Bruce Hellinga, PEng

Professor Bruce Hellinga is is a Professor in the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the University of Waterloo where he teaches undergraduate and graduate level courses in the areas of transportation and economics and conducts and supervises applied and fundamental research. His main areas of expertise include traffic flow theory and modelling, traffic engineering, active transportation, traffic sensor data analytics, transit operations, and ITS. He has over 25 years of experience in the field of traffic engineering and ITS and during that time has authored more than 125 refereed technical publications. Professor Hellinga has conducted fundamental and applied research for and in partnership with a wide range of public and private sector entities.

• Traffic simulation modelling, Traffic flow theory, Intelligent transportation systems, Road safety, Traffic operations and control, Wireless road conditions monitoring, Traffic engineering and transport systems analysis, Transportation engineering, Travel time reliability - measuring and estimating, Use of Connected Vehicle data for traffic management

Assessment of Wireless Monitoring of Network Wide Road Traffic Conditions (2004 - Current) Funded by: Ontario Ministry of Transportation and Transport Canada Responsible for quantifying the impacts (safety, traffic flow, delay, etc.) of a candidate VSLS for a section of provincial urban freeway in Ontario. Tasks included formulating a crash potential (safety) model; calibrating this model using field (loop detector, weather, and crash) data; modelling a 10-km section of the QEW using PARAMICS; incorporating the crash potential model within the micro-simulation model; and using these models to estimate impacts for a range of traffic conditions. Variable Speed Limit System Feasibility and Preliminary Design Study (2005 - 2006): Sub-consultant to: IBI Group Funded by: Ontario Ministry of Transportation – Advanced Traffic Management Section Responsible for quantifying the impacts (safety, traffic flow, delay, etc.) of a candidate VSLS for a section of provincial urban freeway in Ontario. Tasks included formulating a crash potential (safety) model; calibrating this model using field (loop detector, weather, and crash) data; modelling a 10-km section of the QEW using PARAMICS; incorporating the crash potential model within the micro-simulation model; and using these models to estimate impacts for a range of traffic conditions. Urban Transportation Showcase Project – Central Transit Corridor: Monitoring and Evaluation (2004 - Current): Funded by: Transport Canada and Region of Waterloo

• 1994, Doctorate Civil Engineering - Transportation, Queen's University, Canada
• 1990, Master's Civil Engineering - Transportation, University of Waterloo, Canada
• 1989, Bachelor's Civil Engineering, University of Waterloo, Canada

• CIVE 643 - Fundamentals of Traffic Flow Theory
  • Taught in 2024

* Only courses taught in the past 5 years are displayed.

• Nour, Akram and Hellinga, Bruce and Casello, Jeffrey, Classification of automobile and transit trips from Smartphone data: Enhancing accuracy using spatial statistics and GIS, Journal of Transport Geography, 36, 2016
• Chen, Xumei and Hellinga, Bruce and Chang, Chengzhi and Fu, Liping, Optimization of headways with stop-skipping control: a case study of bus rapid transit system, Journal of advanced transportation, 385, 2015
• Bagheri, Ehsan and Mehran, Babak and Hellinga, Bruce, Real-Time Estimation of Saturation Flow Rates for Dynamic Traffic Signal Control Using Connected-Vehicle Data, Transportation Research Record: Journal of the Transportation Research Board, 69, 2015
• Mehta, Kushal and Mehran, Babak and Hellinga, Bruce, Evaluation of the Passing Behavior of Motorized Vehicles When Overtaking Bicycles on Urban Arterial Roadways, Transportation Research Record: Journal of the Transportation Research Board, 8, 2015
• Moghaddam, Soroush and Hellinga, Bruce, Algorithm for detecting outliers in Bluetooth data in real time, Transportation Research Record: Journal of the Transportation Research Board, 129, 2014

• Researchers awarded $475k to help improve road safety