As always, host Bob Barrett selects an Academic Minute to air during The Best of Our Knowledge.
Each week this program examines some of the issues unique to college campuses, looks at the latest research, and invites commentary from experts and administrators from all levels of education.
For this week‘s edition (#1394), Bob has selected Ali Haghani’s segment on streamlining school bus routes. Dr. Haghani, professor in the department of civil and environmental engineering at the University of Maryland, determines if school bus routes could be made more efficient.
Dr. Haghani is Professor and Chairman of the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the University of Maryland at College Park. He holds a BS degree in civil engineering from Shiraz University in Iran and an MS and a PhD degree in civil engineering from Northwestern University. Prior to coming to the University of Maryland, he taught as an Assistant Professor at the University of Pittsburgh and was a Post Doctoral Fellow and Research Scientist at Northwestern University. Dr. Haghani is an expert in transportation systems analysis, large scale mathematical modeling, traffic management, logistics, and emergency response.
Dr. Haghani has over twenty years of experience in research and education as well as vast experience in managing research programs and administrative expertise. He has completed many research projects for several sponsors including Maryland State Highway Administration, Maryland Mass Transit Administration, Federal Highway Administration, and I-95 Corridor Coalition. Some of his most recent completed projects are the evaluation of the cellular probe data for the Baltimore Multimodal Traveler Information System (MMTIS) in which he applied statistical analysis techniques to evaluate the quality of traffic data provided by the cellular probes compared with the traffic data collected using the traditional vehicle probes; and development of a methodology for quantifying the cost effectiveness of freeway service patrols. He is currently conducting the evaluation of the real-time travel data provided by Inrix to I-95 Corridor Coalition member states as part of the I-95 Corridor Coalition Vehicle Probe Project. He has served as the chairman of the TRB Committee on Transportation Network Modeling. He is a member of ASCE, the Institute of Transportation Engineers, ITS America, and the Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences. Dr. Haghani has also served as a member of the Editorial Advisory Board of Transportation Research and is currently Associate Editor of the Journal of Intelligent Transportation Systems.
