March 30 18.30-20.00

Tobias is Assistant Professor of Business Information Management at Rotterdam School of Management, Erasmus University and co-founder of the data science company Geospin. One of his main research areas concerns the use of urban data to improve service operations and deepen our understanding of urban life and a city’s evolution. His research has been supported by two Microsoft Azure for Research Awards and an IBM Faculty Award and, during the course of his career, he has been involved in data science projects with a variety of industry partners, including Siemens, Bosch, and ZF.

In this lecture, Tobias will discuss three different applications of urban analytics from his research and his work with Geospin. The first case focuses on the use of data on charging patterns and the urban environment to optimize planning of new charge point infrastructure for electric vehicles, research that would lead to founding Geospin. The second case takes a look at combining predictive analytics and simulation techniques to improve urban mobility services like carsharing. This application is particularly relevant when considering the emergence of autonomous vehicles that will reshape how we move across cities. The final case provides first insights into an ongoing research project, in which 10 years’ worth of Twitter data from London is analyzed to investigate the evolution of the city and its population.