Heng Wei, Ph.D., P.E., F.ASCE, professor of transportation systems and engineering, and the founding director of the Advanced Research on Transportation Engineering and Systems (ART-EngineS) Laboratory at the University of Cincinnati (UC), has been named a Fellow by the ASCE Board of Direction.
Wei has extensive research expertise and industrial experience in intelligent transportation systems, connected and automated vehicle (CAV) impacts, infrastructure-CAV nexus in traffic signal system design, and AI-based Informatics and GIS in travel demand and environmental analytics. He has secured a great number of research grants from Ohio DOT, FHWA, US EPA, NSF, USDOT’s UTC programs, and the industrial sector. His research has resulted in 202 peer-reviewed and referred papers, seven authored books/chapters, and five edited ASCE-published and EI Compendexed international conference proceedings. On behalf of the ASCE T&DI CAV Impacts Committee, he takes the lead in editing a guidance book, Disruptive Emerging Transportation Technologies Primer, to be published by ASCE.
Wei’s breakthrough research displays multiple perspectives. First, he invented a video-capture-based method for extracting vehicle trajectory data from video and developed software VEVID and VIEW-TRAFIC to make the traffic extraction against all traffic conditions. This research has resulted in profound new findings in vehicular travel behaviors at lane level, and revealed natures of dilemma zone dynamics and vehicle classification with dual-loop sensors. Second, he developed an innovative planning framework, Integrated Urban Emergency Evacuation Contingency Plan (IUE2CP), that was compiled into the book Methods and Applications for Emergency Traffic Evaluation Planning (ISBN: 978-7-112-12011-6). Third, he created an integrated approach to traffic emission evaluation via various advanced monitoring technologies, along with the developed analytics model, Traffic Air Environmental Health Impact Analysis (TAEHIA).
He also developed the model Air Impact Relating Scenario-based Urban Settings and Transportation Assets In Network (AIR-SUSTAIN) for analyzing the land-social-travel-environment nexus. Recently, he has created a modeling synthesis with algorithms to build a sensor-free, CAV-data-driven adaptive signal control system.
Wei has been awarded with numerous professional prizes and honors, including the UC CEAS Distinguished Researcher Award and Engineering Master Educator Award, Honored Faculty/Staff Who Made a Real Difference in the Life of a UC Student, COTA Outstanding Leadership Award, 2014-16 Top Article Award (Journal of Traffic and Transportation Engineering), Contribution Award for Organizing the 1st World Transportation Convention, and the finalist for Kikuchi-Karlaftis Best Paper Award of the TRB Standing Committee on Artificial Intelligence and Advanced Computing Applications. His paper “Empirical Innovation of Computational Dual-Loop Models for Identifying Vehicle Classifications against Varied Traffic Conditions” was recognized in 2014 as a “Key Scientific Article contributing to excellence in engineering scientific and industrial research” by Advances in Engineering.
As the director of ART-EngineS lab’s effort to drive creative and innovative cutting-edge research, Wei has successfully advised his graduate students in winning 18 top awards at national and regional student paper competitions. Also, he was honored with Iteris Consultant of the Month for April 2003. He won the First-Place Prize in the Student Paper Competition at 1997 Mid-America Transportation Center Conference when he was a Ph.D. student.
