Moshe Ben-Akiva
Moshe Emanuel Ben-Akiva is an Israeli-American engineer who holds the Edmund K. Turner Professorship of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology. He is noted for pioneering discrete-choice methods in travel-demand modelling and for co-creating DynaMIT, a real-time traffic-management simulation platform.
Early life and education
Ben-Akiva moved to the United States, obtaining an SM in 1971 and a PhD in transportation systems in 1973 from MIT. His doctoral research laid the foundations for the textbook Discrete Choice Analysis.Academic career
Immediately after completing his doctorate, Ben-Akiva joined the MIT faculty as an assistant professor; he was promoted to full professor in 1981 and named Edmund K. Turner Professor in 1996.He founded and directs MIT’s Intelligent Transportation Systems Laboratory, whose DynaMIT software is used for real-time traffic prediction and was recognised with the Institute of [Electrical and Electronics Engineers|IEEE] Intelligent Transportation Systems Outstanding Application Award.
Ben-Akiva has supervised more than fifty doctoral dissertations and teaches graduate subjects in discrete-choice analysis, demand modelling and dynamic traffic assignment.
Research contributions
Working at the interface of engineering and economics, Ben-Akiva introduced random-utility models that underpin modern activity-based demand forecasting. His subsequent integration of choice models with dynamic traffic assignment led to the microsimulation tools MITSIM and DynaMIT, which combine real-time sensor data with behavioural models to forecast congestion and test control strategies. Since the 2010s his group has blended machine-learning techniques with discrete choice to improve forecasts for on-demand mobility and urban freight systems.Honours
- Member of the National Academy of Engineering
- Lifetime Achievement Award, International Association for Travel Behaviour Research
- Jules Dupuit Prize, World Conference on Transport Research Society
- IEEE Intelligent Transportation Systems Society Outstanding Application Award for DynaMIT
- Robert Herman Lifetime Achievement Award in Transportation Science, INFORMS
- Honorary doctorates from Université Lumière Lyon 2, University of the Aegean, KTH Royal Institute of Technology and University of Antwerp
Selected publications
- Ben-Akiva, M. & Lerman, S. R.. Discrete Choice Analysis: Theory and Application to Travel Demand. MIT Press.
- Ben-Akiva, M., Meersman, H. & Van de Voorde, E. Freight Transport Modelling. Emerald, 2013.
- Ben-Akiva, M., McFadden, D. & Train, K.. “Foundations of stated-preference elicitation.” Foundations and Trends in Econometrics, 10, 1–144.