Professor in the School of Civil and Environmental Engineering

Dr Taha Rashidi is a Professor in Transport Engineering at the School of Civil and Environmental Engineering at UNSW and a member of the Research Centre for Integrated Transport Innovation (rCITI).

Prof Rashidi’s research and teaching demonstrate how effectively transport engineering can draw upon the strengths of a broad range of disciplines to inform smart-city solutions. “Transport engineering does not work in isolation – economics, statistics, urban design and planning, infrastructure planning and operations, sustainability – they are all part of the matrix holding our cities together allowing for the ebb and flow of people and goods from point to point. They all need to be considered together.” Dr Rashidi enjoys this challenge of forward planning for the future of our cities using evidence-based analyses. “Our research has a lot to contribute to future proofing our cities. Our partnerships with government and industry are vital as they give us the ability to implement from classroom and laboratory to the real world, and position us at the forefront of technological innovation and emerging research themes.”

Prof Rashidi is currently leading research into the interconnectivity between travel behaviour and time use and the potential of new mobility technologies to influence this paradigm. Prof Rashidi is also examining the capacity of social media data to complement existing data resources as part of the development of an integrated multi-level modelling framework to demonstrate the relationships between land use and transport systems and the consequences this has for city planning and travel behaviour more broadly.

Education

PhD, University of Illinois, Chicago, 2011
MS Civil Engineering, Sharif University of Technology Iran, 2005
BS Civil Engineering, Sharif University of Technology Iran, 2003

Teaching

CVEN2401 Strand 2: Geometric Design
CVEN9405 Urban Transport Modelling – Introduction to Travel Demand Modelling
CVEN9407 Transport Modelling – Statistics and Econometrics

Research Interests

Dr Rashidi’s current research areas include:

• Travel behaviour analysis
• Transportation planning
• Activity-based travel demand modelling
• Housing search and land use modelling
• Integrated land use and transportation models
• Goods movement modelling
• Microsimulation Modelling methods for urban activities

He leads rCITI’s Travel Behaviour Modelling Team comprising 3 Post-docs, 7 PhD research students and 3 Msc students.
 
Projects he is currently undertaking with his students and looking to continue include:

• Preferences for Shared Autonomous Vehicles
• Exploring the relationships between property values and accessibility indicators using public transport usage data, go card
• Agent-based modelling of residential mobility in Metropolitan Sydney
• Normative beliefs and modality styles
• Dynamic ride sharing
• Reviewing the transport domain quantitatively
• Large data analysis applying on urban transport network
• Demand Estimation for Public Transportation
• Destination and duration choice of tourists in Australia

He has published 50 articles in international peer-reviewed journals, and since 2007, received over $1.2 million in research funding.

Grants

• T. Hossein Rashidi; Integrating social media with conventional data sources to model land use; Australian Research Council (ARC) DECRA Grant; 2016 - 2019; $358,000
• T. Hossein Rashidi, V. Dixit, J. Cook (Veitch Lister); An evolutionary model for interactions of land use and travel behaviour role; Australian Research Council (ARC) Linkage Grant; 2016 - 2019; $162,252
• V. Dixit, S.T. Waller, T. Hossein Rashidi, D Masters (DPC); Planning and operational models for food rescue and delivery to the poor; Australian Research Council (ARC) Linkage Grant; 2017-2020 $152,000
• S.T. Waller, V. Dixit, L. Gardner, B. Jeffreys (GoGet), T. Hossein Rashidi; Integrating Network Modelling with Observed Choice Data for Multi-Criteria Optimization of Complex Carshare Systems: Cost, Mobility and Transit Usage; Australian Research Council (ARC) Linkage Grant; 2013 – 2016; approx. $347,000
• Learning and Teaching Innovation Grants, SEF04, Teaching equipment grant; An intelligent system for collection and analysis of detailed student feedback on course content; 2015-16; Role: Chief Investigator; Total project budget: $40,000; Other participants: Dr Ali Akbar Nezhad, UNSW
• Faculty ARC Linkage Goldstar Award; Travel network and demand integration: dynamics, stochasticity, adaptivity; 2016; Total project budget: $40,000; Other participants: Professor Travis Waller, UNSW
  Early Career (post start-up) Academic Research Support; Exploring the capacity of social media data for modelling travel demand; 2016; Total project budget: $20,000
• School teaching initiative grant; Development and integration of visualization and online simulations tools for enhancing the education experience of transport design, planning, modelling - applications for cven2401/2402; 2015; Role: Primary Chief Investigator; Total project budget: $35,000; Other participants: Dr Lauren Gardner, UNSW
• Interactive traffic simulation platform; 2015; Role: Chief Investigator; Total project budget: $15,500; Other participants: Dr Vinayak Dixit, UNSW
• Argonne National Laboratory USA; Empirical Estimation of Time Use and Dis-utility of Travel Time in the Context of New Mobility Technologies; Total project budget $135,000
• Royal Automobile Club of Victoria; Predictive Modelling of Vehicle Transaction; 2015; Total project Budget $35,000; Other participants: Dr. Meead Saberi, Monash University
• Veitch Lister Consulting (VLC); Developing Destination Choice Models for Melbourne; 2015; Total project budget $13,000
• Symposium on Activity-Based Modelling (Faculty support); 2014; Total project budget: $10,000
• Symposium on Activity-Based Modelling (School support); 2014; Total project budget: $10,000
• Faculty Early Career Research Grants; 2014; Total project budget: $20,000
• School teaching initiative grant; Web-based learning: A solution for over-sized classrooms; 2014; Role: Primary Chief Investigator; Total project budget: $30,700; Other participants: Dr Lauren Gardner, UNSW

Awards

Fred Burggraf Award, Transportation Research Board (TRB) of the National Academies, 2008
Dwight David Eisenhower Transportation Fellow, 2008
American Society of Civil Engineers Freeman Fellowship, 2009NSERC PDF Award, National Science and Engineering Research Council (NSERC) of Canada, 2012Industrial RAND Fellowship, National Science and Engineering Research Council (NSERC) of Canada, 2012
Vice Chancellor’s Award for Teaching Excellance (VCATE) (Team Award), UNSW, 2015
Award for Excellence in Engineering Education Engagement (Team Award), Engineers Australia Australasian Association for Engineering Education, 2015
Outstanding Paper – Information and Communications Technologies Committee, TRB Analytics Contest, 2017OUtreach

Outreach

Professional Organisations/Affiliations

• Transportation Research Board (TRB) Committee on Traveller Behaviour and Values, member

Editorial Boards

• Journal of Transportation Letters, 2015 - present
• Journal of Transportation, Guest Editor
• Journal of Advanced Transportation, Guest Editor
• Journal of Logistics and Supply Chain Management, 2013 – present

Service Roles

Sub-Committee on Emerging Methods Sub-Committee (ADB10(1)), Transportation Research Board (TRB) Committee on Traveller Behaviour and Values, Co-Chair
Institute for Choice, University of South Australia, Affiliate Member, 2014 - Present
Advisian Panel Listing for the Transport NSW, Research Team Member, 2013-2016