Behavior and Computation: Imagining Future Urban Mobility

Program Outline

Part I: Urban Mobility Fundamental and Emerging Trends

1. Mobility Fundamentals: Changes, Invariances and Human Agency

2. Mobility Emerging Trends

3. Responses from the Mobility Industry, Community, and Consumers

Part II: What Defines Future Urban Mobility? Behavior and Computation

1. The Paradigm Shift in Urban Mobility

2. Behavioral Understanding of Mobility Technologies

3. Integrating Behavioral and Computational Thinking

Part III: Transportation: Makers and Breakers of Cities

1. System of Systems: Mobility and Cities

2. Governing Urban Mobility

3. Urban Creativity and Mobility Innovation

Part IV: Mobility Venture: Imagining Future Urban Mobility

1. Six Thought Experiments in Transportation

2. Four Ideas of Blue-sky Business Ventures

3. Reflections After Each Session

Program Schedule

• Use behavioral perspective to examine technologies such as automation, connectivity, sharing, and electrification
• Understand the emotional, social, and perceptual aspects of human mobility 
• Be familiar with the cutting-edge computational methods to sense, predict, nudge and regulate travel behavior
• Be exposed to multimodal mobility systems that integrate shared and autonomous vehicles with public transit 
• Develop your own blue-sky idea on mobility business venture 

Students are the protagonist of the class, you are required to:

1. Actively participate in six thought experiments on transportation
2. Reflect after each lecture and connect your own experiences to urban mobility innovations
3. Co-create four ideas for blue-sky business ventures with Prof. Zhao

Activities and Expectations

Part 1. Be part of the dialog and capture the moment

Active class participation is an ESSENTIAL part of the course. I persist in encouraging everyone to be part of the dialogue.

Capture the moment: I hope that at least some parts of each class inspire you to think, and I like you to capture these moments. I allocate 5 minutes in each class for everyone to type a half-page idea note. A few thoughts on what to write (don’t feel constrained by them):

• What does the talk today inspire you to think? Either as an entrepreneur, as a practitioner, as a researcher, or as a decision maker?
• Any personal experience related to the discussion today?
• Does the discussion today change any of your prior notions of human behavior? 
• How does the discussion connect to your practice, research, events, or planning or policy debates?
• Did you learn any new data source or analytical method that might be of use for your future work?

Part 2. Six thought experiments

Students are required to actively participate in six thought experiments in transportation designed by Prof. Zhao, 

Part 3. Business venture ideas

Students are required to co-create four initial blue-sky ideas for business ventures with Prof. Zhao and develop one of them at a moderate level of depth in groups. 

Professionals with different expertise and backgrounds may benefit from this program, including: 

• CTOs, CIOs, and leaders of technological departments or projects who wish to understand how urban mobility has evolved and learn how to best manage technology for their companies.
• Technical professionals who want a broader strategic view of the opportunities and challenges of urban mobility and how it can transform their business activities.
• CEOs, entrepreneurs, and functional managers from technical areas and sectors looking to explore the transportation industry and expand their current activities.
• Leaders, pioneers, and researchers in the government, public/private transportation sector, automobile industry, infrastructure companies, sustainability/green system organizations, and beyond.