Evelien Van der Hurk

Hi everyone! I’m in my first year as a PhD at the Rotterdam School of Management. Erasmus University Rotterdam, The Netherlands.

Research

My research focuses on passengers in disruption management for public transport. Central topics are:

- the prediction of passenger flows and passenger travel behavior

- guiding passengers through information in case of a disruption

In the Netherlands there has recently (2010) been a smart card introduced for travelling with public transport, which will soon be the only way of paying for public transport. The data resulting from this card contains information on origin, destination and travel time of a journey. Through the collaboration with Netherlands Railways (the largest passenger railway company in the Netherlands) I’ve got access to this huge amount of data on travel patterns for passenger railways.

I want to approach this data from both an Operations Research perspective and a Complex Systems perspective. In the end, this should lead to a prediction model (or simulation) of the passenger flows and the interaction of passengers with each other and the resources (the trains) in case of a disruption. What’s in between, I hope to learn at SCSSS. You are most welcome to come and explore with me!

My background is in Operations Research and Econometrics. From that, I have a very decent knowledge of Statistics, Game Theory, Econometric models, and Optimization. I also am familiar with e.g. R, SPSS and MatLab. In the area of Complexity, I am eager to learn!

Other Interests

When not playing with data, I like to go outside. I’m into photography (Nikon D90), but also like hiking, biking, and am in to try some new outdoor sports – as there are no mountains and it usually rains in the Netherlands, it is rather small pickings in the area of outdoor activities, so I guess I should go for it now that I can! Secondly, I would love to see some of the culture Santa Fe and surroundings have to offer. Also, a drink, a nice dinner with (new) friends, the occasional movie or a good book are a great way of spending time, in my opinion.