Research

Hurricane Michael destroyed houses and infrastructure throughout the Florida Panhandle. As a result, many people had to evacuate to and stay in shelters, thus generating significant demand for shelter services. Meanwhile, shelters may experience disruption of utility services, storm-related debris/waste issues, and other operational issues.

Although a shelters should have sufficient capacities in place to accommodate all segments of the population including those that are vulnerable (e.g., seniors, children and people with special needs), shelter administrators are often challenged in operating and managing their facilities. In such trying situations, other government agencies (i.e., state or federal government agencies in addition to local government agencies), NGOs, and other community volunteer groups play an important role in supporting operations of shelters. In this project, we termed such civic and social systems as secondary infrastructure and general service providers (e.g., municipal utility supplier, local agencies) as primary infrastructure.

The objective of this research is to capture what kind of secondary infrastructures are available along with their associated primary infrastructures for long-term shelter operations in support of their vital needs such as supply and waste/debris management in Panama City, Florida in the aftermath of Hurricane Michael.

There is a need for systematic frameworks to facilitate data oriented decision- and policy-making in the construction industry. However, the traditional approach to data analysis in the construction industry has primarily focused on the financial aspects of the industry (e.g., financial dynamics or project cost trends) without considering other important dimensions. To address this gap, this research was shaped at the intersection of the academia and industry to develop a systematic framework for multi-dimensional trend analysis in the construction industry.

The objectives of this research are to: i) define the health of the construction industry based on a survey and interviews with industry professionals; ii) develop a framework of a composite index to gauge the multi-dimensional trajectory of the current health of the construction industry; and iii) use the proposed framework for in-depth study of trends and dynamics in the industry. The ultimate objective of this research is to promote data-driven decision-making through a systematic approach.

Transportation consists of multiple heterogeneous distributed systems that are involved in networks across many levels. The Florida transportation system, in particular, is composed of various heterogeneous subsystems ranging from ground transportation (e.g., auto, truck, transit, bicycle and pedestrian, and rail) to water transportation (e.g., seaport) and air transportation (e.g., aviation). Each transportation system is distributed across various parts of the state and is operated and managed independently of the others even though they often communicate to improve the efficiency of the overarching transportation system. However, understanding and evaluating the dynamics of transportation is often difficult due to the substantial number of independent systems and their heterogeneity, the distributed but communicative nature of these systems, and the presence of uncertainty concerning their coevolution. Such challenging features qualify transportation as a system of systems (SoS)—a collection of subsystems that evolve over time and are independently managed and operated at multiple levels.

The main objectives of this project are to (i) identify and track external factors that are associated with all modes of transportation (i.e., auto, truck, transit, bicycle and pedestrian, aviation, rail, and seaport), (ii) understand the evolutionary and emergent nature of the Florida transportation system, and (iii) facilitate informed policy- and decision-making in transportation planning.