Transportation Systems Research

Transportation Infrastructure and Systems Research Lab

Interested to Join our Lab, please fill out the request: Join our Lab

News/Updates

[June 2025] Dr. Aziz has been granted tenure and promoted to Associate Professor at K-State
[15 September 2023] We are awarded FMCSA High-Priority Grant ($349,051 for 24 months) with Co-PI(s) Dr. Eric Fitzsimmons and Dr. Doina Caragea. Sponsor: Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration
[01 September 2023] We have started working on the Rural-Golden-Hour Crash reduction project with the K-TRAN KDOT award.

Vision and Philosophy

Integrative research

We contribute and support integrative multi-disciplinary research. With our core focus on transportation systems, we aim to work with other areas of civil engineering (e.g., environmental and structural engineering) and outside engineering—social science, operations research, computer science, and engineering education. Recent efforts include the water-energy-transportation nexus and food-security initiatives. The key philosophy is not to work in "silos"; instead, our lab is an integral part of the eco-system of the research organization in context.

Our goal is to build Safe, Resilient, and Sustainable Transportation and Infrastructure Systems

Advancing science

Knowing and understanding the complex science of transportation—human, technologies, and land use—is at the core of our lab. We aim to nourish and grow visionary research ideas through our graduate associates and lab partners.

Service to the community and the nation

Our lab is bound to serve the community through engineering service, developing solutions for community challenges such as congestion and air quality, and providing a platform for technology transfer. My lab is not limited to an academic exercise. Instead, we make our way toward implementing an effective partnership with the local government, planning organization, and relevant industry partners.

Our Sponsors

We are grateful to our research sponsors at national, state, and local levels. Our research projects are funded by the National Science Foundation (NSF), Federal Motor Carrier Safety Administration (FMCSA), Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) through Pooled-Fund, and the Kansas Department of Transportation.

RESEARCH THRUST

Impact (mobility, energy, and accessibility) assessment of emerging technologies—Vehicle automation, electrification, and micromobility: We are building macro and micro-level models—hydrodynamic theory based with embedded mathematical programs and microsimulation tools to estimate mobility and energy benefits for signal control optimizations. Also, the simulation-based optimization techniques are applied to render scalability to the problems. Besides the theoretical models; we are building the CAVe-in-a-Box system (FHWA) to test and generate data for CAV applications. Also, we have Jetson Nano enabled AI-Pro Racing car for research and teaching—demonstration of CAV systems.

RESEARCH THRUST

Understanding the challenges and impacts of electrified mobility—roads and vehicles: Transportation electrification—vehicles and roads—is considered as a potential solution to battle climate change by reducing the carbon footprint of on-road vehicles. Large-scale adoption of electric vehicles (EVs) can pave the way to sustainable mobility—low emissions, carbon consumption, and environmental impact. Now, a major concern for potential consumers is range anxiety because of the shorter driving range of EVs (because of either smaller battery size or lack of access to charging stations). Additionally, freight fleet electrification will have unique challenges—battery size and charging time. We have an ongoing project funded by the Kansas Department of Transportation to investigate the potential of dynamic wireless charging infrastructure to address these challenges.

RESEARCH THRUST

Automated-Connected-Electric Mobility Services (access to food, jobs, and medical needs): We are addressing the primary challenges associated with mobility services (e..g, less than optimal transit services in rural areas) including (a) Connectivity and coverage of the services—meeting the first and last-mile travel needs. Only sixty percent of rural counties nationwide have public transportation available, (b) Long travel distance and low development densities—a barrier for an efficient easy-to-access transit system; and (c) Economic feasibility of deploying emerging mobility services such as on-demand mobility through electric automated shuttle.

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