New Undergraduate Fall 2025 Registration

Enjoy a welcome from Dean Christopher A. Schuh and other McCormick leaders, and receive a Northwestern Engineering T-shirt. A free lunch on the Tech East Plaza will follow.

Fall Classes Begin. Change of Registration (Drop/Add) Late registration for returning students begins

The Reverse Side of Online Shopping: Examining Sociodemographic and Built-Environment Determinants of Delivery Returns

The rapid growth of e-commerce has created new transportation challenges through increased product returns, yet the behavioral determinants of delivery return patterns remain understudied from a consumer-centric perspective. This research develops a comprehensive econometric framework to analyze online shopping frequency, delivery return rates, and return channel preferences using data from the 2022 National Household Travel Survey (NHTS). We employ a multivariate modeling approach integrating probit ordered-response and probit fractional response models to examine three interconnected outcomes: (1) frequency of online goods purchases, (2) proportion of online purchases returned, and (3) distribution of returns across four channels (home pickup, post office, Amazon drop-off, and physical store). The results reveal significant sociodemographic heterogeneity in online purchasing and return behavior. Built environment factors also significantly influence return behaviors. The findings have important implications for transportation planning and urban logistics, highlighting the need for policies that ensure equitable return access and the importance of integrating e-commerce return trips into travel demand models.

Keywords: E-commerce returns, online shopping behavior, transportation planning, reverse logistics, consumer behavior.

Bio

Dr. Chandra R. Bhat is the Joe J. King Chair in Engineering at The University of Texas at Austin, where he teaches courses in transportation systems analysis and transportation planning. He is also the Director of the USDOT-funded National Center for Understanding Future Travel Behavior and Demand. He also served as the Director of the Data-Supported Transportation Operations and Planning (D-STOP) Tier 1 USDOT University Transportation Center, the Associate Chairman of the Department of Civil, Architectural and Environmental Engineering, and the Director of the Center for Transportation Research.

Dr. Bhat is recognized nationally and internationally as a leading expert in the area of travel demand modeling and travel behavior analysis. His substantive research interests include land-use and travel demand modeling, activity-based travel modeling, policy evaluation of the effect of transportation control and congestion pricing measures on traffic congestion and mobile-source emissions, marketing research of competitive positioning strategies for transportation services, use of non-motorized modes of travel, and physical health and transportation. His methodological research interests and expertise are in the areas of econometric and mathematical modeling of consumer behavior, including discrete choice analysis, discrete-continuous econometric systems, and hazard duration models. His methodological works are widely referenced in the economics, marketing, geography, statistics, and transportation fields, and have been included in econometric textbooks and software packages. Many of these works, published as refereed journal papers, have been listed in journals as highly cited papers, and two of his papers were included in a book compilation of the 46 most influential and innovative scholarly papers in the choice modeling field in the past 60 years (the book title is Choice Modelling: Foundational Contributions, 2011, Edward Elgar Publishing Ltd). He also has authored several book chapters focusing on improved methods for choice modeling in general and land use-travel demand modeling in particular. The number of times his work has been cited, as per the Thomson Reuters Web of Science database, is over the 19,800 mark with an h-index of 72. This citation index places him among the top of transportation professors in citations. The number of his citations in the Google Scholar database is over 44,690, with an h-index of 109. Dr. Bhat's research has been funded by the National Science Foundation, the Environmental Protection Agency, the National Institute of Statistical Sciences, State Departments of Transportation, including TxDOT, the Bureau of Transportation Statistics, and the U.S. Department of Transportation.

Dr. Bhat received the 2004 Walter L. Huber Award and the 2005 James Laurie Prize from the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) in recognition of his contributions to "innovative methods in transportation systems analysis and modeling." He also received the 2006 Lockheed Martin Aeronautics Company Award for Excellence in Engineering Teaching, awarded by the College of Engineering at UT Austin, and the 2006-2007 Outstanding Graduate Teaching Award, awarded by the UT Graduate School. Dr. Bhat won the 2007 Pyke Johnson Award from the Transportation Research Board (TRB) for the best paper in the area of planning and environment, for a paper he co-authored with two former PhD students. He was selected as the 2008 recipient of the Wilbur S. Smith Distinguished Transportation Educator Award by the Institute of Transportation Engineers (ITE). He also is a 2008 Jefferson Science Fellow Selectee and was conferred the 2008 Outstanding Faculty Advisor Award by the Texas Institute of Transportation Engineers. He was awarded the 2009 S.S. Steinberg Award by the American Road & Transportation Builders Association (ARTBA), the 2010 Most Outstanding Faculty Award for Civil Engineering by the Student Engineering Council in the Cockrell School of Engineering, and selected as one of seven new 2010 members of the Academy of Distinguished Teachers at UT Austin. In 2013, he receive the 2013-14 Billy and Claude R. Hocott Distinguished Centennial Engineering Research Award by the Cockrell School of Engineering, a Humboldt Research Award from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, the 2013 Pyke Johnson Awardfrom the Transportation Research Board (TRB) for the best paper in the area of planning and environment, and was featured as a transportation leader in the PROFILES section of the November-December 2013 issue of Transportation News, the bimonthly magazine of the Transportation Research Board of the National Academies. In 2014, he was named as a distinguished scientist and visiting professor as part of the Highly Cited (HiCi) Researcher Program of King Abdulaziz University in Saudi Arabia. At the University level, Dr. Bhat was named as a 2013-2014 Longhorn Game Changer and featured in promotional videos at UT athletic venues and in the social media. In 2015, he was selected to receive the 2015 Hind Rattan Award from the Government of India, and the 2015 Frank M. Masters Transportation Engineering Award from ASCE "for his pioneering contributions to transportation systems analysis, his international leadership in bridging the gap between the research and practice of transportation planning, and his dedicated efforts to produce a new generation of high quality transportation professionals." In 2016, he was named as a Distinguished Alumnus of the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras in recognition of his seminal contributions to the field of transportation and urban policy, and was listed on the Eno Center for Transportation's Top 10 Transportation Thought Leaders in Academia. The list, put together by Eno and the Council of University Transportation Centers (CUTC), features academics who "work in multi-modal disciplines that vary greatly from computer science, information systems, and engineering to public policy, planning, business and design. In addition to grooming the next transportation workforce, this esteemed group leverages their resources and expertise to help solve real world transportation challenges through ongoing research and thought-leadership." In 2017, he was awarded the Lifetime Achievement in Transportation Research and Education Award (Academic) from the Council of University Transportation Centers (CUTC). This award is to "identify individuals who have had a long history of significant and outstanding contribution to university transportation education and research resulting in a lasting contribution to transportation." His paper with students entitled "Transportation Planning to Accommodate Needs of Wind Energy Projects" received the 2017 Transportation Research Board (TRB) Travel Analysis Methods Section Ryuichi Kitamura Paper Award. This award is for the best paper, authored by a student(s)-mentor combination, submitted to the Travel Analysis Methods Section (ADB00) of TRB, which gets over 500 papers each year. He also received the 2022 Theodore M. Matson Memorial Award from the Institute of Transportation Engineers (ITE) for "...a long and distinguished academic career focused on resolving the critical issues facing the transportation industry." Chandra in 2022 is ranked as one of the top three scientists globally in the subject area of transport and logistics. Along with colleagues and students, he is the recipient of the 2022 Pyke Johnson Award from the Transportation Research Board for the best paper in the area of planning and environment (the paper is entitled "The Influence of Mode Use on Level of Satisfaction with Daily Travel Routine: A Focus on Automobile Driving in the United States"). Recently, he received the 2024 W.N. Carey, Jr. Distinguished Service Award from the Transportation Research Board (TRB) and the 2024 Joe King Professional Service Award from the University of Texas�s Cockrell Engineering School.

Dr. Bhat has also made significant educational and scientific impacts on the transportation planning field by nurturing and producing a new generation of very high quality researchers. The results of his pedagogical efforts are evident in the quality of his graduate students. In each of the years 2000, 2001, 2013, 2018, and 2025, one of his MS students was awarded the prestigious Milton Pikarsky Memorial Award for the best North America thesis in the transportation science and technology area, and in 2013, one of his PhD students won the Milton Pikarsky Memorial Award for the best North American dissertation in the transportation science and technology area. In 2004, and again in 2008, one of his PhD students received the Charley V. Wootan Memorial Award for the best North American dissertation in the transportation policy and planning area, and in 2009, 2011, 2013, and again in 2024, one of his MS students won the Charley V. Wootan Memorial Award for the best North American thesis in the transportation policy and planning area. In 2009 and 2012, a PhD student received an honorable mention in the international Eric Pas Prize Competition for one of the top two dissertations in the travel behavior field. His students have been selected for the Eno Leadership Program, the International Road Federation (IRF) Leadership Program, the Eisenhower Graduate Fellowship, the Wanda Schafer Scholarship of the Women's Transportation Society, and the Herman Award, among other awards. Overall, since 2000, his students have received over 45 external (non-UT) awards for their scholarly research and leadership contributions.

Dr. Bhat has been invited and/or elected to serve on several international and national transportation committees, including the International Association for Travel Behavior Research and eleven Transportation Research Board (TRB) committees/task forces. He served as the President of the International Association for Travel Behavior Research, and was a member of the Board of Directors of this association. He is a current member of the TRB Committee on Statistical Methods (AED60), and served as the Co-Chair of the TRB Transportation Planning and Analysis Section (AEP00), Chair of the TRB Travel Analysis Methods Section (ADB00), Co-Chair of the TRB Committee on Transportation Education and Training (ABG20), and Chair of the Committee on Transportation Demand Forecasting (ADB40). He is also the Editor-in-Chief of Transportation Research-Part B, an Associate Editor of Analytic Methods in Accident Research, Transportation Research Record: Journal of the Transportation Research Board (TRR), and Transportation Research Interdisciplinary Perspectives (TRIP), a consulting editor of Travel Behaviour and Society, and serves on the editorial boards of the Journal of Choice Modelling, Transportation Letters: The International Journal of Transportation Research, EURO Journal on Transport and Logistics, and Transportation in Developing Economies, A Journal of the Transportation Research Group of India (TRG). Dr. Bhat is on the Board of Directors of the Research and Education Division of the American Road and Transportation Builders Association (ARTBA) and was a member of the Executive Committee of the Council of University Transportation Centers (CUTC).

Dr. Bhat has been a consultant for activity-based travel modeling for MPOs, has conducted research for the Boston MPO in the past on improvements to travel demand modeling, and is currently working with the North Central Texas Council of Governments (NCTCOG) on an ongoing activity-based travel modeling project. He has worked with Parsons Brinckerhoff and Cambridge Systematics as a consultant for developing and implementing integrated land-use, transportation, and air quality models. He was on a National Academy of Sciences (NAS) Panel to review the travel demand modeling procedures of the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments (MWCOG) in Washington D.C. He has served as a Peer Review Panelist for several MPOS, including those in the San Francisco, San Diego, Seattle, Los Angeles, New Jersey, Calgary, and St. Louis areas. Locally, he was the technical advisor to a Blue Ribbon Task Force constituted by the Greater Austin Chamber of Commerce to review and assess Capital Metro's light rail proposal for Austin.

Inverse Learning for User Equilibrium

Yafeng Yin, University of Michigan

Abstract:

This talk introduces an inverse learning framework for constructing traffic network equilibrium models directly from empirical observations. Using trajectory, volume, and speed data, the framework estimates link performance, route choice preferences, and demand functions without costly local surveys. Recent advances include learning route choice preferences from trajectory data with perturbed utility theory and developing context-dependent equilibrium models from multiday traffic data that incorporate features such as weather and day of week. These methods improve predictive accuracy and scalability while balancing behavioral interpretability and data fit. The framework also supports planning and policy analysis under uncertainty, demonstrating the potential of inverse learning to make network modeling more data-driven, adaptive, and practical for real-world applications.

Bio:

Dr. Yafeng Yin is the Donald Cleveland Collegiate Professor of Engineering and the Donald Malloure Department Chair of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the University of Michigan, Ann Arbor. His research examines the interactions among travelers, infrastructure, and mobility services, aiming to enhance the design, operation, and regulation of transportation systems. He has published over 160 peer-reviewed papers in leading journals and served as Editor-in-Chief of Transportation Research Part C: Emerging Technologies from 2014 to 2020. He currently serves as an Area Editor for Transportation Science and an Associate Editor for Transportation Research Part B: Methodological, and co-Editor-Chief for the newly launched journal Artificial Intelligence for Transportation. Dr. Yin’s work has received multiple honors, including the Monroe-Brown Foundation Education Excellence Award from Michigan Engineering, the Doctoral Mentoring Award from the University of Florida, and the Outstanding Leadership Award from the Chinese Overseas Transportation Association (COTA). He has also received several best paper awards from the Transportation Research Board, including the Stella Dafermos, Ryuichi Kitamura, and Kikuchi-Karlaftis awards. He earned his Ph.D. from the University of Tokyo in 2002, and his master’s and bachelor’s degrees from Tsinghua University in 1996 and 1994, respectively.

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Autonomous Transportation Systems

Details and registration forthcoming.

Related Info

Richard Hornbeck
V. Duane Rath Professor of Economics and Neubauer Family Faculty Fellow, The University of Chicago Booth School of Business

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Richard Hornbeck is the V. Duane Rath Professor of Economics at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business. Rick is an economic historian and applied-micro economist, whose research focuses on the historical development of the American economy. He views history as informing why some places and some people have become wealthier, while others have remained poorer, which can provide perspective on what factors might drive widespread improvements in living standards. He is a research associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research, affiliated with programs on the Development of the American Economy, Development Economics, and Environmental and Energy Economics.

Prior to joining Chicago Booth in 2015, Rick was the Dunwalke Associate Professor of American History in the Economics Department at Harvard University. He received an Alfred P. Sloan Fellowship in 2014 and was selected for the 2009 Review of Economic Studies Tour. He received a PhD in economics from MIT in 2009 and a bachelor’s degree in economics from the University of Chicago in 2004.

Related Info

Abstract:

Intermodal and multimodal facilities are critical nodes in freight transportation networks, enabling the transfer of freight flows between different modes such as truck, rail, and water. This study presents a generalized hub location model for determining the optimal placement of intermodal and multimodal facilities, jointly with the routing optimization of freight flows within a multimodal freight network. The model is applied to the Continental United States freight network using real-world origin–destination demand flows, to demonstrate its ability to inform strategic infrastructure planning.

Bio:

Vasilis Volakakis is a fourth-year Ph.D. candidate in the Transportation Systems Analysis & Planning program within the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the McCormick School of Engineering, Northwestern University. He holds an Integrated Master's degree in Production Engineering and Management from the Technical University of Crete, located in his hometown of Chania, Greece. His primary research interests include freight transportation, optimization and operations research, aviation, traffic flow theory, and traffic control.

ABSTRACT:

In recent years, shared e-scooters have rapidly gained popularity as a convenient mode for short-distance trips. Ensuring their successful and sustainable integration into urban mobility systems requires a comprehensive, multi-faceted analysis of their impact on both users and the transportation network. In this seminar we try to examine essential aspects of e-scooter use: (1) how individuals adopt e-scooters as a service, (2) whether current users continue using them, (3) what factors determine user satisfaction, (4) how services are distributed across regions from an equity perspective, (5) the extent to which e-scooters complement existing modes, particularly public transit, and (6) how to characterize traffic safety concerns for users. Analyzing these aspects provides critical insights for promoting the sustainable use of shared e-scooter systems.
To address these questions, we designed and implemented a three-phase survey of shared e-scooter users in Chicago. The first phase (June 2021, ~500 participants) examined early adoption patterns, combining socio-demographic data, travel preferences, and residential locations. The findings showed that younger adults and residents in households without a car were more likely adopters. The second phase (Nov–Dec 2020, 2,000+ users) modeled continued usage intentions, accounting for usefulness, reliability, social influence, and enjoyment factors. The third phase (2024, 420 users) focused on satisfaction and safety. Nearly 47% reported at least one fall or collision highlighting alarming safety issues. Analysis identified key factors contributing to risky riding behavior among users. Moreover, the satisfaction analysis underscored that safety and security are critical to both user satisfaction and long-term adoption.

Short Bio:

Dr. Kouros Mohammadian is a Distinguished Professor and Head of Civil, Materials, and Environmental Engineering at the University of Illinois Chicago. His research has covered various areas of transportation planning including travel behavior analysis, modeling of activity and travel patterns, travel surveys, computational analysis of transportation systems, agent-based microsimulation models, and freight and logistics modeling. He has advised 26 completed PhD dissertations. Kouros is co-editor-in-chief of the Journal of Transportation Letters and an associate editor of Transportation Research Records. He served as the former chair of the Traveler Behavior committee of TRB, and currently serves as a board member of Chicago Metropolitan Agency for Planning (CMAP).

The ceremony will take place on Saturday, December 13 in Pick-Staiger Concert Hall, 50 Arts Circle Drive.

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