Cong Tran talks about his motivation to contribute to sustainable development through encouraging the widespread adoption of zero-emission vehicles. Cong Tran is a PhD student in Transportation Engineering at Civil and Natural Resources Engineering Department at UC. He is working on solving the problems that Electric Vehicles (EVs) cause in the transportation system due to their charging nature.
Cong completed his graduate studies in Industrial and Systems Engineering from Ho Chi Minh City University of Technology in Vietnam. “Thanks to the UC Doctoral Scholarship, I got the opportunity to come to New Zealand and continue my research journey in this beautiful country”, says Cong. “I am particularly interested in interdisciplinary research towards sustainable development.”
Cong’s primary areas of interest include urban transportation systems, network optimization, and green city logistics. His PhD research is devoted to optimally design the locations and capacities of fast-charging facilities for EVs in urban areas under congestion and uncertain demand. “Although the electrification of transportation in urban areas can positively contribute to sustainability in the long run, the increasing number of EVs in traffic networks poses new challenges through changing the traffic routing pattern and can even lead to more congestion. “says Cong.
He hopes to achieve an optimization framework out of his PhD studies that minimizes both the travel costs and investments, while considering the interaction between the charging stations deployment and the route choice behaviours.
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