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Principal Researchers |
Students |
Professor Jeff Casello is jointly appointed at the University of Waterloo in the School of Planning and the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering. He is an expert in the planning, design and operation of public transportation systems. He is the lead author (with Vukan R. Vuchic) of Transit Planning for the Institute of Transportation Engineer’s (ITE) forthcoming 3rd edition of the Transportation Planning Handbook. In addition, he is an acknowledged contributor to two seminal texts in the field: Urban Transit Systems and Technology and Urban Transit Planning, Operations and Economics both by Professor Vukan R. Vuchic.
Professor Casello’s primary research interest is in the development and application of quantitative models of transportation (particularly transit) system performance. He is also interested and researching the impacts of transportation investments on land use patterns. He has published extensively on these topics.
Professionally, Professor Casello has worked as a consultant, instructor and researcher with many transit agencies in the US, Canada and abroad. These include Washington DC (WMATA), Houston (METRO), Philadelphia (SEPTA), the Regional Municipality of Waterloo (GRT), the City of Kingston, and Mexico City (D.F.). Dr. Casello has also worked in the public sector for the New York State Department of Transportation.
He holds a Ph.D. and a Masters degree from the University of Pennsylvania and a Masters degree from Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute. He is a licensed Professional Engineer.
Dr. Hellinga has over 15 years of experience in the field of traffic engineering and transit planning/operation. He has been a faculty member at the University of Waterloo since 1996 where he teaches undergraduate and graduate level courses in the areas of traffic engineering, transit operations and planning, intelligent transportation systems, and economics and conducts and supervises applied and fundamental research. He has supervised the research activities of more than 30 graduate students and more than 25 undergraduate students and has authored more than 100 technical publications. Dr. Hellinga has conducted fundamental and applied research for and in partnership with a wide range of public and private sector entities, including Transport Canada, Ontario Ministry of Transportation, City of Toronto, Regional Municipality of Waterloo, City of Mississauga, IBI Group, Delcan Corp., SNC-Lavalin, Earth Tech Canada, iTrans Consulting, Region of Durham, Mitretek Systems, and Globis Data Inc.
Dr. Hellinga is a Professional Engineer registered in the province of Ontario; a Member of the Institute of Transportation Engineers and a Member of the Intelligent Transportation Systems Society of Canada. He also serves as a technical reviewer for a number of publications including American Society of Civil Engineers - Journal of Transportation; Transportation Research - Part B; Transportation Research - Part C: Emerging Technologies; and Transportation Research Record - Journal of the Transportation Research Board.
In the North American context, public transportation is mainly provided by the public sector; in other parts of the world, however, alternate ownership structures are in place. Following what was advised (World Bank) for developing countries in the 1980s, many Latin American governments entered into concession agreements with private agencies to provide quasi-public transportation services. In some cases, these agreements have been economically successful at the expense of the environment and the public interest.
Maria’s research concerns the appropriate roles that both the public sector (through policy, governance, regulation and market interventions) and private enterprise play in the provision of mass urban transportation. Specifically, she is studying the appropriate balance between regulation which directly impacts public safety and environmental conservation and the potential efficiency gains made possible by private sector involvement. She will be focusing on developing countries, particularly Mexico.
Public-private partnerships in transportation are often viewed favourably because the reliance on private capital can minimize public exposure to projects’ financial risks. However, under private ownership and operation, as often seen in the Latin American context, government interventions are less likely. Fewer opportunities are presented to implement policies and regulations to make transit service more convenient for the public, safer and with a lower environmental impact. Maria will describe and critique the current ownership model in Latin America in terms of sustainability including both private economic and public sector objectives. She will approach the problem from an interdisciplinary background having completed a Bachelors of Applied Science in Civil Engineering. Based on this research, Maria aims to inform appropriate PPP relationships in Canada and throughout North America.
Abel’s current research involves an assessment of
existing transportation planning in developing countries – particularly
Mexico – and the development of improved methods for project evaluation and
area selection. In particular, his research examines the influence of
private bus operators in the planning process of transit enhancements,
highlighting the need to develop alternative methods to determine the
political feasibility and the social implications – from the operators’
perspective – of such enhancements. His research also evaluates the
influence of ownership and business models on achieving transit improvements
and the variables that have an influence on the private bus operators’
willingness to participate in transit improvements.
Abel’s research is of particular interest to global organizations such as
the World Bank – for which he is working as a consultant with the Latin
America and Caribbean Team –, the Inter-American Development Bank, the
Institute of Transport and Development Policy, and Mexican agencies such as
the National Bank for Urban Infrastructure and the Federal Ministry of
Finance. He is the lead author of two peer reviewed papers for the Journal
of the Transportation Research Board. His academic and work experience also
includes participation, in several kinds, in public transportation
related-projects in Mexico, Canada and the United States.
He holds a Masters degree from the University of Sheffield and a Masters
degree from Universidad de las Americas Puebla (UDLAP).
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In the first phase of You-Jin’s research, focus was placed on improving regional travel forecasting models to better predict transit ridership. The model on which You-Jin is currently working on categorizes and considers the transit supportiveness of the demographics in each traffic analysis zone. The methodology and results will contribute to the development of a more robust disaggregated mode split model.
One application of the work is to quantify the changes in user costs as part of an overall transit route planning and assessment tool. You-Jin is currently participating in this research project that formalizes a method by which ridership impacts can be estimated as a result of transit route alignment and service frequency. This is a collaborative research effort with other WPTI researchers. The second phase of her research will be to explore the service dependent route design algorithm which minimizes system and user costs.
Filip joins WPTI after living in Calgary and is excited to bring his Calgary experience to the research group. Spending his life in the City of Calgary, Filip intends to orient his research answering questions about how private commercial developers in the city value both current and future transportation modes and orientations. Keen to examine the apparent low demand by the private market to accept Transit-Oriented Development as a desirable building standard, Filip’s primary concern is to understand the procedures that inform the level of value developers assign to public transit infrastructure, types and usage. If all goes well, Filip hopes to unfold how existing build forms influence those values and what decisions particular types of commercial developers desire Transit-Oriented locations. By doing so, Filip intends to unravel these decisions into a methodology that would encourage transit- and pedestrian-oriented commercial development by the private market in a Calgary context.
From ferries and float planes to bikes and buses
Adriana is one of those people for whom the journey itself is a
significant part of going somewhere. Heavily influenced through
personal experiences growing up in coastal British Columbia and travel
in her mother’s home country of Colombia, Adriana’s long-held
fascination with how people get around combines with an interest in
sustainability and has led her to explore research opportunities in
walkability and Bus Rapid Transit.
While much work has been done on the topic of walkability and complete
communities in North America, globally the highest proportions of growth
are occurring in mega-cities in developing countries. Using GIS tools
developed at the Waterloo Public Transit Initiative Adriana is
interested in assessing walkability for non-work trips in various
districts of Bogotá encompassing older, newer and redeveloped areas of
the city. By increasing understanding of how accessible this most basic
form of mobility is to different people and if it is connected to other
characteristics she hopes to promote more informed future planning
directions.
From Vancouver’s B-Line to Bogotá’s TransMilenio the passenger and
public experience of Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) varies considerably
depending on what model is implemented. One of the most visible
differences between South American and North American BRT implementation
are stations. Using a BRT system in Colombia, Adriana would like to
explore the role of South American-style BRT station implementation in
passenger service quality.
Adriana has worked in regional and municipal planning since completing a
BSc. in Environmental Sciences at the University of British Columbia in
2004, and is currently on leave from the City of Victoria to pursue
graduate studies.
Recently, many researchers have been emphasizing the importance of service reliability impact on travellers' decision. From a service provider perspective, reliability is one indication of the service performance. From a traveller's perspective, reliable service is when depart and arrive at stations on scheduled time to avoid being late. Unreliable system affects both travellers and service provider. The travellers' decisions in mode choice and departing time will be influenced regarding to the degree of the transit reliability and the traveller characteristics. Typically, generalized cost includes in-vehicle time, out of vehicle time, out of pocket cost, transfer penalties, and a mode specific constant. This project will aim to develop a methodology that explicitly incorporates transit reliability in the calculation of generalized cost regarding to different user behaviours.
Growing up in Peterborough, a small city of 75,000 people in the heart of
Central Ontario, Jonathan knows firsthand just how dependent most people living outside Canada's largest downtown cores are on their personal vehicles. Before he could drive himself, Jonathan traveled around his city mainly in the passenger seat, sometimes by foot or bicycle, or as a last resort, by transit. Though small improvements have occurred recently, for most of his lifetime, Peterborough Transit operated on an unreliable schedule with virtually non-existent service during evenings and weekends and inefficient routing caused by the increasing amount of non-grid, curvilinear residential streets.
The aim of Jonathan's research is to conduct a comprehensive historical and contemporary study of transit
in Canadian mid-sized cities – with a major focus on the history, decline and hopeful renewal of Peterborough Transit.
As part of this research, Kyrylo in conjunction with the Regional Municipality of Waterloo have undertaken a region wide bicycling study, where cyclists are asked to continue with their daily cycling activities whilst carrying a GPS logger. Cyclists are asked to fill out both an online survey and a trip diary, which will aid in developing a household profile for cyclists, while understanding their respected travel patterns.
The aim of this research is to first, understand who are the cyclists within the region? Secondly, where do they travel too, and for what purpose? And finally, how does their household composition reflect on their cycling activities?
Growing up North of Toronto in Richmond Hill, Erica comes to WPTI with a lifetime of suburban travel frustration. Often finding it difficult to leave the car at home, Erica is driven to pursue research involving how the built landscapes of new transit-oriented urban forms are impacted. Specifically looking at the Regional Municipality of York, Erica plans to examine how the expanding VIVA transit and TTC subway network impacts local municipal urban forms, and if the built landscapes of York Region change according to popular transit-oriented design theories.
Tao's research is to develop an algorithm to design a
optimal transit network based on a origin-destination travel demand with
some constraints. The main optimization objective can be related with
minimizing passenger travel time, minimizing operational cost and
maximizing social benefit.
The design process for a new transit network includes
the following steps. First, data collection and analysis of the
existing network will be conducted and input for the design.
Second, an algorithm will be implemented and tested to solve the transit
network design and optimization problem. Third, this algorithm
will be applied to an existing model of the Region of Waterloo
transportation network to design a new transit network under different
criteria.
