A fully funded postdoctoral position is available to work with a multidisciplinary team of researchers from the University of Marylands Center for Geospatial Information Science CGIS National Center for Smart Growth NCSG and as well as industry partners State of Place and local government partners WMATA The postdoctoral researcher will have a key role in an ongoing project to model ridership across the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority WMATA railway system ie DC Maryland amp Virginia using survey data smart card trip data and an array of factors related to travel transit ridership land use the built environment urban form and transport infrastructure A key task will be to develop an enhance ridership model using new data sources and through the application of geospatial analytical techniques and machine learning A primary task of the post doctoral researcher will be to lead model development and enhancement efforts within the UMD NCSG CGIS team The goal of this project is to construct models capable of capturing how ridership trends have evolved over time as the transit system has expanded At the same time new built environment and ridership related variables have become available as well as new machine learning based approaches for modeling space time trends As a result the postdoctoral researcher will assist with 1 collect and manage a database of diverse variables 2 create new variables based on the transportation network points of interest and neighborhood characteristics 3 construct ridership models using regression techniques geospatial analytical techniques and machine learning techniques 4 employ these ridership models to understand the factors responsible for generating ridership across different types of stations and forecasting future scenarios and 5 draft progress reports amp scholarly manuscripts for publication The postdoctoral researcher will work closely with the project team and partner organizations on model integration scenario development and analysis and testing The project will provide a unique opportunity to work in a truly multi disciplinary and multi organizational team composed of transportation and urban planning researchers geospatial information scientists local planners and technologists The initial duration of this appointment is for a one year term with the potential for extension based on performance and availability of funding This position is eligible to work remotely This role would be a member of the Center for Geospatial Information Science CGIS and the National Center for Smart Growth NCSG in addition to the Department of Geographical Sciences As such the postdoctoral researcher would be encouraged to interact with these broader communities and potential collaborate on additional projects