Skip to content
Technical University of Munich

Bachelor and Master's Theses

Researchers of this group are happy to advise Bachelor and Master's Thesis.

Bachelor Theses

Bachelor theses are commonly written in the sixth semester of the undergraduate program. A list of completed bachelor theses can be found here.

Master Theses

Commonly, Master Theses are written in the 4th Semester of the master program. We are happy to supervize Master Theses that fit with topics researched in our group. Students are encouraged to attend the class on Research Design while writing their Master Thesis.

Theses may be written in English or German. Topics that can be supervized include but are not limited to:

  • Interactions between land use and transport
  • Spatial analyses
  • Analyses of household travel surveys
  • Application and development of travel demand models (both activity-based and trip-based)
  • Traffic microsimulation
  • Road safety
  • Application and development of land use models
  • Visualization of spatial data

A list of completed theses can be found here.

Finding a topic

We encourage students to explore research in topics of their interest and develop original ideas for theses. We are happy to brainstorm on ideas and discuss prospects with students. The university's library offers access to most recent publications on a diverse range of subjects. Students could also benefit from the following data repositories to build their research ideas:

  • Database of open data portals from around the world (DataPortals.org)
  • UN statistical databases (UNdata)
  • Open public transportation data - GTFS - from around the world (TransitFeeds)
  • Data and metadata for OECD countries (OECD.stat)
  • Open data published by the EU (EU ODP)
  • Statistical information on Germany (Destatis)
  • Traffic counts and other information on German road networks (BASt)
  • Statistical information on Bayern (statistik.bayern)

Occassionally, we release thesis topic ideas. These topics can either be used for a thesis directly, or may serve as ideas to develop your own topic. 

Master thesis adviser

Master theses within the Master Program Transportation Systems can be supervised by Joanna Ji, Rolf Moeckel, Ana Moreno, Wei-Chieh Huang, Matthias Langer, Yangqian Cai, or Zhihua Jin.

Writing a Thesis

After the student registered for a master thesis topic, the student has six months to complete the thesis. During these six months, it is expected that the student stays in touch with the main adviser (at least four meetings are required).

When completed, the student needs to submit a printed copy for each examiner plus a printed copy for the library of the focus area Mobility & Transport Systems. Also, the student will provide a PDF file from which all copyrighted materials have been removed for upload on this website. If industry secrets are discussed in the thesis or if raw data are shown that are protected by privacy laws, the student may request to not make the thesis publicly available.

A typical structure of a thesis is described here.

Thesis Submission

After six months, the master's thesis has to be submitted before the end of the last day of the thesis writing period. For a bacherlor's thesis, the submission is due after five months. If the thesis cannot be submitted to the supervisor directly, the thesis may be submitted at the security desk at the main entrance of TUM (Arcisstr. 21) at any day or night time. There, a stamp with the date received will be added, and the thesis will be sent to the adviser by internal mail.

The thesis must be printed and bound. Students in the Transportation Systems program need to submit one copy for each adviser and one copy for the library that is hosted by the Chair of Traffic Engineering and Control (i.e., commonly three copies). Students in the Environmental Studies program only need to submit one copy for each adviser (i.e., commonly two copies).

Finally, the thesis must also be submitted as a PDF file. This can be done by email or via https://gigamove.rwth-aachen.de/en/. Note that all theses are tested for possible plagiarism using the software turn-it-in.

Master Thesis Defense

The thesis defense will take place a few weeks after the student submitted the thesis. This defense is open to the public, and the author of the thesis is welcome to invite friends and family as well. At this defense, the author of the thesis will present the work in about 20 minutes. After the presentation, the advisers will have the opportunity to ask questions about the thesis. The defense will last approximately one hour.

To top