2. Carlos F. Daganzo

Carlos F. Daganzo

Slug
daganzo
Type
Faculty
Photo
Daganzo headshot
Headshot
Daganzo headshot
First Name
Carlos
Middle Name
F.
Last Name
Daganzo
Email
daganzo@berkeley.edu
Office
416A McLaughlin Hall
Office Phone
(510) 642-3853
Office Fax
(510) 643-8919
Programs
Transportation Engineering
Titles
Professor of the Graduate School
Biography

Carlos F. Daganzo is a Chancellor’s Professor of the Graduate School in Civil and Environmental Engineering at UC Berkeley. Daganzo’s research focuses on econometrics, logistics freight operations, and network theory, among other disciplines, with an aim to improve mobility through technology. He has authored five internationally used and translated books, with his latest public transit publication describing the blueprint for Barcelona’s new high-performance bus system, invented by and co-designed by Daganzo. In 2018, Daganzo was appointed Overseas High Talent Strategic Scientist to the city of Beijing, and the following year, he was recognized as “the most remarkable author” in the 50-year history of the prestigious Transportation Research journal series. He is also a member of several professional organizations, including the National Academy of Engineering, Via Analytics (co-founder & chairperson), and the International Symposium on Transportation and Traffic Theory (ISTTT). 

Education

Ph.D., Civil Engineering (Transportation), University of Michigan, 1975

M.S.C.E., Civil Engineering (Transportation), University of Michigan, 1973

B.S., Civil Engineering, University of Madrid, Spain, 1972

Research Interests
Freight operations, Network theory, Traffic flow, Transit operations
Research

Daganzo’s research focuses on answering big-picture transportation questions that require abstract thinking and cannot be answered by simply extrapolating observations from the real world. Some of the research questions he aims to address in his research include: Why is it that transportation systems cannot seem to be able to serve megacities well? Why are many bus systems so unreliable and disorganized? His current research projects include increasing the capacity of isolated intersections, preventing bus bunching in high-frequency areas, and using perimeter control to help improve mobility in cities. Here are a few of the projects Daganzo is currently working on below: 

  • Increasing intersection capacity - Traffic signals with different green sub-phases for through and left-turning vehicles are inefficient because the setup prevents some of the lanes from discharging during part of the green time. Daganzo’s research findings propose using a mid-block pre-signal to direct cars to two distinct but overlapping sets of lanes so that one or more lanes are shared by left and through vehicles.
  • Preventing buses from coming in bunches - Experience shows that buses on high-frequency lines often arrive at stops irregularly, sometimes in bunches. Bunching is undesirable for passengers because it increases waiting time at bus stops. Daganzo’s research proposes a decentralized strategy where each bus responds not just to the distance separating from the bus it follows but also to the distance from the bus behind, much as if the buses were connected by springs, which is effective even if the disruptions are major. This spring method automatically evens out distance and time separations between buses despite large disturbances such as snowstorms, bus breakdowns, and bus insertions.
  • Using perimeter control to improve mobility in cities - When demand conditions are steady, traffic flow streams on long homogeneous roads exhibit reproducible relations between their average flows and densities that engineers call “fundamental diagrams.” Daganzo’s research proposal suggests that entire city neighborhoods must also exhibit similar macroscopic fundamental diagrams (MFD) connecting the total number of cars on the road at any given time (the accumulation) with the rate at which trips reach their destinations (the output). As part of his research findings, the MFD of neighborhoods that are not too big should be independent of where people are going (the neighborhood's “origin-destination table”); i.e., the MFD should be a property only of the network infrastructure.
CV File
Daganzo_brief_bio_2019.pdf143.47 KB
CV Text

Academic Experience

  • Professor of the Graduate School - University of California, Berkeley, Jul 2012 - present
  • Professor - Civil Engineering (Transportation), University of California, Berkeley, Jul 1985 – Jun 2012
  • Assoc. Professor - Civil Engineering (Transportation), University of California, Berkeley, Jul 1980 - Jun 1985
  • Asst. Professor - Civil Engineering (Transportation), University of California, Berkeley, Jan 1977 - Jun 1980
  • Asst. Professor - Civil Engineering (Transportation), Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Jul 1975 - Dec1976

Education

  • Ph.D. - Civil Engineering (Transportation), University of Michigan, 1975
  • M.S.C.E. - Civil Engineering (Transportation), University of Michigan, 1973
  • Diploma - Civil Engineering, University of Madrid, Spain, 1972
Personal Website
Personal Website
Google Scholar
Awards
  • CEE Distinguished Faculty Lecture, U.C. Berkeley, Spring 2019.
  • Beijing Overseas High Talent Strategic Scientist, Beijing Municipal Committee, CPC, September 2018.
  • Kometani-Sasaki Prize for contributions to ISTTT, Kyoto, Japan, 2016 
  • Alumnus of the Year, Civil and Environmental Engineering Department, University of Michigan, 2016
  • National Academy of Engineering, 2014
  • Robert Herman Lifetime Award in Transportation Science (INFORMS, TSL), 2013
  • Honorary Doctorate (Doctor Honoris Causa) Universitat Politécnica de Catalunya, Barcelona, Spain, 2012
  • Chancellor Professorship of the Graduate School, U. C. Berkeley, 2012.
  • ISTTT Tribute, 2011
  • U.C. Berkeley, Faculty Mentor Award, 2008
  • Robert Horonjeff Chair in Civil and Environmental Engineering, Univ. of California, Berkeley, 1999-2012.
  • Fulbright fellow, 1987, 2005
  • Honorable mention, TIMS Edelman, 1986.
Teaching
  • PhD student seminar (advanced topics in transportation theory)
Students

Current PhD Students

Former PhD Students

  • Lehe, L. (2016) "Aspatial models of zone pricing and parking"
  • Chen, H. (2016)  "Improving public transit systems at intersection and city-wide scales"
  • Hu, X. (2014) "Reliability-based optimization for maintenance management in bridge networks"
  • Argote, J (2014) "Improving bus service with dynamic holding control"
  • Chavis, C. (2012) "Analyzing the structure of informal transport: The evening commute problem in Nairobi, Kenya"
  • Saloner, D. (2012) "An analysis of personal rapid transit"
  • Gayah, V.(2012) "The aggregate effect of turns on on urban traffic networks"
  • Xuan, Y. (2011) "Increasing the Flow Capacity of Signalized Intersections with Pre-signals: Theory and Case Study"
  • Eric Gonzales (2011) "Allocation of Space and the Costs of Multimodal Transport in Cities"
  • Offer Grembek (2010) "User adaptation to injury protection systems: its effect on fatalities, and possible causes"
  • Stella So (2010) "Managing City Evacuations"
  • Joshua Pilachowski (2009) "An Approach to Reducing Bus Bunching"
  • Nikolas Geroliminis (2007) "Increasing mobility in cities by controlling overcrowding"
  • Monica Menendez (2006) "An analysis of HOV lanes: Their impact on traffic"
  • Anne Goodchild (2005) "Crane double-cycling in container ports: Algorithms, Evaluation and Planning"
  • Yanfeng Ouyang (2005): "System level stability and optimality of decentralized supply chains"
  • Yuwei Li (2004): "Integrated capacity management for time-differentiated transportation services"
  • Jorge Laval (2004): "Hybrid traffic models: impacts of bounded vehicle accelerations"
  • Alejandro Lago (2003): "Modeling the structure of cities and its interrelation with traffic congestion"
  • Juan Carlos Munoz (2002): "Driver-shift design for single-hub transit systems under uncertainty"
  • Karen Smilowitz (2001): "Design and operation of multimode, multi-service logistics systems"
  • Alan Erera (2000): "Design of large-scale logistics systems for uncertain environments"
  • Reinaldo Garcia (1999): "A Pareto improving strategy for the morning commute problem"
  • David J. Lovell (1997): "Traffic control; on metered networks without route choice"
  • Esteban Diez-Roux (1996): "Storage capacity for import containers at seaports"
  • Wei H. Lin (1995): "Incident detection with data from loop surveillance systems: The role of wave analysis"
  • Bernardo De Castilho (1992): "High-throughput intermodal container terminals: Technical and economic analysis of a new direct-transfer system"
  • Mounira Taleb-Ibrahimi (1989): "Modeling and analysis of container storage in ports"
  • Francesc Robuste (1988): "Analysis of baggage handling operations at airports"
  • Carlos Muller (1987): "A framework for quality of service evaluation at airport terminals"
  • Chawn-Yaw Jeng (1987): "Routing strategies for an idealized airline network"
  • Federico Sabria (1986): "Analysis of potential improvements in port operations"
  • Anthony F.W. Han (1984): "One-to-many distribution of non-storable items: Approximate analytic models."
  • Randolph W. Hall (1982): "Traveler route choice under six information scenarios"
  • Said M. Easa (1981): "Analysis of traffic operations in harbor terminals"
  • Jurg M. Sparmann (1980): "Calibration of the trinomial probit model."
  • Mahbobeh M. Soheily (1980): "Concavity results for the trinomial probit model."
  • Yosef Sheffi (1978): "Transportation networks equilibration with discrete choice models."
  • Fernando Bouthelier (1978): "An efficient methodology to estimate and predict with multinomial probit models: Applications to transportation problems."
Publications

Books

Active academics can obtain solutions to the problems in both Logistics Systems Analysis and Fundamentals of Transportation and Traffic Operations by contacting the Institute of Transportation Studies publications office, and requesting a copy of the solution manual to either publication.

Software & Data

Journal Papers