[Call for Applications] Doctoral Position in Urban Mobility and Artificial Intelligence

Subject:

Electronic mobility marketplace for optimized urban travel chains.

Thesis subject description:

Urban sprawl and economic development are placing increasing pressure on urban road infrastructure and public transport modes, highlighting the issue of mobility, which must be not only efficient but also sustainable.

Conventional traffic models do not account for the relative ease of transport offered to the user, which is clearly a factor in generating traffic, particularly for passenger transport.

Non-linear phenomena such as congestion arise and become handicaps in an era striving for efficient exchanges. Transport users thus spend and lose increasingly more time, which is equated to a cost through the concept of the value of time, whose complexity stems from the fact that transport remains, ultimately, a good with variable quality depending on traffic.

In this doctoral research project, based on Origin-Destination field surveys in the city of Casablanca, we will deploy innovative solutions to define the field of mobility in an efficient and intelligent way through the use of new protocols, data processing and analysis, and, more specifically, the use of Artificial Intelligence (AI) employing powerful Machine Learning algorithms.

These technological innovations will simultaneously change transport needs and the means to satisfy them, constituting a definite opportunity to solve the difficulties plaguing mobility.

Indeed, the application of AI to mobility, notably drawing on the family of artificial neural networks, aims to overcome challenges related to growing travel demand, traffic flow management, and environmental degradation through the internalization of transport's negative externalities.

These intelligent transport system techniques will thus offer optimization possibilities and open up choice spaces currently little studied and explored, such as time-shifting and real-time modal transfers.

This project therefore aims to contribute to the construction of this new category of intelligent models to solve congestion problems and propose appropriate instruments, such as a dynamic pricing mechanism.

In conclusion, based on the developed modeling, this project will result in the development of a new-generation Intelligent and Intermodal Personal Travel Assistant (I-PTA) capable of offering the user an optimized travel chain, able to minimize the generalized cost of any desired Origin-Destination link.

Keywords:

Urban Mobility, AI, Modal Transfers, Externalities, Congestion, Traffic and Simulation Models, Funding Models.

Desired profile and skills:

• Engineer in statistics and applied economics with a focus on economic modeling and econometric analysis (programming knowledge is highly appreciated).

OR

• Master's in applied mathematics/Industrial engineering engineer with solid knowledge in operations research (optimization, simulation, and algorithms) and programming.
• Demonstrated interest in transport and logistics.
• Autonomous, with analytical and critical thinking skills.
• Autonomous, with analytical and critical thinking skills.
• Very good level in French and good level in English, both spoken and written.

Thesis Director:

Pr. Othmane Benmoussa - Mobility, Innovation, Logistics Laboratory / Euromed Research Center

E-mail: o.benmoussa@ueuromed.org
Cedoc.admission@ueuromed.org

FUNDING: Within the framework of the Al Khawarizmi program.

SUBMISSION DEADLINE: APRIL 14, 2025