Research Highlights
At CLEETS Global Center, we delve into pioneering research that addresses the pressing need for sustainable transportation solutions. Our focus is on decarbonisation strategies being implemented by leading research teams in the US and UK — reducing carbon footprints in urban areas while addressing the challenges posed by extreme weather events, to create resilient and sustainable urban environments.
Explore Our Research
Browse 20 research highlights from across the Center, or filter by thrust. Each highlight opens a full project page with objectives, approach, impact and the team behind the work.
UK Battery Electric Vehicle Adoption in England and Wales: Who is Left Behind?
Describes spatial and temporal trends in BEV adoption in England and Wales and how they are linked to area deprivation — revealing who is being left behind in the transition to electrified transport.
Future Urban Transport Sustainability
A critical synthesis of published future-transport scenario narratives to identify plausible transport futures, including those elaborated across studies and those mostly overlooked.
Truck Electrification for Regional Container Drayage
Understanding charging needs for electrified container drayage in the Chicago region, optimal infrastructure deployment, truck fleet operations, and the resulting economic and climate benefits.
Climate Change Mitigation through Innovations in the UK Road Passenger Transport Sector
Explores the availability of zero-tailpipe-emission options and the barriers to their adoption in the UK coach and charter sector through sector-wide surveys and in-depth interviews.
Impact of Future Electric Vehicle Infrastructure on Local Communities
A multi-agent model that statistically generates car-owner behaviour for EV, hybrid and ICE vehicles to simulate parking and street-charging demand in local communities.
Intelligent Operation of Integrated Electricity–Hydrogen–Transportation Energy Systems
Learning-based coordination of energy dispatch and vehicle scheduling in coupled electricity–hydrogen–transport systems under uncertain supply and dynamic demand.
Hydrogen Fuel Trucking for Illinois
A roadmap for hydrogen-fuelled heavy-duty trucking in Illinois using a discrete-event simulation of corridors, refuelling stations, logistics hubs and the electricity grid.
Intelligent Route and Charging Optimization for Heavy-Duty Electric Trucks on the UK Road Network
An intelligent path-planning system for heavy-duty electric trucks, built on a national-scale roadmap and charging-station optimization model with multi-objective, AI-driven fleet coordination.
A Simulation Framework for Battery Electric Truck Fleet Operations
EVSim, a digital-twin tool that simulates fleets of battery electric trucks to estimate the operational costs and opportunities of electrifying the freight sector.
How Clean Energy and Equitable Transportation Solutions Will Impact Air Quality and Public Health
Evaluating WRF physics schemes against UK Met Office observations to build the best-performing configuration for CMAQ air-quality and health modelling of decarbonization pathways.
Traffic Anthropogenic Heat Emissions and Urban Climate during Heatwaves: A Chicago Case Study
Traffic is a significant contributor to urban warming in Chicago — masked by day, but emerging clearly at night and in winter when atmospheric conditions trap heat near the surface.
EV & AV Operability in Adverse Weather
High-resolution simulations of non-precipitating weather hazards — sharp thermal gradients, reduced visibility, gusty winds — that can render EVs and AVs inoperable.
Electric Vehicle Charging Stations at Risk from Hazardous Events and Power Outages
A geospatial analysis of natural-hazard vulnerabilities and power-outage risks to Level 2 and DC fast-charging infrastructure across the United States.
Building EVs Flood Resilient: The EV Toolkit
An interactive toolkit to help planners and communities make electric-vehicle infrastructure resilient to flooding.
Road and Rail Infrastructure in the Chicago Metropolitan Area Facing Floods
Integrates historical flood data, crowdsourced validation and hydrological simulations to identify critical flood-prone locations and optimize the safest transportation routes.
Adaptive Reinforcement Learning for Autonomous Cyber Defense in Critical Infrastructure
Autonomous, learning-based defence for EV charging networks and other critical infrastructure increasingly exposed to sophisticated cyberattacks.
ClimBridge: Physics-Aware Surrogates Linking Transport Choices to Air Quality
Fast, physics-aware surrogate models connecting transport behaviour and infrastructure to air-quality outcomes and routing choices, piloted in Birmingham and scaling to multi-pollutant regional fields.
Flood Simulation Analysis with Urbanite
A dataflow framework that lets urban experts run, adjust and document complex flood simulations, integrating building and surface data with the SynxFlow engine and UTK visualization.
Exploring Attitudes towards EV Transition with Increasing Market Expansion
Analysis of UK travel-attitude survey data identifying four factors shaping EV adoption: resistance to transition, policy awareness, second-hand and maintenance concerns, and affordability.
Innovative Mobility Data Collection with VR and 3D Gaussian Splatting
A new workflow for active-mobility data collection using VR and 3D Gaussian Splatting to create photo-realistic urban scenes for controlled, first-person studies.
Thrust 1: Clean Transportation Choices. About this thrust →
UK Battery Electric Vehicle Adoption in England and Wales: Who is Left Behind?
Describes spatial and temporal trends in BEV adoption in England and Wales and how they are linked to area deprivation — revealing who is being left behind in the transition to electrified transport.
Future Urban Transport Sustainability
A critical synthesis of published future-transport scenario narratives to identify plausible transport futures, including those elaborated across studies and those mostly overlooked.
Truck Electrification for Regional Container Drayage
Understanding charging needs for electrified container drayage in the Chicago region, optimal infrastructure deployment, truck fleet operations, and the resulting economic and climate benefits.
Climate Change Mitigation through Innovations in the UK Road Passenger Transport Sector
Explores the availability of zero-tailpipe-emission options and the barriers to their adoption in the UK coach and charter sector through sector-wide surveys and in-depth interviews.
Thrust 2: Transport Energy Infrastructure. About this thrust →
Impact of Future Electric Vehicle Infrastructure on Local Communities
A multi-agent model that statistically generates car-owner behaviour for EV, hybrid and ICE vehicles to simulate parking and street-charging demand in local communities.
Intelligent Operation of Integrated Electricity–Hydrogen–Transportation Energy Systems
Learning-based coordination of energy dispatch and vehicle scheduling in coupled electricity–hydrogen–transport systems under uncertain supply and dynamic demand.
Hydrogen Fuel Trucking for Illinois
A roadmap for hydrogen-fuelled heavy-duty trucking in Illinois using a discrete-event simulation of corridors, refuelling stations, logistics hubs and the electricity grid.
Intelligent Route and Charging Optimization for Heavy-Duty Electric Trucks on the UK Road Network
An intelligent path-planning system for heavy-duty electric trucks, built on a national-scale roadmap and charging-station optimization model with multi-objective, AI-driven fleet coordination.
A Simulation Framework for Battery Electric Truck Fleet Operations
EVSim, a digital-twin tool that simulates fleets of battery electric trucks to estimate the operational costs and opportunities of electrifying the freight sector.
Thrust 3: Weather Impacts. About this thrust →
How Clean Energy and Equitable Transportation Solutions Will Impact Air Quality and Public Health
Evaluating WRF physics schemes against UK Met Office observations to build the best-performing configuration for CMAQ air-quality and health modelling of decarbonization pathways.
Traffic Anthropogenic Heat Emissions and Urban Climate during Heatwaves: A Chicago Case Study
Traffic is a significant contributor to urban warming in Chicago — masked by day, but emerging clearly at night and in winter when atmospheric conditions trap heat near the surface.
EV & AV Operability in Adverse Weather
High-resolution simulations of non-precipitating weather hazards — sharp thermal gradients, reduced visibility, gusty winds — that can render EVs and AVs inoperable.
Electric Vehicle Charging Stations at Risk from Hazardous Events and Power Outages
A geospatial analysis of natural-hazard vulnerabilities and power-outage risks to Level 2 and DC fast-charging infrastructure across the United States.
Building EVs Flood Resilient: The EV Toolkit
An interactive toolkit to help planners and communities make electric-vehicle infrastructure resilient to flooding.
Road and Rail Infrastructure in the Chicago Metropolitan Area Facing Floods
Integrates historical flood data, crowdsourced validation and hydrological simulations to identify critical flood-prone locations and optimize the safest transportation routes.
Crosscuts: Decision Support & Equity. About this thrust →
Adaptive Reinforcement Learning for Autonomous Cyber Defense in Critical Infrastructure
Autonomous, learning-based defence for EV charging networks and other critical infrastructure increasingly exposed to sophisticated cyberattacks.
ClimBridge: Physics-Aware Surrogates Linking Transport Choices to Air Quality
Fast, physics-aware surrogate models connecting transport behaviour and infrastructure to air-quality outcomes and routing choices, piloted in Birmingham and scaling to multi-pollutant regional fields.
Flood Simulation Analysis with Urbanite
A dataflow framework that lets urban experts run, adjust and document complex flood simulations, integrating building and surface data with the SynxFlow engine and UTK visualization.
Exploring Attitudes towards EV Transition with Increasing Market Expansion
Analysis of UK travel-attitude survey data identifying four factors shaping EV adoption: resistance to transition, policy awareness, second-hand and maintenance concerns, and affordability.
Innovative Mobility Data Collection with VR and 3D Gaussian Splatting
A new workflow for active-mobility data collection using VR and 3D Gaussian Splatting to create photo-realistic urban scenes for controlled, first-person studies.
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