Transport systems research

Transport systems group and their work assess the travel demand and travel behavior, energy consumption and the efficiency of transport and logistics, and the operations of transport systems. Most of the international publications are focused on energy issues and operation of railway transport systems.

Examples of projects:

PYKÄLÄ project (Cycling and walking as a part of urban traffic system), lead by prof. Jorma Mäntynen (2009-2011) attempts to increase the modal shares of cycling and walking in Finnish cities, and produce usable information for national and city-specific strategy planning and decision-making. The study includes benchmarking the best practices of 10 European cities and analyzing their success factors. The results will be applied in eight Finnish cities.
TÄSMÄ (2009-2012), lead by prof. Jorma Mäntynen, examines the railway system and especially train punctuality related issues. The target is to both analyze and develop the system. The project has resulted 4 national research reports and 2 reviewed conference papers. The main research results are applied in the national transport agency, and by the main national rail operator.
Finnish Defense forces projects (4 projects 2007-2012), lead by prof. Jorma Mäntynen, analyze and forecast the freight transport system in Finland. For instance forecasting tools are created to study different scenarios of the development in the operational environment.
Energy efficiency of transport projects (three projects 2008-2011), lead by prof. Mäntynen, aims at examining, measuring, and forecasting the energy efficiency and CO2 emissions of bus transport, road freight transport, and the whole supply chain. The projects provide information for the assessment of national energy efficiency agreement for freight transport and logistics. The projects have resulted 2 refereed journal articles, 3 international conference articles, 3 national publications, and have been applied in the national logistics strategy.
Urban Zone (2007-2010), lead by Research Manager Hanna Kalenoja, studied the travel-zones of the Metropolitan Region. A new zone-based analysis method was applied in several land use and transport planning processes and has been adopted in national and regional land use and transport system planning objectives.