Dr Xiao Li

Xiao joined the TSU in September 2022 as a Senior Research Associate in Urban Mobility. He is also a "Bryan Warren" Junior Research Fellow at Linacre College Oxford. His research lies at the intersection of Geographic Information Science (GIS), Spatial Data Science, and Transport Geography. 

Xiao received his PhD in Geography (GIS Transport) from Texas A&M University (US) in 2019. Before joining TSU, he worked as an Associate Transportation Researcher within the Mobility Analysis Program of the Texas A&M Transportation Institute for two years, where he has led and participated in multiple projects sponsored by USDOT, FHWA, TxDOT, University Transportation Centers (UTC). He was also an affiliated Kinder Scholar in the Kinder Institute for Urban Research at Rice University (2020-2022).

Currently, Xiao serves on the Transportation Research Board (TRB) Standing Committee on Geographic Information Science in the US. He is also a management committee member of the Transport Statistics User Group and RGS-IBG GIScience Research Group in the UK.

Xiao's primary research interests are in the development of geocomputational algorithms, applications, and tools to enhance transport safety, accessibility, and sustainability by integrating emerging geospatial data sources, theories, and computing technologies.

From the applied science perspective, his research explores the value of various emerging geographic data sources (e.g. smartphone data, connected vehicle data, street view images) in transport and urban research and generates innovative crowdsourcing solutions based on these data to solve different transport challenges.

From the social science perspective, his research interests include exploring the relationships between humans and transport systems and estimating the impacts of disruptive technologies (e.g. CAV) on socially different population groups and communities.

At the TSU, he will be exploring questions about road safety, the consequences of new technologies such as autonomous vehicles for transport systems, and social inequalities in everyday mobility.

Current projects

• Vehicle-Based Telemetric Data for State and Local Transportation Agencies, PI (Oxford lead): Dr Xiao Li, 01 Sep 2023 - 31 Mar 2025.
• Development of surrogate safety measures based on connected vehicles (CV) data, PI: Xiao Li, 01 Nov 2022 - 21 Dec 2023.

Li, X., Qiao, S., Rybarczyk, G., Zhao, Q. (2025) E-scooter safety under scrutiny: Examining crash patterns and injuries in the UK. Journal of Safety Research. 

Li, X., Huang, X., Li, D., Xu, Y. (2022) Aggravated Social Segregation During the COVID-19 Pandemic: Evidence from Crowdsourced Mobility Data in Twelve Most Populated U.S. Metropolitan Areas. Sustainable Cities and Society.  

Li, X., Ning, H., Huang, X., Dadashova, B., Kang, Y., Ma, A. (2022) Urban Infrastructure Audit: An Effective Protocol to Digitize Signalized Intersections by Mining Street View Images. Cartography and Geographic Information Science. 

Li, X., Yu, S., Huang, X., Dadashova, B., Cui, W., Zhang, Z. (2022) Do underserved and socially vulnerable communities observe more crashes? A spatial examination of social vulnerability and crash risks in Texas. Accident Analysis & Prevention. 

Li, X., Maryam, S., Dadashova, B., Lord, D., Wolshon. (2021) Toward a Crowdsourcing Solution to Identify High-Risk Highway Segments Through Mining Vehicle Jerks. Accident Analysis & Prevention.  

See Google Scholar for full overview of publications