Dr. Saberi is an Associate Professor in the School of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the University of New South Wales (UNSW), Sydney, Australia. Prior to joining UNSW, he was an academic at Monash University, Melbourne from 2014 to 2018. He holds a PhD degree in Transportation Systems Analysis and Planning from Northwestern University, USA. He also has a Master's degree in Transportation Engineering from Portland State University, USA...view more
Dr. Saberi is an Associate Professor in the School of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the University of New South Wales (UNSW), Sydney, Australia. Prior to joining UNSW, he was an academic at Monash University, Melbourne from 2014 to 2018. He holds a PhD degree in Transportation Systems Analysis and Planning from Northwestern University, USA. He also has a Master's degree in Transportation Engineering from Portland State University, USA and a Bachelor's degree in Civil Engineering from Ferdowsi University of Mashhad, IRAN. He is leading the CityX research lab as part of the Research Centre for Integrated Transport Innovation (rCITI) which focuses on scientific understanding of cities through modelling, simulation, data analytics, and visualisation. His research interests and experience cover a range of transportation engineering areas including traffic flow theory & characteristics, large-scale transportation network modelling, complex networks, pedestrian crowd dynamics and simulation, and urban data analytics & visualisation.
Dr Saberi is also a co-founder of footpath.ai, a UNSW spinout, that scales and automates mapping of the walking infrastructure with GeoAI and computer vision.
My Grants
Australian Research Council (ARC) Linkage Infrastructure, Equipment and Facilities Grant LE240100118 (2024-2025) on "The National Cycling Data and Analysis Platform (NCDAP)", Prof Christopher Pettit, Prof Jonathan Corcoran, A/Prof Ben Beck, Prof Sharon Biermann, Dr Soufiane Boufous, A/Prof Meead Saberi, Dr Jinwoo (Brian) Lee, A/Prof Parisa Izadpanahi, Dr Mike Harris, Dr Scott Lieske, and Dr Lauren Pearson.
Australian Research Council (ARC) Discovery Grant DP220102382 (2022-2025) on "Rethinking walking infrastructure: AI-assisted footpath network modelling", A/Prof Meead Saberi, Prof Majid Sarvi, Dr Patricia Sauri Lavieri, and A/Prof Marta Gonzalez
Australian Research Council (ARC) Discovery Grant DP210102089 (2021-2024) on" Sustainable mobility: city-wide exposure modelling to advance bicycling", A/Prof Ben Beck, Prof Christopher Pettit, A/Prof Meead Saberi, Dr Simone Zarpelon Leao, Dr Kerry Nice, Prof Tarek Sayed, Prof Trisalyn Nelson, and A/Prof Meghan Winters.
Australian Research Council (ARC) Linkage Grant LP190100650 (2020-2023) with Adiona on "Stable on-demand optimization for workforce and fleet logistics management", A/Prof Meead Saberi, Dr David Rey, Prof Steven Waller, Mr Richard Savoie
My Qualifications
- PhD in Civil & Environmental Engineering (Transportation), Northwestern University, Evanston, IL, USA (2010-2013)
- MS in Civil & Environmental Engineering (Transportation), Portland State University, Portland, OR, USA (2008-2010)
- BS in Civil Engineering, Ferdowsi University of Mashhad, Mashhad, Iran (2003-2007)
My Research Activities
My main research activities are mostly in the field of traffic flow theory and transport network modelling. I am a member of the Committee on Traffic Flow Theory and Characteristics and Committee on Network Modelling of the Transportation Research Board of the U.S. National Academies. During the past several years, I have extensively worked on understanding dynamics and modelling of large-scale transport networks in the contexts of Macroscopic Fundamental Diagram (MFD) or Network Fundamental Diagram (NFD), Simulation-based Dynamic Traffic Assignment (DTA), and pedestrian networks. Following is a list of some of the ongoing research projects in my group:
- Static and dynamic pedestrian traffic assignment problem (pTAP)
- Routing and pricing control in mixed autonomy congested networks
- Autonomous eco-driving
- Learning-based optimization for city logistics
- Modeling large-scale active transport models
My Research Supervision
Supervision keywords
Areas of supervision
I am continuously seeking highly motivated and talented PhD applicants with strong background and interest in traffic flow theory and transport network modelling to contribute to our growing research in transportation engineering at University of New South Wales (UNSW) Sydney. UNSW offers PhD research scholarships to competitive applicants covering tuition fees and a minimum annual stipend of $37,500 plus a possible top up and conference travel grant. If you are interested, please email me your resume including your education qualifications with GPA, English test scores (IELTS/TOEFL), list of publications (if any) and name and contact of at least two references.
Currently supervising
Current PhD students:
- Yininng Hu (Traffic signal optimization of Continuous Flow Intersections)
- Zahra Nourmohammadi (Learning-based optimization of city logistics)
- Fatemeh Nourmohammadi (Estimating pedestrian activities in large-scale networks)
- Ahmad Emami (AI-assisted mapping of active transport infrastructure)
- Moloud Damandeh (Measuring perceived walkability using street-level imagery)
Former PhD students:
- Abdulrahman Alhariqi (Autonomous echo-driving) 2021-2024
- Mohammadhadi Mansourianfar (Routing and pricing control of autonomous vehicles) 2020-2023
- Kai Xu (Modeling ride-sourcing services with order cancellation and platform collaboration) 2020-2023
- Bangyang Wei (Modeling and managing a transportation system with shared mobility services) 2020-2023
- Tanapon Lilasathapornkit (Pedestrian network traffic assignment) 2019-2022
- Mudabber Ashfaq (Modeling congestion propagation and dissipation as a spreading phenomenon) 2019-2022
- Homayoun Hamedmoghadam (Percolation theory and urban mobility networks) 2017-2020
- Ziyuan Gu (Optimal pricing in large-scale transport networks) 2016-2019
- Richard Amoh-Gyimah (Macroscopic safety modeling for pedestrian and bicycles crashes) 2015-2018
- Sajjad Shafiei (Dynamic origin-demand estimation in large-scale networks) 2015-2018
My Engagement
During the past ten years, I have engaged with a number of industry and government organisations including
- Mitsubishi Heavy Industries
- Cisco
- iMOVE CRC
- Cardno
- KPMG
- Royal Automobile Club of Victoria (RACV)
- Transport for NSW
- Victoria Department of Transport (VicRoads)
- Department of Industry, Innovation and Science
- City of Melbourne
- City of Sydney
- Willoughby Council
- Randwick Council
- Lord Mayor Charitable Foundation
My Teaching
CVEN9422 Traffic Management and Control
Traffic engineering professionals are tasked with the responsibility of ensuring the safe and efficient movement of people and goods through the provision and maintenance of transportation systems. The effectiveness of the transport system defines the economic development and quality of life for the entire community. This course offers students an advanced understanding of the field of traffic management and control, with a focus on traffic flow theory and characteristics of both motorised and non-motorised traffic. The course covers topics including fundamentals of traffic flow theory and analysis, queuing theory, shockwave theory and analysis, microscopic simulation, design and operations of unsignalised and signalised intersections, and network traffic flow.
CVEN4402 Transport Systems - Part 1: Network Analysis
This subject covers strategic planning aspects related to transport systems, including transport network-based analysis, modelling and optimisation techniques. Network representation of transport systems and traffic route choice modelling including user equilibrium and system optimal are the two main broad topics that will be discussed in this subject. Knowledge about different types of transport network solutions and when and where to apply them are important for transport professionals. The subject material focuses on network theory in some depth, and a reasonable mathematical competency, as well as the ability to perform computational work, will be required to follow this subject. Computer literacy will be helpful but is not essential.
https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6526-239X