TUM | Shahriar Iqbal Zame

Hosting and Presenting at the First SEE-FAr Workshop at TUM

Thu, 16 Jul 2026 00:00:00 +0000

A Full Day on Freight Decarbonisation

On 16 July 2026, the Chair of Transportation Systems Engineering (TSE) at the Technical University of Munich hosted the first workshop of the Shaping E-Roads Efficiency for Freight Automation (SEE-FAr) project, under the title Recent Advances in Electric and Automated Road Freight Transport.

SEE-FAr is jointly funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG) and the Austrian Science Fund (FWF), and is jointly led by Prof. Dr. Constantinos Antoniou (TUM) and Prof. Dr. Yusak Susilo (BOKU University, Vienna). The hybrid workshop brought the project team together with invited academic experts and industry stakeholders around a single question: how do we actually decarbonise road freight?

It was a privilege to take part both as a member of the organising team and as one of the presenters.

My Presentation

I presented “Freight OD Estimation from Fleet GPS and Traffic Counts: What Bavaria Validated and Austria Taught Us.”

The talk addressed a practical tension in freight demand estimation: commercial-fleet GPS probes are spatially rich but penetration-biased, while roadside counts are sparse but trusted. Our pipeline treats GPS stop sequences as origin–destination priors and calibrates them against permanent count stations through a regularised observation-matrix inversion, producing truck demand at NUTS-3 resolution and hourly granularity.

The two study regions behaved very differently, and that contrast became the heart of the talk. Bavaria reproduced independent counts to within roughly 1% aggregate bias, whereas Austria over-predicted by about 2.5×. Rather than tuning the discrepancy away, we traced its mechanism — where too few instrumented links constrain an OD pair, the estimate collapses back onto the GPS prior, and that prior is itself inflated by repeated intra-zonal delivery stops. The contribution is therefore not just a method, but a set of diagnostics that let the resulting matrix label its own identifiability and spatial reliability.

Programme Highlights

Part A — SEE-FAr project presentations

Prof. Dr. Yusak Susilo (BOKU) — SEE-FAr project overview
Denissa Purba (BOKU) — Operational patterns and impact analysis of long-haul road freight in Bavaria and Austria
Shahriar Iqbal Zame (TUM) — Data-driven estimation of vehicle-based freight OD matrices
Wanrong Hu (BOKU) — Charging facilities allocation for battery-electric freight corridors: plug-in charging, battery swapping, and electric road systems

Part B — Invited expert perspectives

Fabian Bussieweke and Niclas Klein (TUM) — Long-haul road freight electrification and automation: technical implications from a system perspective
Dr. Muhamad Rizki (ITENAS) — Factors influencing light-duty electric truck adoption in urban logistics
Dr. Oleksandr Rossolov (Dalhousie University) — Toward spatially equitable public EV charging infrastructure: urban–rural differences in location preferences
Dr. Trilce Encarnación (University of Missouri–St. Louis) — Pricing delivery demand: a complement to freight electrification

The day closed with an open discussion on research needs, implementation barriers, and collaboration opportunities, chaired by Prof. Antoniou and Prof. Susilo.

Reflections

What struck me most was how naturally the sessions converged. The talks approached freight decarbonisation from genuinely different angles — trajectory data and OD estimation, corridor-level charging infrastructure, behavioural adoption among truck operators, spatial equity in charging access, and demand-side pricing — yet they kept arriving at the same conclusion: no single technology resolves this on its own. Data, behaviour, infrastructure, and policy have to work in concert.

Hosting an event like this is also a reminder of how much the informal parts matter. Some of the most useful exchanges happened over the coffee break and at the dinner afterwards, where the questions get blunter and the open problems get named directly.

Many thanks to the SEE-FAr team at TUM and BOKU, to our invited speakers for travelling and dialling in, and to DFG and FWF for supporting the project. Looking forward to the next one. 🚚⚡

Honored with the Johannes B. Ortner-Stiftung Master’s Thesis Award

Tue, 05 Aug 2025 00:00:00 +0000

A Special Recognition

I am deeply honored to share that the Johannes B. Ortner-Stiftung has awarded my master’s thesis with a prize for outstanding research by early-career scientists at the Technical University of Munich (TUM).

The recognition comes with a prize of €1,500, following a nomination from the TUM School of Engineering and Design and confirmation by the foundation’s board.

Award Ceremony

The award was conferred during the TUM Awards Dinner at the Hotel Bayerischer Hof, Munich, on Thursday, 13 November 2025 — a memorable occasion celebrating achievements from across the TUM community.

The certificate recognises my master’s thesis, “UAM siting approach considering capacity and land use: A case study of Munich”, and carries an excerpt from the citation by Prof. Constantinos Antoniou.

Gratitude

This recognition would not have been possible without the support and guidance of mentors, colleagues, and peers who contributed to my academic journey. I am sincerely thankful for the encouragement and opportunities that shaped this work.

Hosting and Attending hEART 2025 – A Privilege at TUM

Sun, 15 Jun 2025 00:00:00 +0000

hEART 2025 – An Inspiring Gathering

The 13th Symposium of the European Association for Research in Transportation (hEART 2025) took place in Munich, bringing together an international community of transportation researchers and practitioners. This year’s symposium was co-hosted by the Chair of Transportation Systems Engineering (TSE) and the Chair of Traffic Engineering and Control at the Technical University of Munich (TUM).

As a doctoral researcher at TUM, it was both a privilege and an honor to not only attend but also contribute to hosting this high-level conference.

Highlights

Engaged in inspiring keynote lectures by Prof. Gitta Kutyniok and Prof. Hani S. Mahmassani, with much anticipation for the keynote by Prof. S. Travis Waller.
Participated in stimulating sessions, posters, and panel discussions showcasing cutting-edge research in transportation modeling, planning, and policy.
Connected with colleagues and experts from across the globe, reinforcing the collaborative spirit of transportation research.
Looked forward to the upcoming MATSim User Meeting and PhD School, set to extend the momentum of this gathering.

Reflections

The symposium was a remarkable experience to be part of both academically and organizationally. It reinforced the importance of international collaboration in addressing the challenges of sustainable, efficient, and equitable transport systems.

I am grateful to the organizing team, participants, and sponsors for making this conference a success, and proud to have played a role in welcoming the community to Munich.

Here’s to continuing the dialogue, advancing the science of transportation, and building networks that will shape the future of mobility. 🚀

Shaping E-Roads Efficiency for Freight Automation (SEE-FAr)

Sun, 01 Jan 2023 00:00:00 +0000

Project Overview

The Shaping E-Roads Efficiency for Freight Automation (SEE-FAr) project investigates innovative solutions for the electrification and automation of long-haul freight transport. It combines data-driven analytical models with agent-based simulation to assess the technical, economic, and environmental impacts of deploying stationary (plug-in) and dynamic (in-motion electric road) charging infrastructures.

SEE-FAr aims to provide actionable insights into the cost-effectiveness, scalability, and sustainability of different charging strategies, helping stakeholders shape the future of freight logistics in an era of automation and electrification.

Objectives

Analyze the operational efficiency of e-road freight systems under automation.
Evaluate trade-offs between stationary charging and dynamic charging infrastructures.
Quantify energy consumption, emissions reduction, and system costs.
Identify policy and planning strategies to support a sustainable freight transition.

Collaboration

SEE-FAr is funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG) and the Austrian Science Fund (FWF), and is jointly undertaken by an international team of experts in transportation engineering, logistics, and energy systems. At TUM, the project is hosted at the Chair of Transportation Systems Engineering, led by Prof. Dr. Constantinos Antoniou, together with partners at BOKU University, Vienna, led by Prof. Dr. Yusak Susilo.

Workshops

The first SEE-FAr workshop, Recent Advances in Electric and Automated Road Freight Transport, was held at TUM on 16 July 2026, bringing the project team together with invited international experts on freight electrification, charging infrastructure, adoption behaviour, and delivery policy.

The SEE-FAr project team from TUM and BOKU with invited speakers, Munich, 16 July 2026.

Project presentations on operational patterns and impacts of long-haul road freight in Bavaria and Austria.

Presenting freight origin–destination estimation from commercial-fleet GPS and roadside traffic counts.

The workshop ran in hybrid format, connecting the TUM and BOKU teams with remote participants.

Discussions continued over the workshop dinner in Munich.

Read the full recap: Hosting and Presenting at the First SEE-FAr Workshop at TUM

Role

As a doctoral researcher and research associate, Shahriar Iqbal Zame contributes to the development of agent-based models, optimization frameworks, and scenario analysis. The focus lies on understanding behavioral responses, infrastructure utilization, and system-level implications of electrification and automation in freight transport.

More Information

For official project details: SEE-FAr Project Website (TUM)