Tara Saeidi attended the Conference on Advanced Systems in Public Transport and TransitData 2025 in Kyoto, Japan (July 1–5), where she had the incredible opportunity to present her research on data-driven approaches to optimizing Demand-Responsive Transit (DRT) systems for equitable and efficient service planning.
Tara made an oral presentation on “Estimating Elderly Transit Demand Using Boarding Count Data with Policy Implications for DRT Zoning”.  This work focuses on elderly travel patterns in Winnipeg’s bus-only network. By generating monthly OD matrices using boarding data and symmetry-based alighting estimation, she analyzed seasonal trends to guide adaptive DRT zone design.  

Tara also presented her poster “RL-Guided Genetic Algorithm for Zoning a DRT Service”. This study introduced a novel zoning framework combining Reinforcement Learning and Genetic Algorithms to adapt to travel demand changes. The model learns to generate optimal service zones aligned with operational cost goals—showing promising results in grid-based simulations.
Beyond the academic exchange, Tara had a truly memorable time exploring Kyoto-Osaka and joining the conference’s cultural tour to Arashiyama—including a ride on a historic steam train, which was a truly unique transportation experience!