PhD student position in sustainable mobility systems

This PhD position at the Department of Architecture and Civil Engineering offers you:

- Great opportunities to work with excellent researchers to advance theoretical and technical methods for sustainable mobility systems;
- Academic competence development and professional training for future career;
- Close collaborations and communications with internationally renowned institutions and industrial partners
- A reciprocal and supportive working environment
- High social welfare during the working period.

Information about the research for the position
The greenhouse gases (GHG) emissions from the transport sector take up approximately a quarter of global GHG emissions and are still rising. Traffic congestions and safety have been two of main causes for economic losses and causality worldwide. To facilitate the fast transition to emission-free, more efficient and safer transportation systems, the world has witnessed significant advances in emerging transport technologies such as transportation electrification, shared mobility and connected automated vehicles. These emerging technologies are promising panacea to renovate current mobility systems and significantly contribute to transition to more sustainable mobility systems. However, these new techniques bring not only opportunities but also challenges. There are many theoretical, technical and practical issues that need to be addressed to put these new technologies or techniques to good use. To name a few, transportation electrification needs large scale deployment of charging facilities and re-design of some transport systems (e.g., the scheduling of buses); the adoption rate of electric vehicles is not high due to vehicle and infrastructure limitations; the environmental benefits of electric vehicles may not be positive if the electricity is mainly from thermal power in some regions and utilization rate is low; shared mobility such as car-sharing and on-demand ride-hailing may result in more usage of passenger cars instead of public transits, and need better operation management and system optimization; connected automation encounters a set of dilemma in mixed traffic with both human-driven vehicle and automated vehicles.

The research within the position will focus on advancing one or several aspects of aforementioned new challenges for promoting sustainable mobility leveraging emerging techniques. The successful candidate will explore the key questions for facilitating transportation electrification, connected automation in transportation systems or integration of the two technologies. The specific topics (but not limited to) could be:

1. Optimizing infrastructure deployment, network design and scheduling for electric vehicles (both private car and public transits)
2. Control and management for connected electric vehicles at the traffic flow and trajectory levels
3. Develop novel methodological framework for analysis and assessments of actual usage and effects of the new transport technologies (e.g., economic, environmental and safety aspects) leveraging big data and machine learning.
4. Other relevant topics upon discussion with supervisors and the PhD students.

Information about the research group
The PhD position will be supervised by Kun Gao in Urban Mobility Systems research group of Chalmers and co-advised by Prof. Xiaobo Qu. The Urban Mobility Systems group has a very close collaborative link with the intelligent transportation group of Tsinghua University. Urban Mobility Systems research group is a research group within Department of Architecture and Civil Engineering. The group was established in 2018. Since its foundation, the lab has received valuable support from Chalmers civil engineering department, Areas of Advance Chalmers, Swedish Innovation Agency, Swedish Energy Agency, and EU, and developed close collaborations with major industry partners, such as WSP, Volvo Cars, Scania AB, etc. With the disruptive development of emerging technologies, such as electric vehicles, connected automated vehicles, and Mobility-as-a-Services, unprecedented changes have been witnessed in nearly every aspect of the urban transport system and more are foreseeable. In the past few years, the group has been actively working on those topics, and the collective effort has resulted in a number of high-quality research papers, over 40 million SEK research grants, and newly developed international collaborations.

Major responsibilities
Your major responsibility as a PhD student is to pursue your own doctoral studies under the strategic themes of the research group. The major responsibilities include:
- You are expected to take the PhD level courses in Chalmers and learn other knowledge to enhance your research ability and competence in general.
- You will develop your own scientific concepts and communicate the results of your research, both orally and in writing such as scientific articles and reports.
- Actively collecting researchers and practitioners within academia and with society at large.
- The position will normally include 10 - 20% departmental work, mostly teaching duties and supervising undergraduate students.

Contract terms
The position is full-time temporary employment with a time limit to a maximum of 4.5 years. You will be employed by Chalmers and will receive a salary (32000 – 36700 SEK per month) according to current salary agreements.

We offer
Chalmers offers a cultivating and inspiring working environment in the coastal city of Gothenburg.
Read more about working at Chalmers and our benefits for employees.

Chalmers aims to actively improve our gender balance. We work broadly with equality projects, for example the GENIE Initiative on gender equality for excellence. Equality and diversity are substantial foundations in all activities at Chalmers.

Application procedure
To apply, please go to: https://www.chalmers.se/en/about-chalmers/Working-at-Chalmers/Vacancies/Pages/default.aspx?rmpage=job&rmjob=10789&rmlang=UK


Application deadline: 7 October, 2022

For questions, please contact:
Kun Gao, Assistant Professor, ACE
gkun@chalmers.se

*** Chalmers declines to consider all offers of further announcement publishing or other types of support for the recruiting process in connection with this position. ***