Edward Z's Senior Project Blog

Project Title: Enhancing Safety and Efficiency in School Pick-Up-Drop-Off through
BASIS Advisor: Kay Yoo
Internship Location: Arizona State University AI + Transportation Lab
Onsite Mentor: Xuesong Zhou



Project Abstract

School pickups are almost an ubiquitous experience for on-campus K-12 students across the United States. In the morning and after school, parents come to pick up and drop off students (or students drive themselves) through a shared lane: the Pick-Up-Drop-Off (PUDO) lane. Because of the influx of traffic, the capacity of the lane is often unable to handle such cases. Despite being such a common problem, most schools have yet to address this issue, so potential solutions remain on the table. This research, in particular, focuses on simulating methods to tackle this challenge with optimization of different combinations of parameters not limited to the cars’ waiting time, travel time, queue length, idling carbon emissions, etc. to attempt to propose new solutions to reduce these specified objectives. Using these simulations, we can develop more sustainable, resilient, and efficient cybernetic systems for school pickups, and hopefully, change BASIS Phoenix’s and the surrounding communities' pickup lanes, for the better.

    My Posts:

  • Week 12- Conclusion

    Hello everyone! This is my last blog post. I hope to share some lessons as well as give you some of my updates for this week! This week, I began working on the presentation and paper, which, after again - many 2 AM nights, I finished. The paper is over 15 pages, and the slides... Read More

  • Week 11 – Obtaining Results

    Hey all, busy week! This week I focused on obtaining all of the remaining results and testing out our reservation system. So, without further or do, let's begin. As shown last week, our Type A reservation system had these metrics: Total Waiting Time: 15921 Ticks ~= 2653.503 minutes And 7.27 minute average waiting time This... Read More

  • Week 10 – Data Acquired!

    Hello everyone, this week, I finally got the data from Maya, and have began integrating the BASIS Scottsdale data with the campus. Today, I'll show you my progress on what I've done. 1. Acquire data and linearly interpolate. Since the data is collected at irregular intervals, I had to first combine the two data time... Read More

  • Week 9 – Let’s get working!

    This week, while I had little time to work on the project due to traveling to different colleges, I changed the scope of the project. Originally, it was supposed to be BASIS Phoenix as the case study -- but as time proved to be my "mortal enemy," I decided to change it to BASIS Scottsdale.... Read More

  • Week 8 – Dynamic Traffic Assignment

    Hello everyone! This week I've started building the simulation for the project. Currently, I've changed some of the data structures to fit our school and I've also downloaded the network of the surrounding area: (Fig. 1 Network of BASIS Phoenix) The plan is to now generate a demand file, where an estimation of the total... Read More

  • Week 7 – Transportation Economics and Data

    Hey all, welcome back! Yesterday, I had a meeting with my faculty mentor. Using data from BASIS Scottsdale, we discussed estimating the tradeoff between the value of time of students and parents (held in a parameter called ß - utility function). While I have yet to receive the data, we calculated a rough estimate for... Read More

  • Week 6 – Starting the Simulation

    Greetings, and welcome back!  This week, I'm going to be going in-depth about how my simulation works and how I plan on making it. A few days ago, I was able to meet with my faculty mentor and discuss how the simulation pipeline works,  including the overall framework and the simulations' key parameters. I'll try... Read More

  • Week 5

    Hello everyone, welcome back. Today's a Tuesday and I'm writing this blog post because I have a ski trip tomorrow. This week, unfortunately, I was unable to bring myself to get to much work due to some very crucial personal issues - however, because of my duties, I will finish this on time. On Friday,... Read More

  • Week 3 – Days of Sickness and Discovery

    Hello everyone! Welcome back to week 3, and I apologize for the late blog post - I was sick but now I'm slowly recovering and should make a full recovery sometime soon. Regardless, during this time, I was able to meet with a senior faculty member at ASU and I'll dedicate the latter half of... Read More

  • Week 2 – A little detour

    Hi everyone, welcome back! This week was a bit unexpected in terms of work and improvements - so we're on a "detour" for a little bit. At the end of last week, I realized I had to fill out an IRB proposal and informed consent forms to ask for the survey for our customer segments.... Read More

  • Week 1 – Laying the Groundwork

    Hello everyone! Welcome back. If this is your first time reading, let me summarize my project for you! My name is Eddie and I'm building a school pickup simulation framework to test various smart reservation systems to reduce parent waiting times, student stress, school administrator hassles, and carbon emission reductions to make our school communities... Read More

  • Generalizable or Cool? Why not both? – Introduction

    Imagine this: your parents are driving you to school and you're right on time, but then, when your car enters the school's gate - disaster strikes. There's a whole line of cars, zigzagging throughout the parking lot, seventy or eighty in length. You sit there and can't do anything but wait and panic, while cars... Read More