Dr Jie Liu
- Marie Sklodowska-Curie Future Roads Fellow
About
Dr. Liu is focused on the research theme of transport resilience, reliability, and vulnerability. He earned a Ph.D. degree from Southwest Jiaotong University and was a Ph.D. visiting student at the University of Maryland. Before becoming a Marie Curie co-funded Future Roads Fellow at the University of Cambridge, he worked at Kunming University of Science and Technology for two years.
Dr. Liu is an investigator in several projects with research topics centred around transport resilience and reliability. He is the first/corresponding author of 22 peer-reviewed journal papers and 13 conference papers, with several selected as "Editor’s choice" and best papers. Dr. Liu serves as a reviewer for 13 international journals and is a member of the editorial board for two journals.
In Cambridge, Dr. Liu will evaluate the impacts of climate change on transport performance and propose effective models and methods to mitigate the negative impacts caused by various climatic events. He aims to contribute to building a reliable, resilient, and sustainable transport system, enhancing the reliability, efficiency, and safety of our daily travel.
Fellowship period: 2 January 2024 – 1 January 2027
Research
Strategic Themes
Sustainability, Transport and urban infrastructure
Research Project
Title: Measuring and enhancing the resilience of road infrastructure networks to climate change
Theme: Sustainability
Abstract:
Climate change alters global precipitation and temperature patterns, affecting the frequency and intensity of extreme weather events. Assessing and enhancing the resilience of Road Infrastructure Networks (RINs) to climate change is crucial for improving their capacity to withstand, adapt to, and recover from extreme weather conditions.
This study aims to: 1) Model cascading failures in RINs during climatic events; 2) Quantify the impact of these events on RIN performance; 3) Develop models to assess RIN resilience across various climate scenarios; and 4) Optimize resilience enhancement strategies from both “pre-disaster” (e.g., infrastructure maintenance and renovation) and “post-disaster” (e.g., infrastructure recovery) perspectives. This research contributes to building a reliable, resilient, and sustainable transportation system, enhancing the reliability, efficiency, and safety of daily travel.
This study focuses on t road network in London and its surrounding areas. We gratefully acknowledge industry partners — the Department for Transport, Ordinary Surface, National Highways, the Environment Agency and others— for providing essential research data that enable us to measure network resilience in the research area. An analysis of the vulnerability of the road network in the study area to heavy rainstorms has been conducted, with findings accepted for presentation at the “2025 TRB Annual Meeting”. Following revisions, we plan to submit the conference paper to a journal soon.
This research aligns well with two Sustainable Development Goals: 1. Make cities and human settlements inclusive, safe, resilient and sustainable and 2. Take urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts. For the Technology Readiness Level, this project is expected to reach Level 4: “Component and/or breadboard validation in a laboratory environment.” Real-world data is currently being used to validate the proposed models and methods. For instance, data on sampled flooding depths following heavy rainstorms and estimated Origin-Destination trips have been validated. In the next phase, we will assess the resilience of the road network to heavy rainstorms and other extreme weather events, aiming to produce more practical and impactful results.
Dr. Liu's research interests include transport resilience, transport reliability, transport robustness, transport management and optimization. He is dedicated to evaluating transport performance under various disruptions and disturbances.