Smart Mobility and Transportation Analytics Research Interest Group (SMTA-RIG)

Dr Dong Li and Professor Jiyin Liu co-lead the SMTA-RIG, whose members conduct research in a diverse set of areas within logistics and transportation.

Co-Leader: Dr Dong Li

Senior Lecturer in Operations Management

Co-Leader: Professor Jiyin Liu

Professor of Operations Management

About us

With the ever-increasing population in urban areas and urgent demand for accessible, green and sustainable transport, a lot of new mobility solutions have emerged. The car sharing, ride-hailing, bike/scooter sharing and on demand transport services are no more uncommon. Governments around the world provide support and incentives for smarter and greener mobility options. Innovation and new technologies in mobility emerge all the time.

The Smart Mobility and Transportation Analytics research interest group focuses on research, development and application of multidisciplinary works that address the strategical, operational and behavioural challenges arising from these disruptive innovations in mobility and transportation.

The members of the group utilise both qualitative tools (for problem exploration) and analytical tools (for problem solving). The group members are experienced in optimisation, modelling, heuristics, behavioural operations management, forecasting, reinforcement learning and data analytics.

The group works with various stakeholders including academics, industrialists, businesses and policy makers, and is interested in the following research themes:

  • consumer behaviours in car/bike/scooter/vehicle sharing
  • ride-matching and routing optimisation in car hailing services
  • revenue management in car rental/vehicle sharing
  • vehicle routing (with drones) in last mile logistics
  • vehicle routing for service delivery
  • facility location in transportation network
  • planning and scheduling in transportation and logistics systems.

Members

Leaders

  • Jiyin Liu, Professor
  • Dong Li, Senior Lecturer

Members

  • Baibing Li, Professor

  • Grammatoula Papaioannou, Lecturer
  • Rupal Rana, Lecturer
  • Richlove Frimpong, Doctoral researcher
  • Vidura Sooriyaarachchi, Doctoral researcher
  • Naami Sharma, Doctoral researcher
  • Shanshan Meng, Visiting doctoral researcher

Associate members

  • Arne Strauss, Professor, WHU, Otto Beisheim School of Management, Germany
  • Xinan Yang, Reader, University of Essex, UK
  • Wendy Jiao, Senior Lecturer, University of Exeter, UK
  • Dali Zhang, Associate Professor, Shanghai Jiaotong University, China

Forthcoming seminars

Demand management in time-slotted last-mile delivery via dynamic routing with forecast orders

  • Speaker: Dr Xinan Yang, University of Essex
  • Date: Wednesday 14 June 2023
  • Time: 2pm - 3pm
  • Venue: TBC