Since 2007, the Neighborhood Initiative has supported research that addresses Ras Beirut congestion and investigates how to reduce the conflict between walking and driving in neighborhood streets; what to do about parking; and how to enable more faculty, staff and students to move away from private cars.
Since 2009, this work has been led by Professors Isam Kaysi and Maya AbouZeid of the Civil and Environmental Engineering Department, with substantial participation of undergraduate and graduate students. To reduce congestion caused by students’ parked cars in neighborhood streets, PhD student Hani al-Naghi and Masters student Zahwa al-Ayyash have developed a proposal for a shared taxi system. The system uses smart phone technology and complex algorithms to match in real time riders with taxis. Professor AbouZeid presented these ideas recently at NYU-Abu Dhabi. (
link to her presentation Shared Taxi)
(
Click here) for our database catalogue from the congestion studies
Published Articles
Sfeir, G., Abou-Zeid, M ., and Kaysi, I. (2017) Neighborhood Initiative Congestion Studies: AUB 2017 Mobility Survey. Final report prepared as part of the Neighborhood Initiative Congestion Studies, Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering, American University of Beirut.
Danaf, M., Sabri , A., Abou-Zeid, M., and Kaysi, I. (2016) “Pedestrian-Vehicular Interactions in a Mixed Street Environment”, paper presented at the 14th World Conference on Transport Research, Shanghai, China.
Al-Ayyash, Z., Abou-Zeid, M., Kaysi, I. (2014). ‘Forecasting Students’ Demand for a Shared-Ride Taxi Service Using an Integrated Choice and Latent Variable Model’. Paper presented and published in the proceedings of the 94th annual meeting of the Transportation Research Board in January 2015.
Salameh, R., Abou-Zeid, M., Kaysi, I. (2013). ‘Estimation of Parking Deficit in the Neighborhood of the American University of Beirut’. Unpublished report. American University of Beirut.
Khattab, M., Abou-Zeid, M., Kaysi, I. (2012). ‘Analysis of 2010 AUB Student and Employee Travel Surveys’. Unpublished report. American University of Beirut.
Theses