Research activities
- Research program
- Intelligent transport solutions research within the centre
- National and international collaborations
Research program
The TSC research program blends theoretical and practical research in addressing the major issues of contemporary transport and logistics.
The program covers all modes of transport and ranges from specific operational problems through to broad issues of Government policy and planning. In particular, the Centre undertakes multi-disciplinary research and development in:
- Sustainable urban transport
- Intelligent transport systems
- Integrated logistics
- Transport in developing countries
and is a leader in the following specialist areas:
- local area transport network analysis and simulation
- energy, safety and environmental impacts of urban transport
- travel demand management (TDM)
- Intelligent Transport Systems (ITS)
- public transport policy innovation
- integrated logistics planning and management
- intermodal freight market analysis
- complementary public transport
- GIS and GPS applications in transport and logistics
- energy-efficient scheduling and control of road and rail operations
- engine performance monitoring and analysis technology
- alternative fuel technology for heavy vehicles
- urban transport technology transfer and transferability
Intelligent transport solutions research within the centre
The ISST - Transport Systems is one of Australia's foremost institutes for ITS research and is abreast of worldwide developments in this area. Working in conjunction with several other research groups based at the Mawson Lakes Campus of the University of South Australia.
- Advanced Computing Research Centre
- Mobile Communications
Research Centre
(within the Institute of Telecommunications Research Centre) -
Scheduling and Control Group
(within the Centre for Industrial and Applicable Mathematics)
TSC has an integrated research program covering many aspects of ITS. The research and development program currently includes ITS projects in the following areas:
- traffic control systems, in particular, new techniques for dynamic optimisation of signalised intersection performance against multiple design criteria
- advanced computing techniques for dense network modelling and traffic simulation
- automatic vehicle location (AVL) using satellite-based (GPS) and land-based systems
- realtime congestion measurement and monitoring
- applications of GSM, satellite and other forms of mobile communications for digital data transfer
- social and policy implications of ITS
- the use of GIS as a tool for visualisation and analysis of urban transport operations and system performance
- the use of advanced information processing techniques (artificial neural networks, expert systems, genetic algorithms) in incident detection, planning, etc.
- demand-responsive public transport
- intelligent control systems for transport vehicles, in particular, automated control systems for suburban passenger rail services
- advanced parking management systems
- the implications of ITS for commercial vehicle operations
National and international collaborations
The TSC maintains close links to research groups concerned with transport network modelling within international universities in:
- China
- France
- Hong Kong
- Japan
- Singapore
- UK
- USA
- Thailand
The Centre is a key member of a network of Australian research and development groups undertaking work on transport network analysis. The network includes:
- Institute of Transport Studies
(University of Sydney and Monash University) - UNSW Transport Engineering
- NSW Transport and Population Data Centre
- QUT Civil Engineering
- Qld Transport
- Transport SA
- WA Department for Planning and Infrastructure
- Cooperative Research Centre on Rail Engineering and Technologies.
Major international initiatives in the area of transport network analysis include collaborative research and staff exchange programs with:
- the Transport Operations Research Group at the University of Newcastle upon Tyne
- the Institute for Transport Studies, University of Leeds
- the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, Imperial College, London, UK
- the Transport Research Centre, Khen Kaen University, Thailand
- the Department of Civil and Structural Engineering at the Hong Kong Polytechnic University.
In addition, the TSC Director, Professor Michael Taylor, is a member of:
- the Special Interest Group SIG1 ‘Transport and Spatial Development’ who are the leading international research collaborative on transport and land use interaction modelling.
- the SIG10 'Urban Transport Policy' of the World Conference on Transport Research. SIG10 is the major international research collaborative on evaluation and assessment of urban transport policies. SIG10 is responsible for the development of the KonSULT knowledgebase on urban transport policies, which can be accessed at Elsevier Science