Fabio Sartori

Operations Research · Transport Systems · Data Science

Transport rarely behaves exactly as planned. My work is about making better decisions when it doesn't.

I combine optimization, data and operational knowledge to study how transport systems can make better decisions under real-world constraints.

I have approached transport problems from different sides: developing optimization models for flexible mobility, working with vehicle and telematics data, and working inside public transport administration, where analytical results eventually had to become actual decisions. Today my work focuses on the interface between models and decisions.

  • Demand-responsive and flexible mobility
  • Fleet scheduling, charging and vehicle assignment
  • Applied data science and machine learning for transport
  • Decision support under changing and uncertain conditions
  • Transport policy, concessions and regulation
Lyon, France
Open to research collaboration, applied projects and roles Experience Contact
Fabio Sartori

About

From models to operations

My background crosses transport engineering, operations research, data science and public administration.

I started from optimization: how to allocate vehicles, schedule services and design more flexible forms of public transport.

Over time the questions became broader. What happens when demand changes? When energy becomes a constraint? When the data do not directly contain the variable we need? When a technically optimal solution is difficult to implement?

That is where my work increasingly sits: between modelling and operation.

Fabio Sartori

Experience

Where methods meet operations

  1. 2025 — Postdoctoral research · France

    Automated electric shuttles

    Scheduling, charging and operational adaptation for an experimental electric shuttle service.

    Related research: flexible transport and resilience
  2. 2024 – 2025 European research institution

    Applied data science

    Vehicle energy modelling from real-world telemetry and instrumented driving data, including the reconstruction of variables not directly reported by the vehicle.

    Related research: vehicle energy and data
  3. 2019 – 2024 Doctoral research · Belgium

    Demand-responsive transport

    Optimization of flexible public transport services under capacity and operational constraints.

    Related research: flexible and demand-responsive transport
  4. 2017 – 2019 Municipal administration · Brazil

    Public sector

    Transport planning, bus concessions, regulation and mobility policy — leading a municipal transport department, then as deputy head of transport in a state capital of about 500,000 inhabitants.

    What that experience taught me
  5. 2016 – 2023 Universities in Brazil and Belgium

    Teaching

    Operations research, programming and transport-related quantitative methods, with supervision of student research.

  6. Ongoing Independent project

    HELMET

    An exploratory project on decision support for electric demand-responsive operators, carrying the offline and online architecture from the research into a product concept.

Education: PhD in operations research applied to transportation · MSc in transportation engineering · BSc in computer engineering
Full record on LinkedIn and ORCID Research
Fabio Sartori

Research

Peer-reviewed work behind the projects

Flexible and demand-responsive transport

  • Optimization of a semi-flexible demand-responsive feeder bus system using variable neighborhood search International Transactions in Operational Research · 2025
  • Optimization of a semiflexible demand-responsive feeder system in suburban areas using a memetic algorithm Journal of Advanced Transportation · 2023
  • A survey on demand-responsive public bus systems Transportation Research Part C · 2022
  • Hierarchical optimization for resilient real-time operation of automated electric shuttle services INSTR · 2026
  • Fleet sizing and scheduling for battery-electric automated shuttles using Benders decomposition ICTS · 2026

Behaviour and safety

  • Drivers' speed profile at curves under distraction task Transportation Research Part F · 2017
  • Driving-simulator validation and eye-fixation analysis under mental workload ANPET · 2014–2017
  • Road safety on five continents RS5C · 2018

Vehicle energy and data

  • Benchmarking the real-world energy benefits of vehicle-integrated photovoltaics Conference proceedings · 2025 · co-author
  • Unveiling the energy impact of vehicles' automation: a first empirical estimation TRB Annual Meeting · 2025 · contributor

Thesis: Design of a demand-responsive feeder system in suburban areas (PhD, 2024). Recognition: Cátedra Abertis Prize, best master's dissertation. Service: reviewer for Transportation Letters and the Transportation Research Board.

Fabio Sartori

Perspective

From models to decisions

Good transport projects need more than a good model. They depend on data that can actually be collected, indicators that someone is responsible for, assumptions that are understood, and decisions that an organization is able to implement.

I have worked on both sides of this process: developing analytical methods, and working inside public administration, where those methods eventually have to meet budgets, deadlines, regulation and operational constraints.

Decisions

A model is useful only when it helps someone decide. For me this means being clear about the decision being supported, the trade-offs involved, and what can realistically be changed.

Methods

The method should fit the problem. Sometimes that means optimization. Sometimes data analysis, simulation, statistical modelling or machine learning. Often it means combining several of them.

Institutions

Transport decisions happen inside organizations. Responsibilities, regulation, budgets, data ownership and implementation capacity can matter as much as the mathematical formulation.

Contact

Get in touch

I am interested in research collaboration, applied optimization and data-science work in mobility, and roles where analytical methods and transport operations meet.

Lyon, France