Homepage of Yang Wen

Education

Mon, 07 Apr 2008 04:04:00 GMT

06/2005 - Present, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA
- Ph. D candidate of CEE Systems Program. See My Research for details.
- Dissertation Topic: Scalability of Dynamic Traffic Assignment.
- Cumulative GPA: 5.0/5.0
- Relevant Courses: System Optimization, Software Engineering, Computer Algorithms in System Engineering, Advanced Demand Modeling, Discrete Choice Analysis, Modeling & Simulation, Database and Systems Integration Technologies, Web System Architecting, Microeconomics, Finance Theory, Operations Research, Transportation Economics
  - Details at List of courses
08/2003 - 06/2005, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Cambridge, MA
- Graduate student in Dept. of CEE. Major in Information Technology
- Since 2005, IT program and the Transportation program have merged into a new doctoral program, the Civil and Environmental Engineering Systems program
09/2000 - 07/2003, Tsinghua University, Beijing, China
- M.S. in Civil Engineering. Major in Structure Engineering (Computer Science & Technology Division)
09/1996 – 07/2000, Tsinghua University, Beijing, China
- B.S. in Civil Engineering. Major in Structure Engineering

DynaMIT at LA

Fri, 14 Mar 2008 01:26:00 GMT

Background

An on-line evaluation of DynaMIT was done in South Park area of downtown Los Angeles (Sep 2005 ~ Jan 2006). In this case study, DynaMIT-R used both off-line (historical) and on-line (surveillance) data to estimate the state of the network (every 5 minutes) and predict the future travel time (up to 30 minutes ahead).

Network

The network is shown here (from Google Maps) in case you cannot see the below map (powered by Google Static Maps API):

Characteristics for the South Park area
- Freeways
- Signalized arterials
- Staples Center, etc.
Network attributes
- 243 nodes
- 606 links
- 1129 OD pairs
- 203 sensors
- ~80,000 vehicles (in 30-minute horizon)

Demo

A flash demo is available here.
(You may need an Adobe Flash Player to see this demo.)

Screenshot

A screenshot of the xdta (DynaMIT GUI) is shown below:

Animation
- Displaying minute-by-minute predicted density for 5:15 ~ 5:45 AM, based on information available at 5:15 AM.

Pictures

Thu, 13 Mar 2008 23:28:00 GMT

NY network

Fireworks

1000 island lake

My Research

Thu, 13 Mar 2008 23:27:00 GMT

Intelligent Transportation Systems Lab, MIT, 02/2004 - present

Selected Publications: see here
Follow the link for research done at Intelligent Transportation Systems Lab.
Screenshots of the tools we use are available at DynaMIT and MITSIM Animations

Scalability in Dynamic Traffic Assignment systems (on-going)
- Enhanced the DynaMIT system, a Dynamic Traffic Assignment (DTA) system for real-time traffic estimation and prediction, written in C++.
  - Identified major bottlenecks through profiling studies.
  - Developed more efficient algorithms.
  - Implemented new O-D estimation algorithm (50+ times faster).
  - Redesigned and implemented several core modules resulting in 10+ times overall performance boost.
- Designed adaptive load-balancing algorithms for parallel simulation in DTA systems
- Developed the parallel computing version of DynaMIT, using Message Passing Interface (MPI) library.
Data fusion for intelligent transportation systems (on-going)
- Developed models to use real-time travel time data for traffic estimation and prediction.
  - Designed architectures to use cell phone data and floating car (GPS-equipped taxi fleet) data for travel demand estimation
  - Case study: CityMotion, data fusion and a multi-modal, multi criteria, predictive, stochastic, route-planning application.
Application of on-line (real-time) DTA systems
- Designed on-line DTA system architecture.
- Developed functionalities & interfaces for on-line operations.
- Deployed DynaMIT at Los Angeles Department of Transportation (LADOT). Integrated it with LADOT’s traffic surveillance and control system. See here for details.
Calibration of traffic simulation models
- Implemented algorithms in Matlab to calibrate parameters in demand & supply models of traffic simulation on large-scale networks.
  - Assignment-matrix based algorithms
  - Simultaneous Perturbation Stochastic Approximation (SPSA)
- Performed quantitative analysis on traffic assignment models.
Evaluation of traffic management strategies and route guidance
- Setup the closed-loop system for evaluation
  - DynaMIT is used to generate predictive route guidance and simulate traffic management strategies
  - MITSIMLab is used as a laboratory or test-bed for the real world.
- Case studies
  - Boston emergency evacuation planning
  - Variable Message Signs (VMS) evaluation in Lower Westchester County, NY

Computer Engineering & Application Lab, Dept. of Civil Engr., Tsinghua University, 2000 - 2003

Developed algorithms for modeling real-time interactive simulation of structures.

DynaMIT

Thu, 13 Mar 2008 23:26:00 GMT

— Dynamic Network Assignment for Management of Information to Travelers

Quoting ITS Website:

DynaMIT is a state-of-the-art real-time computer system designed to effectively support the operation of an Advanced Traveler Information System (ATIS) and an Advanced Traffic Management Systems (ATMS) at a Traffic Management Center (TMC). Sponsored by the Federal Highway Administration (FHWA) with Oak Ridge National Laboratories (ORNL) as the program manager, DynaMIT was the result of several years of intense research and development at the Intelligent Transportation Systems Program, Massachusetts Institute of Technology.

In short, DynaMIT is a real-time traffic estimation and prediction system based on dynamic traffic assignment (DTA). Compared with other prediction systems that rely on statistical techniques, DTA based approach offers the advantage of being able to model driver behavior and response to guidance.

DynaMIT-R and DynaMIT-P

DynaMIT-R and DynaMIT-P refer to the "real-time" version and "planning" version of DynaMIT, respectively.

DynaMITmpi

This is (for now) the unofficial name for my parallel version of DynaMIT, using MPI for parallel processing. Initial evaluation of this version shows good results and is used as a prototype to prove the concept of Scalable Dynamic Traffic Assignment.

DynaMIT-E

This refers to a general framework we developed for using DynaMIT to evaluate emergency evacuation plans. Details available in the TRB paper Balakrishna, Wen, Antoniou, and Ben-Akiva (2008). To be published on TRR.

Miscellaneous

DynaMIT has been evaluated in several places in the US, including Irvine, CA, Hampton Roads, VA, Los Angeles, CA, and Lower Westchester County, NY.
I have a vague impression that DynaMIT has also been applied in Europe (Southampton, UK), Asia (Korea, Japan, and Malaysia), and Africa (South Africa). I need to confirm this with Rama and Costantinos, though.
A flash demo I made some time ago (2006?)
Gif animation of xdta, the "prehistoric" GUI for DynaMIT.

Publication

Tue, 11 Mar 2008 22:04:00 GMT

Selected Publications (refereed)

Refereed journals

Yang Wen, Ramachandran Balakrishna, Moshe Ben-Akiva, and Scott Smith (2006). 'Online deployment of dynamic traffic assignment: architecture and run-time management', IEE Proceedings Intelligent Transport Systems 153(1): 76-84.

Important note for the IEE Proceedings ITS journal, quoting from their website:

Following the merger on March 31st 2006 between the IEE (Institution of Electrical Engineers) and the IIE (The Institution of Incorporated Engineers) to form the Institution of Engineering and Technology, with effect from 2007, the IEE Proceedings suite of journals will change name to reflect the fact that they are now published by the Institution of Engineering and Technology. IEE Proceedings Intelligent Transport Systems will be published as IET Intelligent Transport Systems from 2007 onwards, starting at Volume 1, Issue 1. The new Print ISSN and Online ISSN for this new title are as follows:
* Print ISSN: 1751-956X
* Online ISSN: 1751-9578

Moshe Ben-Akiva, Jon Bottom, Song Gao, Haris N. Koutsopoulos, and Yang Wen (2007). 'Towards disaggregate dynamic travel forecasting models', Tsinghua Science and Technology, 12(2): 115-130. (ISSN 1007-0214 01/14. April 2007)

Ramachandran Balakrishna, Constantinos Antoniou, Moshe Ben-Akiva, Haris N. Koutsopoulos and Yang Wen (2007). 'Calibration of Microscopic Traffic Simulation Models: Methods and Application', Transportation Research Record, journal of the Transportation Research Board, No. 1999: 198-207. (Traffic Flow Theory 2007)

Ramachandran Balakrishna, Yang Wen, Constantinos Antoniou, and Moshe Ben-Akiva (2008). 'Transportation Network Simulation for Emergency Management'. Accepted for publication in Transportation Research Record, journal of the Transportation Research Board.

Refereed conferences/proceedings/presentations

Ramachandran Balakrishna, Moshe Ben-Akiva, Yang Wen (2006).
'Observability in estimating time dependent origin-destination flows from traffic counts', in proceeding of the first International Symposium on Dynamic Traffic Assignment (DTA 2006): 205-214. June 21-23, 2006, University of Leeds.

Daniel Florian, Ramachandran Balakrishna, Moshe Ben-Akiva, Yang Wen (2006).
'Evaluation of on-line dynamic traffic assignment using micro-simulation', International Symposium of Transport Simulation 2006 (ISTS06), September 4-6, 2006, Ecole Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne, Switzerland. [CD-ROM]

Ramachandran Balakrishna, Constantinos Antoniou, Moshe Ben-Akiva, Haris N. Koutsopoulos and Yang Wen (2007). 'Calibration of Microscopic Traffic Simulation Models: Methods and Application'. Presented at the 86th annual meeting of the Transportation Research Board.

Yang Wen, Ramachandran Balakrishna, Moshe Ben-Akiva, and Scott Smith (2007).
'Online deployment of dynamic traffic assignment: evaluation and lessons', 11th World Conference on Transport Research (WCTR 2007), June 24-28, 2007, University of California, Berkeley

Ramachandran Balakrishna, Yang Wen, Constantinos Antoniou, and Moshe Ben-Akiva (2008). 'Transportation Network Simulation for Emergency Management'. Presented at the 87th annual meeting of the Transportation Research Board, and submitted for publication in Transportation Research Record. January 13-17, 2008, Washington, D.C. [DVD-ROM]

Vaibhav Rathi, Constantinos Antoniou, Yang Wen, Moshe Ben-Akiva, and Maggie Cusack (2008). 'Assessment of the Impact of Dynamic Prediction-Based Route Guidance using a simulation-based, closed-loop framework'. Presented at the 87th annual meeting of the Transportation Research Board. January 13-17, 2008, Washington, D.C. [DVD-ROM]

Yang Wen, Ramachandran Balakrishna, Moshe Ben-Akiva, and Scott Smith (2007).
'Online deployment of dynamic traffic assignment: evaluation and lessons', Presented at the 87th annual meeting of the Transportation Research Board. January 13-17, 2008, Washington, D.C. [DVD-ROM]

Working papers

Vaibhav Rathi, Constantinos Antoniou, Moshe Ben-Akiva, and Yang Wen. 'Optimal Variable Message Sign location identification using genetic algorithms'. Accepted for presentation at the 10th International Conference on Application of Advanced Technologies in Transportation (AATT 2008), May 27- 31, 2008, Athens, Greece.

Yang Wen. Scalable Dynamic Traffic Assignment models. (working paper)

See also: Talks and Presentations, Reports and Manuals, and Review of papers

Activities in Sports

Tue, 11 Mar 2008 21:48:00 GMT

Sports
MIT Intramural Soccer B+ league Champions (2006)
MIT Intramural Soccer B league Champions (2004)
Refereed in CNASA Annual Badminton Tournament (2006)
...

Details about Awards in Sports.

Work Experiences

Tue, 11 Mar 2008 21:47:00 GMT

Science Intern @ ChoiceStream Inc., Summer 2007.

Developed latent-class models for personalized recommendation engine, resulting over 200% improvement. Bonus awarded for using Stata to develop a streamlined tool to automate the latent-class model estimation and output processing, reducing human process time to 5%.

Other experiences
- Teaching Assistant for four MIT courses
  - Demand modeling (2007)
  - Transportation Demand and Economics (2005)
  - Individual Choice Behavior (2005~2006)
  - Modeling and Simulation of Transportation Networks (2004~2006)
- Leadership: Vice-president of MIT Chinese Student & Scholar Association (600+ members), 2006~2007
  - Organized large events including the Mid-Autumn Harbor Cruise (400+ attendees) and the Chinese New Year Performance Show (900+ attendees).

Research area

Tue, 11 Mar 2008 21:47:00 GMT

(click here for more details):

Primary focuses:
- Intelligent Transportation Systems
- Real-time traffic estimation and prediction
- Data fusion and traffic modeling with new sources of data
- On-line dynamic traffic assignment systems.
Other interests and experiences:
- Evacuation planning
- Calibration of traffic simulation models
- Large-scale stochastic system optimization
- Statistical modeling for personalized recommendation engine.
- Advanced demand modeling

About Me

Tue, 11 Mar 2008 21:24:00 GMT

My name is Yang Wen . I am a graduate student and research assistant at MIT ITS Lab, which is led by Prof. Moshe Ben-Akiva. I am currently in the CEE Systems doctoral program.

Ph.D candidate in CEE Systems Program,
Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering,
Massachusetts Institute of Technology

Office: (Find it in MIT Map, Google Map)

 MIT Intelligent Transportation Systems Lab, 
 77 Massachusetts Avenue, Room 1-249, 
 Cambridge, MA 02139

Email: wenyang [AT] mit [DOT] edu

More about me

Research Area
(click here for more details):
Work and other experiences
- Science Intern @ ChoiceStream Inc., Summer 2007.
Developed latent-class models for personalized recommendation engine, resulting over 200% improvement. Bonus awarded for using Stata to develop a streamlined tool to automate the latent-class model estimation and output processing, reducing human process time to 5%.
- Other experiences
  - Teaching Assistant for four MIT courses
    - Demand modeling (2007)
    - Transportation Demand and Economics (2005)
    - Individual Choice Behavior (2005~2006)
    - Modeling and Simulation of Transportation Networks (2004~2006)
  - Leadership: Vice-president of MIT Chinese Student & Scholar Association (600+ members), 2006~2007
    - Organized large events including the Mid-Autumn Harbor Cruise (400+ attendees) and the Chinese New Year Performance Show (900+ attendees).
See also Activities in Sports, Hobbies.
Checkout my ...
- Tech Blog
- TiddlyWiki notebook
  - the file is about 500 KB, and may need a while to load for slow connections...
HTML version of my resume (looking for full-time position)

DynaMIT and MITSIM Animations

Thu, 06 Mar 2008 03:21:00 GMT

DynaMIT: the downtown Los Angeles network.

MITSIMLab: the Boston CA/T ("big-dig" project) network

CityMotion

Wed, 27 Feb 2008 21:25:00 GMT

CityMotion is a research project in the MIT-Portugal Program. It started in 2007. The participants include faculty members and PhD students from three Portugal universities (IST, FCTUC, and FEUP) as well as MIT. For the MIT side, the major participants are researches at the ITS Lab and the SENSEable City Lab.

This project will focus on the development of a knowledge infrastructure, computational models, and user applications that allow access to real-time information about the state of transportation-related resources as well as predictions regarding their future state. While the overall system developed under this project is intended to function as a whole, it includes several different modules:

A computational infrastructure that is based on a Geographical Information System for acquiring and parsing data that describe the state of transportation-related resources (e.g. bus and train locations, cell phone traces, road sensors, GPS tracking, weather, emergency events, and census data);
Data fusion engine that combines the data to extract from it additional information including predictions;
A web-based service that enables different applications to access the data collected.
A multi-modal, multi criteria route planning application that would exemplify the capabilities of the data fusion engine and providing support to the travelling decisions of the public. The application includes a nomadic user interface that allows interaction with the route-planning application.
A geographical modeling and visualization module of city dynamics. This service provides models and visualizations of city scenarios relevant both for planners and services.

The overall objectives are:

Data acquisition: obtain and parse data that describe the state of transportation-related resources in a specific Portuguese city (to be defined), building a coherent spatial framework for data fusion.
Data fusion: integrate the acquired data so that software applications can access specifically relevant data without prior knowledge of the data source or type, and in order to obtain additional information from the data such as predictions.
Services: a pilot service that exemplifies the usage potential of the data collected and of the data fusion engine providing a service to citizens for making public transportation more efficient and pleasant to use, and providing support for policy making; a geographical modeling and visualization module that will use the information produced by the data fusion engine.

Talks and Presentations

Wed, 27 Feb 2008 20:57:00 GMT

Y. Wen (2008) "Scalable Dynamic Traffic Assignment — Enhancing computational performance of DTA systems". Fourth Transportation Engineering Research Symposium of Institute of Transportation Engineers Massachusetts Chapter (MAITE) and ITS/Mass, Boston University, 22 February 2008.

Y. Wen (2007c) "Scalability in Dynamic Traffic Assignment Systems". Guest lecture, Tsinghua University, Beijing, China, December 21, 2007.

Y. Wen (2007b) "DynaMIT Demand Models". Research seminar, Beijing Transportation Research Center, Beijing, China, December 19, 2007.

Y. Wen (2007a) "DynaMIT Architecture and Data Requirements". Research seminar, Beijing Transportation Research Center, Beijing, China, December 19, 2007.

V. Ramanujam, V. Vaze, Y. Wen (2007) "Application of multi-class vehicles counts in the calibration of micro-simulation models". Third Annual Transportation Student Research Symposium of Institute of Transportation Engineers Massachusetts Chapter (MAITE) and ITS/Mass, Radisson Hotel (200 Stuart Street, Boston, MA, 02116), Boston, 9 February.

Y. Wen (2006) "Online Deployment of Dynamic Traffic Assignment". Second Transportation Engineering Research Symposium of Institute of Transportation Engineers Massachusetts Chapter (MAITE) and ITS/Mass, Northeastern University, 10 February.

Y. Wen (2005) "Simulation-Based Evaluation of Advanced Traveler Information Services".
First Transportation Engineering Research Symposium of Institute of Transportation Engineers Massachusetts Chapter (MAITE) and ITS/Mass, Massachusetts Institute Technology, 18 February.

Awards in Sports

Tue, 02 Oct 2007 01:57:00 GMT

Honors ...

2006~2007, MIT Intramural Soccer (B+ league) Champions: The Unbelievables (See results)
2004~2005, MIT Intramural Soccer (B+ league) Runners-up: The Unbelievables
2003~2004, MIT Intramural Soccer (B league) Champions: Tang-Soccer
1999-2000, Tsinghua University Football (Group B) Championship Winner, Team of Dept. of Civil Engineering

2002, Champion and record-holder of Jianzi (a Chinese shuttlecock-kicking game) of Tsinghua University
- (I forgot the final score, but it was about 200 kicks in 2 minutes)

Hobbies

Tue, 02 Oct 2007 01:54:00 GMT

Extracurricular Activities

Sports
- Soccer (a.k.a. Football all over the world except America... Prefer playing as Mid-fielder)
- Badminton
- JianZi (One of the traditional Chinese sports. I do not know how it is officially translated...maybe a Shuttlecock-kicking game?)
Others
- Photographing
- Music (Prefer classic, but like popular as well)
- Programming (Coding is fun)
- New software testing (Enjoy learning new ways to do my job better!)
More than FUN: See prizes I won in sports

Recent activities

Weekly soccer practice
Camping in Acadia National Park (9/8/2007)
Cycling on the Golden Gate Bridge (6/26/2007)
Paintball in Windham, NH
Referee in CNASA CUP/MITCAST 2006 3rd Annual Badminton Tournament (9/3/2006)
Kayaking at Essex River (8/13/2006)

Review of papers

Tue, 02 Oct 2007 01:05:00 GMT

Conferences Refereed

A regular paper for IEEE ITSC 2007 International Conferences on Intelligent Transportation Systems (Sept. 30 - Oct. 3, 2007, Seattle, Washington, USA)
- Contact: Constantinos Antoniou
- Review submitted on June 14, 2007.

A regular paper for IEEE ITSC 2006 International Conferences on Intelligent Transportation Systems (September 17-20, 2006, Toronto, Canada)
- Associate editor: Werner Kraus Jr.
- Review submitted on April 21, 2006.

Reports and Manuals

Tue, 02 Oct 2007 00:56:00 GMT

LA Project

Y. Wen, R. Balakrishna, A. Gupta, M. Ben-Akiva and S. Smith (2006) "Deployment of DynaMIT in the City of Los Angeles." Submitted to the Federal Highway Administration, Office of Operations Research and Development.

NY Project

C. Antoniou, Y. Wen, V. Rathi, S. Diwan, and S. Hasan (2007) "Development of ITS analysis tools for Lower Westchester County: Technical memorandum on the assessment of the impact of dynamic prediction-based route guidance using a simulation-based, closed loop framework for the Lower Westchester County". To be submitted to New York State Department of Transportation.

C. Antoniou, Y. Wen, V. Vaze, and V. Rathi (2006) "Development of ITS analysis tools for Lower Westchester County: Technical memorandum on the calibration and validation of DynaMIT in closed loop with MITSIMLab for the Lower Westchester County network". Submitted to New York State Department of Transportation.

C. Antoniou, Y. Wen, V. Ramanujam, and V. Vaze (2006) "Development of ITS analysis tools for Lower Westchester County: Technical memorandum on the calibration of MITSIMLab for the Lower Westchester County network". Submitted to New York State Department of Transportation.

PreviousResearch

Thu, 31 May 2007 16:51:00 GMT

11/2001 – 07/2003, Project Chief Developer, Tsinghua University
- Research on 3D modeling of complicated building structures, focused on express modeling and Virtual Reality real-time interactive simulation for complicated structures.
- Research on CAD Neutral Model, the XML based presentation of construction information
- Provided automatic detection of interferences within the structural system and conflicts among the designs of different specialties.
09/2000 – 10/2001, Research Assistant and Project Participant, Tsinghua University
- Research on Scheme for Disaster Prevention and Reduction in TEDA, work for application of NNSF supported project Modeling and Disaster Prevention of Earthquake Induced Fires.
02/2000 – 06/2000, Research Assistant, Tsinghua University
- Research on Crack Control System for Early-Age Concrete.
- Develop the 4D Modeling Sub-System in the Crack Control System for Concrete.
11/1999 – 03/2000, Student Research Training Program, Tsinghua University
- Develop an Information Management System for Petroleum Geophysical Exploration based on GeoMedia GIS system.

Teaching

Mon, 28 May 2007 22:01:00 GMT

Teaching Assistant for the following courses:

Spring 2007. 1.202/ESD.212 Demand Modeling
- Give weekly recitations; grade case-studies, problem sets, and the exams; revise course slides.
July 31 - August 4, 2006. 1.10s Modeling and Simulation of Transportation Networks
- Give software demos; answer questions; revise course slides.
June 19 - 23, 2006. 14.61s Individual Choice Behavior: Theory and Application of Discrete Choice Analysis
- Give software demos; assist the Lab sections; revise course slides
Fall 2005, 1.222J/ESD.202J Transportation Demand and Economics
- Give recitations; grade homeworks and the final exam.
August 1 - 5, 2005. 1.10s Modeling and Simulation of Transportation Networks
- Give software demos; answer basic questions; prepare some slides.
June 20 - 24, 2005. 14.61s Individual Choice Behavior: Theory and Application of Discrete Choice Analysis to Consumer Demand and Market Share
- Give software demos; answer questions in the Lab sections.
August 2 - 6, 2004. 1.10s Modeling and Simulation for Intelligent Transportation Systems

Notes: More about ITS Summer courses.

MIT IM Soccer 2006 Results

Mon, 20 Nov 2006 02:01:00 GMT

Bracket list taken from http://www.bracketmaker.com/tlist.cfm?tid=182627
MIT Intramural Soccer official website at http://web.mit.edu/athletics/www/intramurals/soccer/index.html

B+ League

B League

In one of the Quarterfinals, the Dragons lost to the Jokers, who evetually won the Championship of B League.