Vol. 19, No. 27

April 13, 2000

Prof and graduate student receive NSF training award

Ardeshir Faghri ([eft) and Khaled Hamad Ardeshir Faghri, civil and environmental engineering, and Khaled I. Hamad, graduate student, are the first recipients of the National Science Foundation (NSF) Integrative Graduate Education and Research Training Conference Fellowship for Travel Behavior, Planning, Modeling and Policy award. The $5,000 award for research allowed Hamad to attend an NSF training conference at the University of California at Davis, earlier this month, to present a paper entitled "New Methodology for Travel Demand Modeling in Developing Countries." Faghri, Hamad's graduate adviser, said the award is significant because the NSF traditionally has not funded research into transportation issues in developing nations. This year is the first time this award has been given to a graduate student doing such research, so "this presentation is very important," Faghri said. It could help determine whether or not NSF will make additional grant money available for developing national transportation research. Hamad and Faghri are trying to design a new methodology for conducting transportation planning studies in developing countries. There is a pressing need for mass transportation in developing nations where chronic traffic congestion, high accident rates, over-crowded public transit and environmental damage continue to escalate, Hamad said. The researchers have determined that major stumbling blocks to effective planning in these areas are rapid urban traffic growth and lack of resources to conduct major land-use impact studies. Using TRANSCAD, a linking program, combining information from Geographic Information Systems (GIS) software for transportation applications with Excel database software, they plan to construct a model for regional transportation planning in the Gaza Strip. The model creates an origin destination (O-D) table from traffic counts at a base year. This table is then modified to include new traffic patterns as a result of new land uses. Faghri and Hamad are working with transportation experts who live in Gaza to validate the results of their model. Faghri received his Ph.D. in civil engineering from the University of Virginia in 1987. He served as senior transportation engineer for the Virginia Department of Transportation and as a senior transportation systems analyst for KLD Associates before coming to UD in 1990. Faghri has been the recipient of the UD Excellence in Teaching and Excellence in Academic Advising awards and has received the United Nations Development Progremme Award. Hamad, born in Gaza, received his bachelor's degree in civil engineering from AnNajah National University in Palestine. In 1998, he received a Fulbright scholarship to pursue a master's degree in civil engineering from UD. His master's thesis is based on the work for which he and Faghri won the NSF award. –Barbara Garrison PHOTO BY ROBERT COHEN