Student Spotlight: Dezhong (Tony) Xu, NCSU

Dezhong (Tony) Xu

Dezhong (Tony) Xu is a graduate student at North Carolina State University. He played an important role in a comprehensive study related to STRIDE Project K2 titled “Assessing and Addressing the Deficiencies of HCM Wave Analysis”, led by Dr. Aghdashi and with collaboration from Dr. Nagui Roupahil of NCSU and Dr. Lily Elefteriadou, professor and director of the University of Florida Transportation Institute/STRIDE Center.

“Dezhong was involved in all of the project’s phases, ranging from data collection to analysis and model development,” Dr. Aghdashi said. “His participation was key to understanding the research needs and facing the tough challenges and was present during the drone flying practice to ensure proper video quality including the correct camera angle and height.” 

Image of the drone used in the project.

During the study, Dezhong worked with other students to extract data from video files, which took a considerable amount of time and effort.  One of his most notable accomplishments in this project was that he developed 12 alternative models to compete with the current HCM model for ramp weave segments analysis. Out of those models, four performed very well in terms of statistical fitness and have been proposed for further testing.

“These four weave segments analysis models constitute the main product of our STRIDE research project,” Dr. Aghdahsi said. “These models address the deficiencies in the current HCM model for the analysis of weave segments, and we are currently in the process of further validating them at additional sites before submitting our final project deliverables and proposing incorporation of the nest model in future releases of the HCM.”

Dehzong successfully defended his master’s thesis this fall titled “Revised Weave Segments Models for the Highway Capacity Manual (HCM)”. Congratulations Dehzong!