PhD in the School of Civil Engineering and Geosciences - Investigating Cooperative - ITS to deliver Infrastructure as a Service

Number of awards:
1

Start date and duration:
24 April 2017 for 4 years. The applicant must submit their PhD thesis by September 2021, as no funding is available after this date.

Overview:
The research investigates autonomous vehicle and their interaction with transport management Infrastructure.

The connectivity offered by ITS platforms facilitating the interaction between infrastructure, vehicles and travellers is a key component of future smart transport and will among other things, enable a whole range of use cases which connect infrastructure intelligence and traffic management for vehicles with different levels of vehicle automation (which could range from setting an optimum speed for the vehicle, providing priority at lights through to reducing vehicle emissions and supporting older drivers to continue driving safer for longer through various in-vehicle support systems).

General area will to investigate and research the broad area of ‘Infrastructure as a Service’, i.e. how communications technology offering V to I and I to X can be utilised to improve the management, operation and control of road transport and also consider the role V to I and cooperative systems may play in supporting vehicle operations as the level of potential automated functions on vehicles increase towards fully autonomous.

Sponsor:
EPSRC (https://www.epsrc.ac.uk/) and Siemens (http://www.siemens.co.uk/en/)

Name of supervisor(s):
Professor Phil Blythe (http://www.ncl.ac.uk/ceg/staff/profile/philblythe.html#background), Dr Amy Guo (http://www.ncl.ac.uk/ceg/staff/profile/weihongguo.html#background) and Professor Elisabetta Cherchi (http://www.ncl.ac.uk/ceg/staff/profile/elisabettacherchi.html#background), School of Civil Engineering and Geosciences.

Eligibility Criteria:
You must have, or expect to achieve, at least a 2:1 honours degree or international equivalent, in Civil Engineering, other Engineering, Computer Science or ITS/business related subject. As this is an industrial funded Case award some consideration of experience in the topic area will be considered in lieu.

The award is available to UK/EU applicants only. Depending on how you meet the EPSRC’s eligibility criteria (https://www.epsrc.ac.uk/skills/students/help/eligibility/), you may be entitled to a full or a partial award.

How to apply:
You must apply through the University’s online postgraduate application system (http://www.ncl.ac.uk/postgraduate/apply/). To do this please ‘Create a new account’.

All relevant fields should be completed, but fields marked with a red asterisk must be completed. The following information will help us to process your application. You will need to:
•insert the programme code 8040F in the programme of study section
•select ‘PhD Civil Engineering and Geosciences (transport)’ as the programme of study
•insert the studentship code CI785 in the studentship/partnership reference field
•attach a covering letter and CV. The covering letter must state the title of the studentship, quote reference code CI785 and state how your interests and experience relate to the project.

You should also email your covering letter and CV to Professor Phil Blythe ([Email Address Removed] ).