Hussein Mahfouz

Position

Enrichment Student

Cohort year

2023

Partner Institution

Bio

Hussein is a PhD student at the Institute for Transport Studies at the University of Leeds, where he is focusing on the relationship between bus services, mode share, and energy demand. Prior to starting his PhD, he worked in an Egyptian transport consultancy where he managed and owned the technical delivery of projects for clients including IFIs, global research organisations, and national government. Projects included the creation of a spatially disaggregated employment model of Casablanca, the formulation of a methodology for assessing the impact of micromobility on accessibility to opportunities, and a mobility assessment report for Greater Cairo.

He has an MSc in urban analytics from the Centre for Advanced Spatial Analysis (CASA) at UCL, and a bachelors degree in construction engineering from the American University in Cairo

Research interests

Designing and operating efficient and reliable bus networks can lead to a reduction in transport energy consumption through a shift in user behaviour. The choice of which mode of transport to use is strongly informed by the utility of each mode and improved bus services can attract new ridership from people that have had to rely on cars due to the lack of a viable alternative. Hussein's research is focused on bus network design, and attempts to model changes in mode choice associated with bus network improvements. The work will also look at the effect that demand-responsive transport (DRT) can have on improving public transport accessibility in suburban areas that are poorly served by traditional bus services due to cost-effectiveness. The research will leverage spatial analysis (to identify gaps in service provision), operations research (to suggest changes to the network), and agent-based modelling (to simulate the effect of network changes on individual travel patterns). The aim is to develop a reproducible and scalable methodology that can be applied to different areas.