Personal Website

RESEARCH INTERESTS
Traffic operations and control, intelligent transportation systems, information systems, microsimulation modeling, and artificial intelligence applications.

EDUCATION
Ph.D., University of Central Florida, 1998 Civil Engineering Dept.
M.S., University of Central Florida, 1994 Civil Engineering Dept.
B.S., Cairo University,1987 Civil Engineering Dept.

ACADEMIC EXPERIENCE

• PI, Evaluation of the Traffic Safety Benefits of a Lower Speed Limit and Restriction of Trucks to Use of Right Lane Only on I-10 Over the Atchafalaya Basin. Louisiana Transportation Research Center. (1/1/05-12/31/07) (330K)
• PI, Development of Optimal Downsampling Procedures for Microsimulation Modeling of Large-Scale Dynamic Traffic Networks. LSU. (10k)
• PI, The Urban Data Warehousing/Data Mining (Dw/Dm) Component For ITS: Statewide Planning Phase. Louisiana Transportation Research Center. (8/1/03-8/1/06) (45k)
• PI, NSF/USDOT ICSST (Information and Communication Systems for Surface Transportation): Exploring New Traffic Characteristics and Performance Measures Using Feature Extraction and Texture Characterization of Spatiotemporal Traffic Contour Maps. (1/1/03 – 12/31/03) (100k)
• CO-PI, Modeling Hurricane Evacuation Traffic. Louisiana Transportation Research Center. (1/1/03 – 12/31/04) (170k)
• PI, The Impact of Real-Time and Predictive Traffic Information on Travelers’ Behavior in the I-4 Corridor, funded by the Florida Department of Transportation and University of Central Florida. (50k)
• PI, Information Technology Equipment Fund, Louisiana State University (55k)
• PI, Microscopic Simulation of Traffic using PARAMICS: A Case Study, funded by summer stipend program, LSU (5k)

• CE3600: Principles of Highway and Traffic Engineering
• CE2720: Computational Methods for Civil Engineers
  

• CE 7614: Intelligent Transportation System
• CE 7610: Traffic Operations and Control
• CE 7645: Transportation Systems Analysis
• CE 7701: Advanced Topics in Traffic Operations and Control
• CE 7701: Applications of Neurocomputing in Transportation Engineering

• Alecsandru, C. ^*, S. Ishak, and Y. Zhang^*. (2007) An Optimal Downsampling Procedure for Microscopic Simulation Modeling of Transportation Networks: A Proof of Concept Study, the Canadian Journal of Civil Engineering, Vol. 34, 89-98.
• Ishak, S., C. Alecsandru, and D. Seedah. “Improvement and Evaluation of the Cell-Transmission Model for Operational Analysis of Traffic Networks: A Freeway Case Study” Accepted for publication in the Journal of Transportation Research Record, 2006.
• Ishak, S., C. Alecsandru and S. Chakravarthy. “Potential Computational Benefits of Geometric, Kinematic, and Behavioral Downsampling of Microscopic Traffic Network Simulation” Accepted for publication in the ASCE Journal of Computing in Civil Engineering, 2006.
• Ishak, S., and C. Alecsandru. “Analysis of Freeway Traffic Incident Conditions Using Second-Order Spatio-Temporal Traffic Performance Measures” Transportation Research Record, Journal of the Transportation Research Board, No. 1925, 2005, pp 20-28.
• Alecsandru, C. and S. Ishak. “A Hybrid Model-Based and Memory-Based Traffic Prediction System” Transportation Research Record, Journal of the Transportation Research Board, No. 1879, 2004, pp 59-70.
• Ishak, S. and C. Alecsandru. “Optimizing Traffic Prediction Performance of Neural Networks under Various Topological, Input, and Traffic Condition Settings.” ASCE Journal of Transportation Engineering, Vol. 130, No. 4, 2004.
• Ishak, S. “Exploring Textural Characteristics of Spatiotemporal Traffic Contour Maps.” ASCE Journal of Transportation Engineering, Vol. 130, No. 1, 2004.
• Ishak, S. “Fuzzy-Clustering Approach to Quantify Uncertainties of Freeway Detector Observations.” Transportation Research Record, Journal of the Transportation Research Board, No. 1856, 2003, pp 6-15.
• Ishak, S. and H. Al-Deek. “Statistical Evaluation of Interstate 4 Traffic Prediction System.” Transportation Research Record, Journal of the Transportation Research Board, No. 1856, 2003, pp 16-24.
• Ishak, S. “Deriving Traffic Performance Measures and Level of Service from Second-Order Statistical Features of Spatiotemporal Traffic Contour Maps.” Transportation Research Record, Journal of the Transportation Research Board, No. 1858, 2003, pp 148-157.
• Ishak, S., P. Kotha, and C. Alecsandru. “Optimization of Dynamic Neural Networks Performance in Short-Term Traffic Prediction.” Transportation Research Record, Journal of the Transportation Research Board, No. 1836, 2003, pp 45-56.
• Ishak, S. and H. Al-Deek. “Performance Evaluation of a Short-Term Time-Series Traffic Prediction Model.” ASCE Journal of Transportation Engineering, Vol. 128, No. 6, 2002.
• Ishak, S. and H. Al-Deek. “Performance of Automatic ANN-Based Incident Detection on Freeways.” ASCE Journal of Transportation Engineering, Vol. 125, No. 4, 1999.

• Ishak, S., C. Alecsandru, and D. Seedah. “Improvement and Evaluation of the Cell-Transmission Model for Operational Analysis of Traffic Networks: A Freeway Case Study” To Appear in Preprint CD-ROM of the 85th Annual Meeting of TRB, National Research Council, Washington D.C., 2006.
• Ishak, S., Y. Zhang, and C. Alecsandru. “Development of Optimal Downsampling Procedures for Microsimulation Modeling of Transportation Networks: A Freeway Case Study” Preprint CD-ROM of the 84th Annual Meeting of TRB, National Research Council, Washington D.C., 2005.
• Ishak, S., and C. Alecsandru. “Analysis of Freeway Pre-Incident, Post-Incident, and Non-Incident Conditions Using Second-Order Spatio-Temporal Traffic Performance Measures” Preprint CD-ROM of the 84th Annual Meeting of TRB, National Research Council, Washington D.C., 2005.
• Ishak, S., S. Chakravarthy and C. Alecsandru. “Performance versus Scalability of Microscopic Traffic Simulation Systems.” Preprint CD-ROM of the 83rd Annual Meeting of TRB, National Research Council, Washington D.C., 2004.
• Alecsandru, C. and S. Ishak. “A Hybrid Model-Based and Memory-Based Traffic Prediction System.” Preprint CD-ROM of the 83rd Annual Meeting of TRB, National Research Council, Washington D.C., 2004.
• Ishak, S. and C. Alecsandru. “Optimizing Traffic Prediction Performance of Neural Networks under Various Topological, Input, and Traffic Condition Settings.” Preprint CD-ROM of the 82nd Transportation Research Board Meeting in Washington, D.C., January 2003.
• Ishak, S., P. Kotha, and C. Alecsandru. “Optimization of Dynamic Neural Networks Performance in Short-Term Traffic Prediction.” Preprint CD-ROM of the 82nd Transportation Research Board Meeting in Washington, D.C., January 2003.
• Ishak, S. “Quantifying Uncertainties of Freeway Detector Observations using Fuzzy-Clustering Approach.” Preprint CD-ROM of the 82nd Transportation Research Board Meeting in Washington, D.C., January 2003.
• Ishak, S. “Deriving Performance Measures and Level of Service from Second-Order Statistical Features of Spatiotemporal Traffic Contour Maps.” Preprint CD-ROM of the 82nd Transportation Research Board Meeting in Washington, D.C., January 2003.
• Ishak, S. and H. Al-Deek. “Statistical Evaluation of I-4 Traffic Prediction System.” Preprint CD-ROM of the 82nd Transportation Research Board Meeting in Washington, D.C., January 2003.
• Ishak, S. and H. Al-Deek. “Online Implementation of a Short-Term Traffic Prediction Model”. Paper published in the 7th International Conference on Applications of Advanced Technology in Transportation (AATT) Proceedings, Boston, August 2002.
• Ishak, S., H. Al-Deek, and A. Abdel-Rahman. “Dissemination of Forecasted Traffic Information” Paper published in the ITE Spring Conference and Exhibit Proceedings, March 23, 2002.