Due to the rapid development of the e-commerce market and the surging urban logistics demand, the concept of collaborative passenger and freight transportation in the urban context (urban co-modality) is becoming increasingly popular. Urban co-modality exploits the under-utilized capacity in existing urban multimodal transportation systems. This talk will introduce three types of urban co-modality, namely, co-modality based on public transit systems, individual travelers (crowdshipping), and emerging modular vehicles. In this talk, we first introduce analytical and optimization studies of the co-modality problem based on public transit systems, including quantifying the impacts of introducing co-modality on public transit and urban freight systems, examining the Pareto-improving co-modal system that benefits both users and operators, and designing co-modal service networks. We then present recent studies on crowdshipping – engaging travelers in the crowd to carry freight. The optimal pricing strategies of the crowdshipping platform in alternative business formats are identified. Finally, we discuss prospective opportunities to use modular vehicle-based transit systems for co-modal service. Our studies demonstrate that collaborative passenger and freight transportation is a future trend of sustainable transportation, which has the potential to alleviate congestion, reduce carbon emissions, facilitate urban mobility, and create social benefits for users and operators.
Professor Fangni Zhang is an Assistant Professor at the Department of Industrial and Manufacturing Systems Engineering at The University of Hong Kong. Professor Zhang mainly works on transportation system modeling and optimization, and transportation economics. Her recent research focuses on the fundamental and emerging issues in the shared and automated mobility systems. Professor Zhang’s research has been published in world-leading journals and conferences in the field (e.g., Transportation Science, Transportation Research Part A/B/C/D/E and ISTTT), and has been supported by the Research Grants Council (RGC) of Hong Kong SAR and the National Natural Science Foundation of China (NSFC).
Clean water and clean air are vital for public health. This project focuses on developing high-efficiency and environmentally sustainable filters for removing harmful air/water pollutants. The team has developed novel architectures and functionalities for the filters to achieve high permeance, high removal efficiency, and excellent reusability.
