IEEE ITSC 2025 Workshop
Advanced Transportation Technologies for Urban & Rural Areas: Bridging Mobility, Enhancing Accessibility, and Optimizing Supply Chain Logistics
November 18, The Star Grand, Broadbeach (Surfers Paradise 1) – Gold Coast, Australia
This half-day workshop aims to bring together researchers, practitioners, and industry experts to explore the latest advancements in transportation technologies that address mobility, accessibility, and logistics challenges in both urban and rural areas.
Moderators:
- Dr. Petros Ioannou, University of Southern California
- Dr. Evangelos I. Kaisar, Florida Atlantic University
- Dr. Ali Karimoddini, North Carolina A&T State University
AGENDA
8:30 AM - 8:45 AM: Introduction and Registration
8:45 AM - 9:00 AM: Opening Remarks
- Introduction by Dr. Petros Ioannou, University of Southern California
- Co-chair Dr. Evangelos I. Kaisar, Florida Atlantic University
9:00 AM – 10:00 AM: Session 1: Optimizing Freight and Port Resilience: Smart Solutions for Urban and Rural Infrastructure
- Dr. Bill Eisele, Texas A&M Transportation Institute
“Facilitating Data-Driven Freight Decision-Making in Rural and Urban Environments” - Dr. Montasir Abbas, Virginia Tech
“The road to collective mobility intelligence—beyond science” - Dr. Yunlong Zhang, Texas A&M University
“Port Resilience: Benchmarking Multimodal Large Language Models for Cyclone Preparedness in Disaster Management”
10:00 AM - 10:30 AM: Coffee Break
- Networking and informal discussions.
10:30 AM - 11:30 AM: Session 2: Advancing Rural Accessibility Through Autonomy and Data-Driven Transportation Modeling
- Dr. Ali Karimoddini, North Carolina A&T State University
“Bringing Autonomy to Rural Areas: Challenges in Connected and Autonomous Vehicle Deployment” - Dr. Evangelos I. Kaisar, Florida Atlantic University
“Modeling Rural Healthcare Accessibility in Florida Using a Gravity–Radiation Framework Under Data Limitations” - Mr. Charles Edwards, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, Vice President, SASI World
“TBD”
11:30 PM - 12:30 PM: Panel Discussions and Closing Remarks
- Dr. Ali Karimoddini, North Carolina A&T State University
12:30 PM: Lunch and Networking
Bios
Moderators
Petros Ioannou, PhD, Professor/Director ai University of Southern California, A.V. ‘Bal’
Petros A. Ioannou received his B.Sc. degree with First Class Honors from University College, London, in 1978 and his M.S. and Ph.D. degrees from the University of Illinois in 1980 and 1982. He held a Commonwealth Scholarship and received the Goldsmid Prize and the A. P. Head Prize from University College. From 1979 to 1982, he was a research assistant at the University of Illinois. In 1982, Dr. Ioannou joined the Department of Electrical Engineering-Systems at the University of Southern California, where he is now a Professor and Director of the Center of Advanced Transportation Technologies. His research interests include control systems, adaptive and nonlinear systems, vehicle dynamics, intelligent transportation systems, and neural networks. He has been a visiting professor and served as Dean at the University of Cyprus. Dr. Ioannou received the Outstanding Transactions Paper Award in 1984 and the Presidential Young Investigator Award in 1985. He has held various editorial roles, is a Fellow of IEEE, and has authored/co-authored five books and over 150 research papers.
Evangelos I. Kaisar, PhD, Professor and Chair, Director of the Freight Mobility Research Institute at Florida Atlantic University
Dr. Evangelos I. Kaisar is an Associate Professor at Florida Atlantic University, where he also serves as the Director of the Multimodal Intelligent Systems Laboratory (MITSL), the Geomatics and Transportation Engineering Program, and the Freight Mobility Research Institute (FMRI). He earned his Ph.D. in Civil Engineering with a minor in Logistics from the University of Maryland, where he also completed his Master's and Bachelor's degrees. Dr. Kaisar's research interests include transportation network modeling and optimization, emergency response, infrastructure resilience, supply chain security, transportation management, and innovative highway geometric design. He has developed and taught numerous undergraduate and graduate courses in transportation engineering and logistics, and has a strong record of securing research funding, including over $13 million in external funding during his tenure at FAU. Dr. Kaisar has published extensively, with over 150 scientific publications, and has been recognized for his contributions to research and education with several awards, including the Florida Atlantic University Researcher of the Year Award in 2017.
Ali Karimoddini, PhD, Professor, Director of the CR2C2 Regional University Transportation Center at North Carolina A&T State University
Dr. Karimoddini is currently a Professor at the Department of Electrical and Computer Engineering, North Carolina A&T State University. His teaching and research interests cover a variety of problems at the intersection of Control, Communication, and Computer Science. Dr. Karimoddini is the Director of CR2C2 Regional University Transportation Center (UTC), NC-CAV Center of Excellence on Connected and Autonomous Vehicle Technology and the Autonomous Cooperative Control of Emergent Systems of Systems (ACCESS) Lab. His research interests include autonomy, smart transportation, Urban Air Mobility (UAM), connected and autonomous vehicles, cyber-physical systems, and multi-agent systems. His research has been supported by different federal funding agencies and industrial partners to conduct research on the development of autonomous vehicles and their applications. He has received over $55 million in grants and contracts from federal funding agencies and industrial partners as the PI or Co-PI to research the development of autonomous vehicles and their applications. He is the recipient of the NC A&T 2015 Rookie of the year and 2019 and 2021 Interdisciplinary Research Award. He is also a senior member of IEEE.
Presenters
Montasir Abbas, PhD, PE, Virginia Tech
Dr. Abbas, a recipient of the Federal Highway Administration Exploratory and Advanced Research (FHWA EAR) program award, has significantly contributed to advancements in highway engineering and intermodal surface transportation through research utilizing agent-based modeling to study driver behavior. He has also conducted notable research for the National Cooperative Highway Research Program (NCHRP) and the Virginia Transportation Research Council (VTRC) on traffic control strategies and next-generation control evaluations. During his Ph.D. at Purdue University, Dr. Abbas developed the Purdue Real-Time Offset Transitioning Algorithm for Coordinating Traffic Signals (PRO-TRACTS), bridging adaptive control systems with closed-loop systems. His work includes the development and implementation of several innovative algorithms and systems such as the Platoon Identification and Accommodation system (PIA), Pattern Identification Logic for Offset Tuning (PILOT 05), Supervisory Control Intelligent Adaptive Module (SCIAM), and the Safety and Mobility Agent-based Reinforcement-learning Traffic Simulation Add-on Module (SMART SAM). Additionally, he was a key developer of the dilemma zone protection Detection Control System (D-CS), recognized as one of Texas's top research innovations in 2002.
Mr. Charles Edwards, UNC at Chapel Hill, Vice President at SASI World
Charles Edwards is Director of the NC Department of Transportation Logistics and Freight division. Edwards began his career as a truck driver, was on the senior management team of the North Carolina-based airline that started United Parcel Service Airlines, helped introduce an innovative container to the international airline industry, managed a commercial airport, led the development of the world’s largest air vehicle, managed the NCDOT rail division, and has been a senior advisor to public and private aviation and logistics projects in the United States, Europe, Africa, Southeast Asia and the United Arab Emirates. He holds degrees from universities in Canada, the United Kingdom and the United States. He co-leads an international air cargo education program and serves on various international and US logistics industry boards.
William (Bill) Eisele, PhD, Texas A&M Transportation Institute
Dr. Eisele is a renowned expert in mobility analysis, freight mobility, urban freight transportation, performance measurement, and access management, with nearly 30 years of research experience for public agencies and industry sponsors. He currently serves as Associate Agency Director and Research Group Lead of TTI’s Planning Group, overseeing divisions including Mobility, Data Science and Visualization, Policy Analysis, Freight and Trade, and Metropolitan and Statewide Planning. Dr. Eisele leads a multi-year TxDOT interagency contract focused on improving freight movement in Texas and co-authors TTI's Urban Mobility Report. He has chaired the Transportation Research Board's (TRB) Freight Systems Group and Urban Freight Transportation Committee and is a registered professional engineer and certified Project Management Professional. Honored with the Texas A&M University System Regents Fellow Service Award for 2022-2023, Dr. Eisele is also a Graduate Faculty member and Instructional Professor at Texas A&M University, with over 100 publications and extensive experience as an instructor for adult-learning activities.
Yunlong Zhang, PhD, Texas A&M University
Dr. Yunlong Zhang is a Professor at the Zachry Department of Civil & Environment Engineering at Texas A&M University and also holds a joint appointment with the Texas A&M Transportation Institute. Dr. Zhang has more than 35 years of professional experience as an engineer, educator, and researcher in transportation engineering. He has conducted scholarly and practical research in many areas of transportation engineering, including modeling, simulation, and analysis of traffic flow, traffic control devices and signal systems, safety analysis, and modeling and evaluation of advanced technologies such as connected and autonomous vehicles. One of his particular strengths is artificial intelligence applications in transportation, and he served as a long time member and research sub-committee chair of TRB’s committee Artificial Intelligence and Advanced Computing. He has published over 130 journal papers including many papers in top journals such as IEEE transactions on Intelligent Transportation Systems, and Transportation Research Parts A, B, C, D, E and F.