The Research Training Group SocialCars funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG) and the DAAD Graduate School Scholarship Programme (GSSP) jointly award two full scholarships for doctoral studies in the fields of Autonomous Driving, V2X Communication, Vehicle Routing and Platooning, Microscopic Traffic Modelling, Geoinformatics and Human Factors Psychology.

Further information can be found here.

On August 15th the annual Public Authority Relay Marathon took place in Braunschweig. In total 110 relays started this year. At the end of the day our SocialCars-Team took the 60th place with a time of 03:31:53 hours. Congratualtion!

What? “Geo-Routing in Urban Car-2-X Communication Networks”

When? 18th June 2018, 10:00 a.m.

Where? Glaspalast (Raum 1506) L3S, Appelstr. 9A (15. OG), Hannover

Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) bewilligt zweite Förderperiode des Graduiertenkollegs „SocialCars – Kooperatives, (de)zentrales Verkehrsmanagement".

Weltweit leben immer mehr Menschen in von Dichte geprägten städtischen Räumen. Gleichzeitig wachsen die Ansprüche an die Qualität des urbanen Lebensraums. In diesem Spannungsfeld erforscht das Graduiertenkolleg SocialCars neue Methoden und Anwendungen des kooperativen Verkehrsmanagements: Ein Steuerung des Verkehrs, bei der gesellschaftliche und individuelle Interessen gleichberechtigt berücksichtigt werden. So können neue Strategien für eine ökologisch verträgliche, sozial ausgewogene und effiziente Mobilität im urbanen Raum entstehen.

In der zweiten Förderperiode von SocialCars werden dabei auch die Anforderungen automatisierter (Misch-)Verkehre und neuer Mobilitätsdienste in das dynamische Verkehrsmanagement einbezogen. Für lokale und stadtweite Regelungs- und Koordinationsstrategien ergeben sich dadurch ganz neue Herausforderungen aber auch die Chance, dass automatisierte Fahrzeuge den verträglichen, sicheren und effizienten gesamtstädtischer Verkehr wirkungsvoll unterstützen.

Die DFG hat am 4. Mai 2018 die weitere Förderung des Graduiertenkollegs „SocialCars“ beschlossen. Nach der erfolgreichen ersten Förderperiode wird das Graduiertenkolleg für weitere viereinhalb Jahre (2018 – 2023) mit einem Fördervolumen von ca. 4,6 Millionen Euro unterstützt.

In dem interdisziplinären Graduiertenkolleg forschen sechs Wissenschaftlerinnen und Wissenschaftler der Technischen Universität Braunschweig, der Technische Universität Clausthal und der Leibniz Universität Hannover gemeinsam am Verkehr der Zukunft. Der gemeinsame Arbeitsplatz der zwölf durch die DFG geförderten Doktorandinnen und Doktoranden befindet sich am Niedersächsischen Forschungszentrum Fahrzeugtechnik (NFF).

Beteiligte Wissenschaftlerinnen und Wissenschaftler

Technische Universität Braunschweig

Prof. Dr.-Ing. Bernhard Friedrich, Institut für Verkehr und Stadtbauwesen

Prof. Dr. Dirk Mattfeld, Institut für Wirtschaftsinformatik

Prof. Dr. Mark Vollrath, Lehrstuhl für Ingenieur- und Verkehrspsychologie

Technische Universität Clausthal

Prof. Dr. Jörg P. Müller, Institut für Informatik

Leibniz Universität Hannover

Prof. Dr.-Ing. Markus Fidler, Institut für Kommunikationstechnik

Prof. Dr.-Ing. Monika Sester, Institut für Kartographie und Geoinformatik

What? “Dynamic Parking Maps from Vehicular Crowdsensing”

When? 13th April 2018, 4:30 p.m.

Where? Nienburger Str. 1, Hannover, Raum A255

What? “Meeting point locations for shared rides”

When? 12th January 2018, 11:30 a.m.

Where? Nienburger Str. 1, Hannover, Raum A104

What? Integrating Traffic Management into Logistics Planning

When? 30th November 2017, 5 p.m.

Where? Hermann-Blenk-Str. 42, Braunschweig, Raum Volkswagen 2

Join Prof. Stephan Winter of the University of Melbourne for a presentation on “Smart Move - A conceptual view on the behaviour of driverless vehicles” and a following discussion. The lecture takes place on Monday, 18th September 2017 at 3:00 pm at room MZ 2 der Leibniz Universität Hannover (Appelstr. 9a 30167 Hannover).

Stephan Winter is Professor and Discipline Leader, Geomatics, at the Department of Infrastructure Engineering, The University of Melbourne. He is a recognized researcher in spatial information science, specializing in human spatial cognition and interaction, and intelligent mobility / transport. He coordinates the smart city agenda of the Melbourne School of Engineering.

Abstract:

In our research we look at the behaviour of driverless vehicles from multiple perspectives: interaction (e.g., with pedestrians intending to cross the road), coordination (e.g., strategies of platoon formation), and demand-responsive transportation (e.g., next-gen smart mobility). I'll give an overview of the ongoing work in our group.

The new doctoral candidates were welcomed and the first generation of candidates was seen off at a hike in the Harz.

The Research Training Group SocialCars funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG) is seeking for a Doctoral Researcher (salary scale E13 TV L) specializing in Cooperative Driving Maneuvers.

Further information can be found here.

Join Prof. Barrett Thomas from Department of Management Sciences at the Tippie College of Business of the University of Iowa in Iowa City, Iowa for a presentation on „Optimizing for Costs and Emissions in Vehicle Routing in Urban Areas“ and a following discussion. The lecture takes place on Thursday, November 17, 2016 at 4 p.m. in Volkswagen 1 (NFF research building).

Abstract:

The minimization of emissions has become an important topic in vehicle routing research. Still, minimizing costs remains one of the most important objectives for logistics service providers, and it is not clear how minimizing emissions impacts total costs. In urban areas, speeds can vary significantly due to congestion over the course of the day, and the total cost and fuel consumption associated with different paths between customers can vary based on travel speed and the load on the vehicle. To compute cost-effective and environmental-friendly routes in urban areas appropriately, large amounts of detailed speed data are needed in adapted vehicle routing algorithms. This paper compares the total cost (based on combined driver and fuel costs), fuel consumption (emissions), distance, and travel time for routes resulting from optimizing each of those measures. We explore the impact of multiple considerations on these measures as well as the structure of the routes themselves. We consider driver hourly cost, fuel cost, customer geography (inner city, suburban, mixed), customer load distribution (homogeneous versus heterogeneous), vehicle size (standard versus heavy), fleet composition (homogeneous versus heterogeneous), traffic congestion (rush hour versus non-rush hour), and whether or not the vehicle is delivering or picking up loads at customers.  This extensive set of experiments is conducted based on the LANTIME algorithm, which is a tabu search heuristic that we have adapted to consider complex cost functions and load information. We use a large speed database with millions of speed observations from the area of Stuttgart, Germany, as input for our computational analysis. The results show that the total cost objective produces significantly different routes for mixed fleets, heterogeneous customer demands, and suburban and mixed geography locations. We also observe features about how the structures of the routes differ when total costs are minimized as compared with fuel, such as how heavy vehicles are utilized in mixed fleet compositions and when customers with larger loads are visited.

Barrett Thomas:

Barrett Thomas is an Associate Professor and a Gary C. Fethke Faculty Research Fellow in the Department of Management Sciences at the Tippie College of Business of the University of Iowa in Iowa City, Iowa.  Professor Thomas’ research focuses stochastic sequential decision making with applications primarily in stochastic and dynamic vehicle routing and in workforce planning.  His work has appeared in journals such as Operations Research, Transportation Science, INFORMS Journal on Computing, and the European Journal of Operational Research.  His research has been sponsored by the United States National Science Foundation as well as private industry.  Professor Thomas also serves as an associate editor for Transportation Science, IIE Transactions, and Surveys in Operations Research and Management Science.  Professor Thomas currently serves as the Past President of the INFORMS Transportation Science and Logistics Society having served as the Society’s President in 2015.  In 2011 and 2012, Professor Thomas served as an INFORMS Board member in the role of Vice President Sections/Societies.  In this capacity, he chaired the INFORMS Sections/Societies Committee and Subdivisions Council.  INFORMS is the world’s largest professional society devoted to analytics and operations research professionals.  Professor Thomas is also a Trustee of Grinnell College and has served as the Vice Chair of the Board in 2014 and 2015 and is now the Chair of the Board’s Trustee & Trustee Organization Committee.

Bernhard Friedrich, Jörg P. Müller and Markus Fidler will organize the Special Session SS08 "Cooperative (de-)centralized traffic management" at the IEEE 19th International Conference on Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITSC 2016) taking place in Rio de Janeira, Brazil.

Join Dr. Giuseppe Vizzari from Department of Informatics, Systems and Communication of University of Milan-Bicocca for a presentation on „Towards integrated models of vehicle-pedestrian interaction“ and a following discussion. The lecture takes place on Thursday, June 23, 2016 at 4 p.m. in Volkswagen 2 (NFF-Research Buliding).

Towards integrated models of vehicle-pedestrian interaction

Abstract:

The micro-simulation of cars and vehicular traffic is a consolidated research area that produced results whose level of maturity led to a significant impact both on the activity of traffic engineers and planners, as well as to the creation of successful companies developing commercial simulation systems or providing consultancy on their employment. In parallel, models for the micro-simulation of pedestrians have also emerged and affirmed as supports to the design of environments subject to crowding situations. Whereas separately micro-simulation approaches have produced a significant impact, preceded by a body or relevant research, efforts characterised by an integrated micro-simulation model considering the simultaneous presence of cars (and other vehicular traffic like trucks or buses) and vulnerable road users (in particular pedestrians, but also bicycles) are not as frequent or advanced as isolated vehicular traffic and pedestrian models. This lecture will discuss a research effort aimed at defining integrated models of pedestrians and vehicles interaction in the area of a zebra crossing, either signalised or not. The talk will discuss the adopted models, capitalising existing successful researches in the area, the model of the interaction among the different entities and the results achieved. The talk will also discuss the issues related to the validation of this kind of result, also briefly presenting the results of an ongoing work on the analysis of video footage for the acquisition of empirical evidences useful for sake of model calibration and validation.

Short bio:

Giuseppe Vizzari is associate professor at the Department of Informatics, Systems and Communication and member of the Complex Systems and Artificial Intelligence research center of the University of Milan-Bicocca. He had his degree in Computer Science at the Department of Computer Science of the University of Milan (Italy), and he received his PhD in Computer Science at the Department of Informatics, Systems and Communication of the University of Milan-Bicocca (Italy). In 2010 he has been JSPS Fellow at the RCAST - Research Center for Advanced Sciences and Technologies at The University of Tokyo (Japan). His research activities mainly concern: knowledge based systems (case-based reasoning and semantic web applications); agent based models and technologies (situated agents models and applications, environments for multi-agent systems, agent-based modelling and simulation). He published more than 100 papers on international journals and conferences. He co-chaired several international workshop and symposia, in particular the Agent Based Modelling and Simulation symposia, held in 2006, 2008, 2010 and 2012 in the context of the European Meeting on Cybernetics and Systems Research and the  Advances in Computer Simulation track of the 2008, 2009 and 2010 ACM Symposium on Applied Computing. He was also workshop co-chair for the 2009 IEEE/WIC/ACM International Joint Conference on Web Intelligence and Intelligent Agent Technology (WI-IAT'09). In addition to participating several national research projects, he has led the modeling and simulation activities of the Crystals project, in collaboration with the Centre of Research Excellence in Hajj and Omrah of the Umm Al-Qura University (Makkah, Saudi Arabia) and the Research Center for Advanced Science and Technology of the University of Tokyo (Japan).

location: Volkswagen 2 (ground floor) at NFF Forschungsneubau, Hermann-Blenk-Str. 42, Braunschweig
time: 4:00 pm - 5:30 pm

We welcome Juliette Daily and Karen Xia as DAAD RISE fellows at SocialCars.

Martin Fellendorf is professor at the Institute of Highway Engineering and Transport Planning at TU Graz. In his research he focuses on transport planning, transport engineering and traffic related environmental impact. In his presentation he will amongst other things discuss different applications of PTV VISSIM (Verkehr in Städten - Simulation).

location: Volkswagen 2 (ground floor) at NFF Forschungsneubau (Hermann-Blenk-Str. 42, Braunschweig)

time: 4:00 pm - 5:30 pm

Here you'll find an overview of guests presenting in the Public Lecture Cooperative Traffic Management in the summer term 2016

Prof. Dr. Hermann Winner will discuss "(Wie) lässt sich die Freigabeproblematik des automatisierten Fahrens lösen?". Hermann Winner is head of the department Automotive Engineering at Technischen Universität Darmstadt.

Prof. Dr. Markos Papageorgiou will discuss "Freeway Traffic Management in the era of Vehicle Automation and Communications Systems (VACS)". Markos Papageorgiou is head of of the Dynamic systems and Simulation Laboratory at Technical University of Crete.

From October 12 to October 13, 2015 the second retreat of SocialCars took place at the "Wald- und Sporthotel Festenburg" in Clausthal-Zellerfeld.

The Runner-up Award of MATES 2015 (German Conference on Multiagent System Technologies) goes Sophie L. Dennisen and Jörg P. Müller: Agent-based voting architecture for traffic applications. We congratulate both!

On Wednesday the Behörden-Staffelmarathon around the Ölper See in Braunschweig took place. 115 teams joined the 6 km long route, among these there was also the SocialCars relay with Gregor Binz, Paul Czioska, Tatiana Deriyenko, Felix Köster, Dirk Mattfeld, Bruno Neumann and Mark Vollrath.

With a all relay team time of 03:20:37 the team was no. 35. Congratulations!

From May 31 to June 3 the joint workshop of all research training groups related to informatics took place at Castle Dagstuhl. The Research Training Group SocialCars participated as well.

Am 16. April um 16:00 Uhr startet die öffentliche Ringvorlesung des DFG-geförderten Graduiertenkollegs SocialCars zum Thema "Kooperatives Verkehrsmanagement".

Als Referent für den Vortrag konnte Dr.-Ing. Ralf Kohlen (VMZ Berlin Betreibergesellschaft mbH) gewonnen werden, der zum Thema "Entwicklung eines Verkehrsmanagements aus der Sicht einer Verkehrsinformationszentrale" vorträgt.

The Technische Universität Braunschweig has an immediate vacancy for a Doctoral Researcher (salary scale E13 TVL) specializing in sustainable cooperative traffic management for urban environments in the Research Training Group (RTG) “Social Cars – cooperative (de-)centralized traffic management” funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG). The position is offered for a period of three years.

Further information you find here.

The vacancy advertisement offers also a position as Research Associate at the Institute of Transportation and Urban Engineering.

On October 15 the PhD students of the RTG moved into their new workplaces. On three days of the week (Wednesday to Friday) they will work together at the Automotive Research Centre Niedersachsen (NFF).

We are looking forward to welcome Lukas Bertram as new member of the Research Training Group. Lukas Betram will complete his year as an scientific volunteer (in Germany called "Freiwilliges Wissenschaftliches Jahr (FWJ)").