UBC Civil Engineering

Dr. Tarek Sayed

Dr. Tarek Sayed
Dr. Tarek Sayed,
Professor

Professor and,
Distinguished University Scholar

Location: CEME - Room 2026
Telephone: 604.822.4379
Facsimilie: 604.822.6901
Email: tsayed@civil.ubc.ca

Education:

B.Sc. (Ain Shams), M.A.Sc., Ph.D. (British Columbia), P.Eng.

Biography:

Dr. Sayed is currently a Professor and a Distinguished University Scholar at the University of British Columbia. He has a number of prestigious awards including the appointment as a UBC Distinguished University Scholar, the ITE Wilbur Smith Distinguished Transportation Educator Award, the Canadian Society of Civil Engineering Sandford Fleming Award, the Transportation Association of Canada Academic Merit Award, the Transportation Association of Canada Gilchrist Medal and several best paper and teaching awards.  Dr. Sayed is the Editor of the Canadian Journal of Civil Engineering and the Director of the Bureau of Intelligent Transportation Systems and Freight Security (BITSAFS-Engineering) at UBC. Dr. Sayed received two early promotions to the Associate and Full Professor levels. He served as a chair of both the Transportation and the computer application divisions of the Canadian Society of Civil Engineering. He has authored or coauthored about 200 journal/conference papers and has instructed and organized many short courses and seminars in traffic safety and ITS for the Institute of Transportation Engineers (ITE), the Insurance Corporation of British Columbia (ICBC), the BC Ministry of Transportation (BCMOT), Ashghal (Qatar), State Farm Insurance (US), and the US Federal Highway Administration, among others. He also serves on several national and international committees including the Transportation Research Board safety data and analysis Committee, the US Transportation Research Board future directions for road safety subcommittee, the US Transportation Research Board Pedestrian Committee and the Canadian National Road Safety Committee. He has completed numerous consulting projects in traffic safety and ITS in North America and internationally and has supervised 32 Master and Ph.D. theses. Dr. Sayed’s transportation engineering research has been focused within three main areas: 1) to improve road safety analysis and evaluation techniques, 2) to improve the level of knowledge associated with the safety implications of traffic operations and highway design, and 3) developing and evaluating Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS) to increase the efficiency/safety of traffic.

Dr. Sayed’s research to improve the methods of traffic safety analysis and evaluation is helping to reshape how road safety problems are identified and evaluated. The methods and techniques developed have received wide recognition and are being used by several agencies such as the Insurance Corporation of British Columbia (ICBC), US State Farm Insurance, US AAA Michigan, and the US Federal Highway Administration (FHWA). Dr. Sayed has completed numerous safety audits in Canada, the US and the Middle East. Improving the understanding and relationship between safety performance and traffic operations/road design is another research interest of Dr. Sayed and responds to the demand for this knowledge among transportation professionals. A good example of the applicability of his research within this area, are the methods that developed to explicitly evaluate safety and design consistency. His research work led to an evaluation framework that was adopted by BCMOT to evaluate the new design of the Sea to Sky Highway, located between Vancouver and Whistler, in southern British Columbia. The highway is being rebuilt to meet the demand for the 2010 Winter Olympics with a budget exceeding 1.00 billion dollars. This framework allowed decision makers the opportunity to analyze the safety benefits in relation to the cost of new highway design improvements. This facilitated a “trade-off” analysis that allowed for the justification and rationalization of highway infrastructure investment levels.

Within the area of ITS and traffic operations, Dr. Sayed’s research to develop a comprehensive strategy for Transit Signal Priority has been successfully applied on two corridors in Vancouver. Also, on a strategic level, he helped establish a provincial ITS vision and strategic plan for using advanced technologies to help solve provincial, regional and local transportation issues. He has supervised the completion of many ITS projects as the Director of the Bureau of Intelligent Transportation Systems and Freight Security (BITSAFS-Engineering) at UBC

Current Research:

Driver behavior simulation models, Explicit Safety Evaluation, Safety Audits, Adaptive traffic signal control, and traffic conflict techniques, ITS.

Teaching Interest:

Traffic operations and safety, Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS), applications of advanced computer techniques (simulation models, neural nets, fuzzy pattern recognition, etc.), and statistics and Bayesian analysis

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Recent Publications

Click here for a complete list of publications.

Journals

    • El Esawey, M. and Sayed, T. (2012) “Analysis of Unconventional Arterial Intersection Designs (UAIDs): State-of-the-art methodologies and future research directions”, in print, Transportmetrica, (Final Acceptance February 2012).
    • El Esawey, M. and Sayed, T. (2012) “Evaluating Safety Risk of Locating above Ground Utility Structures in the Highway Right-of-Way”, in print, Accident Analysis and Prevention, (Final Acceptance March 2012).
    • Sayed, T., Ismail, K., Zaki, M., Autey, J. (2012) “Feasibility of Computer Vision-Based Safety Evaluations: a Case Study Of a Signalized Right-Turn Safety Treatment”, in print, Transportation Research Record (Final Acceptance February 2012).
    • El-Basyouny, K. Sayed, T., and El Esawey, M. (2012) “Investigating the Effect of Collision Aggregation on Safety Evaluations using Multivariate Linear Intervention Models: Case Study of Signal Head Upgrade Program”, in print, Transportation Research Record (Final Acceptance February 2012).
    • El-Basyouny, K. and Sayed, T. (2012) “Linear and Nonlinear Safety Intervention Models: Novel Methods Applied to the Evaluation of Shoulder Rumble Strips”, in print, Transportation Research Record (Final Acceptance February 2012).
    • Ismail, K. and Sayed, T. (2012) “Risk-optimal Highway Design: Methodology and Case Studies”, in print, Safety Science (Final Acceptance February 2012).
    • Zaki, M., Sayed, T., Ismail, K., Alrukaibi, F. (2012) “Identification of Pedestrians Non-Conforming Behavior at Urban Intersections using Computer Vision”, in print, Transportation Research Record (Final Acceptance February 2012).
    • Li, S., Sayed, T., Zaki, M., Mori, G., Stefanus, F., Khanlooa, B., Saunier, N. (2012) “Automating Collection of Pedestrian Data Using Computer Vision Techniques”, in print, Transportation Research Record (Final Acceptance February 2012).
    • Khanloo, B., Stefanus, F., Ranjbar, M., Li, Z. Saunier, N., Sayed, T. and Mori, G. (2012) “A Large Margin Framework for Single Camera Offline Tracking with Hybrid Cues”, in print, Computer Vision and Image Understanding, (Final Acceptance January 2012).
    • El-Basyouny, K., and Sayed, T. (2012) “Measuring Safety Treatment Effects Using Full Bayes Non-Linear Safety Performance Intervention Functions”, Accident Analysis and Prevention, Vol. 45, pp. 152-163.
    • Autey, J., Sayed, T. and Zaki, M. (2012) “Safety Evaluation of Right-Turn Smart Channels Using Automated Traffic Conflict Analysis”, Accident Analysis and Prevention,  Vol. 45, pp. 120– 130.
    • El-Basyouny, K., and Sayed, T. (2012) “Measuring Direct and Indirect Treatment Effects Using Safety Performance Intervention Functions”, Safety Science, Vol. 50 (4), pp. 1125-1132.
    • El Esawey, M. and Sayed, T. (2011) “Using Buses As Probes For Neighbor Links Travel Time Estimation in an Urban Network”, Transportation Letters, Volume 3, Issue 4, pp. 279-292.
    • El Esawey, M. and Sayed, T. (2012) “A Framework for Neighbour Links Travel Time Estimation in an Urban Network”, in print, Transportation Planning and Technology, (Final Acceptance October 2011).
    • El Esawey, M. and Sayed, T. (2011) “Operational Performance Analysis Of The Unconventional Median U-Turn Intersection Design”, Canadian Journal of Civil Engineering,  Vol. 38,  pp. 1249–1261, doi:10.1139/L11-085
    • Ibrahim, S., and Sayed, T. (2011) “Developing Safety Performance Functions Incorporating Reliability Based Risk Measures”, Accident Analysis and Prevention, Vol. 43, pp. 2153– 2159, doi:10.1016/j.aap.2011.06.006.
    • Autey, J., Sayed, T. and El Esawey, M. (2011) “Operational Performance Comparison of Four Unconventional Intersection Designs Using Micro-simulation”, in print, Journal of Advanced Transportation (Final Acceptance May, 2011).
    • El Esawey, M. and Sayed, T. (2011) “Calibration and Validation of Simulation Models of Medium-Size Networks”, Journal of Advances in Transportation Studies,  Vol.  24, pp. 57 - 76 .
    • Ismail, K., Sayed, T., Zaki, M. and Al-Rukaibi, F. (2011) “Automated Detection Methodology of Spatial Traffic Violation Events Using Video Sensors”,  Transportation Research Record, Vol. 2241, pp. 87–98, DOI: 10.3141/2241-10.
    • El Esawey, M. and Sayed, T. (2011) “Using Neighbour Links Travel Time Covariance for Travel Time Estimation in an Urban Network”, Canadian Journal of Civil Engineering, Vol. 38(3), pp. 305–318, doi:10.1139/L11-001.
    • El Esawey, M. and Sayed, T. (2011) “Unconventional USC Intersection Corridors: Evaluation of Potential Implementation in Doha, Qatar”, Journal of Advanced Transportation, Vol. 45, pp.38–53.
    • Saunier, N., El Husseini, A., Ismail, K., Morency, C., Auberlet, J., Sayed, T. (2011) “Pedestrian Stride Frequency and Length Estimation in Outdoor Urban Environments using Video Sensors”, Transportation Research Record, Vol. 2264, pp. 138–147, DOI: 10.3141/2264-16.
    • El-Basyouny, K., and Sayed, T. (2011) “A full Bayes multivariate intervention model with random parameters among matched pairs for before–after safety evaluation”, Accident Analysis and Prevention, Vol.  43(1), pp. 87–94.
    • Ismail, K., Sayed, T., and Saunier, N. (2011) “Methodologies for Aggregating Traffic Conflict Indicators”, Transportation Research Record, Vol. 2237, pp. 10–19. DOI: 10.3141/2237-02

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