Prof. Nicole Adler, ex-dean of the Hebrew University Business School in Jerusalem, is currently holding a visiting professorship as TU Dresden Senior Fellow supervised by Prof. Georg Hirte. Her main research areas are applied game theory and efficancy estimation, both applied to many different transport markets.

At the moment she´s completing the first part of her fellowship and we are grateful for the opportunity to conduct an interview with her.

LD: Prof. Adler, welcome to the "Friedrich List" Faculty of Transport and Traffic Sciences. You´re here as a Dresden Senior Fellow and during your stay you gave a research talk about "Modelling Automated Vehicle Markets". What will your presentation be about?

Nicole Adler:

Professors of engineering and computer science, together with industry partners, have been working on automated vehicles (AV) since the early 90s and claimed that they would be on the roads by the early 2000s´s. Today they are on the roads, but in a very limited capacity, mostly because it´s very complicated to introduce these vehicles on the roads alongside human drivers. Humans are difficult to predict so it may take a little more time, but automated vehicles are coming and they will change mobility, hopefully for the good , if managed properly. Automated vehicles will increase mobility, accessibility and reduce accidents, which sounds wonderful. At the same time, if we all get into our own little automated vehicle, non of us will go anywhere, because congestion, delays and ultimately gridlock will reduce mobility. So we need to figure out as economists, how to open this market and regulate it, such that everybody is better off if possible. This requires understanding whether you´re  looking for a single or multiple certified operators to serve the market with their own AV fleets or you expect people to purchase AVs in place of their current vehicles, which will depend on how expensive these vehicles will be – they will be more expensive than the current vehicles are, because they have a lot technology on board. And so maybe we could even push ourselves to a better equilibrium outcome that we have today. In my talk, I´m going to discuss whether automated vehicles can improve life for people living in the periphery. AV fleet operators could provide better first/last mile access – to train or bus stations in order to get to work, helping to remove inefficient and expensive fixed line bus service in rural areas.

I will also discuss medium-haul markets, with a case-study in Spain, where we think that the automated vehicles could compete with highspeed rail and aviation corridors, such as Madrid-Barcelona. Would AVs increase congestion by attracting demand from the scheduled service modes? We´ve used big data sources from cell phone companies to know today that even in these markets, 50% of the people are traveling in their private cars. Then the question is whether AVs will increase or decrease demand, how it will impact fares and frequencies on scheduled transport modes and how to best manage the market.

LD: That sounds very interesting! There´s already lots of collaboration with our faculty going on. Could you give us a few insights in further research topics and your plans for your stay?

Nicole Adler:

At the moment there are many new technologies changing our world. So aside from automated vehicles, there´s also urban air mobility. This will supposedly carry passengers and cargo – not on our streets. Fascinating technology, that we know exists and yet civil use is still very small. Amazon has begun delivering light packages in several US states, the UK and Italy. If they were to serve major cities, then there would need to be a regulated market that must be organized.

I´m also going to teach and I´m going to talk about the competition between high-speed rail and aviation. Over a decade ago, a European Union project investigated the Trans-European Networks (TENs) and whether they make sense from a cost-benefit perspective. Now I realize it´s still super relevant today, because although they´ve completed a couple of these TENs projects there were 30, so there´s still a lot there. And the idea of competition on railway links is really still new and doesn´t yet exist in Germany. And we also talk about the environment: What would be better for the environment, should we encourage travellers to choose rail over aviation? Would this help to reduce global greenhouse gas emissions? And that´s the joy of working in academia: If you´re doing it right, you´re doing something that´s useful for a while.

LD: What are your impressions of working here and what are your plans for your time in Dresden?

Nicole Adler:

I have been amazed to see the amount of research going on here. That there´s 20 full professors of transport in one institution is practically unheard of. I´ve met some fascinating people, I’m hoping to meet more. I have started at least two research projects. You have an amazing set of postdocs and PhDs as well and it´s really fun – I´ve been to seminars and I´m really enjoying myself. I have taught students from all over the world in the relatively new masters’ programs taught in English and it has been a lot of fun.

I would like to thank Prof. Hirte for the invitation to visit. He is a very smart econometrician and does great research, so it´s a lot of fun to work with him. I learn a lot.

I came [to Dresden] when the trees were changing colours. Professor Hirte makes me go on long walks, it´s fantastic. I´ve been to Schloss Pillnitz and the Saxony Swiss park, which are gorgeous. The food here is delicious. And I´ve been promised Glühwein :)  

LD: That sounds great! Thank you very much and all the best for you.

The research talk about "Modelling Automated Vehicle Markets" will be held on november 19th at POT 051. All faculty members are warmly invited.