Gongda(Conor) Yu

Bio

Dr. Gongda Yu is a Transportation Systems Engineer with expertise in human factors, transportation safety, intelligent transportation systems, and advanced statistical modeling. He will receive his PhD in Civil (Transportation Systems) Engineering from the University at Buffalo, State University of New York (SUNY), and holds a Master of Science degree in Civil Engineering from the University of New South Wales, Australia.

Currently, Dr. Yu is an ITS Engineer with AECOM’s Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS) team in Boston, where he works on data-driven transportation planning, system performance evaluation, and decision support for ITS and multimodal mobility projects. His professional work focuses on applied transportation analytics, safety- and accessibility-oriented assessment, and the integration of data to support planning and implementation. In parallel with his engineering practice, he conducts research on behavioral analysis and transportation safety, including safety benchmarking of automated and autonomous driving systems, with technical strengths in Virtual Reality (VR) driving simulation experiments, discrete choice modeling, and large-scale geospatial accessibility analysis. His work also examines transportation equity in healthcare access and supports empirically grounded planning approaches for multimodal transportation systems.  

His core area of expertise is advanced statistical and econometric modeling of large and complex datasets. His doctoral research examined the impact of driving anxiety on young drivers’ confidence, perceived skill, and decision-making under varying roadway and weather conditions using VR experiments; assessed transportation equity in U.S. Medicaid access through GIS-based network analysis; and analyzed behavioral and socio-demographic factors influencing the adoption of Advanced Air Mobility (AAM) systems. His master’s thesis focused on traffic flow characteristics and network instability in automated driving environments using statistical and simulation-based approaches. As a graduate student researcher, he also contributed to projects funded by NYSDOT, USDOT, and FHWA aimed at improving safety for vulnerable road users, including pedestrians and bicyclists.

His research has been published in peer-reviewed journals including Transportation Research Part F: Traffic Psychology and Behaviour, Travel Behaviour and Society, and Transportmetrica A: Transport Science.

He is an active member of the Institute of Transportation Engineers (ITE), including the New York Upstate Section (NYSITE), and the New England Intelligent Transportation Society (NEITS), and contributes to TRB committees related to human factors, simulation, and advanced analytics in transportation systems.

Professional Resume

Current Professional Resume available here.