Marko A.A. Boon

“You won’t believe how enthusiastic people get when I tell them I can analyze traffic light queues. What better motivation can one have to practice queueing theory?”

Marko is an assistant professor in the section Stochastics at Eindhoven University of Technology (TU/e), a role he took on in 2011. His main research topics are stochastic queueing models for urban road traffic. Marko develops efficient algorithms in order to optimally adjust traffic lights to reduce the environmental impact of unnecessarily stopped cars, improve traffic flows and improve traffic participation efficiency and experience for drivers, cyclists and pedestrians. Another interesting research question is whether it is better to have ‘smart’ in-car navigation devices and ``stupid’’ infrastructure, or the other way around. In certain network settings, classical yet predictable traffic signals combined with smart navigation devices can yield a better performance than state-of-the art infrastructure, with sensors, simply due to the fact that it is less predictable. Currently, he is especially interested in developing platoon forming algorithms for self-driving vehicles. We have found that a substantial reduction in delays can be gained by exploiting the new potential of vehicle-to-vehicle communication between cars. Other application areas include stochastics and simulation for finance and insurance.

Marko also likes to study theoretical aspects of queueing models. He is very interested in so-called polling models, which are systems with multiple queues visited by a single server. He derived interpolation techniques for the mean delay in such systems and a heavy-traffic limit for k-limited polling models.

Marko Boon studied Applied Mathematics at TU/e, where he showed particular interest in the usage and development of mathematical software, especially in creating computer-aided teaching environments. The programs Cow and Statlab, which he created with fellow student Michel Vollebregt, are still used in several courses at TU/e. He obtained his MSc degree in 1999 and started a job as scientific programmer at the Operations Research and Statistics section of the department of Mathematics and Computer Science at TU/e, where he also began lecturing in 2003. He taught many in-company statistics courses and enjoyed working with industrial partners on practical problems. He developed software to optimize patient scheduling in hospitals, determine the best layout of garbage dumps, find optimal traffic signal settings, assess software reliability, and simulate a metro network.

In 2011, he concluded his PhD at EURANDOM and became an assistant professor. He has been involved as a teacher in several courses; in particular, courses on stochastic simulation, regression analysis, design of experiments, and mathematical modelling. In

2013 he has given the first online course at TU/e, a calculus course for more than 180

future students all over the world.

Partners in (semi-)industry

• ARS Traffic & Transport Technology
• De Verkeersonderneming Rotterdam
• Philips Healthcare
• Districs