Dr. Wang's research takes a data-driven approach to address challenging issues in planning, in particular those intersecting land use and transportation. Relying on data analysis, simulation and visualization techniques, his research aims to inform policy makers and the public of the effects of infrastructure and policy choices on community outcomes such as accessibility, environment, and equity. He has been a leading developer of UrbanSim, an open source land use and transportation modeling system widely used by planning professionals and researchers, and was involved in its application in a dozen cities around the world.
Dr. Wang currently works on a project funded by the National Institute of Transportation and Communities that investigates approaches integrating land use and transportation data from diverse sources and enables modelers and planners to rapidly incorporate new data in their models and analysis. Collaborating with Professor Paul Waddell at University of California, Berkeley, and researchers in Europe, he has also been working on a project applying integrated modeling approach to study sustainable urban futures for European cities including Paris, Zurich, and Brussels. Another current research of Dr. Wang looks into accessibility and migrant residents' residence choice in urban villages (chengzhongcun) in Beijing.
Before joining PSU, Dr. Wang was a post-doctoral researcher in the Institute of Urban and Regional Development at University of California, Berkeley. There he participated in projects ranging from developing a continuum of modeling systems that integrates microsimulation land use model with activity-based travel demand model and dynamic traffic assignment, to modeling the effects of alternative land use and transportation scenarios on greenhouse gas emission in the Bay Area.
RESEARCH AREAS:
Land use and transportation planning and modeling, planning support systems, data visualization, and quantitative research method, and spatial analysis.