Zahra Ansarilari
Operations research for public transit — coordinating the timetables that keep riders moving.
About
Engineer, moving toward social science.
I'm drawn to real-world problems — the models that keep a network feasible when demand won't cooperate, and the journeys of the people waiting inside them.
Zahra Ansarilari is a transportation systems researcher working at the intersection of operations research and public transit. Her doctoral work at the University of Toronto reframed transfer synchronization — coordinating timetables so riders make their connections — as an optimization problem, building two-stage stochastic and mixed-integer programs that stay feasible even when demand, walking times and running times refuse to cooperate.
Trained at the Department of Civil & Mineral Engineering, University of Toronto, and most recently at the Institute for Transport Planning and Systems, ETH Zürich — where the streetcar meets the solver.
Research
Questions I keep returning to
Transfer Synchronization & Transit Scheduling
Stochastic and mixed-integer programming models that coordinate timetables so riders make their connections under real-world uncer...
Transit Network Design & Active Mobility
How integrating cycling as an access and egress mode reshapes the design of a public transport network.
Travel Behaviour & Mode Choice
Modelling how people actually choose to move — and how model specification changes the policy conclusions we draw.
Selected publications
Featured work
A comprehensive stochastic programming model for transfer synchronization in transit networks
Ansarilari, Z., Bodur, M., Shalaby, A. · Computers & Operations Research
A Novel Model for Transfer Synchronization in Transit Networks and a Lagrangian-based Heuristic Solution Method
Ansarilari, Z., Bodur, M., Shalaby, A. · European Journal of Operational Research
Transfer Time Optimization in Public Transit Networks: Assessment of Alternative Models
Ansarilari, Z., Mahmoodi Nesheli, M., Bodur, M., Shalaby, A. · Transportmetrica A: Transport Science
Gallery
From the lab & the field
Teaching
Logistics and Freight Transportation
Graduate · ETH Zürich
Public Transit Operations and Planning
Graduate · U of T
Urban Operations Research
Graduate · U of T
Awards & honours
Connect and Collaborate Grant
Swiss Leading House South Asia
Doctoral Completion Award, Civil Engineering
University of Toronto
COVID-19 Program Completion Award
Department of Civil & Mineral Engineering, University of Toronto
Professor Gerald Steuart Graduate Scholarship in Transportation Engineering
University of Toronto
Timeline
The route so far
Postdoctoral Researcher
Institute for Transport Planning and Systems, ETH Zürich
Data Scientist
Neshan Map
Public Transit Planner
Aavande-Tarho-Andieshe, Shiraz
Ph.D. in Transportation
Civil & Mineral Engineering, University of Toronto
Research Assistant
Institute of Transportation Studies & Research (ITSR), Sharif University of Technology
Contact
Let's build something that moves.
Open to collaborations on transit optimization, active-mobility integration, and doctoral supervision.
zansarii@outlook.com