Vita

Dr. Bhat

Dr. Chandra R. Bhat
Adnan Abou-Ayyash Centennial Professor in Transportation Engineering
University Distinguished Teaching Professor


Department of Civil, Architectural and Environmental Engineering
Ernest Cockrell Jr. Hall, 6.810
The University of Texas at Austin
Austin, Texas 78712

Phone: (512) 471-4535
Fax:       (512) 475-8744
Email:   bhat@mail.utexas.edu

[To schedule a meeting with Dr. Bhat]



    Two of Dr. Bhat's most important accomplishments

    Awards received by Dr. Bhat's graduate students

Dr. Chandra R. Bhat is the Adnan Abou-Ayyash Centennial Professor in Transportation Engineering at The University of Texas at Austin, where he teaches courses in transportation systems analysis and transportation planning.  He also recently served as the Associate Chairman of the Department of Civil, Architectural & Environmental Engineering.

Dr. Bhat is recognized nationally and internationally as a leading expert in the area of travel demand modeling and travel behavior analysis.  His substantive research interests include land-use and travel demand modeling, activity-based travel modeling, policy evaluation of the effect of transportation control and congestion pricing measures on traffic congestion and mobile-source emissions, marketing research of competitive positioning strategies for transportation services, use of non-motorized modes of travel, and physical health and transportation.  His methodological research interests and expertise are in the areas of econometric and mathematical modeling of consumer behavior, including discrete choice analysis, discrete-continuous econometric systems, and hazard duration models.  His methodological works are widely referenced in the economics, marketing, geography, statistics, and transportation fields, and have been included in econometric textbooks and software packages.  He has authored several book chapters focusing on improved methods for choice modeling in general and land use-travel demand modeling in particular.  Dr. Bhat’s research has been funded by the National Science Foundation, the Environmental Protection Agency, the National Institute of Statistical Sciences, State Departments of Transportation, including TxDOT, the Bureau of Transportation Statistics, and the U.S. Department of Transportation.

Dr. Bhat received the 2004 Walter L. Huber Award and the 2005 James Laurie Prize from the American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) in recognition of his contributions to “innovative methods in transportation systems analysis and modeling.”  He also received the 2006 Lockheed Martin Aeronautics Company Award for Excellence in Engineering Teaching, awarded by the College of Engineering at UT Austin, and the 2006-2007 Outstanding Graduate Teaching Award, awarded by the UT Graduate School. Dr. Bhat won the 2007 Pyke Johnson Award from the Transportation Research Board (TRB) for the best paper in the area of planning and environment, for a paper he co-authored with two former PhD students.  He was selected as the 2008 recipient of the Wilbur S. Smith Distinguished Transportation Educator Award by the Institute of Transportation Engineers (ITE). He also is a 2008 Jefferson Science Fellow Selectee and was conferred the 2008 Outstanding Faculty Advisor Award by the Texas Institute of Transportation Engineers. Most recently he was awarded the 2009 S.S. Steinberg Award by the American Road & Transportation Builders Association (ARTBA), the 2010 Most Outstanding Faculty Award for Civil Engineering by the Student Engineering Council in the Cockrell School of Engineering, and selected as one of seven new 2010 members of the Academy of Distinguished Teachers at UT Austin.

Dr. Bhat has also made significant educational and scientific impacts on the transportation planning field by nurturing and producing a new generation of very high quality researchers. The results of his pedagogical efforts are evident in the quality of his graduate students. In each of the years 2000 and 2001, one of his students was awarded the prestigious Milton Pikarsky Memorial Award for the best North America thesis in the transportation science and technology area. In 2004, and again in 2008, one of his PhD students received the Charley V. Wootan Memorial Award for the best North American dissertation in the transportation policy and planning area, and recently one of his MS students won the 2009 Charley V. Wootan Memorial Award for the best North American thesis in the transportation policy and planning area. In 2009, a PhD student received an honorable mention in the international Eric Pas Prize Competition for one of the top two dissertations in the travel behavior field. His students have been selected for the Eno Leadership Program, the International Road Federation (IRF) Leadership Program, the Eisenhower Graduate Fellowship, the Wanda Schafer Scholarship of the Women's Transportation Society, and the Herman Award, among other awards. Overall, since 2000, his students have received 33 awards for their scholarly research and leadership contributions.

Dr. Bhat has been invited and/or elected to serve on several international and national transportation committees, including the International Association for Travel Behavior Research and five Transportation Research Board (TRB) committees/task forces.  He recently served as the Chair of the International Association for Travel Behavior Research, and is a member of the Board of Directors of this association.  He is the Co-Chair of the TRB Committee on Transportation Education and Training (ABG20) and recently served as Chair of the Committee on Transportation Demand Forecasting (ADB40).  He is also the Associate Editor of Transportation Research-Part B, and serves on the editorial boards of Transportation, the Journal of Choice Modelling, Transportation Letters: The International Journal of Transportation Research, and EURO Journal on Transport and Logistics.

Dr. Bhat has been a consultant for activity-based travel modeling for MPOs, has conducted research for the Boston MPO in the past on improvements to travel demand modeling, and is currently working with the North Central Texas Council of Governments (NCTCOG) on an ongoing activity-based travel modeling project.  He has worked with Parsons Brinckerhoff and Cambridge Systematics as a consultant for developing and implementing integrated land-use, transportation, and air quality models.  He was on a National Academy of Sciences (NAS) Panel to review the travel demand modeling procedures of the Metropolitan Washington Council of Governments (MWCOG) in Washington D.C.  He has served as a Peer Review Panelist for several MPOS, including those in the San Francisco, San Diego, Seattle, Los Angeles, New Jersey, Calgary, and St. Louis areas. Locally, he was the technical advisor to a Blue Ribbon Task Force constituted by the Greater Austin Chamber of Commerce to review and assess Capital Metro's light rail proposal for Austin.

Last modified: Sept 2011


RESEARCH INTERESTS

Travel Behavior Modeling/Travel Demand Modeling

Socio-Demographics and Land-Use Modeling

Sustainable Urban Design and Physical Activity

Activity Participation and Time-Use

Traffic Safety

Social Networks and ICT

Children’s Travel Behavior

Other


Travel Behavior Modeling/Travel Demand Modeling

Copula-Based Frameworks

Spatial Analysis and Spatial Econometrics

Discrete-Continuous and Other Limited Dependent Variable Models

Multiple Discrete-Continuous Frameworks

Hazard Duration Models

Random Utility Models

Ordered Response Models

Fractional Split Models

Other


Socio-Demographics and Land-Use Modeling

Copula-Based Frameworks

Spatial Analysis and Spatial Econometrics

Discrete-Continuous and Other Limited Dependent Variable Models

Multiple Discrete-Continuous Frameworks

Random Utility Models

Ordered Response Models


Sustainable Urban Design and Physical Activity

Copula-Based Frameworks

Discrete-Continuous and Other Limited Dependent Variable Models

Stated Preference Studies

Random Utility Models

Ordered Response Models


Activity Participation and Time-Use

Composite Likelihood Approaches

Discrete-Continuous and Other Limited Dependent Variable Models

Multiple Discrete-Continuous Frameworks

Hazard Duration Models

Random Utility Models

Ordered Response Models

Other


Traffic Safety

Ordered Response Models


Social Networks and ICT

Composite Likelihood Approaches

Hazard Duration Models


Children’s Travel Behavior


Other

Copula Based Frameworks

Self-Selection and Endogeneity in Discrete Choice Models

Multiple Discrete-Continuous Frameworks

Random Utility Models