Spring Break Ends

Abstract

The increasing complexity of transportation networks demands computational architectures that integrate data, algorithms, and scalability in a unified framework. This talk introduces a tensor-based approach to transportation network modeling and optimization, emphasizing the use of layered computational graphs to handle flows, travel times, and system-wide performance. By leveraging layered tensor operations, network flows are redefined as multi-dimensional entities, enabling efficient propagation of origin-destination (OD) flows, path probabilities, and link travel times. This architecture bridges classical optimization techniques with neural methodologies to address challenges in dynamic traffic assignment, vehicle routing, and multimodal transport systems.

Bio

Xuesong (Simon) Zhou is a Professor of Transportation Systems at the School of Sustainable Engineering and the Built Environment, Arizona State University (ASU), Tempe, Arizona. Dr. Zhou's research focuses on developing methodological advancements in multimodal transportation planning applications, including dynamic traffic assignment, traffic estimation and prediction, large-scale routing, and rail scheduling. Dr. Zhou has served as an Associate Editor of Transportation Research Part C, is currently the Executive Editor-in-Chief of Urban Rail Transit, and an Editorial Board Member of Transportation Research Part B. He has also chaired the INFORMS Rail Application Section (2016 and 2025) and currently serves as a subcommittee chair of the TRB Committee on Transportation Network Modeling (AEP40).

Dr. Zhou is the Director of the ASU Transportation+AI Lab, where he is the principal architect and programmer for several open-source packages, including DTALite, NEXTA, and OSM2GMNS, which have collectively received over 100,000 downloads and many system deployments at various metropolitan planning agencies and state DOTs. He has published over 100 papers in Transportation Research Part B, Transportation Research Part C, and other leading transportation journals, with an H-index of 60 and a total of 11,000 citations in Google Scholar.

In addition to his academic achievements, Dr. Zhou is passionate about connecting practitioners, researchers, academics, students, and others involved in transportation planning and travel modeling. He serves as the conference chair for the TRB Innovations in Travel Analysis and Planning Conference in 2023, and a board member of Zephyr Foundation, a non-profit organization dedicated to advancing transportation research and education.

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Abstract

Autonomous vehicles (AVs) rely on deep neural networks (DNNs) for critical tasks such as environment perception—identifying traffic signs, pedestrians, and lane markings—and executing control decisions like braking, acceleration, and lane changing. However, DNNs are vulnerable to adversarial attacks, including structured perturbations to inputs and misleading training samples that can degrade performance. This presentation begins with an overview of adversarial training, emphasizing the impact of input sizes on DNNs' vulnerability to cyberattacks. Subsequently, I will share our recent findings that explore the hypothesis that DNNs learn piecewise linear relationships between inputs and outputs. This conjecture is crucial for developing both adversarial attacks and defense strategies in machine learning security. The last part of the presentation will focus on recent work on using error-correcting codes to safeguard DNN-based classifiers.

Bio

Saif Jabari is a Global Network Associate Professor of Civil and Urban Engineering at New York University. His research interests center on theoretical aspects of traffic flow, specifically topics related to modeling uncertainty and emergent phenomena. The applications focus on traffic operations problems, including traffic state estimation and prediction, distributed traffic control, and cybersecurity.

Prior to joining NYUAD, Jabari was a Post-Doctoral Researcher in the Mathematical Sciences and Analytics Department at the IBM T.J. Watson Research Center in Yorktown Heights, NY. Jabari received his Ph.D. in Civil Engineering from the University of Minnesota, Twin Cities in 2012 and his B.Sc. degree in Civil Engineering from in the University of Jordan in 2001.

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Nazanin Morshedlou (Tajik), Ph.D., is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering at Mississippi State University. She received her B.S. from the Sharif University of Technology, her M.S. from the University of Tehran, and her Ph.D. from the University of Oklahoma (OU). At OU, she was a graduate research assistant in the Risk-Based Systems Analytics Laboratory.

At MSU, she has established a cross-disciplinary, inter-university research center that integrates Artificial Intelligence (AI) tools, Machine Learning (ML), and Social Science (SS) concepts. Her goal is to form a problem-solving framework applicable to a wide variety of research thrusts, from cyber-physical-social infrastructure resilience to search and rescue planning, and from smart transportation to game-theoretic robotic designs.

Her publications have appeared in journals as Transportation Research Part B, IEEE Systems, International Journal of Production Economics, and Journal of Infrastructure Systems. She is a member of the Institute for Operations Research and Management Science (INFORMS), Institute of Industrial and Systems Engineering (ISE), Production and Operations Management Society (POMS).

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Five leading AI-driven companies — Augment, Fleetworks, HappyRobot, Qued and Vooma —are coming together with the Northwestern University Transportation Center at the Spring 2025 Industry Technical Workshop to showcase how artificial intelligence is revolutionizing logistics and freight operations.

The Workshop will explore the increasing role of AI in automating communication, streamlining workflows, and improving overall efficiency in logistics management. Attendees will learn firsthand how AI-powered automation is reshaping the industry, improving task efficiency, reducing operational costs, and enhancing service reliability.

Workshop Agenda

WEDNESDAY, MAY 7, 2025

2:00 PM Welcome / Opening Remarks

Hani Mahmassani | Director | NUTC

Bret Johnson | Sr. Associate Director | NUTC

2:10 PM Presentations

Harish Abbott, Founder, Augment LLC

Jesse Buckingham, Co-Founder, Vooma

Kris Forrest, Head of Sales, GenLogs

Prasad Gollapalli, CEO and Chairman, Qued

Pablo Palafox, Co-founder & CEO, HappyRobot Inc.

Paul Singer, Co-founder & CEO, FleetWorks

3:15 PM Networking Break

3:45 PM Panel Discussion

Moderator - John Larkin, Strategic Advisor & Chair of Advisory Board, Clarendo Capital LLC

4:45 PM End of Program

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Bio:

Ricaurte Vásquez Morales was appointed Administrator of the Panama Canal Authority for a seven-year period starting September 2019.

Dr. Vásquez is a Panamanian economist with an extensive and successful professional career of 50 years in the government sector and in private companies in financial, economic and administrative management.

Within the public administration he has held prominent positions such as: Minister of Finance and Treasury, Minister of Planning and Economic Policy as well as of Economy and Finance in 2004. He was the first non-US Chief Financial Officer for the Panama Canal and later Deputy Administrator and President of the Board of Directors. In the private sector, his experience covers banking at Chase Manhattan Bank, mining development with Rio Tinto Zinc in the development of the Cerro Colorado copper project. More recently at General Electric with regional responsibilities and covering Gas-to-Power initiatives in Latin America, retiring in 2015 to carry out his professional practice with SIGMA Management Advisors Corp.

Ricaurte Vásquez holds a Ph. D. and M.S. from Rensselaer Polytechnic, a M.E. from North Carolina State University and a B.S. from Villanova University. He has been a professor of Economics and Finance in Panama and abroad. His professional experience is complemented as a university professor of Economics at Florida State University, at its headquarters in Panama

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The Annual William A. Patterson Distinguished Transportation Lecture is named for William A. "Pat" Patterson. In 1980, the NUTC established the Lecture as an integral part of the Patterson Endowment. It has since become an annual highlight at Northwestern University, drawing influential speakers from all facets of the transportation industry.

William A. "Pat" Patterson was a central figure in the United States air transport industry for more than four decades. He served as president and chairman of United Airlines from 1934 until his retirement in 1966. He was a life trustee of Northwestern University and was instrumental in the establishment and strategic leadership of the Transportation Center.

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Abstract

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Bio

Mr. Talvitie is a transportation consultant and certified psychoanalyst. He resides in Chicago, IL, USA. He is Professor (Emeritus) at Aalto University, Finland. Previously, Mr. Talvitie was a Senior Transport Specialist at the World Bank, served as Director of Highway Construction and Maintenance in the Finnish Road Administration, and was Professor and Chairman of the Department of Civil Engineering at the State University of New York at Buffalo (SUNY-Buffalo). Mr. Talvitie graduated from Aalto University, Espoo, Finland. He has an MSc and Ph.D. in Civil Engineering from Northwestern University, Evanston, IL. He is a Certified Psychoanalyst (Boston Graduate School of Psychoanalysis).

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Abstract

For the past thirty years, the MIT Transit Lab has been engaged in long-term research collaborations with a range of large urban public transport agencies including London (Transport for London), Boston (MBTA), Chicago (CTA), Washington DC (WMATA), San Juan (PRHTA) and Hong Kong (MTR). Much of this stream of research has focused on the role that automatic data collection systems can play in improving transit performance including tackling fundamental problems such as passenger origin-destination matrix estimation and measuring service reliability, using data from automated fare collection systems and automatic vehicle monitoring systems. This seminar will focus on recent MIT initiatives in transit operations analysis, much of which builds on the earlier work but also includes use of newer data sources and more advanced analysis methods.

Bio

Professor Nigel Wilson, director of the MIT Transit Research Program, has more than 30 years experience dealing with operations, management and planning issues associated with transit systems worldwide. His research and teaching focus on urban public transportation, including topics related to the operation, analysis, planning and management of transit systems. Specific research activities he has directed include using automated data systems to improve planning and operations, workforce planning in the transit industry, short-range transit planning methods, the role of private operators in public transportation and the potential for computers and communication systems to improve the performance of transit systems. During two leaves from MIT, he worked directly in three large transit agencies, the Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority (1985-86), London Transport (1992-93) and Metro Transit (2008-2009) and has also consulted to a number of other North American transit authorities. Additional information about Professor Wilson can be found on MIT's Civil and Environmental Engineering website.

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2024-2025 Commencement Ceremony

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McCormick School of Engineering PhD Hooding and Master's Degree Recognition Ceremony. The most up to date information can be found on our graduation webpage.

McCormick School of Engineering Undergraduate Convocation. The most up to date information can be found on our graduation webpage.

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The aim of the ITEA Annual School is to provide young researchers with a high-quality introduction to academic research on transportation economics, including many recent advances in the field. The School’s program consists of a series of lectures and tutorials conducted by some of the most prominent researchers in transportation economics. In addition, the students are given the possibility to present their own work at the Conference.

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The aim of the ITEA Annual School is to provide young researchers with a high-quality introduction to academic research on transportation economics, including many recent advances in the field. The School’s program consists of a series of lectures and tutorials conducted by some of the most prominent researchers in transportation economics. In addition, the students are given the possibility to present their own work at the Conference.

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The aim of the ITEA Annual School is to provide young researchers with a high-quality introduction to academic research on transportation economics, including many recent advances in the field. The School’s program consists of a series of lectures and tutorials conducted by some of the most prominent researchers in transportation economics. In addition, the students are given the possibility to present their own work at the Conference.

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The aim of the ITEA Annual Conference is to promote scientific excellence in the field of transportation economics and to provide a forum for scientific exchange. Research presented at the conference covers both theory and empirical work, including all transport modes and a wide range of research methodologies.

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The aim of the ITEA Annual Conference is to promote scientific excellence in the field of transportation economics and to provide a forum for scientific exchange. Research presented at the conference covers both theory and empirical work, including all transport modes and a wide range of research methodologies.

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The aim of the ITEA Annual Conference is to promote scientific excellence in the field of transportation economics and to provide a forum for scientific exchange. Research presented at the conference covers both theory and empirical work, including all transport modes and a wide range of research methodologies.

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