Bryan T. Adey

ETH Zurich is offering a doctoral position in Robust Railway Intervention Planning under Uncertainty within the Chair of Infrastructure Management led by Professor Dr. Bryan T. Adey at the Institute of Construction and Infrastructure Management, Department of Civil, Environmental and Geomatic Engineering. This PhD is part of the interdisciplinary ETH Mobility Initiative project in collaboration with SBB and focuses on developing uncertainty-aware methods and optimisation tools for railway infrastructure management. The research addresses a major practical challenge: planning interventions such as monitoring, maintenance, renewal, and expansion while balancing time, money, machines, personnel, passenger impacts, and timetable feasibility under significant uncertainty. The successful candidate will work on characterising and propagating the main sources of uncertainty across intervention planning and resource forecasting, extending mixed-integer linear programming models with stochastic and robust optimisation, and contributing to a GIS-based decision-support platform aligned with ISO 55001 and UIC best practices. Validation will be carried out using historical and planned data from a pilot SBB corridor. This doctoral project is especially relevant for applicants interested in transport engineering, operations research, optimisation, geospatial decision support, and railway infrastructure asset management. A Master’s degree in civil engineering, transport engineering, operations research, applied mathematics, computer science, or a closely related field is required. Strong skills in mathematical optimisation and programming, preferably Python, are important, while experience with uncertainty quantification, GIS, or railway asset management is considered an advantage. English proficiency is required, and German is beneficial. The position is based at ETH Zurich in Switzerland. The preferred starting date is 1 January 2027 , though other dates are negotiable. Applications must be submitted online by 11 September 2026 . Candidates should provide a letter of interest with research ideas, a CV, grades and diplomas, and the contact details of at least two referees. Email and postal applications will not be considered.