Dr. Ilgın Gökaşar is one of the most experienced experts in Turkey’s operating mobility and smart transportation systems, both commercially and academically. She has been working as a faculty member and director of ITS-Mobility Lab of the Civil Engineering Department in Boğaziçi University since 2007. Also, she is the managing partner and R&D director of Bizero, one of the leading mobility and technology companies in Turkey.
Dr. Gökaşar started her academic career after she graduated from Boğaziçi University in the Department of Civil Engineering in 2000. During her M.S. and Ph.D., she worked in a Graduate Assistantship position at Rutgers University at the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering between 2001 and 2006. In 2007, she returned to Boğaziçi University Department of Civil Engineering as an Assistant Professor to teach undergraduate and graduate courses and supervise M.S. and Ph.D. students in the Civil Engineering Department. In 2014, she founded ITS-Mobility Lab to focus on Intelligent Transportation and Sharing Systems, Traffic and Safety Engineering, Connected and Autonomous Vehicles in Cooperation with Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality and Boğaziçi University. With the studies in Mobility Lab, Bizero, a spin-off company, was founded to work on shared mobility with her contributions in 2017. She has been working as an Associate Professor at Boğaziçi University Department of Civil Engineering since 2018.
In 21 years of experience working on Intelligent Transportation System, as a distinguished member of the Chamber of Civil Engineers (İMO) and Transportation Research Board (TRB), she has published 28 peer-reviewed articles and over 80 conference proceedings across the USA and Turkey. With references such as Republic of Turkey Transportation Ministry, Istanbul Metropolitan Municipality, Vestel, Domino’s Pizza, and KFC the teams under her management in Mobility Lab and Bizero, completed 40 successful projects such as “The first e-bike sharing system of Turkey (2017, Vestel)”, “Pika: the first unmanned delivery robot of Turkey (2021, Dominos-Coffy), electric scooter regulation law (2020, Ankara), “Bike courier marketplace (2021, KFC-Mcdonalds)”. These environmentalists and innovative projects have prevented 50 tons of carbon emissions in their fields.
In return for the studies on advanced traffic flow theory and real-time traffic control, sustainable transportation planning, advanced public transportation systems, smart cities design, driver & rider behavior and safety, predicting traffic accident, shared economy and vehicles, last-mile logistics and mobility, micro-mobility, connected and electric vehicles, autonomous delivery robots, and drones; she was selected to receive the academic incentive award 5 times in 9 years, and outstanding teaching award (2018) at Boğaziçi University and received ITS Turkey’s Special Award in 2021.