Sanjana Hossain was awarded the Jim Davey Award—the top prize in the PhD category—by the Board of Directors of the Canadian Transportation Research Forum (CTRF) for her paper “Exploring the Impacts of the COVID-19 Pandemic on Bicycle-sharing Demand in Toronto” at the CTRF 2021 Student Paper Competition.
Sanjana is a PhD candidate at the University of Toronto’s Department of Civil & Mineral Engineering working under the supervision of Professor Khandker Nurul Habib. She expects to graduate in 2022.
The award comes with a cash prize of $1,000 and a complimentary one-year CTRF membership for Sanjana and her supervisor. Since an extended version of the work is currently under review by a journal, the award-winning paper will not be published in the CTRF Proceedings of the Annual Conference.
About Sanjana Hossain
Sanjana earned her MSc and BSc degrees in civil engineering from the Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology.
Her research interests include data fusions for travel behaviour analysis in emerging contexts; transport modelling using Big Data sources; and travel survey methods. She is also an expert in econometric modelling and transportation policy analysis.
As part of her PhD research at U of T, Sanjana investigates the feasibility of combining travel data from multiple active and passive sources to generate more detailed representation of passenger travel. She believes that such detailed data is the key to obtaining reliable future estimates of demand and provides better understanding of the complexity of travel choices in the emerging context.
Sanjana’s personal experience using Bike Share Toronto during the pandemic triggered her curiosity, ultimately leading to her award-winning research paper.
I started using Bike Share Toronto during the COVID-19 pandemic as it allowed me to maintain social distancing while travelling, and get some exercise at the same time. With the availability of dedicated bicycle facilities like bike lanes and cycle tracks, I found biking throughout the city quite safe and comfortable. This got me interested.
I decided to investigate how the demand for Bike Share Toronto evolved during the pandemic in Toronto, and identify the key socio-economic, land use, built environment, and weather factors that influenced that demand.
Sanjana says that participation in the paper competition pushed her to compile and present her research findings:
Participating in the CTRF student paper competition encouraged me to document my research and share the findings with a wide audience.
She finds that receiving positive feedback on her work is inspirational:
Winning the competition validates my research approach and motivates me to extend my analysis further.
About the paper competition
The Canadian Transportation Research Forum (CTRF) Student Paper Competition is an annual event to award prizes for student papers. The primary focus of the paper must be directly related to a specific transportation practice or policy. Papers must be original work written by the student applicant only, not co-authored with a faculty supervisor. More than one student may write a single paper, and if a group paper is awarded the prize, the award will be divided among all student authors. Prizes are awarded for the best papers at the undergraduate, master’s and doctoral levels. The CTRF retains the right not to make an award in any category in any year.
About CTRF
The Canadian Transportation Research Forum (CTRF), established in 1965, is an organization of professionals in transportation drawn from a variety of disciplines and occupations including representatives from transportation companies, shippers, federal and provincial governments, consulting firms and universities. The membership shares a common belief in the importance of transportation research and education for both the private and public sector.
Recent work by Sanjana Hossain
- Hossain, Sanjana, Kaili Wang, Khandker Nurul Habib, “Modelling the Choices of Telecommuting (On-line Learning) of Post-Secondary Students: Learning from the Revealed Behaviour to Prepare for Greater Acceptance in COVID-19 Induced Contexts,” November 2020.
- Loa, Patrick, Sanjana Hossain, Yicong Liu, Sk. Md. Mashrur, Khandker Nurul Habib, “How has COVID-19 Impacted Ride-sourcing use in the Greater Toronto Area? Results from the first cycle of the SiSTM satellite survey,” August 2020.
- Mashrur, Sk. Md., Kaili Wang, Sanjana Hossain, Patrick Loa, Khandker Nurul Habib, “An Assessment of the Impacts of COVID-19 Lockdown in Summer 2020 on Transit Use in the Greater Toronto Area: Results from the Cycle-1 of SPETT Satellite Survey,” August 2020.
By Pat Doherty