Eng. Roberto Ventura lecture in NTUA, October 2nd 2024

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Eng. Roberto Ventura, Assistant Professor at the University of Brescia (Italy), gave a lecture which took place on Wednesday, October 2nd 2024 at the Amphitheater of Railways and Transport of the Department of Transportation Planning and Engineering of NTUA, entitled “Traffic Hazard on Main Road Bridges: Real-Time Evaluation and Management of the Risk Related to Design Load Overcoming Events”.

In this lecture, we will explore the risk of bridges within road networks due to traffic load hazards, a key focus of Eng. Ventura’s research. Bridges can experience failures that undermine their serviceability or even lead to collapse. Since traffic load hazards are among the primary causes of bridge failures, evaluating the associated risk and implementing real-time risk management strategies are essential for ensuring the safety of road infrastructures.

Eng. Ventura will present a comprehensive methodology that defines a risk index as the product of the frequency and severity of traffic overload events. Framed within the ISO 39001:2012 standard for road safety analysis and inspired by the Limit State Method (LSM) of Eurocodes, this approach integrates several key components:

  • Weigh-In-Motion (WIM) Systems: Utilized to collect real-time, site-specific traffic load hazard data.
  • Bivariate Probabilistic Risk Prediction Model (RPM): Based on traditional Generalized Linear Regressions (GLRs) and more innovative Artificial Neural Networks (ANNs) to estimate frequency and severity metrics as functions of various safety factors.
  • Intelligent Transportation System (ITS)-Based Architecture: Implemented to execute real-time risk management actions.

The lecture will delve into the main novelty elements of his research, including the introduction of frequency and severity metrics as drivers of failure probability and consequences, respectively. Eng. Ventura will provide a comprehensive list of predictors for bridge overloading, incuding exposure, bridge characteristics, temporal context, and traffic load hazards, analyzing their effects and importance. He will also conduct a detailed comparison between traditional GLRs and innovative ANNs, demonstrating the superior predictive performance of ANNs.

By testing the methodology with over 2.5 million raw WIM data records collected over five months near a bridge on the heavily used ring road of Brescia, Italy, the findings reveal that overloading events are significantly more frequent than prescribed by Eurocodes. The study highlights the need for greater caution by Road Authorities when issuing permits for extremely overloaded vehicles, enforcement strategies for sanctioning illegal overloaded vehicles, and the adoption of ITS-based architectures for real-time traffic load hazard management.

Bio

Eng. Roberto Ventura received his Master’s degree in Civil Engineering in 2019 from the University of Brescia, Italy. His master’s thesis focused on the main effects of exceptional vehicle transports (i.e., permits) and material degradation on road pavements and the structural safety of bridges, emphasizing the impact of heavy loads and infrastructure deterioration on transportation safety.

In 2023, he obtained his Ph.D. in Civil and Environmental Engineering, International Cooperation, and Mathematics (specializing in Urban Planning and Mobility) from the same university. His doctoral thesis, titled “Traffic Load Hazard on Main Road Bridges: Real-Time Evaluation and Management of the Risk Related to Design Load Overcoming Events,” addressed the evaluation and real-time management of risks associated with traffic load hazards on bridges. For his Ph.D. research on sustainable and safe mobility, Dr. Ventura was awarded the “Premio Abertis Italia 2023 per la ricerca sulla mobilità sostenibile”, granted by the “Italian Abertis Chair” in collaboration with the “University of Padova” and “A4 Holding”.

He is currently an Assistant Professor at the University of Brescia (Italy).

Eng. Ventura has been actively involved in several significant research projects, including the “National Center for Sustainable Mobility (CNMS) Spoke No.7”, focusing on “Connected Networks and Smart Infrastructure”, particularly on the resilience of networks, structural health monitoring, and asset management. He has collaborated with the Province of Brescia and PoliS-Lombardia on projects related to transportation infrastructure planning and road safety analysis, such as feasibility studies for rapid mass transport systems and methodologies for identifying critical road safety issues in preparation for the Milano–Cortina 2026 Winter Olympic Games.

His primary research interests encompass the safety of infrastructures subjected to heavy vehicle transit, risk analyses in the transportation field, micromobility vehicles, and the application of advanced statistical and machine learning models for risk prediction and management in transportation systems.

Eng. Ventura has authored numerous publications in international journals and has presented his research at various national and international conferences. Notably, he received the “Best Younger Researcher award” at the XVI International Conference “Living and Walking in Cities” (LWC 2023) for his paper on building origin–destination matrices in bus networks using smartphone app data.

In addition to his research activities, Dr. Ventura serves as an Associate Editor for “The Open Transportation Journal” and is a Guest Editor for a special issue on “Sustainable Infrastructures for Urban Mobility” in the journal “Infrastructures”. He is also a reviewer for several scientific journals, including Applied Sciences, Canadian Journal of Civili Engineering, Case Studies on Transport Policy, Heliyon, IEEE Transactions on Intelligent Transportation Systems, and the Journal of Advanced Transportation.

He continues to contribute to the field of transportation engineering through his research, teaching support activities for the courses “Transport Engineering and Economics” and “Construction of Roads and Urban Transport Infrastructure” at the University of Brescia, and active participation in professional projects aimed at enhancing infrastructure safety and sustainable mobility.