Mobility Forum | Mobility Initiative

MIT Mobility Forum

The MIT Mobility Forum hosted by Prof. Jinhua Zhao showcases transportation research and innovation across the globe. The Forum is online and open to the public. Please register at Zoom beforehand.

Beyond our regular research presentations, we are introducing three new sub-series in fall 2023:
1. Women Leaders in Transportation
2. Wheel and Deals: Institutional Investment in Mobility
3. VC-Startup Synergy in Transportation

Watch Recording

Download Slides

Engineering Ecosystems with AI

Sandy Pentland

Professor of Media Arts and Sciences; Toshiba Professor;
Media Lab Entrepreneurship Program Director

Our society is having difficulties engineering heterogeneous systems of people and technologie; for instance, our systems for dealing with pandemics, climate change, Inequality, or financial stress have been less than completely successful, in significant part because of unanticipated human behaviors. Perhaps as a consequence, Congress’s new infrastructure bill expands the definition of “infrastructure” to include human or social infrastructure. This talk will cover new approaches to engineering ecosystems that better integrate human behavior, and discuss how new technologies like Large Language Models (LLMs) can help.

September 15, 2023 at 4:00:00 PM

Watch Recording

Download Slides

Funding US Transportation needs in an electric, post-gas tax world

Jim Aloisi and Bhuvan Atluri

Lecturer of Transportation Policy and Planning & Program Manager, MMI

The gas tax has been a reliable, if inadequate source of transportation funding for most states since the early decades of the 20th century, and for the federal government since enactment of the Interstate Highway Act of 1956. As we transition away from fossil fuel driven mobility and towards hybrid/electric vehicles the deficit between the revenue needed to support mobility needs and the revenues actually generated to support those needs will grow to reach untenable levels. We need to replace the gas tax with new, fair, and stable mechanisms to meet transportation funding needs at the federal and state levels. This talk will highlight the persistent inequity of cost burdens built into the gas tax funding system and try and showcase more stable and equitable mechanisms to fund our mobility systems, along with a user-friendly tool to model a variety of EV adoption scenarios, funding schemes, and the impacts on transportation revenues.

September 22, 2023 at 4:00:00 PM

Watch Recording

Download Slides

Demand-Responsive Microtransit: Design and Operations

Alexandre Jacquillat

Associate Professor, Operations Research and Statistics

Microtransit offers opportunities to enhance urban mobility by combining the reliability of public transit and the flexibility of ride-sharing. This paper optimizes the design and operations of a demand-responsive microtransit system that relies on reference lines and performs on-demand deviations in response to passenger demand. We formulate a Microtransit Network Design (MiND) model via two-stage stochastic optimization. The model features a tight second-stage formulation thanks to a subpath-based representation of microtransit operations in a load-expanded network, which optimizes on-demand deviations between checkpoint stops. We develop a double-decomposition algorithm combining Benders decomposition and subpath-based column generation armed with a tailored label-setting algorithm. Using real-world data from Manhattan, results suggest that our method scales to large practical instances, with up to 100 candidate lines and hundreds of stops. Comparisons with transit and ride-sharing benchmarks suggest that microtransit provides win-win outcomes toward efficient mobility (high demand coverage, low operating costs, high level of service), equitable mobility (broad geographic reach) and sustainable mobility (limited environmental footprint).

September 29, 2023 at 4:00:00 PM

Watch Recording

Download Slides

MIT Mobility Initiative: Three Years On

Jinhua Zhao & John Moavenzadeh

Founder & Faculty Director - MMI and Executive Director -MMI

As we close in on 3 incredible years since the MIT Mobility Initiative was founded, we will look back on the journey, present our progress, discuss current priorities and brainstorm future research pathways with our audience.

October 6, 2023 at 4:00:00 PM

Watch Recording

Women Leaders in Transportation: Mobility Forum Sub-series Co-Hosted by Prof. Jinhua Zhao and Hyun-A Park

Laura Chace, Hyun-A Park, Victoria Sheehan and Polly Trottenberg

President & CEO - ITS America, President - Spy Pond Partner & MIT Corporation Member, TRB Executive Director, US DOT Deputy Secretary

In a time of incredible technological growth and ever-changing transportation trends, the impact of women entrepreneurs on the mobility landscape has never been more crucial. As part of the MIT Mobility Forum, the MMI is launching a new sub-series: “Women Leaders in Transportation”. It aims to celebrate, advance, and inspire the contributions of women in the ever-evolving landscape of transportation and mobility. Hyun-A Park has kindly agreed to join me as the co-host.

October 13, 2023 at 4:00:00 PM

Watch Recording

Download Slides

Learning with Certificate Functions for Automotive Systems

Chuchu Fan

Wilson Assistant Professor of Aeronautics and Astronautics and PI of LIDS, MIT

Learning-enabled control of autonomous systems has demonstrated impressive empirical performance in numerous applications. However, this performance comes at the cost of reduced transparency and a lack of guarantees regarding the safety or stability of the learned controllers. In recent years, new techniques have emerged to learn certificate functions alongside control policies. These certificates provide concise, data-driven proofs that guarantee the safety and stability of the learned control system. These methods allow users to provide supervision during training, using safety and stability requirements to influence the training process itself. In this talk, we will present some recent updates on neural collision-avoidance certificates with a focus on their applications in ground vehicles.

October 20, 2023 at 4:00:00 PM

Watch Recording

Download Slides

Cities, Mobility & Complexity in a Post-Pandemic World

Eric Miller

Professor, Department of Civil and Mineral Engineering, University of Toronto
Director, University of Toronto Transportation Research Institute

In this talk, Prof. Miller will discuss the role of transportation technology in historically shaping cities. It is argued that two technology-based “revolutions” in transportation and associated urban form have occurred: the 19th-century mechanization of (public) transport and the 20th-century rise of auto dominance/dependency. In complex systems terms, these represent two competing “attractors” driving travel behaviour and system performance, as well as land development. Understanding these competing attractors is critical to dealing with the “sustainability challenge” facing urban regions: how to accommodate continuing growth while improving environmental, social, economic and fiscal sustainability. In particular, it is important to develop a new urban system attractor that significantly reduces cities’ carbon footprint while at the same time improving social equity, overall quality of life and economic performance. It is proposed that, unlike the first two revolutions, this third revolution will not be technology-driven per se. Rather, a much more nuanced, proactive and effective approach to integrated transport–land use urban design (which exploits technology and urban informatics where appropriate) than has previously been attempted is required that holistically and systematically can enable urban regions to achieve their goals in the coming decades.

October 27, 2023 at 4:00:00 PM

Watch Recording

Download Slides

Geopolitical Shifts: The Pivotal Role of China in Global Mobility

Join us as we give our online forum audience a sneak-peek into MMI's flagship event - the annual Vision Day via a special lunch panel. The automotive industry's shift from ICE vehicles to Electric Vehicles is resulting in a massive shift in geopolitical dynamics. This panel seeks to analyze the critical geopolitical aspects of this evolution, with a particular focus on China's growing influence. As the world's largest automotive market, largest EV manufacturer and key player across all stages of battery mining, processing, production, China has emerged as a central force in the global automotive landscape. The nation's ambitious industrial policies, advancements in EV/Battery technology, and strategic investments in critical resources have positioned it as a formidable contender in a sector traditionally dominated by Western countries. The US already has sanctions in place for Chinese built EVs. The EU which is being flooded by well-made and value for money EVs is mulling putting new sanctions in place. The panel will offer a multi-dimensional perspective on the changing dynamics of the automotive industry and the central role that China now plays within it.

November 3, 2023 at 4:00:00 PM

Watch Recording

Download Slides

Fuel Cell Powered Vehicles – Opportunities and Challenges

Harry Tuller

Professor of Materials Science and Engineering

The drive to limit global warming depends on our ability to broadly limit the use of fossil fuels in many sectors including those related to electric power generation, industrial and residential uses and transportation. Rapidly increasing populations, and their striving for higher standards of living, continue to drive the rapid growth in vehicles for transportation and commerce. Fortunately, we are beginning to see rapid growth in electric vehicle (EV) sales that promise markedly reduced overall emissions of carbon dioxide into the atmosphere. By far, the lions share of EV sales are based on lithium battery powered vehicles. In this presentation, we examine the opportunities and challenges for hydrogen powered fuel cell vehicles that promise, at a minimum, extended operating range and rapid refueling. At the same time, one must confront the obvious present lack of adequate facilities for clean hydrogen generation, transportation and storage, raising the question of whether hydrogen powered vehicles will forever be the technology of the future? In light of these challenges, we report on progress that has been made on stationary reversible fuel cell/electrolysis cell devices capable of efficiently storing clean, but intermittent solar and wind energy, in the form of hydrogen, means for extending the life of such devices and the general challenges towards achieving cost effective and competitive fuel cell operated EVs.

November 10, 2023 at 5:00:00 PM

Watch Recording

Pedal, Power, and Tensions: A Panel Discussion on Micromobility and Cities

Jascha Franklin-Hodge, Mike Frumin, Dave Montague, Tony Ho

Chief of Streets for City of Boston, Director of Product & Data Science at Lyft Transit/Bikes/Scooters, CEO at Metromobility, VP of Robotics & Business Development at Segway

This panel discussion delves into the dynamic realm of micromobility in urban environments, where compact transportation modes such as e-scooters, bike-sharing systems, and electric skateboards are reshaping the way cities move. Bringing together experts from transportation, cities, and industry, the discussion will examine the multifaceted safety challenges and promising prospects associated with the integration and city wide expansion of micromobility. Given the resistance from certain cities, banning of e-scooters/skateboards from various college campuses the panel will explore infrastructural considerations, safety concerns, and regulatory frameworks, to the potential reduction of traffic congestion, environmental benefits, and the possibility of healthier urban lifestyles. Attendees will gain a deeper understanding of how cities can harness the potential of micromobility while addressing the complexities it brings.

November 17, 2023 at 5:00:00 PM

Watch Recording

The Evolving Role of Venture Capital in Mobility: Mobility Forum Sub-series

Martin Miodownik, Jessica Robinson, Laura Fox

Co-Founder & COO/CTO at NAVIT, Co-Founder & Partner at Assembly Ventures, Co-Founder & Managing Partner at Streetlife Ventures

Venture capital has played a critical role in driving innovation in transportation systems, from autonomous systems to electrification & battery tech to eVTOLs. Deal flow into the mobility sector peaked in 2021. Looking forward, what is the role of venture capital in financing the transformation to a mobility system that is safe, clean and inclusive? How do startups view the relationship with venture capital and what do they look for in an investor?

December 1, 2023 at 5:00:00 PM

Watch Recording

Dan and Eva Roos Best Dissertation Award and Presentations

Baichuan Mo, Rounaq Basu & Karthik Gopalakrishnan

Dan and Eva Roos Awardees

Join us as the winners of the Dan & Eva Roos Best Dissertation Award for 2023 present the findings of their thesis. 2023 Winner: Baichuan Mo -Toward a Resilient Public Transportation System: Effective Monitoring and Control under Service Disruptions Honorable Mentions: Rounaq Basu - Planning sustainable cities: Coordinating accessibility improvements with housing policies Karthik Gopalakrishnan - Modeling and Control of Networked Systems: Applications to Air Transportation

December 8, 2023 at 5:00:00 PM

Watch Recording

Wheel and Deals: Institutional Investment in Mobility, Mobility Forum Sub-series Co-Hosted by Prof. Jinhua Zhao and Jeff Shen

Jinhua Zhao and Jeff Shen

Founder & Faculty Director - MMI, Professor of Cities and Transportation; Co-CIO of Active Equity and Co-Head of Systematic Active Equity (SAE) at BlackRock

As part of the MIT Mobility Forum, the MIT Mobility Initiative is launching a new subseries on “Mobility and Investment”. The subseries, co-hosted by Prof. Jinhua Zhao of MIT and Dr. Jeff Shen of Blackrock, aims to examine the investment perspective of the global mobility system: history, disruptions, challenges, impacts, and future trends.

December 15, 2023 at 5:00:00 PM

Watch Recording

Download Slides

Envisioning Profitable Autonomous Transit Networks

Alain Kornhauser

Professor of Operations Research & Financial Engineering
Director, Transportation Program, Princeton university

It has been almost 20 years since the DARPA "SmartDrivingCar" Challenges and 15 years since Google jumped in with the objective of providing demand-responsive automated mobility and we're still "envisioning" as if this challenge is like that of achieving nuclear fusion... always "50 years away, but once we get there, then the return to society is absolutely non-trivial". Presented is my perspective on automated mobility gained from a more than 50 year career largely focused on achieving safe, affordable, equitable, sustainable high-quality mobility for our towns and cities. Reviewed will be what was tried and why it failed; where we've been recently and why it has struggled; and where is it that we might be going and what are the challenges and chances of success. Looking forward, the concept of Autonomous Transit Networks is presented and assessed using the Princeton Synthetic Daily PersonTrip (PSDPT) data set of the 1.1 billion individual person trips made by the 320 million persons on a typical day. The mobility opportunity and operational challenges of several conceptual deployments are presented. The challenges associated with the scaled realization of such deployments will be discussed.

February 17, 2023 at 5:00:00 PM

Watch Recording

Download Slides

Telemobility, Hybrid Work and the Next Normal

Hani Mahmassani

W. A. Patterson Chair in Transportation; Director, Northwestern University Transportation Center

The world has changed considerably for transportation planners since April 2020—and it is still changing, in many ways that are fundamental to how we work, shop, play, seek health care, and travel. The COVID-19 pandemic significantly altered the remote work landscape in the U.S. and there is growing evidence that at least some portion of the remote work trends will stick beyond the pandemic. The next normal for work will result from complex interactions amongst multiple factors, shaped by the experience of both employees and employers whose joint decisions will determine the evolutionary pathway of the hybrid workplace. To help understand the forces shaping these experiences, we have conducted separate longitudinal tracking surveys of both employees (7 waves) and employers (5 waves). We aim to understand employee satisfaction with telework, and reveal and characterize clusters of telework trajectories through and beyond the pandemic. We study the effect of telework on the activity participation behavior of teleworkers, especially with regard to the frequency, location and timing of out-of-home non-work activities. We also study the employer-side perspective on telework from a descriptive analysis of responses from top executives at 100 large employers in North America with regard to how remote work evolved through the pandemic and how employer response to remote work varied across departments, sectors of operation and their pre-COVID and April 2020 remote work policies.

February 24, 2023 at 5:00:00 PM

Watch Recording

Download Slides

Tectonic shifts in science, technology, and industrial policy: looking ahead

Liz Reynolds & David Mindell

Lecturer, DUSP, MIT; Former Special Assistant to the President for Manufacturing and Economic Development at the National Economic Council & MIT Professor, Executive Chairman at Humatics, Co-founder at Unless

Several factors are converging to drive a new industrial revolution in the U.S and beyond. Advances in manufacturing technologies are reducing costs and lead times as well as creating new industrial capabilities. Companies are rethinking supply chain resilience in the face of global supply chain challenges brought on by the pandemic, climate change and geopolitical crises. And the federal government has passed historic legislation in the past year plus that will lead to billions of public and private-sector investment in key industries such as transportation, semiconductors and clean tech in cities and states across the country. Mindell and Reynolds will discuss the confluence of these developments, their implications for manufacturing, scale up, innovation, and the work of the future and the opportunities they present for the MIT Mobility Initiative and MIT more broadly.

March 3, 2023 at 5:00:00 PM

Watch Recording

Download Slides

Modelling Sustainable Options - the importance of habit and perceptions

Juan de Dios Ortuzar

Emeritus Professor at Pontificia Universidad Católica de Chile

Habit and its potential hysteresis effect, have been recognized as difficult problems in travel demand modelling and forecasting for over 45 years. Past efforts to deal with the problem have included the formulation and estimation of panel data models, including the potential help of shock effects in the series. In the last years, and with the incorporation of techniques borrowed from psychological research, we have been increasingly capable of understanding the role of habit (and also of other latent variables, such as being risk prone or averse or being green or uncaring about the environment), by using hybrid choice models. In this talk, a quick review of these issues will be provided, and also some recent examples of the new approach in the case of modelling bicycle use, car and motorcycle ownership, and motorcycle use.

March 10, 2023 at 5:00:00 PM

Watch Recording

Download Slides

The case against transportation policy priority one being electrified personal cars

Robin Chase

co-founder and former CEO of Zipcar, Buzzcar and GoLoco

At the COP in Glasgow, in the Inflation Reduction Act (the US’s largest infrastructure commitment since Eisenhower), in wealth country subsidies, and in major philanthropic investments, the electrification of personal vehicles has been touted as the single most important way to address CO2 emissions in the transport sector. It’s not. I’ll do a scan of life cycle analyses, the implications for lithium supply, demographics of the planet, and the opportunity to multipurpose investments and then discuss better and more effective policy choices. Promoting quality car-independent lifestyles is paramount.

March 17, 2023 at 4:00:00 PM

Watch Recording

Download Slides

From Reinforcement Learning to Sequential Decision Analytics with Applications in Transportation and Logistics

Warren Powell

Professor Emeritus at Princeton University, Chief Innovation Officer at Optimal Dynamics

Sequential decision problems are an almost universal problem class, spanning dynamic resource allocation problems, control problems, optimal stopping/buy-sell problems, active learning problems, as well as two-agent games and multiagent problems. Application settings span engineering, the sciences, transportation, health services, medical decision making, energy, e-commerce and finance, but in this talk we will emphasize applications in transportation and logistics. These problems have been addressed in the research literature using a variety of modeling and algorithmic frameworks, including (but not limited to) dynamic programming, stochastic programming, stochastic control, simulation optimization, stochastic search, approximate dynamic programming, reinforcement learning, model predictive control, and even multiarmed bandit problems. We will present a universal modeling framework that can be used for any sequential decision problem in the presence of different sources of uncertainty, using a “model first” strategy that optimizes over policies for making decisions. We will present four (meta)classes of policies that are the foundation of any solution approach that has ever been proposed for a sequential problem, either in the research literature or used in practice (including policies that have not been invented yet). We will close by making the case for teaching sequential decision analytics at both the undergraduate and graduate levels, including to students in fields centered on applications as well as methodology.

March 24, 2023 at 4:00:00 PM

Watch Recording

Download Slides

How safe is safe enough for Autonomous Vehicles

Philip Koopman

Associate Professor, Carnegie Mellon University, Author - How Safe Is Safe Enough? Measuring and Predicting Autonomous Vehicle Safety

A pressing question for deploying autonomous vehicles is: will they be safe enough? The usual answer of "at least as safe as a human driver" (e.g., Positive Risk Balance) is likely to be both too simplistic and much more complex than might be apparent. Which human driver, under what conditions? And are fewer total fatalities OK even if it means more pedestrians die? Who gets to decide what safe enough really means when billions of dollars are on the line? And how will anyone really know the outcome will be as safe as it needs to be when the technology initially deploys without a safety driver? This talk covers risk acceptance frameworks, what people mean by "safe," setting an acceptable safety goal, measuring safety, accounting for uncertainty, a framework for deciding when to deploy, and a sampling of ethical challenges that must be addressed. The emphasis is not on how to build machine learning based systems, but rather on how to measure whether vehicles based on this technology will be acceptably safe for real-world deployment. An approach to deployment safety should include at least: a governance model that encompasses stakeholder concerns, a sound safety case, a definition of acceptable risk, an approach to safety engineering, a metrics strategy, an approach to uncertainty management, a defined deployment decision process, a security plan, a safety culture plan, and a plan to address relevant ethical considerations.

March 31, 2023 at 4:00:00 PM

Watch Recording

Download Slides

Moving from Citations to Collective Wisdom in Travel Behavior Research

Joan Walker

Professor, Dept of Civil and Environmental Engineering, UC Berkeley

This talk focuses on the disconnect between the incentives for academic researchers and the production of collective wisdom to inform transportation planning and policy. While the former emphasizes numbers of publications and citations, the latter is about producing knowledge in a manner that produces societal good. Unsurprisingly, the emphasis on counts has led to tremendous growth in the number of academic papers. However, it is questionable whether this leads to a commensurate amount of wisdom and is arguably harmful. For example, encapsulating the literature is arduous not only due to the volume but also because uniqueness is paramount for publication. To that end, thoughts are presented on how incentives may be realigned to increase the societal impact of academic research in travel demand, and input from the audience is also solicited. Included in the talk will be research related to autonomous vehicles, telecommuting, and public transportation.

April 7, 2023 at 4:00:00 PM

Watch Recording

Download Slides

What about pedestrians in urban mobility

Panel : Andres Sevtsuk, Peter Norton & Kris Carter

Associate Professor of Urban Science and Planning, MIT, Associate Professor of History Department of Engineering and Society, University of Virginia, & Chair, New Urban Mechanics, City of Boston

After a century of car-oriented urban growth, cities around the world are implementing policies and plans that aim to make their neighborhoods and streets more walk-able and transit oriented. Renewed attention to non-auto mobility is driven simultaneously by the impending climate crisis, public health concerns, and inter-city economic competition. This has given rise to increasing demands to shift the dominant research and policy focus from merely electrifying, sharing, or automating the vehicle fleet, to developing city environments that are more conducive to pedestrians and transit riders to begin with. This session invites three active mobility experts to explore what it takes to achieve more walk-able and transit-oriented urban environments from the perspectives of public policy, current research, and history.

April 14, 2023 at 4:00:00 PM

Watch Recording

Download Slides

Last-mile logistics on steroids: how to connect humans, machines, and algorithms to deliver to the future needs of consumers

Matthias Winkenbach

Director of the MIT Megacity Logistics Lab & Research Scientist at the MIT Center for Transportation & Logistics

Dr. Matthias Winkenbach, Director of the MIT Megacity Logistics Lab, will discuss how novel technologies and advanced algorithms can enable future last-mile logistics services to create superior value for consumers and businesses. Based on his lab’s research with major players from the supply chain and logistics industry, he will reflect on the disruptive potential of recent advancements in machine learning and artificial intelligence, as well as technology innovations such as drones. He will share his perspective on how one can harness emerging technologies to create the next generation of last-mile logistics services by connecting the power of algorithms with the wealth of human experience.

April 21, 2023 at 4:00:00 PM

Watch Recording

Download Slides

Traffic Management Challenges in Advanced Air Mobility

Hamsa Balakrishnan

William E. Leonhard (1940) Professor of Aeronautics and Astronautics, MIT

Advanced Air Mobility (AAM) operations—characterized by electric and hybrid aircraft, and highly-automated or even autonomous operations—are expected to dramatically transform the way in which we transport people and goods. The deployment of these new vehicle types, business models, and aircraft operators will increase competition for already constrained airspace resources. In addition, AAM will also require a shift in how traffic management services are provided. In this talk, I will discuss emerging AAM traffic management challenges, and some of our initial work in overcoming them.

April 28, 2023 at 4:00:00 PM

Watch Recording

Download Slides

AI and Public Transit

Jinhua Zhao

Director, MIT Mobility Initiative and Associate Professor of City and Transportation Planning, Department of Urban Studies and Planning

Prof. Zhao and MIT Transit Lab researchers will showcase three sets of A.I. applications in public transportation: prediction, monitoring, and control. 1) Prediction: deep hybrid model with satellite images and graph embedded road networks for demand prediction in Chicago; 2) Monitoring: computer vision for bus travel time estimation in Boston and text mining for sentiment analysis in WMATA; and 3) RL-based bus operation control in CTA. We will cover examples of unsupervised learning, supervised learning, and reinforcement learning and give a flavor of some future research: causal analysis with ML, generative AI, and multi-channel view of cities.

May 5, 2023 at 4:00:00 PM

Watch Recording

Download Slides

Entrepreneurship Returning to Automotive Industry: Electric Vehicle as a case study

Charlie Fine

Chrysler Leaders for Global Operations Professor of Management at MIT Sloan

Innovation and Entrepreneurship (I&E) often go together. Following the 19th Century product innovations of Karl Benz, the most important auto industry innovator/entrepreneurs in the 20th Century were probably Henry Ford and Eiji Toyoda/Taichi Ohno, noted primarily for process innovation. Although Ferdinand Porsche built and sold the first-known hybrid-electric vehicles in 1901, it wasn’t until the late 1990's that Toyota reintroduced hybrids to then relatively slow moving auto industry, and triggered a soft re-introduction to the world of electro-mobility. In this century, Tesla has catalyzed dramatically increased clockspeeds across the industry, with (at recent count ) over $850B committed to EV development and production during the remainder of this decade. Electrification has reignited I&E across the automotive and transportation value chains. As companies grow and mature, their I&E muscles can begin to atrophy, as young startups race ahead, typically unencumbered by the organizational complexities inherent in the industrial giants. As such the automotive industry in this decade seems to be populated with numerous large, incumbent auto makers trying valiantly to re-ignite dormant I&E cultures within their walls, racing against the dozens or hundreds of startups, ready to take risk in search of outsized rewards. One domain of some interest is in the development of public EV charging networks. Europe seems well underway in building out a viable EV charging network. In the U.S., Tesla’s still-mostly-closed network works well for its customers, but many non-Tesla EV owners find that state of public charging to be quite poor, limiting the market to those who have single family homes or other situations where they can get assured charger access. In this talk, we will share some thoughts on the challenges facing the auto industry’s transition to EV’s, with particular emphasis on the dynamics of I&E in large and small players and — possible paths to scaling public charging in the U.S.

May 12, 2023 at 4:00:00 PM

Watch Recording

Download Slides

Shifting Gears

Susan Handy

Professor, Department of Environmental Science and Policy at the University of California at Davis

September 16, 2022 at 4:00:00 PM

Watch Recording

Download Slides

Public Transit in the US : Challenges & Opportunities

Jim Aloisi & Fred Salvucci

Lecturer of Transportation Policy and Planning & Senior Lecturer and Senior Research Associate

September 23, 2022 at 4:00:00 PM

Watch Recording

Download Slides

Tough To Decarbonize Transportation : MIT Climate Grand Challenge

Steven Barrett & Bill Green

Director, Laboratory for Aviation and the Environment & Hoyt C. Hottel Professor in Chemical Engineering

September 30, 2022 at 4:00:00 PM

Watch Recording

Download Slides

The Future Of Working From Home

Prof. Nicholas Bloom

William D. Eberle Professor of Economics , Stanford

October 7, 2022 at 4:00:00 PM

Watch Recording

Download Slides

Roads, Transit, and the Denseness of São Paulo's Urban Development

Chris Zegras, Adriano Borges Costa, Siqi Zheng

Professor of Mobility and Urban Planning, Department Head DUSP & Post-doctoral Researcher & STL Champion Professor of Urban and Real Estate Sustainability

October 14, 2022 at 4:00:00 PM

Watch Recording

Download Slides

Credit-based Congestion Pricing for Win-Win Traffic Solutions

Kara Kockelman

Dewitt Greer Centennial Professor of Transportation Engineering at UT, Austin

October 21, 2022 at 4:00:00 PM

Watch Recording

Download Slides

VISTA 2.0: An Open, Data-driven Simulator for Multimodal Sensing and Policy Learning for Autonomous Vehicles

Daniela Rus & Alexander Amini

Andrew (1956) and Erna Viterbi Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science and Director of the Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL) at MIT & Postdoctoral Researcher in the Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory (CSAIL)

October 28, 2022 at 4:00:00 PM

Watch Recording

Download Slides

New paths for solving emergent problems of the EV sector

John Paul MacDuffie

Professor of Management, Wharton

November 11, 2022 at 5:00:00 PM

Watch Recording

Download Slides

Flexibility and coordination in on-demand transportation: from ride-sharing to micromobility

Alex Jacquillat

Assistant Professor, Operations Research and Statistics

November 18, 2022 at 5:00:00 PM

Watch Recording

Download Slides

Entry and Coordination in the U.S. Electric Vehicle Charging Industry

Jing Li

William Barton Rogers Career Development Professor of Energy Economics

December 2, 2022 at 5:00:00 PM

Watch Recording

Download Slides

EV Policy and Regulation As Seen by a Regulator, Academic, and Policy Wonk

Dan Sperling

Founding Director, ITS-Davis;Distinguished Blue Planet Prize Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering, and Environmental Science

December 9, 2022 at 5:00:00 PM

Watch Recording

Download Slides

The Supply of AVs in Open Platforms

Daniel Freund

Assistant Professor of Operations Management

December 16, 2022 at 5:00:00 PM

Watch Recording

Efficient Deep Learning for Automotive Applications

Song Han

Assistant Professor, Department of Electrical Engineering & Computer Science

February 11, 2022 at 5:00:00 PM

Watch Recording

Regional Air Mobility: Initial Thoughts

David Mindell

Professor of Aeronautics and Astronautics & Dibner Professor of the History of Engineering and Manufacturing

February 18, 2022 at 5:00:00 PM

Watch Recording

Bumps along the Road to Widespread Adoption of Electric Vehicles

Donald Sadoway

John F. Elliott Professor of Materials Chemistry

February 25, 2022 at 5:00:00 PM

Watch Recording

Transit Oriented Development in Disruptive Time

Robert Cervero

Professor Emeritus of City & Regional Planning, UC Berkeley

March 4, 2022 at 5:00:00 PM

Watch Recording

The Impact of Data Science on Freight Transportation Procurement

Chris Caplice

Executive Director, Center for Transportation & Logistics

March 11, 2022 at 5:00:00 PM

Watch Recording

Making Roads Safer by Making Drivers Better

Hari Balakrishnan

Fujitsu Professor of Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence, Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science

March 18, 2022 at 4:00:00 PM

Watch Recording

Shared Mobility and Automated Vehicles: Responding to Socio-Technical Changes and Pandemics

Susan Shaheen

Professor In-Residence, Energy, Civil Infrastructure and Climate, Transportation Engineering, UC Berkeley

March 25, 2022 at 4:00:00 PM

Watch Recording

Highway construction and displacement in African American neighborhoods: 1940-2000

Brent Ryan

Head of the City Design and Development Group and Associate Professor of Urban Design and Public Policy, Department of Urban Studies and Planning

April 1, 2022 at 4:00:00 PM

Watch Recording

Human-Centered Driving Research at Toyota Research Institute

John Leonard

Samuel C. Collins Professor of Mechanical and Ocean Engineering, Department of Mechanical Engineering

April 8, 2022 at 4:00:00 PM

Watch Recording

Future of Work and Urban Mobility

Jinhua Zhao

Director, MIT Mobility Initiative and Associate Professor of City and Transportation Planning, Department of Urban Studies and Planning

April 15, 2022 at 4:00:00 PM

Watch Recording

Certifiable Perception Algorithms and High-level Scene Understanding for Autonomous Vehicles

Luca Carlone

Leonardo Career Development Associate Professor, Department of Aeronautics and Astronautics

April 22, 2022 at 4:00:00 PM

Watch Recording

Transportation from Earth to Space and back - latest developments

Olivier de Weck

Apollo Program Professor of Astronautics and Engineering Systems

April 29, 2022 at 4:00:00 PM

Watch Recording

Economic Perspectives on Infrastructure Investment

James Poterba and Edward Glaeser

Mitsui Professor of Economics, MIT and Fred and Eleanor Glimp Professor of Economics, Harvard

May 6, 2022 at 4:00:00 PM

Watch Recording

Building Climate Resilience in Transportation System

Andrew Whittle

Edmund K. Turner Professor in Civil Engineering, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering

May 13, 2022 at 4:00:00 PM

Watch Recording

Building the Future of Transportation

Gill Pratt

Chief Scientist and Executive Fellow for Research of Toyota Motor Corporation

May 20, 2022 at 4:00:00 PM

Watch Recording

Towards zero environmental impact aviation

Steven Barrett

Associate Department Head of the Aeronautics and Astronautics Department and Director of the MIT Laboratory for Aviation and the Environment

September 10, 2021 at 4:00:00 AM

Watch Recording

Rethinking Traffic Flow with Connected and Autonomous Vehicles

Ennio Cascetta, Hani Mahmassani, Kaan Ozbay, Markos Papageorgiou, Steve Shladover and Moshe Ben-Akiva

September 17, 2021 at 4:00:00 AM

Watch Recording

Pedestrian Impact Assessments for Urban Development Projects

Andres Sevtsuk

Charles and Ann Spaulding Career Development Associate Professor of Urban Science and Planning at the Department of Urban Studies and Planning

September 24, 2021 at 4:00:00 AM

Watch Recording

Value-Sensitive Design in Mobility: A Conversation on Mobility Equity

Stephen Zoepf & Sarah Thornton

October 1, 2021 at 4:00:00 PM

Watch Recording

High-Speed Rail, Subway Network and Urban Vibrancy

Siqi Zheng

Samuel Tak Lee Professor of Urban and Real Estate Sustainability at the Department of Urban Studies and Planning, and Center for Real Estate

October 8, 2021 at 4:00:00 PM

Watch Recording

Learning Risk and Social Behavior in Mixed Human-Autonomous Vehicles Systems

Daniela Rus

Andrew (1956) and Erna Viterbi Professor of Electrical Engineering and Computer Science and Director of the Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Laboratory

October 15, 2021 at 6:00:00 PM