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(in reverse chronological order)
 ESD-WP-2013-12 ESD Summer Reading Lists 2003–2013
Joseph M. Sussman
JR East Professor
Professor Civil and Environmental Engineering and Engineering Systems
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Cambridge, MA 02139
June 17, 2013
ESD Summer Reading Lists
Back in 2003, when ESD was a toddler of about 4 1⁄2, we were preparing for our spring semester offsite traditionally held at the end of the academic year in late May or early June. I had the idea of preparing a short list of books with relevance to the ESD mission-the study of complex sociotechnical systems-and presented that idea to the then (and founding) ESD director Prof. Daniel Roos. He agreed it would be worthwhile as an experiment, and so I did create the first ESD Summer Faculty Reading List. A “summer” reading list carries the suggestion of books you can take to “the beach”. So no “text books” were included. The books were treatments of critical contemporary issues that the world faces, important methods and perspectives germane to these issues and the complex sociotechnical systems in general, and relevant history. In retrospect, the beach would likely be too distracting a venue for many of these books!
I got some “attaboys” on the 2003 list. A number of my colleagues said it was nice to take a look at my ideas about what books might be interesting reading. So with that positive feedback, I began to do this ESD Faculty Summer Reading List each year. When I did it the second year, I noted that this had now become a “tradition” and with an organization as young as ESD, we needed all the traditions we could get.
You can see where it has gone from here. The tradition has continued to the present day, with now eleven years of history for this reading list. In the early days, the commentary on the books was largely my own. As years wore on we would include materials that others-the publisher or book reviewers-had prepared with some supplementary comments from me. And in later years my comments became less and less prevalent and even non-existent.
Another thing we did regularly was to include books that had been published during that current academic year by ESD faculty, so this served as a mechanism for highlighting the scholarly work of my ESD colleagues and in 2012, the four books in the MIT Press Engineering Systems book series were all included.
In any case, we have these reading lists encompassing books over this eleven-year period and thought it would be helpful to publish it as an ESD working paper to give our colleagues at MIT and outside the Institute access in one document to this eclectic potpourri of books. You may even find something you want to read that you missed the first time around.
We hope the reader finds this compendium to be useful and we look forward to any feedback that you may have including suggestions for 2014 and forward.
Joseph M. Sussman
JR East Professor
Professor of Civil & Environmental Engineering
and Engineering Systems
MIT
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ESD-WP-2013-11 NEC FUTURE Preliminary Alternatives Report: Public Comment
by the Regional Transportation Planning and High-Speed Rail Research Group Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Joseph M. Sussman
JR East Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering and Engineering Systems
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
77 Massachusetts Avenue
Cambridge, MA 02139
Email address: sussman@mit.edu
Andrés F. Archila
M.S. in Transportation
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Email address: archila@mit.edu
S. Joel Carlson
M.S. in Transportation and Engineering Systems Candidate
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Email address: scarlson@mit.edu
Maite Peña-Alcaraz
PhD Candidate
Engineering Systems Division
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Email address: maitepa@mit.edu
Soshi Kawakami
M.S. In Engineering Systems Candidate
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Email address: soshi@mit.edu
Ryan J. Westrom
M.S. in Transportation Candidate
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Email address: westrom@mit.edu
Naomi Stein
M.S. in Transportation / Master in City Planning, Transportation and Urban Planning
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Email address: negstein@mit.edu
The United States Department of Transportation's Federal Railroad Administration (FRA) is currently in the early stages of a planning process to define a 30-year passenger rail investment plan for the Northeast Corridor (NEC), between Boston and Washington, D.C. In the Spring of 2013, NEC FUTURE (the name of the planning process), released a Preliminary Alternatives Report, containing 15 possible alternatives for passenger rail infrastructure investment.
This working paper contains a memo from the Regional Transportation Planning and High Speed Rail Research Group at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) responding to the Preliminary Alternatives Report, as well as following up on the group's previous public comments to NEC FUTURE (ESD-WP-2012-27 NEC FUTURE Tier I Scoping Process: Public Comment). The memo focuses on the group's reactions in three areas: “goals and objectives, and evaluation of the alternatives,” “planning under uncertainty and flexible alternatives,” and “institutional assumptions.” These comments also build on the knowledge gained from report prepared for and funded by the Institute for Transportation Policy Studies (ITPS) in Tokyo, Japan, entitled Transportation in the Northeast Corridor of the U.S.: A Multimodal and Intermodal Conceptual Framework.
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ESD-WP-2013-10 Carbon Efficiency of Humanitarian Supply Chains: Evidence from French Red Cross operations
This paper will be presented at the following conference: Logistics Management 2013, September 11-13, 2013, Bremen, Germany.
Peter Oberhofer
Institute for Transport and Logistics Management
WU Vienna
Nordbergstr. 15, 1090 Vienna
Edgar Blanco
Center for Transportation & Logistics
MIT
77 Massachusetts Avenue, E40-276
Cambridge, MA, U.S.
Anthony J. Craig
Center for Transportation & Logistics
MIT
77 Massachusetts Avenue, E40-276
Cambridge, MA, U.S.
Natural catastrophes are often amplified by man-made impact on the environment. Sustainability is identified as a major gap in humanitarian logistics research literature. Although humanitarian supply chains are designed for speed and sustainability is of minor concern, environmentally-friendly behavior (e.g. through reduction of transportation emissions and avoidance of non-degradable materials) should be a long-term concern as it may ultimately affect more vulnerable regions. The purpose of this paper is to illustrate how green house gas emissions can be measured using the supply chain of common relief items in humanitarian logistics. We analyze the CO2 emissions of selected supply chains by performing Life Cycle Assessments based on data provided by the French Red Cross. We calculate the CO2 emissions of the items from ‘cradle to grave’ including production, transportation, warehousing and disposal. Using these calculations, we show that transporting relief items causes the majority of emissions; however, transportation modes may not always be changed as the main purpose of humanitarian supply chains is speed. Nevertheless, strategic and efficient pre-positioning of main items will translate into less transportation and thus reducing the environmental impact. The study also shows that initiatives for “greening” item production and disposal can improve the overall carbon efficiency of humanitarian supply chains.
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ESD-WP-2013-09 House of Project Complexity – Understanding Complexity in Large Infrastructure Projects
This paper has been accepted at the following conference: 2013 Engineering Project Organizations Conference in July in Winter Park, CO.
Donald Lessard
MIT Sloan School of Management and Engineering Systems Division
Cambridge Massachusetts
Vivek Sakhrani
MIT Engineering Systems Division
Cambridge Massachusetts
corresponding author: sakhrani@mit.edu
Roger Miller
École EMD-Management, Aix-Marseille
This paper describes our conceptualization of complexity in Large Infrastructure Projects (LIPs). Since complexity itself is an emergent concept that is hard to pin down, we focus on the relationship between various project features and, particularly, properties associated with complexity such as difficulty, outcome variability and non-linearity, and (non) governability. We propose a combined structural and process-based theoretical framework for understanding contributors to complexity in this particular substantive context – the “House of Project Complexity” (HoPC). The HoPC addresses the impact of inherent technical and institutional project features, the process of project architecting, the structural relationship between various project features and these “designed” constructs, and the emergence of risks and life-cycle properties (‘ilities’). The HoPC is first applied to two trial samples and then to the main data set of detailed case studies of infrastructure projects prepared for the IMEC study. We believe that the “House of Project Complexity” can be generally extended to other substantive contexts that exhibit similar properties as Large Infrastructure Projects (LIPs), in the extractive industries, large manufacturing projects, or other industrial megaprojects.
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ESD-WP-2013-08 Making Infrastructure Procurement Processes more Flexible under Uncertainty
Vivek Sakhrani
Engineering Systems Division
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Corresponding author, sakhrani@mit.edu
Luke Jordan
Competitive Industries Practice
The World Bank Group
Richard de Neufville
Engineering Systems Division
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
A third to a half of development projects undergo restructuring due to changes in project objectives, scope or other unanticipated changes, therefore requiring schedule extensions, budget additions and rework. Current procurement processes discourage managers from responding strategically by anticipating and preparing for such changes in advance through better information search and design concept evaluation. This paper suggests three principles for making the front-end phases of procurement more flexible - understanding uncertainty, studying system-wide impacts, and phasing designs. A case study analysis of urban water system design in Kabul demonstrates the conceptual and analytical application of these principles.
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ESD-WP-2013-07 The Coming Hangover: Magnified Effects of Sequestration on Research Enterprises
Navid Ghaffarzadegan
Engineering Systems Division
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
John Glenn School of Public Affairs
Ohio State University
Richard C. Larson
Engineering Systems Division
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Joshua Hawley
John Glenn School of Public Affairs
Ohio State University
As of March 1, 2013 the US government is taking an $85 billion budget cut. Also referred as the “sequestration”, this automatic spending cut policy might continue for several upcoming years and potentially affect many industries, including the research enterprise. The cut is expected to reflect in the budget of federal agencies that support research activities, such as the National Institutes of Health (NIH) and the National Science Foundation (NSF). For a wide range of structural reasons, discussed in this commentary, the impacts of the budget cut on research enterprises can be magnified.
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ESD-WP-2013-06 Too Many Ph.D. Graduates or Too Few Academic Job Openings: The Basic Reproductive Number R0 in Academia
Richard C. Larson
Engineering Systems Division
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Navid Ghaffarzadegan
Engineering Systems Division
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Yi Xue
Engineering Systems Division
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
The academic job market has become increasingly competitive for Ph.D. graduates. In this Note we ask the basic question of “Are we producing more Ph.D.’s than needed?” We take a systems approach and offer a “birth rate” perspective: professors graduate Ph.D.’s who later become professors themselves, an analog to how a population grows. We show that the reproduction rate in academia is very high. For example, in engineering, a professor in the U.S. graduates 7.8 new Ph.D.’s during his/her whole career on average, and only one of these graduates can replace the professor’s position. This implies that in a steady state, only 12.8% of Ph.D. graduates can attain academic positions in the U.S. The key insight is that the system in many places is saturated, far beyond capacity to absorb new Ph.D.’s in academia at the rates that they are being produced. Based on the analysis, we discuss policy implications.
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ESD-WP-2013-05 Carbon Efficient Logistics: A Case study in Modal Shift
Peter Oberhofer
PhD Student
Institute for Transport and Logistics Management
WU Vienna
E-mail: Peter.Oberhofer@wu.ac.at
Edgar E Blanco
Research Director
Center for Transportation & Logistics
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
77 Massachusetts Ave, E40-276
Cambridge, MA, 02139, USA
E-mail: eblanco@mit.edu
Corporate sustainability is becoming increasingly important in the development of business strategies. Consequently, transport and logistics operations come under particular scrutiny due to their substantial impact on the environment. The aim of this paper is to illustrate two successful examples where logistics performance is optimized in tandem with a reduction in carbon emission. The selected case study provides documented examples, detailing how GHG reductions can be achieved while improving business efficiency. The following two initiatives of an US company of the paper and packaging producing sector will be presented:
Initiative I:
- The company works closely with their customers to promote rail transport.
- Goods are directly sent from production plants which operate their own railway connection to the customer that is also located along the railway.
- In 2011, the promotion of rail transport on 4 US routes saved 62–72% CO2 emission (1,500-2,300 tons of CO2) compared to trucking. These savings are equivalent to taking 300-450 cars off the road every year.
Initiative II:
- The company uses space-efficient pallets in selected railcars and thereby increases the number of shipped goods.
- Besides optimizing the spatial utilization of the cars, CO2 can be saved by transporting more goods on the same railcar.
- 190 tons of CO2 were saved by using space-efficient pallets in 930 railcars in 2011. This equals the CO2 emission caused by 21,637 gallons of gasoline consumed by road vehicles.
The case study calculations illustrate, step-by-step, how the reductions were estimated, and provide a detailed “road map” for future participants to implement and properly estimate the GHG reductions. Additionally, we also aim to present ‘Carbon Footprinting’ as a useful method of environmental monitoring and reporting and discuss different methodological approaches.
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ESD-WP-2013-04 Heterogeneous Unit Clustering for Efficient Operational Flexibility Modeling for Strategic Models
Bryan S. Palmintier
Engineering Systems Division
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Cambridge, MA 02139 USA
E-mail: b_p@mit.edu
Mort D. Webster
Engineering Systems Division
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Cambridge, MA 02139 USA
Phone: 617-253-3901
E-mail: mort@mit.edu
The increasing penetration of wind generation has led to significant improvements in unit commitment models. However, long-term capacity planning methods have not been similarly modified to address the challenges of a system with a large fraction of generation from variable sources. Designing future capacity mixes with adequate flexibility requires an embedded approximation of the unit commitment problem to capture operating constraints. Here we propose a method, based on clustering units, for a simplified unit commitment model with dramatic improvements in solution time that enable its use as a submodel within a capacity expansion framework. Heterogeneous clustering speeds computation by aggregating similar but non-identical units thereby replacing large numbers of binary commitment variables with fewer integers that still capture individual unit decisions and constraints. We demonstrate the trade-off between accuracy and run-time for different levels of aggregation. A numeric example using an ERCOT-based 205-unit system illustrates that careful aggregation introduces errors of 0.05-0.9% across several metrics while providing several orders of magnitude faster solution times (400x) compared to traditional binary formulations and further aggregation increases errors slightly (~2x) with further speedup (2000x). We also compare other simplifications that can provide an additional order of magnitude speed-up for some problems.
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ESD-WP-2013-03 Optimal Selection of Sample Weeks for Approximating the Net Load in Generation Planning Problems
Fernando J. de Sisternes
Engineering Systems Division
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Cambridge, MA 02139 USA
E-mail: ferds@mit.edu
Mort D. Webster
Engineering Systems Division
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Cambridge, MA 02139 USA
Phone: 617-253-3901
E-mail: mort@mit.edu
The increasing presence of variable energy resources (VER) in power systems –most notably wind and solar power– demands tools capable of evaluating the flexibility needs to compensate for the resulting variability in the system. Capacity expansion models are needed that embed unit commitment decisions and constraints to account for the interaction between hourly variability and realistic operating constraints. However, the dimensionality of this problem grows proportionally with the time horizon of the load profile used to characterize the system, requiring massive amounts of computing resources. One possible solution to overcome this computational problem is to select a small number of representative weeks, but there is no consistent criterion to select these weeks, or to assess the validity of the approximation. This paper proposes a methodology to optimally select a given number of representative weeks that jointly characterize demand and VER output for capacity planning models aimed at evaluating flexibility needs. It also presents different measures to assess the error between the approximation and the complete time series. Finally, it demonstrates that the proposed methodology yields a valid approximation for unit commitment constraints embedded in long-term planning models.
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ESD-WP-2013-02 Living Close To Highways: Residential Satisfaction and The Influence of (Perceived Changes In) Accessibility and Negative Externalities
Marije Hamersma
Faculty of Spatial Sciences
University of Groningen
PO Box 800
9700 AV Groningen
The Netherlands
Phone: +31-50-363-3875
Fax: +31-50-363-3901
E-mail: m.hamersma@rug.nl
Taede Tillema
Faculty of Spatial Sciences
University of Groningen
PO Box 800
9700 AV Groningen
The Netherlands
Phone: +31-50-363-3875
Fax: +31-50-363-3901
E-mail: t.tillema@rug.nl
Joseph Sussman
Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
77 Massachusetts Avenue
Cambridge, MA 02139
Phone: +1-617-253-4430
Fax: +1-617-258-5942
E-mail: sussman@mit.edu
Residential satisfaction is an important proxy for people´s wellbeing and for relocation behavior. In 2 this paper we focus on gaining insight into the residential satisfaction of households near highways, 3 based on survey data collected among 1,230 respondents in the Netherlands. Using ordinal regression 4 analysis, we studied the effect of accessibility and negative externalities, alongside other contextual 5 factors, on residential satisfaction. Moreover, the objective was to gain first insights into the extent to 6 which plans for road infrastructure adjustments influence residential satisfaction. On average, 90 7 percent of respondents reported to be satisfied with living near the highway. Regarding explanatory 8 characteristics, negative externalities slightly outweigh accessibility aspects. Moreover, subjective 9 evaluations of hindrance appear to have stronger explanatory power than calculated air and noise 10 exposure. Regarding road adjustments, we found that respondents living near locations where a road 11 adjustment has been announced are marginally more satisfied compared to other locations. A reason 12 could be that respondents expect the current situation to improve once the adjustments are finished, 13 for instance by increased accessibility. The overall positive residential satisfaction evaluations near 14 highways may imply that, generally speaking, problems regarding living near highways may be 15 somewhat overstated. Moreover, the notion that the explanatory power of subjective hindrance 16 outperforms calculated exposure levels may give reason to be cautious when making transportation 17 planning decisions based solely on calculations.
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ESD-WP-2013-01 A Systems Thinking Approach to Leading Indicators in the Petrochemical Industry
Nancy Leveson
Professor of Aeronautics and Astronautics and Engineering Systems
Massachusetts Institute of Technology
There are always warning signs before a major accident, but these signs may only be noticeable or interpretable as a leading indicator in hindsight. Before an accident, such “weak signals” are often perceived only as noise. To ask people to “be mindful of weak signals” is asking them to do something that is impossible. There is always a lot of noise and always a lot of signals that do not presage an accident. The problem then becomes how to distinguish the important signals from all the noise. Defining effective leading indicators is a way to accomplish this goal by providing specific clues that people need to look for. Asking people to “look for anything that might be an important sign” is usually asking them to do the impossible.
Almost all of the past effort to identify leading indicators has involved finding a set of generally applicable metrics or signals that presage an accident. Examples of such identified leading indicators are quality and backlog of maintenance, inspection, and corrective action; minor incidents such as leaks or spills, equipment failure rates, and so on. There is commonly a belief—or perhaps, hope—that a small number of such “leading indicators” can identify an increase in risk of an accident. While some general indicators may be useful, large amounts of effort over decades has not provided much progress. The lack of progress may be a sign that such general, industry-wide indicators do not exist or will not be particularly effective in identifying increasing risk. An alternative is to identify leading indicators that are specific to the system being monitored.
This paper proposes an approach to identifying and monitoring system-specific leading indicators and provides some guidance in designing a risk management structure to use such indicators effectively. The approach is based on the STAMP model of accident causation and tools that have been designed to build on that model. STAMP extends current accident causality to include more complex causes than simply component failures and chains of failure events. It incorporates basic principles of systems thinking and is based on systems theory rather than traditional reliability theory. The next section briefly describes STAMP and STPA, the latter being a new hazard analysis technique based on STAMP. Then the proposal for a new approach to generating and managing leading indicators is outlined.
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