Gabor Stepan received the MSc and PhD degrees in mechanical engineering at the Budapest University of Technology and Economics in Hungary, he is currently Professor Emeritus of Applied Mechanics there. He is an elected fellow of CIRP (International Academy for Production Engineering) and SIAM (Society for Industrial and Applied Mathematics), received the Delay Systems Lifetime Achievements Award of IFAC (International Federation of Automatic Control), the Caughey Dynamics Award, and the Lyapunov Award of ASME, and the Jiangsu Friendship Award. He is a member of the Hungarian Academy of Sciences, the Academy of Europe, and foreign member of the Chinese Academy of Sciences, also honorary professor of NUAA (Nanjing University of Aeronautics and Astronautics). Prof Stepan works in the leading committees and panels of IUTAM (International Union of Theoretical and Applied Mechanics), CISM (International Centre for Mechanical Sciences), and EuroMech (European Mechanics Society), he was the recipient of an Advanced Grant, and a Proof-of-Concept Grant of ERC (European Research Council). Among others, he had long-term visiting positions at CalTech (California Institute of Technology, Pasadena) and at the University of Newcastle upon Tyne (UK).

His research interests include nonlinear vibrations in delayed dynamical systems with applications in mechanical engineering such as wheel dynamics, robotic force control, machine tool vibrations, traffic dynamics, and human balancing.

Traffic rules and regulations evolve parallel to the development of road vehicles keeping balance among the various viewpoints of safety, economic efficiency, and environment protection issues like pollution and noise. The lecture summarizes the current state-of-the-art scientific methods used for modelling, analyzing, and controlling the dynamics of vehicular traffic. Possible mechanisms underlying traffic jam formation and propagation are presented from dynamical systems viewpoint. Stable and unstable traffic patterns are identified, and the effects of driver behavior are emphasized in determining the emergent state in a vehicular system. Delayed dynamical phenomena like phantom traffic jams are discussed as a consequence of the human drivers’ reaction time, together with recent traffic rule developments and related highway design methodologies.
Along with the electrification of road transportation, the predicted appearance of autonomous vehicles will serve new kinds of traffic control strategies. The first results of human-in-the-loop experiments are also presented when human drivers are guided by an automated car which is not only responding to a reference velocity, but it also considers the speeds of the nearby human-driven vehicles that will still give the majority in the traffic flow.