french institute of science and technology for transport ... - Ifsttar

The international stage
Abdelmename Hedhli
My experience at the Transportation
Research Board (TRB) in Washington
Since October 2010 I have been working on
the TRB Strategic Highway Research Program
(SHRP) and I’ve been lucky enough to be a well-placed
observer of the American research system and the commercial
application strategies that are employed for the results. This
monitoring assignment was initially intended to last two years
but has been extended for a year to allow IFSTTAR and the
Ministry in charge of transportation to benefit from the valuable
and constructive feedback, which was, after all why the
IFSTTAR Directorate for European and International Affairs
(DAEI) recruited me!
My assignment is not only to conduct an in-depth analysis of
how transportation research is organized in the United States
but also to facilitate ties, collaborative activities and bids for
tenders for my colleagues at IFSTTAR and the Ministry and
this has enabled me to create links which will be worth keeping
up. The SHRP2 programme (2006-2015) aims to find radical
solutions for road transport in the coming decades. It is funding
almost 80 projects that are spread over four areas: road safety,
new infrastructure, infrastructure renewal and traffic management
tools. My participation in the SHRP project management
committees is in the last of these areas, working alongside
my American colleagues as a project leader and technical
expert in the areas of networks and the application of new information
and communications technologies to transport. The
particular topic I am involved in is “Reliability” which deals with
the management of the non-recurrent disruptions that affect
road traffic, as road congestion is a permanent headache for
road network managers in the United States and a considerable
amount of research is being done in the hope of finding
solutions that can be implemented in the near future. I also
supervise IT development for SHRP2, to ensure it is coherent
from the technical and administrative
standpoint.
The first thing that strikes one with regard
to the commercial application of research
results is that American research programmes
consider both this and the possibilities
for implementation at a very early
stage. However, it is still difficult to decide
on the ideal time to switch from research
to implementation!
Although IFSTTAR has been engaged in many collaborative
actions with American universities and research institutes over
many years, this is the first ever exchange of this type. The
idea is now to return to France with practical ideas about how
to manage research.
@ CONTACT
abdelmename.hedhli@ifsttar.fr
29
Romain Billot
A post-doc at the Queensland University
of Technology in Brisbane (Australia)
It was too good an opportunity to turn down!
In January 2011, straight after finishing my
doctorate (“Analysis and modelling of the impact
of weather on road traffic”, defended in December 2010).
I joined the brand new Smart Transport Research Centre at the
Queensland University of Technology in Brisbane, Australia.
Edward Chung, the founding head of the centre, offered me
a position as a post-doc, an opportunity I owe to the strong
links my laboratory (LICIT) developed with him when working
on European projects.
This was a thrilling year in which I encountered a new culture
and new ways of working and learnt to work with private sector
partners and manage projects as the Smart Transport Research
Centre is unusual in being partly funding by the private sector,
in particular IBM, Thales, Brisbane City Council and motorway
concessionary companies. The Centre’s aim is to imagine the
travel of the future and reduce the costs of traffic congestion.
In this area, Australia can teach us a great deal and it is a
fascinating continent for experiments as more than 90% of its
population are urban dwellers.
The country’s cities are expanding rapidly − Brisbane’s population
is expected to grow from 3 to 5 million by 2035.
Reducing congestion is a major issue in Australia and my
laboratory was the first centre that carries out research
into traffic modelling to be jointly funded by the private
sector. In Brisbane I also worked in partnership with the
public transport authority, Translink, on setting up a project
to improve their user journey planner.
In terms of applied mathematics, which
was my original discipline, this involved
developing algorithms to compute the
shortest path from point A to point B
under a set of constraints of varying
complexity.
The climax of this adventure was the Franco-Australian
symposium that I organized
in September 2011: 10 IFSTTAR researchers
met 10 researchers from all over
Australia in Brisbane. Although I’m back
at LICIT now, I still have a foothold in Australia, as an associate
researcher at the Smart Transport Research Centre.
@ CONTACT
romain.billot@ifsttar.fr
ANNUAL REPORT 2011 ifsttar.fr