The University of Toronto Transportation Research Institute (UTTRI) is proud to recognize the recent national accolades awarded to three of its faculty members for their outstanding contributions to transportation engineering, innovation, and academic leadership. These honours reflect the Institute’s continued commitment to advancing impactful, real-world transportation solutions through cutting-edge research and collaboration.
Prof. Baher Abdulhai Wins 2025 Excellence in R&D Award from ITS Canada
Professor Baher Abdulhai and his team, including Dr. Xiaoyu Wang and the City of Toronto’s Dr. Ilia Smirnov and Roger Browne, received the 2025 Excellence in R&D Award from the Intelligent Transportation Society of Canada (ITS Canada). The award recognizes the development of eMARLIN-Transformer (eMARLIN-T), a revolutionary AI-powered adaptive traffic signal control system. Using reinforcement learning and transformers, eMARLIN-T demonstrated a 30% reduction in delay in pre-deployment tests and is scheduled for field trials at four major Toronto intersections-marking a global first in live deployment of such technology.
Prof. Amer Shalaby Elected Fellow of the Canadian Academy of Engineering (CAE)
Professor Amer Shalaby, Bahen/Tanenbaum Chair in Civil Engineering and a leading expert in public transit systems, has been elected Fellow of the Canadian Academy of Engineering (CAE). This honour highlights his influential work in transit planning, intelligent transportation systems, and large-scale event mobility management. Over his distinguished career, Prof. Shalaby has trained a large number of transportation professionals, led major research centres, and contributed to global best practices in transit operations and infrastructure planning.
Prof. Khandker Nurul Habib Elected Fellow of the Canadian Society for Civil Engineering (CSCE)
Professor Khandker Nurul Habib, has been named a Fellow of the CSCE, recognizing his pioneering contributions to transportation systems engineering. Renowned for advancing activity-based travel demand modeling and innovative survey tools like TRAISI-Move, Prof. Habib has published over 200 journal articles and supervised more than 90 graduate students. His work has shaped both national policy and international scholarship in sustainable mobility and travel behavior analysis.
These awards highlight UTTRI’s national leadership in transportation research and its role in developing innovative, evidence-based solutions for Canada’s mobility future.