The rapid expansion of (peri-)urban areas across Europe presents a serious sustainability challenge. A modal shift towards cycling is required to achieve sustainable urban mobility, thereby reducing private car dependency, and improving health, air quality and noise pollution. In the project Green and safe routing, the challenge is to develop, validate and test a method that offers personalized, tailored travel and route advice in order to stimulate cycling.
This four-year PhD project is part of Horizon Europe project Bio-Intel-Mob. The project focuses on integrating sustainable mobility and logistics with intelligent solutions for safe, smart, green, resilient, and inclusive cities, with pilot demonstrations in Rome, Cascais, Riga, Vilnius, Melsungen, Ciampino, Urla and Rhodes.
The PhD project will involve:
- The use of data analytics (statistical models, machine learning, uncertainty quantification) to monitor and predict cycling travel conditions from various perspectives (safety, crowding, travel time, comfort, etc.). Therefore, various data sources including real-time traffic counts from inductive loop detectors, GPS traces, maintenance information and crowd-sourced data need to be combined.
- Learning personal mobility patterns, e.g., using space-time clustering techniques. Identify patterns based on observed travel behavior, and relate patterns to real-time and predicted travel conditions to recognize and predict events that may impact the trip of an individual.
- Developing a method for multi-objective, personalized (re)routing, i.e., generating routes and offering route suggestions based on mobility behavior, travel conditions, trip characteristics, and user preferences. Defined routes trade-off multiple criteria, where the exact importance of each objective is user dependent, and can be learned and improved over time based on previous choices and feedback.
Information and application
As a PhD candidate, you will be enrolled in the Twente Graduate School (TGS). The work location is Enschede.
Please submit your application before October 3rd, including:
- A cover letter (maximum 2 pages A4), emphasizing your specific interests, qualifications, motivation, and research ideas for the PhD project.
- A detailed Curriculum Vitae, including an overview of all courses attended and grades obtained.
- A description (1-page A4) of your MSc research.
- Contact details of two referees
Should you have any questions, you are welcome to contact dr.ir. Oskar Eikenbroek (email o.a.l.eikenbroek@utwente.nl) or dr.ir. Baran Ulak (email m.b.ulak@utwente.nl).
The first round of selection interviews is scheduled in the period 13 till 17 October 2025 and interviews can be held through Microsoft Teams. A second round of in-person interviews may be scheduled (in de first week of November) if necessary.
A screening is part of the selection procedure.
About the organisation
The Faculty of Engineering Technology (ET) engages in education and research of Mechanical Engineering, Civil Engineering and Industrial Design Engineering. We enable society and industry to innovate and create value using efficient, solid and sustainable technology. We are part of a ‘people-first' university of technology, taking our place as an internationally leading center for smart production, processes and devices in five domains: Health Technology, Maintenance, Smart Regions, Smart Industry and Sustainable Resources. Our faculty is home to about 2,900 Bachelor's and Master's students, 550 employees and 150 PhD candidates. Our educational and research programmes are closely connected with UT research institutes Mesa+ Institute, TechMed Center and Digital Society Institute.
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