Lab for Innovative Infrastructure Systems

[2018/07/04]

Mr. Azarel, an international student who entered in the fall, has completed his master’s thesis. Thank you for your hard work! Details will be posted soon.

[2018/06/22 ~ 06/24]

We spent two nights and three days off campus in Nikko until yesterday. On Saturday, we had a seminar on spatial economics, while on Sunday, we conducted a tourism flow survey with several guests.

• Spatial Economics Seminar

The seminar was held with a number of members in charge of the book “Spatial Economics” by Masahisa Fujita and others (Toyo Keizai Inc., 2000) to increase knowledge and broaden perspectives, and to provide a starting point for future research by the new members. Chapters 1 to 13 were taught by (titles omitted) Mr. Kita (B4), Mr. Muro (M1), Mr. Shiroma (M1), Ms. Iokura (M2), and Ms. Hirabayashi (M2). The work consisted of a repetitive process of analytically constructing a model of how a city is formed and how it develops and declines, and then looking at the results of simulations. I feel that the seminar was a fulfilling experience for all the members, who not only understood the scope of their own work, but also read the previous and following sections, and held discussions with the other members in charge of the previous and following sections.

– Tourism Flow Survey

Using Wi-Fi and Bluetooth, which are commonly used in smartphones and car navigation systems, we conducted a survey of tourist flow in the Nikko area. Large-scale road congestion is occurring around Toshogu Shrine, and its improvement is urgently needed. As part of the countermeasures, a detailed understanding of traffic congestion is indispensable, and this survey was conducted for this purpose. In addition to the Toshogu area, measurements were also taken at nearby railroad stations, bus stops, and the Chuzenji Lake area to understand the flow of tourists.

Fukuda Laboratory’s Wi-Fi-based tourist flow survey has long been conducted in cooperation with Mr. Suga of the Institute for the Future of Regional Economy, who provided tremendous support for this survey as well.

The third-year undergraduate students in the civil engineering course have a class called “Colloquium,” and this survey was also part of that class. I participated in the colloquium with Mr. Honma and Mr. Miyazaki, who are third-year undergraduates.

– Happy Birthday, Mr. Suzuki!

Mr. Suzuki (M2) celebrated his birthday. We held a small surprise party for him.

[2018/06月09 ~ 06/10]

The 57th JSCE Spring Conference on Infrastructure Planning and Management has ended successfully. Thanks to all the presenters, audience, professors who managed the conference, and students who were in charge of the practical management, I feel that we were able to make this conference a good one. As a student of Tokyo Institute of Technology, I would like to express my gratitude to all of you.

As for the presentations, four students from our laboratory participated in the oral presentation division: (M1 students) Ms. Iokura and Mr. Muro, and (M1 student) Ms. Hirabayashi and (D3 student) Mr. Dantuji, in the poster session division. Details will be added later.

[2018/05/30]

Mr. Dantsuji, who enrolled in the fall of the last year and is currently finishing his second year in the PhD program, gave his midterm presentation.

Dr. Asakura, a familiar face, asked, “Is it more common to use macroscopic methods when doing traffic demand management, and why is it more difficult to use microscopic methods?” Why is it so difficult to use a microscopic method?” “You use point que, but wouldn’t physical que be more common?” There were many sharp questions such as “Why is it so difficult to take a microscopic approach? Other professors asked, “Are you using the macroscopic method as one of the existing methods, or are you inventing a new method, or is that method the best method after thinking it through?” and other essential comments were exchanged at a high level.

[2018/05/18]

In the 6th seminar, Mr. Kawai (M1) and Ms. Koike (M1) in Asakura Laboratory were in charge of parameter estimation of Nested Model and Cross Nested Model.

This model is used when there is some correlation between alternatives when people make decisions. Mr. Kawai used Python biogeme, while Ms. Koike used R to estimate the model using the maxLik function introduced in the previous session.

[2018年5月16日]

This seminar was in charge by Mr. Azarel (M2) and Ms. Salsa (M1).

Azarel is an M2 student who admitted in the fall and will finish in July of this year, so he gave a report on the status of his ongoing research. He is conducting a research on “creating a new means of transportation for residents in a remote town by considering carpooling service as a social infrastructure” and is now examining the validity of the model he has constructed using the data of BlaBlaCar collected in Spain.

Ms. Salsa was enrolled in the fall too. She is in the second semester of her M1 course. She introduced us with various indicators in the process of creating an evaluation model for development along the rail line.

[2018/05/14]

The introduction has been completed up to the 4th seminar, and in the 5th and subsequent basic seminars, students will learn some specialized contents along with programming. This time it was “Derivation and Parameter Estimation of MNL”. Mr. Koizumi (M1) and Mr. Muro (M1) from Asakura Laboratory (a laboratory belonging to TSU) were in charge of this seminar.

The main feature was the introduction of the “maxLik” package in R statistical software. The “Optim” package used in the past had a problem of producing erroneous estimation results in transportation mode choice models when the sample to be analyzed differed depending on the mode of transportation. The new “maxLik” package was introduced to deal with this problem.

[2018/05/08]

The title of the 4th learning seminar was “Document creation and document management software using LaTeX”. Mr. Imaoka (M2) and Mr. Shiroma (M1) were in charge of this seminar.

Mr. Imaoka introduced the basic commands of LaTeX, which will be useful for writing graduation theses, master’s theses, and other research papers. Mr. Shiroma introduced two applications: Zotero, which allows users to easily retrieve bibliographic information from websites such as Transportatin Research, and JabRef, which is used to manage bibliographic information.

[2018/05/07]

Mr. Imaoka-kun (M2) and Ms. Kaneko (M2) were in charge of this seminar, and since they are M2s, their presentations focused on their master’s research plans.

Mr. Imaoka is going to do his master’s research on “Modeling of Railway Delay”, while Ms. Kaneko, who studied abroad in Switzerland in the second semester of last year, is developing a plan for “Theory of Recursive Logit Model and its Applications”. This is a very difficult subject, but let’s do our best!

[2018/05/02]

Sorry for the late update. The first lab seminar of this year was led by Ms. Hirabayashi (M2) and Mr. Suzuki (M2). The presentations consisted of two parts: past researches and master’s thesis plans.

The position of the laboratory seminar is to provide a platform to share the contents of one’s own research with the members. In other words, it is an opportunity to explain the research flow in a broad sense, rather than explaining detailed research methods, etc. Each person has one hour, with 30 minutes for a presentation and 30 minutes for a question-and-answer session.

Ms. Hirabayashi introduced her work on “research for reducing traffic congestion in urban areas based on MFD theory” and “pedestrian model” as a concept he worked on last year. On the other hand, Mr. Suzuki presented “Research on Data Fusion of Inter-Urban Flow” as the former and “Creation of Optimal Inter-Urban Networks” as the latter. Let’s do our best in the master’s research.