Chenfeng Xiong: Data-Driven Human Mobility Monitoring and Modeling for a Cross-Disciplinary Research Collaboration Platform

Abstract: Human mobility, i.e., when, where, how, and why people travel, is traditionally studied using travel surveys that are costly, infrequent, small-scale in terms of sample size, and with significant delays. With recent advances in mobile technologies and location-based services, smartphone location data becomes ubiquitous and leads to unique research opportunities to study how human mobility information could be properly extracted from such data and employed to complement travel surveys and traditional travel demand modeling practices. This presentation will first elaborate on an ongoing research effort that develops a data-driven human mobility monitoring and modeling framework using the emerging smartphone location data. Such a framework has already been extended to accelerate a number of time-sensitive and multidisciplinary collaborations in the realms of transportation safety and health, and pandemic tracking and prediction. The presentation will also discuss the potential of the data-driven framework in supporting other cross-disciplinary research directions, teaching, and services, for broader and longer-lasting impacts.

Biography: Chenfeng Xiong is an Associate Research Professor in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the University of Maryland, College Park, and an Associate Professor in the Shock Trauma and Anesthesiology Research (STAR) Center in the School of Medicine at the University of Maryland, Baltimore. He holds an MA degree in Economics and a Ph.D. degree in Transportation Engineering from the University of Maryland. Dr. Xiong’s research is focused on big data methods, artificial intelligence, machine learning, and its applications in understanding and modeling human mobility, transportation safety, and health. He has published over 50 peer-reviewed journal articles on these topics. Xiong is a recipient of the 2019 Outstanding Young Researcher Award of the International Association of Public Transport (UITP), the Young Initiatives Award of the World Conference on Transportation Research Society (WCTRS), and several best paper awards from international conferences.