Panos G. Michalopoulos

Professor Emeritus, Department of Civil, Environmental, and Geo- Engineering

Contact

Civil Engineering Building
500 Pillsbury Drive SE
Minneapolis, MN 55455

Panos G. Michalopoulos

Professor Emeritus, Department of Civil, Environmental, and Geo- Engineering

Dr. Michalopoulos has more than 50 years of consulting, research and teaching experience in traffic engineering, management, operations and control. He has been a professor of transportation and traffic engineering since 1976.

Research

Major research areas include modeling of traffic flow dynamics, traffic flow theory simulation and control, traffic operations in freeways and urban streets, computer and high- tech applications for Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS) through image processing, learning systems, artificial intelligence, expert systems and object-oriented programming. More recently, areas of research interest have included continuum modeling of traffic flow dynamics in complex large-scale networks. The resulting models have been refined to include complex interrupted flow dynamics, freeway entrances and exits, weaving areas, and intersections. The models were incorporated into the first PC-based simulation program (called Kronos) for freeway corridors and used for developing advanced control strategies in urban street and freeway networks.

He also developed the first commercial wide-area machine vision based vehicle detection sensor which was integrated into a live observatory for collecting detailed traffic measurements and simultaneous video recording. This was complemented by a traffic simulation laboratory at the ITS institute, which was used to simulate ramp control effectiveness in the Twin Cities freeways as well as testing new control strategies. As part of this research, a virtual Traffic Management Laboratory (TramLab) was also developed. This emulated all functions of a traffic management center and was used for testing new traffic management schemes and technologies prior to field implementation. It was also used for developing, testing, and validating dynamic traffic flow models, adaptive traffic management strategies, and other ITS technologies.

Michalopoulos co-founded the Center for Transportation Studies (CTS) at the University of Minnesota, which is one of the first, largest, and most respected in the US. He is a distinguished member of many professional societies and has received awards from the Institute of Transportation Engineers, The Transportation Research Board, IEEE and others.

Dr. Michalopoulos patented the process for machine vision based vehicle detection and tracking and founded a company (Image Sensing Systems) for commercializing the technology, which pioneered the field of wide area vehicle detection (widely known as Autoscope) and is marketed in the US by Econolite. Autoscope is the most widely deployed video detection sensor for ITS projects worldwide. Substantial royalties from this invention flowed to the Center for Transportation Studies for supporting research and establishing a chair in transportation engineering at the department.

Biography

Education

B.S., 1969, Civil Engineering, College of Engineering of Athens, Greece
M.S., 1972, Civil Engineering (Transportation), University of Florida
Ph.D., 1975, Civil Engineering (Transportation), University of Florida

Professional Background

Assistant highway engineer, A. Loukakos & Assoc., Greece
Engineer I, traffic operations. Florida Department of Transportation
Assistant professor, Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, Troy, N.Y. 1976-1977

Publications & Awards

Selected Publications

Hourdos, J., Garg, V., Michalopoulos, P. and Davis, G. 2006. Real-time detection of crash prone conditions in freeway high crash locations. Transportation Research Record. DOI: 10.1177/0361198106196800110

Xin, W., Hourdos, J. and Michalopoulos, P. 2006. Comprehensive evaluation of a new integrated freeway ramp control strategy. Transportation Research Record. DOI: 10.1177/0361198106195900106.

Feng, B., Hourdos, J. and Michalopoulos, P. 2006. Improving Minnesota's stratified ramp control strategy. Transportation Research Record. DOI: 10.1177/0361198106195900109

Beegala, A., Hourdakis, J. and Michalopoulos, P. 2005. Methodology for performance optimization of ramp control strategies through microsimulation. Transportation Research Record. DOI: 10.1177/0361198105192500110

Xin, W., Hourdakis, J. and Michalopoulos, P. 2005. Real-time freeway ramp control taking into account ramp demand and ramp queue size information. Traffic Engineering and Control, 46(9): 340 .

Hourdakis, J., Michalopoulos, P., and Morris, T. 2004. Deployment of wireless, mobile detection and surveillance for data intensive applications. Transportation Research Record, 1900: 140-148.

Michalopoulos, P.G. 2001. Non-intrusive advanced sensor devices for ATMS. Journal of Systems and Control Engineering, Proc. Inst. Mech. Engrg., 215:345-55.

Michalopoulos, P.G., G. Liu and A. Lyrintzis. 1998. An improved high order model for freeway traffic flow. Trans. Res. Record, 1644: 37-47.

Michalopoulos, P.G. 1998. Recent developments of advanced technology in freeway management projects. Traffic Eng. and Control, 39(3):160-5.

Liu, G., A. Lyrintzis and P.G. Michalopoulos. 1996. Modelling of freeway merging and diverging flow dynamics. Applied Mathematical Modelling, 20: 453-69.