Liu Yang

Liu Yang

Associate Professor

Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering

Biography

Dr Liu Yang is jointly appointed as an Associate Professor in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering and the Department of Industrial Systems Engineering and Management at the National University of Singapore. Dr. Liu teaches and researches transport planning and modelling, urban mobility and logistics, traffic congestion management, and data-driven methods. She received her B.S. from Tsinghua University, MPhil from Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, and Ph.D. from Northwestern University. Previously, Dr. Liu worked as a consultant at Cambridge Systematics and provided modelling expertise to public agencies such as the Chicago Department of Transportation. She has worked on research projects supported by the Singapore Ministry of Education, the National Research Foundation, the Land Transport Authority, the Urban Redevelopment Authority, A*STAR, Cisco Systems, and ST Engineering. Her work is well recognised internationally by research awards such as the Transportation Science Journal Best Paper Award. She is leading the Lab for Urban Mobility Systems (LUMOS) (https://www.nuslumos.org). She serves on the editorial boards of Transportation Science (Associate Editor), Transportation Research Part B (Associate Editor), Transportation Research Part C, Socio-Economic Planning Sciences (Associate Editor), and Communications in Transportation Research. She is the chair of the WTC Multimodal Urban Transportation System Analysis Committee and co-chair of the Transportation Network Modelling and Computation Committee.

Educational qualifications

  • 2013 Ph.D. in Transportation System Analysis and Planning, Northwestern University, USA
  • 2007 M.Phil. in Civil Engineering, Hong Kong University of Science and Technology, China
  • 2005 B.S. in Civil Engineering, Tsinghua University, China

Teaching Areas

  • CE3121 – Transport Engineering
  • CE5205 – Transportation Planning
  • CE5002D – Capstone Project for Transportation Engineering
  • CE5209 – Transportation Data Analytics and Modelling
  • IE5221 – Transportation Modelling and Economics
  • IE4221 – Transportation Demand Modelling and Economics
  • IE6099 – ISE Research Methodology
  • IE4229 – Selected Topics in Logistics
  • IE5002 – Applied Engineering Statistics

Research Interests

  • Transportation planning and congestion management
  • Urban mobility modelling and optimisation
  • AI-driven and data-driven transportation systems
  • Multimodal Freight-Passenger Systems

Honours & Awards

  • 2025 The 14th Asia-Pacific Conference on Transportation and Environment Best Paper Runner-Up Award
  • 2024 INFORMS Transportation Science Journal’s Paper of The Year Award
  • 2024 The 6th International Symposium on Multimodal Transport (ISMT) Best Paper Award
  • 2024 The 14th International Workshop on Computational Transportation Science (CTS) Best Paper Award
  • 2022 CICTP Best Area Editor Award
  • 2022 Faculty Teaching Excellence Award
  • 2021 Best Student Paper Award, The 4th International Symposium on Multimodal Transport, (First Author: Xie Tingting, PhD student supervised by Liu Yang)
  • 2021 Student Research Competition (Second Place) on Artificial Intelligence Enabled Next Generation Transportation Systems, ASCE T&DI, (Winner: Xie Jiaohong, Phd student supervised by Chen Nan and Liu Yang
  • 2021 Certificate of Appreciation from Institution of Engineers Singapore
  • 2018 Outstanding Reviewer for Transportation Research Part B
  • 2018 Outstanding Reviewer for Transportation Research Part C
  • 2017 Outstanding Reviewer for Transportation Research Part E
  • 2013 Honorable Mention of the Transportation Science & Logistics Society, Intelligent Transportation Systems (SIG) Outstanding Presentation Award at INFORMS annual meeting
  • 2011-2012 Transportation Center Dissertation Year Fellowship
  • 2011-2012 Northwestern University Terminal Year Fellowship
  • 2011 Scholarship, Kuhmo Nectar Summer School in Transportation Economics, Sweden
  • 2011 International Transport Forum Annual Summit Poster Scholarship, Germany
  • 2007-2009 Walter Murphy Fellowship, Northwestern University

Professional Activities

  • Associate Editor Transportation Science
  • Associate Editor Transportation Research Part B: Methodological
  • Associate Editor Socio-Economic Planning Sciences
  • Editorial Board Member Transportation Research Part C: Emerging Technologies
  • Guest Editor Special Issue of Transportation Research Part E: Logistics and Transportation Review
  • Editorial Board Member Cleaner Logistics and Supply Chain
  • Editorial Board Member Communications in Transportation Research
  • Editorial Board Member Journal of Transportation Systems Engineering and Information Technology
  • Board Member The Chinese Overseas Transportation Association (COTA) Board of Directors
  • Area editor 2022 Proceedings of COTA International Conference for Transportation Professionals
  • Area editor Transportation Policy, Planning, and Modelling, 2017 Proceedings of COTA International Conference for Transportation Professionals
  • Co-Chair Shared Logistics and Transportation Systems Committee of World Transport Convention (WTC)
  • Member Transportation Research Board Committee on Emerging and Innovative Public Transport and Technologies (AP020)
  • Member Transportation Research Board Standing Committee on Transportation Network Modeling (AEP40)
  • Member World Congress for Transportation Research Society (WCTRS) Special Interest Group C1 Transport Theory and Modelling
  • Member IEEE ITS Education Committee
  • Member Shared Logistics and Transportation Systems Committee of the World Transport Convention (WTC)
  • Member Freight Transportation Planning and Logistics Committee of the World Transport Convention (WTC)

Invited Talks

  • Navigating Academia as a Women Researcher
    • Keynote – Supporting Women in Transportation, CICTP, 2025
  • Online Congestion Management in Connected Road Networks
    • Spotlight Session: Reimagining Mobility: New Frontier in Transportation, Logistics and Human-Centered Planning, CICTP, 2025
  • Integrated Optimization and Learning Approaches for Urban Mobility Systems
    • Keynote – The 18th ITS China Annual Conference, 2023
  • Traffic information and online routing in connected road networks
    • Keynote – The 14th Workshop on Computational Transportation Science (CTS)
  • Information Provision and Congestion Management in Connected Road Networks
    • Keynote -The 9th International Conference on Transportation & Logistics (T-LOG), 2022
  • Planning and Operations of Future Urban Mobility Systems
    • Keynote – the Infrastructure and Civil Engineering World Forum, 2022
  • Information Provision and Congestion Management for a Mixed Traffic Flow of Connected Vehicles and Regular Vehicles
    • Keynote – The 4th International Symposium on Multimodal Transportation (ISMT), 2021
  • Two-Sided Deep Reinforcement Learning for Dynamic Mobility-on-Demand Management with Mixed-Autonomy
    • Webinar – INFORMS Transportation Science and Logistics Society, 2021
    • Plenary Session: Emerging Technologies in Transportation – CICTP2020- 21
  • Urban Traffic Flow Smoothening
    • ST Engineering Technology Seminar,
  • Offline-Online Approximate Dynamic Programming for Stochastic Carsharing Systems with Relocation Incentives
    • Special Session: Shared Space Design and Modeling: Case Studies in Asian Cities, Easts Conference 2021
  • Integrated Optimization of Planning and Operations for Future Mobility Systems
    • Tapping the Change in Commuting Patterns, The Institution of Engineers, Singapore 2021
  • Integrated Optimization of Charging Facility Deployment and Vehicle Management for Electric Car Sharing Systems
    • Invited Session at the 19th COTA International Conference of Transportation Professionals (CICTP2019), Nanjing,
    • Workshop on Ride-Sourcing Systems and Data-Driven Transportation Management, Nanjing University,
    • International Seminar for Intelligent Connected Vehicle & Future Transportation, Tsinghua University,
    • Pre-CICTP 2019 Workshop Big Data & Emerging Vehicle Technologies, Beijing University of Technology and Chinese Overseas Transportation Association, 2019
    • Workshop on Innovative Urban Mobility Management and Policy, Beijing Jiaotong University, 2019
  • A path-based Equilibrium Model for Ridesharing Matching and Compensation Pricing
    • Smart Mobility Workshop, HKUST-DIDI Joint Research Laboratory,
    • ECE, NUS, 2019
  • Vehicle Assignment and Relays for One-Way Electric Car-Sharing Systems,
    • Hong Kong University of Science and Technology,
    • The 2nd International Workshop on Multimodal Transportation,
  • Future Transport: Autonomous Vehicles, Qifa Primary School,
  • Joint Design of Parking Capacities and Fleet Size for One-Way Station- Based Carsharing Systems with Road Congestion, South China University of Technology,
  • A Time-Based Equilibrium for Staggered Bottleneck Congestion with Heterogeneous Commuters, Department of Transportation, Shipping and Logistics, Shanghai Jiao Tong University,
  • An Optimization Model for Staggered Bottleneck Congestion with Heterogeneous Commuters, Tongji University,
  • Analysis and Design of Congestion Pricing Schemes: Models and Solution Approaches, Department of Industrial and Systems Engineering, National University of Singapore,
  • Welfare Effects of Congestion Pricing and Transit Services in Multi-Class Two- Mode Networks
    • Department of Civil & Environmental Engineering, Bucknell University,
    • Department of Civil & Environmental Engineering, University of Illinois at Chicago,

Publications

Journal

(* I am the corresponding author)

Dissertation

Technical Report

  • Boyce, D., Nie, Y., Bar-Gera, H., Liu, Y. and Hu, Y. (2010) Field Test of a Method for Finding Consistent Route Flows and Multiple-Class Link Flows in Road Traffic Assignments, Federal Highway Administration.
  • Conference Proceedings
  • Yang S., Liu Y.* (2024) Markov Game for CV Joint Adaptive Routing in Stochastic Traffic Networks: A Scalable Learning Approach, Transportation Research Procedia of The 25th International Symposium on Transportation and Traffic Theory (ISTTT25).
  • Zhu, X., Tang, X., Xie, J., & Liu, Y. (2023, September). Dynamic Balancing-Charging Management for Shared Autonomous Electric Vehicle Systems: A Two-Stage Learning-Based Approach. In 2023, IEEE 26th International Conference on Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITSC) (pp. 3762-3769). IEEE.
  • Li, Y. and Liu, Y.* (2021) Optimizing en-route matching in a ride-hailing system with boundedly rational users, Transportation Research Procedia of The 24th International Symposium on Transportation and Traffic Theory (ISTTT is the prestigious gathering for the world’s transportation and traffic theorists, acceptance rate: 16%).
  • Liu Y., Xie J., N. Chen (2021) Offline-Online Approximate Dynamic Programming for Stochastic Carsharing Systems with Relocation Incentives, Proceedings of the 100th Annual Meeting of Transportation Research Board.
  • Li, T. and Liu, Y.* (2020) Mode Choices and Optimal Car Ownership of Stochastic User Equilibrium with Ridesharing, Proceedings of the 98th Annual Meeting of Transportation Research Board.
  • He, D., Liu, Y.* , Zhong, Q., and Wang, Z. (2019) On the morning commute problem in a Y-shaped network with individual and household travelers, Proceedings of the 97th Annual Meeting of Transportation Research Board.
  • He, D., Liu, Y.* , Zhong, Q., and Wang, Z. (2018) On the morning commute problem in a Y-shaped network with individual and household travelers, Proceedings of the 7th International Symposium on Dynamic Traffic Assignment.
  • Liu, P. and Liu, Y.* (2018) Optimal Information Provision at Bottleneck Equilibrium with Risk-Averse Travelers, Proceedings of the 96th Annual Meeting of Transportation Research Board.
  • Liu, P., Liu, Y.* and Ong Ghim Ping (2018) Dynamic User Equilibrium Departure Time and Mode Choice on Bi-modal Corridor with Risk-Averse Travelers, Proceedings of the 6th International Symposium on Reliability Engineering and Risk Management.
  • Liu, Y.* Li, Y. and Hu, L. (2017) Departure time and route choices with bottleneck congestion: user equilibrium under risk and ambiguity, Transportation Research Procedia of The 22nd International Symposium on Transportation and Traffic Theory (ISTTT is the prestigious gathering for the world’s transportation and traffic theorists, acceptance rate: 10%).
  • Liu, Y.* and Li, Y. (2017) Dynamic User Equilibrium of Bottleneck Model with Ridesharing Program, Proceedings of the 96th Annual Meeting of Transportation Research Board.
  • Hu, Lu. and Liu, Y.* (2017) One-Way Carsharing Systems Design in Mixed Queuing Networks with Road Congestion, Proceedings of the 96th Annual Meeting of Transportation Research Board.
  • Chen, H., Liu, Y., and Nie, Y. (2015) Solving the step-tolled bottleneck model with general user heterogeneity, Proceedings of the 94th Annual Meeting of Transportation Research Board.
  • Liu, Y., Nie, Y., and Hall J. (2014) A semi-analytical approach for solving bottleneck model with general heterogeneity, Proceedings of the 93rd Annual Meeting of Transportation Research Board.
  • Liu, Y. and Nie, Y. (2012) Welfare effects of congestion pricing and transit service in multi-class multi-modal networks, Proceedings of the 91st Annual Meeting of Transportation Research Board.
  • Nie, Y. and Liu, Y. (2010) Existence of self-financing and Pareto-improving congestion pricing: impact of value of time distribution, Proceedings of the 89th Annual Meeting of Transportation Research Board.
  • Bar-Gera, H., Nie, Y., Boyce, D., Hu, Y. and Liu, Y.(2010) Consistent route flows and the condition of proportionality, Proceedings of the 89th Annual Meeting of Transportation Research Board.
  • Liu, Y., Guo, X. and Yang, H. (2008) Pareto-improving and revenue-neutral congestion pricing schemes in two-mode traffic networks, Proceedings of the 87th Annual Meeting of Transportation Research Board.
  • Guo, X., Liu, Y. and Yang H. (2006) Time versus cost system optimization in networks with heterogeneous users, Proceedings of the 11th International Conference of Hong Kong Society for Transportation Studies.

Other Conference Presentations

  • Liu, Y. (2016) Time-based Equilibrium For Staggered Bottleneck Congestion With Heterogeneous Commuters, INFORMS Annual Conference, Nashville.
  • Liu, Y. and Nie, Y. (2016) A credit-based congestion pricing scheme in general two-mode networks with multi-class travellers, The 14th World Conference on Transport Research, Shanghai.
  • Liu, Y. (2015) Flexible Work Hour Scheme with Heterogeneous Commuters. The Kuhmo NECTAR Conference of the International Transportation Economics Association, Oslo.
  • Liu, Y., Nie, Y., and Hall., J. (2013) An efficient solution approach for the bottleneck model with general heterogeneity. INFORMS Annual Meeting, Minneapolis .
  • Liu, Y. and Nie, Y. (2013) A semi-analytical solution approach for the bottleneck model with general heterogeneity. The Kuhmo NECTAR Conference of the International Transportation Economics Association, Chicago.
  • Liu, Y. and Nie, Y. (2013) Morning commute problem considering route choice, user heterogeneity, and alternative system optima. Workshop on Price-based and Quantity-based Travel Demand Management, Chicago.
  • Liu, Y. (2013) Enabling congestion pricing: analysis and design of implementation strategies. doctoral student research workshop in transportation modelling. Transportation Research Board Annual Meeting, Washington DC.
  • Liu, Y. and Nie, Y. (2012) Solving the bottleneck model with general distributions of value of time and cost of schedule delay. INFORMS annual meeting, Phoenix.
  • Nie Y. and Liu, Y. (2011) Enabling congestion pricing: analysis and design of revenue-refunding strategies. The International Transport Forum Annual Summit, Leipzig, Germany.
  • Liu, Y. and Nie, Y. (2011) Pareto-improving pricing-refunding schemes in general two-mode transportation networks with heterogeneous users. The Kuhmo NECTAR Conference of the International Transportation Economics Association, Stockholm, Sweden.
  • Liu, Y. and Nie, Y. (2010) Pareto-improving refunding schemes for congestion pricing in general bi-modal networks. INFORMS annual meeting, Austin.
  • Liu, Y. and Nie, Y. (2009) Time-varying pricing scheme with heterogeneous commuters. INFORMS annual meeting, San Diego.