Juan de Dios Ortúzar

Recipient of a Doctor Honoris Causa (University of Cantabria, Spain) in 2018, the Life Achievement Award (International Association for Travel Behaviour Research) in 2012 and the Humboldt Research Award (Alexander von Humboldt Foundation) in 2010, Prof. Ortúzar has formed several generations of professionals and specialists with a profound service vocation (including 18 Ph.D. and 50 M.Sc.), who work in academia, government and professional practice in Chile, Latin America and Europe.

Juan de Dios Ortúzar pioneered the development of discrete choice modelling techniques and their application to determine willingness-to-pay for reducing externalities (accidents, noise and pollution). His research has ventured into the interdisciplinary realm, with contributions in social housing, residential location, citizen security, college choice, work shifts, tourism, grey water reuse, and wine choice. In particular, the methodological advancements on valuation of externalities developed with his research team, have been applied in practice in Australia, Colombia, Germany, Norway and Spain. Founding member of the Institute in Complex Engineering Systems (2007); of the Chilean team leading the Centre of Excellence BRT+ (funded by the Volvo Research & Educational Foundations), with MIT, Sydney University, University of Pretoria and EMBARQ (2010), and of the Centre for Sustainable Urban Development (CEDEUS) at the Pontifical Catholic University of Chile (2012), he also led the interdisciplinary project Understanding Wine Preferences with the Centre for Aromas and Flavours at PUC and the participation of the Beijing Agricultural University.

He has published over 200 papers in archival journals and book chapters. Co-author of Modelling Transport, a book published by Wiley reflecting the state-of-practice in this discipline, which has sold over 20,000 copies and is now in its fourth edition; the book has been translated into Italian (2004) and Spanish (2008). He also edited four international books and has two further books in Spanish dealing with travel demand models and econometrics of discrete choice. Prof. Ortúzar is co-author of Micro-GUTS, a simulation game to train urban planners, which is used by more than 50 academic institutions around the world. Finally, he was Co-Editor in Chief of Transportation Research A for 10 years and is a member of the editorial board of another seven archival journals.

Juan de Dios Ortúzar has managed or advised large transport studies in Latin America and Europe, involving the application of advanced travel demand modelling techniques, and the use of revealed and stated preference data. In particular, he directed the design and implementation work of large scale mobility surveys in Chile, such as those for Santiago in 1991 (33,000 households) and the Santiago on-going survey, that started in 2001–2002 with 15,000 households and interviewed another 5,000 households per year between 2004 and 2007. He also directed the Bogotá 2011 mobility survey, where more than 15,000 households were interviewed.

Juan de Dios Ortúzar (born January 24, 1949) is Emeritus Professor at the Pontifical Catholic University of Chile, Santiago, Chile. He specializes in discrete choice models, valuation of externalities, design and collection of mobility and preference surveys and transportation forecasting. He received a B.Sc. in mathematics and a civil engineering degree at PUC, and an M.Sc. and Ph.D. from the University of Leeds.