Olejarz, Bahrami win top prizes in ITS Canada Student Essay Competition

University of Toronto students Daniel Olejarz (CivEng 2020 MASc candidate) and Sina Bahrami (CivEng 2019 PhD) for winning first and second prizes in the ITS Canada 2019 Student Essay Competition.

First Prize to Daniel Olejarz

head shot of Daniel Olejarz
Daniel Olejarz

Daniel will present his winning essay, “Monitoring Toronto’s King Street Transit Pilot,” in person at ITS Canada’s AGM on September 22, and will be presented with an official award on September 24 during lunch. Both events will be held during the 2019 TAC-ITS Canada Joint Conference & Exhibition, September 22-25 in Halifax.  Daniel’s prize package includes conference registration, airfare to Halifax and accommodations.

When asked what inspired his paper, Daniel says, “Smart Cities and Big Data was a natural theme for me to write about. I’d been exposed to the data projects the City of Toronto was working on through my time on the Big Data Innovation team.”

“A big ‘thank you’ to Professor Matt Roorda of U of T and Jesse Coleman of the City of Toronto for supporting my submission.”

Daniel’s objective was to highlight a practical example of how different ITS technologies are being used today to improve transportation in Toronto, and says he is “thrilled to have the opportunity to present my work in Halifax at the TAC-ITS Canada Joint Conference.”

Daniel congratulates his fellow prize winners, Sina Bahrami and Lama Alfaseeh, and thanks ITS Canada for supporting transportation education.

Read or download Daniel’s winning paper Monitoring Toronto’s King Street Transit Pilot.

Sina Bahrami awarded second prize

head shot of Sina Bahrami
Sina Bahrami

Sina will receive a prize of $1,000 cash for his essay “An agent-based simulation model for evaluation of parking policies in the era of autonomous vehicles.”

In his paper, Sina follows his keen interest in autonomous vehicles (AVs). “AVs are around the corner and will change how we travel in the near future, so it’s important to study and plan before their arrival.”

“My goal was to investigate the impacts of autonomous vehicles on users’ parking choices, and propose policies to minimize negative impacts from driver parking behaviour in the era of autonomous vehicles,” Sina says.

The essay competition creates a valuable opportunity to share one’s research with a wider audience, Sina notes. “It is very delightful to me to see that others find my research valuable,” says Sina, adding, “This award will also boost my research career.”

About the essay competition

The competition, now in its second year, promotes the ITS expertise, experience and interests of young researchers from Canadian universities. The essays are intended to connect academic research to real-world transportation issues.

Submitted essays were reviewed and scored by an ITS Canada expert panel of judges. Winning essays are judged to be of high quality and relevant to the ITS industry .

About ITS Canada

In addition to hosting this student essay competition, ITS Canada further supports young researchers by hosting an Education Roundtable and a Young Professionals panel session during the 2019 conference.

Read more: ITS Canada September 4 news post.