DalTRAC team member and graduate student in the Department of Civil & Resource Engineering, Mahmudur Rahman Fatmi, will defend his PhD thesis with a presentation entitled “Development of Integrated Urban System Models: Life-transitions, Household location, and Vehicle Transaction Decisions”
The presentation will take place on Friday November 3, 2017 at 9:30am in Room 3107, Dalhousie Mona Campbell Building, 1459 LeMarchant Street. Everyone is welcome to attend!
Dr. Ahsan Habib was invited to present DalTRAC’s work on evacuation planning to the Atlantic zone volunteer members of the Canadian Red Cross at 6pm on October 17. Each month, as part of preparedness activities and education, Red Cross volunteers meet to debrief on local responses, receive updates from the organization, learn new skills, complete team building exercises, and much more. Dr. Habib explained the evacuation simulation study to the volunteers and emphasized the key lessons learned including the need to reduce evacuation time and importance of preparing for vulnerable evacuees. DalTRAC’s work for the Halifax peninsula is of great interest to the Red Cross volunteers as they provide basic and immediate needs such as feeding, lodging, personal services, etc. during responses to disasters or evacuations. DalTRAC’s work relating to evacuating has received significant media attention in the last year.
Dr. Ahsan Habib presents his evacuation simulation research to Red Cross volunteers
Dr. Ahsan Habib discusses evacuating the Halifax peninsula with Red Cross volunteers
DalTRAC would like to acknowledge and congratulate MD Jahedul Alam for receiving the Izaak Walton Killam Predoctoral Scholarship award at the Dalhousie University Annual Killam Celebration on Wednesday October 11, 2017. MD Jahedul Alam, Civil Engineering PhD student and DalTRAC researcher, accepted the Killam scholarship which is awarded to provide resources to students to fulfill their research goals. Additionally, Jahed was also awarded the Dalhousie Presidents award 2017-18.
Annual Killam celebration award recipients, fellows, professors and chairs.
From left to right: Dr. Kevin Hewitt (Associate Professor, Department of Physics & Atmospheric Science, and Chair of Senate (2015-19) at Dalhousie University), Dr. Ahsan Habib (Director of DalTRAC), President Richard Florizone (Dalhousie University), MD Jahedul Alam (PhD student and DalTRAC researcher) and Pauline Bela (Masters student and DalTRAC researcher).
The DalTRAC team presented current research at the Transportation Association of Canada (TAC) conference last week. The conference was held in St. John’s, Newfoundland from September 24-27 with theme of Investing in Transportation: Building Canadas Economy. The three presentations include: Tracking Progress in Transportation Sustainability: NovaTRAC Survey by Dr. Ahsan Habib on Monday, Nova Scotia Share the Road Campaign: Lessons Learned by Dr. Ahsan Habib on Tuesday, and Proto-type Implementation of a Life-oriented Agent-based Integrated Transport Land Use and Energy Model by Mahmudur Fatmi on Wednesday.
Dr. Ahsan Habib presents the lessons learned from the Nova Scotia Share the Road campaign
Mahmudur Fatmi presents his research on implementing a proto-type Life-oriented Agent-based Integrated Transport Land Use and Energy Model
The DalTRAC team promoted the Thumbs Up! Share the Road Nova Scotia campaign during SWITCH Spring Garden on Sunday, September 25. This well attended event allows HRM residents the opportunity to explore streets by foot, bike, or other modes of active transportation. Spring Garden Road was closed off to traffic to encourage recreation activities, markets, and entertainment.
DalTRAC team members Samantha MacLellan and Sara Campbell promote the Share the Road campaign. (Photo by: Sean Dewitt)
SWITCH Spring Garden
On Thursday September 21, 2017, Daniel Richardson gave a public talk at Dalhousie University entitled “Ottawa’s BRT to LRT Conversion from an Operations Planning Perspective”. Daniel is the Team Lead of Service Reliability for O.C. Transpo in Ottawa. A native of the Greater Toronto Area, Daniel has a Bachelor of Arts Degree from the University of Ottawa, majoring in English Literature and Geography, as well as a Masters of Planning Degree from Dalhousie University. Prior to working for the City of Ottawa, Daniel worked as a Research Assistant for Dalhousie Transportation Collaboratory (DalTRAC). Daniel’s professional experience includes project management for various transit priority projects, transit oriented infrastructure projects, and other bus stop and station improvements. Specifically, over the past 3 years, Daniel’s work has focused primarily on the coordination of transit detours and construction impacts throughout the closure of the Transitway for the construction of the O-Train Confederation Line.
On Monday September 11, Dalhousie University hosted an announcement of funding for the Halifax projects under the Department of Energy’s Connect 2 sustainable transportation grant program. The Honourable Labi Kousoulis, Minister of Labour and Advanced Education, on behalf of the Minister of Energy, announced a grant of $30,000 to DalTRAC. DalTRAC’s project will aim to increase awareness of shared mobility services and integration of future transportation options. The Minister also announced funding for Dalhousie Green Corridor project, as well as projects by the Ecology Action Centre and CarShare Atlantic.
From left to right: Ian Nason (VP Finance and Administration, Dalhousie University), Alice Aiken (VP Research, Dalhousie University), Minister Kousoulis and Dr. Ahsan Habib (Director of DalTRAC).
A town called Bodegraven in the Netherlands is pilot testing a new type of pedestrian crossing signal. The crosswalk signal is embedded in the sidewalk at an intersection which is aimed at gaining the attention of distracted walkers. Global News interviewed Dr. Ahsan Habib regarding his thoughts on the new technology, and distracted pedestrians. Dr. Habib commented that with the rate of distracted pedestrians increasing in recent years, this innovative technology is a fabulous idea. Although the cause of distraction is not well documented, there needs to adaptive solutions to ensure road safety.
View the full story (minute 19:50) at http://globalnews.ca/video/3525788/global-national-jun-13-5
DalTRAC would like to acknowledge and congratulate Shaila Jamal and Stephen McCarthy for receiving awards at the Dalhousie University School of Planning Convocation Tea on Monday May 29, 2017. Shaila Jamal, Master of Planning Studies graduate (’16) and DalTRAC researcher, accepted the award for School of Planning MPS Sexton Honor Roll and School of Planning Prize for Outstanding Graduate Research. Additionally, Stephen McCarthy, Master of Planning student and DalTRAC research assistant, was awarded a Rosetti Scholarship to enable his participation in the North American meetings of the Regional Science Association International (RSAI) in Vancouver, November 2017.
Dr. Ahsan Habib pictured with award winner Shaila Jamal and Dr. Mikiko Terashima
Dalhousie Transportation Collaboratory (DalTRAC) will participate in the 2017 Canadian Institute of Transportation Engineers (CITE) Atlantic Provinces Section Spring Meeting on Thursday May 25 in Halifax. Dr. Habib, DalTRAC director, will present a project entitled “Evacuation of Halifax Peninsula: A Dynamic Microsimulation Modelling of Halifax Peninsula” and Mahmudur Fatmi, Ph.D. student, will present his research work entitled “Results of the Agent-based Integrated Urban Systems model for Halifax”. Other members of the DalTRAC team will host a poster session highlighting some of the projects being conducted over the last year. These projects range from traffic microsimulation, vehicle transaction decision modeling, and smartphone use and travel.