In Loving Memory of - Morgan State University

10It is not certain for me when I met Professor Shinya Kikuchi for the first time. It iscertain it was in the month January, but the year is fuzzy, it might be 1996, but 1998 isalso possible. This range of possibility is just the way Shinya used to explain theintrinsic limitations of humans to handle facts of reality. Nothing is more certain thanuncertainty.I still remember how we met for the first time: it was after a presentation at the TRBannual meeting where he presented one of the fuzzy models of some transportphenomenon. In that time I just finished a study on Limits of Predictability. I foundthat many models in transport come with quasi accurate results, single values, whilein fact the results are uncertain due to the model itself, the limited representation ofreality and the often incomplete and unreliable input for the model calculation. Theresearchers who contributed to my study also showed that several models oftransport phenomena have a semi chaotic character: small changes of inputparameters could have a huge impact on the results.After Shinya gave his presentation at the TRB meeting where I met him, I wasimpressed by the approach he explained. My first reaction was that I had somedoubts about what he told. I challenged him to give more evidence of the validity ofhis approach. His reaction was typical for the man I learned more in the yearsafterwards. He just invited me to join him in writing papers, where his approach wasintegrated with the methods I used. His open mind and friendliness made him morethan a colleague and co-author, I consider him as a friend. In the years afterwards weworked together on some articles and conference papers. He stimulated me to rethinkan older publication on the removal of errors in traffic counts in a network.What I appreciate in the way he worked as a scientist is that he created opportunitiesfor colleagues, students and himself to develop new ideas and to present them todifferent audiences. He organized the Sunday workshops at the TRB meetings wherehe invited several scholars - also me - to present our ideas on the application ofartificial intelligence in transportation. He was also involved in the organization of ayearly summer school in Helsinki, where he invited me to give a contribution in theprogram. It was a pleasure to work with him. I am thankful for the opportunities hecreated for the development andShinya and I met each other regularly, yearly in January at TRB. He invited me tobecome involved in the committee ABJ70 on Artificial Intelligence. I admired hisenergy to stimulate the members to work together and contribute to the commission.We also met at the INSTR seminar every three years, the international seminar ontransport reliability. Reliability of transport was indeed in the core of the domain ofhis interest and we wrote a few papers together, for instance one on anxiety oftravellers generated by uncertainty. That was an important basis for a later studydone by one of my PhD students on uncertainty and travel information. He was alsooften present at the European Working Group Meetings in Italy and Poland. Itoccurred more often that we met each other on a conference that we both chose toattend, because we had similar interests. He told me at that time that he wasconcerned about his health.I have read his last paper he submitted to the present TRB meeting. It containsimportant new views on the evaluation of transport plans, plenty of thoughts forpractitioners and researchers to apply the concepts of fuzzy reasoning to evaluationof plans.Shinya Kikuchi is for me an inspiring colleague and friend; I enjoyed working withhim, to learn his original ideas on uncertainty. I am thankful for our friendship theopportunities he created for cooperation.Henk van Zuylen, ProfessorDelft University of Technology, NetherlandsIt is a great honor for me to write about my friend and colleague, Professor ShinyaKikuchi, a gentleman and scholar, engineer and planner, philosopher and guide.I had the pleasure of knowing Shinya since 1989, when I met him in Yokohama,Japan, at the World Conference on Transportation Research (WCTR). Ever sincethen we met regularly at the ASCE, TRB, WCTR, and the EURO Working GroupConferences. It was a joy to be with him, sharing ideas and thoughts on researchand teaching. In the early part of 2000, I was on a sabbatical at the University ofDelaware, and this gave me an opportunity to know him even more intimately as acritical thinker and researcher. He was kind and gracious to everybody who camein contact with him. In June 2002, we were together in Bari, Italy, when we werebusy with the EURO Conference. With these and scores of other meetings, wewrote papers and discussed research work together. I always counted on Shinya'sknowledge and experience and we were in touch constantly on topics such asFuzzy mathematics, technical education, and the philosophy of transportation. Thetransportation world has lost a great teacher and researcher.Farewell Shinya, my dear friend and colleague, I will miss you for the rest of my lifeC. Jotin Khisty, Emeritus ProfessorIllinois Institute of Technology, Chicago11