Charles Carter

Research Themes

CENTRAL is a research centre with significant expertise in four areas. We work with the private, public and third sectors to find solutions to problems or questions they face.

Aviation and Air Transport

The efficient and safe movement of passengers and goods via air transport is an incredibly important part of the global economy. There has been a rapid increase in demand for air transport services, which existing airport and air-space capacity cannot meet. CENTRAL researchers are focussed on finding ways to unlock this fundamental problem.

On behalf of private, public and government clients, we are developing models that determine the capacity of the various components of the air transport system, estimating operational impact, making optimum use of available resources, providing efficient solutions for addressing the demand-capacity imbalance, and optimising fleet scheduling and maintenance decisions.

Plane

Freight Transport Logistics

Freight Transport Logistics focuses on the planning, organisation, management, control and execution of freight transport operations in the supply chain. CENTRAL researchers have worked on problems facing decision makers who want to improve freight transport system performance. They are: the optimisation of freight transport planning and operations; vehicle routing and scheduling with environmental and societal considerations; and hazardous materials transportation. We are developing mathematical models and algorithms that capture the inherent dynamics and stochasticity of the problems.

Freight Train

Public and Shared Transport Systems

CENTRAL researchers have been tackling problems of shared transport systems and multimodal itinerary planning. On behalf of our clients, we are addressing issues related to strategic, tactical and operational decisions in (electric) car-sharing systems. We are also working on mathematical models and efficient algorithms for solving multimodal, multi-criteria, international, door-to-door trip planning systems.

Cars

Emergency Response Logistics

Large scale technological and natural disasters require the effective planning and deployment of emergency response resources, which are the responsibility of a diverse set of public and private organisations. Done well, emergency response makes a big difference to society’s ability to cope effectively with the negative impacts of large-scale disasters, contributing to improvements in community resilience.

CENTRAL researchers are tackling diverse issues related to the location of emergency response units, the coordinated deployment of emergency response resources, and evacuation management, and the assessment and improvement of community resilience. In particular, we are looking at the development and implementation of models that are able to forecast the temporal and spatial characteristics of disasters, the optimum scheduling of emergency response crews, and the optimisation of evacuation operations in large-scale disasters.

View our publications and projects.

Fire engine