Project: [Internship at TNO] Fair Resource Allocation in Car-free Areas
Description
Applications are now open and will remain open until a suitable candidate is found (details below).
The XCARCITY program investigates how to facilitate and support the implementation of car-free areas in Amsterdam, Almere Pampus, and the Metropoolregio Rotterdam Den Haag.
Car-free and car-low areas offer many benefits by freeing up road space, reducing congestion and parking requirements, and generally contributing to increased livability of the city center. However, other solutions are needed to keep these areas accessible. One of these is offering shared mobility services, such as shared electric bicycles and scooters, to move people into car-low areas. A challenge in this process is the fair allocation of such limited resources.
In this internship, you will work with a prototype of a digital twin in the form of a Markov decision process model using real-world data. Furthermore, you will design an algorithm that allocates the road space, considering practical fairness constraints to ensure all users can access these resources.
A typical project will:
- Create a simulation environment using the provided traffic data.
- Develop a Markov decision process model and fair optimization method.
- Apply the model to a case study area, which will be defined during the project.
- Evaluation of the method based on fairness metrics.
- Describing it in an MSc thesis.
Supervision
The thesis project will be carried out in the Sustainable Urban Mobility and Safety department in The Hague. The student is expected to work in the office a few days a week. Dr. Canmanie T. Ponnambalam will be the primary supervisor at TNO.
How to apply
Motivation letter. Please provide your thoughts on the following questions: What challenges do you see in ensuring fairness when introducing a new mobility system in a city, such as shared bicycles? What algorithmic techniques would you be interested in exploring to address these challenges?
Send your CV and motivation letter via email to canmanie[dot]ponnambalam[at]tno[dot]nl and t[dot]simao[at]tue[dot]nl with the title "[TNO Internship] Application".
Detailed description
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- Student
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LRLorenzo Rota
- Supervisor
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Thiago Simão