Towards Inclusiveness and Sustainability Urban Mobility
CME Department Seminar
October 1, 2025
11:00 AM - 12:00 PM America/Chicago
Presenter: Dongwoo Lee, PhD, University of Seoul
Location: ERF 1047
Abstract: This seminar presents recent research progress on sustainable urban mobility planning and design in cities, with a particular focus on inclusiveness and inequalities. Two academic articles will be discussed: (1) Air Pollution Exposure during Transit Access and (2) Do We Have Enough Transport Welfare for an Aging Society? The first article examines citywide disparities in air pollution exposure during transit access. To gain valuable insights into the urban morphological policy implications, the relationship between the built environment and air pollution exposure is analyzed using a Gaussian Process with Linear Mixed Model (GP-LMM). The second article investigates the heterogeneous policy impacts of Seoul's subway fare exemption policy on the transportation mode choices of older adults. Seoul operates a distance-based integrated fare system with transfer discounts for all trips using public transit. Individuals aged 65 and older, however, are merely entitled to free subway rides. As the free ride for transit is limited only to the subway system, their preference and behavior for the integrated distance-based transfer fare system tends to be significantly decreased. Therefore, the travel behavior of older adults varies considerably depending not only on fare exemption policies but also on individual socioeconomic attributes and spatial characteristics.
Speaker Bio: Dr. Dongwoo Lee is an associate professor in the Department of Smart Cities at the University of Seoul (UoS) and director of the EAST Lab. Recently, his research has primarily focused on modeling user behavior and its interdependencies in cities by mixing data science techniques and generative AI. He is currently developing quantitative urban informatics toolkits to evaluate the impacts of policies for inclusive and carbon-neutral urban infrastructure planning. He earned his Ph.D. from the University of Illinois Chicago. Before joining UoS, he was a EuroTech/Marie Skłodowska-Curie postdoctoral fellow in Machine Learning for Smart Mobility at the Technical University of Denmark (DTU).
Date posted
Sep 23, 2025
Date updated
Sep 23, 2025