laboratory
November 14th, 2014, 2:30 – 3:30 PM
410 John D. Tickle Engineering Building
Dr. Wei Lu joined Oak Ridge National Laboratory in 2012 as a research intern. He began his Postdoctoral position in January 2014 after he got his Ph.D. in Transportation Engineering from The University of Tennessee. His major interests are computational transportation science, connected vehicle technology, traffic modeling and simulation, analysis of social media and volunteered geographic information, and high performance computing. He published 14 papers in peer-reviewed journals, conferences, and books. He also gave 14 presentations at international or regional conferences. He serves as editor/reviewer in more than 10 peer-reviewed journals and conferences, such as IEEE transaction on ITS, Transportation Letter, TRB Annual Meeting, etc.
Talk Abstract: Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS) have been studied for decades by applying all kinds of technologies in transportation systems. The emerging discipline of Computational Transportation Science (CTS) begins to build the scientific foundation of ITS. It integrates computer science, computational and data science with transportation modeling, planning, and economic aspects to leverage developments in the above domains. By taking advantage of Big Data analysis and high performance computing, Computational Transportation Science applications have a unique opportunity to build more efficient and sustainable transportation systems and communities. At Oak Ridge National Laboratory (ORNL), researchers are attempting to address urban mobility issues at global scale by utilizing ORNL leading computing and data resources. We will describe the development of the TUMS (Toolset for Urban Mobility Simulations) system, a unique high-resolution population distribution and traffic microsimulation based approach, and its application in emergency evacuation scenarios. We will also illustrate the application of connected vehicle technology in efficient transportation systems, focusing on the vehicular network simulation, real-time road information sharing, and fuel consumption optimization. We will discuss the challenges and opportunities in this transformation from ITS to CTS based on the experiences of the traffic modeling and simulation development and also share insights and perspectives on the recent trends in computational transportation science.