Dr Chiara Calastri

Profile

Chiara is an Associate Professor at the Institute for Transport Studies, with expertise in travel behaviour analysis. Her main interests revolve around gaining a better understanding of complex choice dynamics, advancing choice modelling theory and applications and bridging choice modelling with other methodologies.

She made contributions to the areas of discrete-continuous modelling, time use, worthwile use of time spent travelling, social interactions and travel mode choice. She has also applied choice modelling beyong transport, such as in health and ecology. She is interested in innovative data collection techniques to improve the way we capture choice processes, and in harnessing the potential of other disciplines to improve choice models computations and insights.

She completed her PhD in 2017 with a thesis titled "Capturing and modelling complex decision-making in the context of travel, time use and social interactions" (link to thesis:http://etheses.whiterose.ac.uk/18507/), for which she won the Eric Pas Dissertation Award (awareded by the International Association for Travel Behaviour Research) which recognises the best doctoral thesis in the area of travel behaviour. She has then been a Post-Doctoral researchers at the Choice Modelling Centre, working on the ERC-funded project “Choices and consumption: modelling long and short term decisions in a changing world” for two years before taking on the role of Lecturer in Rail Economics in 2019 and then of Associate Professor in 2025.

Responsibilities

• Co-Lead of the Choice Modelling Research Group
• Deputy Director of Postgraduate Studies

Research interests

Chiara’s interests revolve around modelling travel behaviour and capturing its complexities through econometric models.

Her work has focused on different aspects of travel behaviour, including multi-tasking while travelling, activity scheduling and time allocation, the effects of social interactions and the interaction of different choice processes. She has worked with different types of data (travel diaries, GPS, networks) and made both methodological and applied contributions. Chiara also works outside of transport, including in health and ecology.

• INFUZE (Inspiring Futures for Zero Carbon Mobility)
• National Railway Accessibility Strategy - Economics Benefits Framework
• Strategies to attract rail passengers back after the COVID pandemic

Qualifications

• Doctor of Philosophy in Transport Studies (Choice Modelling), University of Leeds, Leeds, UK.
• Master of Science in Economics, Sant’Anna School of Advanced Studies, Pisa, Italy, Distinction.
• Bachelor in Economics, University of Pisa, Pisa, Italy.

Professional memberships

• Member of the Department for Transport's Shadow joint analysis panel (SJADP)
• Treasurer of the International Association of Travel Behaviour Research
• Member of the Subcommittee on Behavioral Processes: Qualitative and Quantitative Methods (ADB10), Transportation Research Board, Washington DC
• Fellow of the Higher Education Academy, Advance HE

Student education

Chiara is involved in student education at different levels. She is the module leader of the MSc module “Transport Data Collection and Analysis” (TRAN5032M) and she teaches on Choice Modelling and Transport Economics modules. She supervises Undergraduate, Masters and PhD students and acts as personal tutor for a number of MSc students.

Current PhD students:

Harry Roberts: Improving multimodal approaches to understand rail access

Erelu-Ejide (Simisola) Elegba: Exploring preferences towards electric buses in Lagos

Victor Cantillo: Understanding travel behaviour over time

Previous PhD students:

Yan Liu (visiting): Gradient techniques for choice modelling

Shuwei Lin: Modelling social influence

Martyna Bogacz: Neural correlates of choices

Zhenni Chen (Visiting): Understanding car ownership in China (2019)

Previous MEng/MSc Students:

Nina Haas: The relationship between perceived safety and the design features of urban parks

Anna Richardson: How does the fear of crime impact walking behaviour of women aged 60+? An exploratory study

Aalisha Sorathiya: Do Attitudes affect Travel behaviour or vice-versa: A Case from the Netherlands (2021)

Corneliu Cotet:Understanding travel behaviour changes caused by planned disruption: An analysis of the CBD and South East LRT construction in Sydney, Australia (2020)

Kuan Ling Pan: Understanding Preferences for BRT in Taiwan: A Comparison between Traditional and Figure-based Stated Preference surveys (2020)

Ching Lin: Putting gender in the picture of quantitative transport studies---Gender differences in commute distance and mode choice in modern Netherlands (2020)

Eleni-Eugenia Douligeri: Modelling commuting patterns of University of Leeds staff members (2019)

Research groups and institutes

• Choice Modelling

Current postgraduate researchers

• Shuwei Lin
• Victor Cantillo Garcia

Projects

<li><a href="//phd.leeds.ac.uk/project/1439-multi-tasking-while-travelling:-data,-methods,-policy">Multi-tasking while travelling: data, methods, policy</a></li>