A decade or more after the 2015 Paris Agreement articulated the “stretch goal” of limiting global temperature rise to 1.5°C above preindustrial levels, it has become clear that achieving this goal is rather formidable. Transport is one of the few major sectors worldwide where greenhouse gas emissions have not declined despite tightening climate policy. Road transport remains dominated by fossil fuels, rising travel demand, and growing freight activity. This talk sheds light on the extent to which recent road-transport developments in Europe align with structural expectations derived from 1.5 ◦C and 2 ◦C mitigation pathways. It focuses on how intelligent transportation systems contribute to decarbonizing transportation, with a case study of adaptive traffic signals using big-data, deep reinforcement learning-based traffic signal control empowered by cooperative vehicle-infrastructure systems, achieving CO2 emission reductions of 21 % to 27 % in various scenarios.

ABOUT THE LECTURER

Professor Haibo Chen is a world-leading researcher in Intelligent Transportation Systems at the Institute of Transport, University of Leeds (UK), an active member of the ITS-UK Association, and an academy trainer of the European ITS Association (European Road Transport Telematics Implementation Coordination Association). He is the leader for the "Connected and Shared Mobility" research theme. He is a visiting honorary professor and an external academic advisor to several universities in China. Since 2020, he has published more than 100 peer-reviewed papers in top international journals. In the recent years, he has led a large team at Leeds to participate in 10+ EU-funded projects of about 100 million euros as a lead scientific member. His research interests include smart and green mobility, traffic and environment management and control, big data and digital twins in transport, zero-emission vehicles, automated transport systems etc.