Making a name for himself: Antoine Petit impacting C-U community

Champaign-Urbana wasn’t on Antoine Petit’s radar 10 years ago, but the Parisian, now University of Illinois Urbana-Champaign Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering doctoral student, couldn’t be happier to be here. 

Petit discovered UIUC while completing his general engineering master’s degree at École Centrale de Lille (Centrale Lille). He went on to pursue a more specific engineering degree, studying civil and environmental engineering with transportation as his focus at UIUC’s graduate program.

“I wanted to experience that (transportation research),” Petit said. “I found out that I like it a lot.”

Petit was initially drawn to civil and environmental engineering hoping to better the planet, but he quickly learned such path required more chemistry coursework than expected.

“That’s something I’m not too good at,” Petit said, “so I moved to transportation engineering, which is math oriented. I like that lot a lot more.”

He liked it so much that he decided to pursue his doctorate.

Thus far on his academic journey, Petit has partnered with Illinois Center for Transportation and the Illinois Department of Transportation to revise permit fees for overweight vehicles.

“We were trying to revise the permits to include the effect of the overweight vehicles on bridges, (including) deterioration, pavement, and also the safety,” Petit said.

Petit was in charge of the safety portion of the research while ICT examined the bridges and partnering research institution Rutgers University focused on pavement.

The results?

“(In) our findings, we suggested how they (IDOT) can structure the fees they charge to the truck companies that operate in Illinois,” Petit said. “So we have a nice table that says, ‘Oh, you’re going to drive 10 miles, this is how much you’re going to pay. If you drive 20 miles, this is how much you’re going to pay.’ It’s quite automated.”

As for Petit’s dissertation, he’s hoping Champaign-Urbana Mass Transit District’s bus systems will localize his transit systems’ accessibility and reliability research, optimizing its network to better control bus scheduling.

He has observed occasionally late or early passenger pick-up and drop-off times at bus stops — “something that all transit agencies have to face and try to mitigate.”

“If they’re early, they (the public) don’t want to be too early, and if they’re late . . . (it’s vice versa),” Petit said.

To keep bus scheduling on track, MTD coordinates with its drivers so “if the bus is early, they will tell the driver, ‘Oh, you’ve got to slow down a little bit.’ If it’s late, then (they would say), ‘Oh you’ve got to speed up a little bit.’”

Despite the transit agency’s efforts, there is always more to be done to provide customer satisfaction, so Petit — at the direction of his adviser, Professor Yanfeng Ouyang — conducted research and went to work alongside MTD planners.

“The agency is supposed to have some stand-by buses, (so) as soon as a bus is going to be too late or too early, it would substitute those buses,” Petit said. “In this way, the user experience has improved a lot actually.”

While the solution seems easily implementable, it all comes down to MTD obtaining the necessary resources.

“The agency has to have a lot more buses so it’s a lot more resources to have,” Petit said, “but it’s a good trade off here. We’re improving the passenger experience, but the agency has to invest a little bit more in the resources.”

Petit hopes to complete his findings later this fall. As for now, the doctoral student can’t help but wonder about the next step in his career.

“That’s a question I’ve been asking myself for a few months,” Petit said. “It’s a pleasure to be here, and I love contributing to the community with my research.”

The UIUC doctoral student has set his sights on a career in the transportation industry.

“I wish to land a job that will make impactful businesses decisions and help me contribute to that (academic) community, so still research-oriented jobs (where) I can hopefully still publish papers and work on those types of articles,” Petit said. “(I’ll) keep learning, keep networking, and keep contributing — that’s the goal.”

While he’s hard at work at UIUC’s Newmark Civil Engineering Laboratory, Petit knows the finish line is just around the corner. Before he departs, Petit wants to thank adviser Ouyang for his continued support and guidance.

“Everything is thanks to him,” Petit said. “I’m very grateful, thankful that he gave me this opportunity to be here and be part of the civil engineering transportation community — that’s been great. I hope I’ve improved with time, and I hope to keep learning from him and learning in general.”