Generally: please consider the general Master thesis guidelines as provided by the Faculty of Business, Economics and Statistics. Also consider our general recommendations on scientific writing.

Our topics

When writing your master thesis in our group, you will work on a topic in the field of Business Analytics. We especially supervise Master thesis topics evolving around service and transportation analytics (e.g. data-driven transport planning, analysis of operational data, service combination, and related topics).

Your background

Note that for the most thesis topics, a major/minor in Smart Production and/or Supply Chain Management is required to write a sucessful thesis. For some topics, a major/minor in eBusiness and Wirtschaftsinformatik is also sufficient, but without fundamental interest and skills in quantitative techniques (mathematical modelling, programming, analysis of large amounts of data, etc.), chances to find an appropriate topic are very low.

How to find a topic

There are two variants for finding a topic for your Master thesis:

• 1: You choose a topic from the list below, which may or may not be in cooperation with one of our industry partners. These topic suggestions are usually connected with research projects in our group.
• 2: You suggest a topic area. If you pick this option, please submit an exposé on the proposed topic. This should contain the problem you would like to tackle and why this is important as well as how you would approach this topic (e.g. by designing an algorithm, analyzing large amounts of data, etc.). You should also mention why you are motivated for this problem in particular.

Suggestions in the following topic areas are welcome:

• Descriptive, predictive and prescriptive analytics in services and transportation
  • Analysis and prediction based on large amounts of operational data
  • Transportation planning
• Innovations in services and transportation through analytics
  • Planning of future autonomous transportation services
  • Prediction of traveler behavior based on historical data

We usually expect a quantitative approach at Business Analytics, i.e. your thesis will involve the development of a mathematical model or algorithm and/or the analysis of large amounts of data. Literature overviews are usually only rarely offered.

Whether you are choosing option 1 or 2, it is important that you introduce yourself to us and why you are qualified for the particular topic. This can be demonstrated through the lectures and seminars you have chose in you Master's program, for example. For most of the topics, we expect a focus on Business Analytics, Supply Chain Management or Optimization in your Master program. It is a big advantage if you have also written your seminar thesis in a topic that is related to you Master thesis.

Where to apply

Please hand in your application or topic suggestion via email to busan.bda@univie.ac.at. Do not hesitate to contact us if you have any further questions on the topics we suggested.

Please understand that we reserve the right to reject topics, which can happen if they are out of our scientific scope or if we feel that you do not provide appropriate qualification for a topic.

The following topics are currently available:

Prescriptive Analytics Methodology

• Meta-Analytics - Incorporating Data Mining Techniques to enhance the performance of Metaheuristics
  • Glover, Fred; Cotta, Carlos (2019): An Overview of Meta-Analytics: The Promise of Unifying Metaheuristics and Analytics, https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-030-06222-4_17
  • For more info, contact Steffen Elting

Analytics in Passenger Transportation

• Dynamic Customer Acceptance in Urban Ride-Sharing
  • Haferkamp et al. (2020): An Efficient Insertion Heuristic for On-Demand Ridesharing Services, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.trpro.2020.03.074
  • For more info, contact Prof. Ehmke
• Efficiency of a Shared Taxi System under varying Degrees of Dynamism
  • Larsen, A.; Madsen, O.; Solomon, M. (2002): Partially dynamic vehicle routing—models and algorithms, doi.org/10.1057/palgrave.jors.2601352
  • Molenbruch, Yves; Braekers, Kris; Caris, An (2017): Typology and literature review for dial-a-ride problems, doi.org/10.1007/s10479-017-2525-0
  • For more info, contact Steffen Elting
• Urban Transportation Analytics – State-of-the-art in Public Transit Planning
  • Redmond, M., et al. (2020): Data-driven planning of reliable itineraries in multi-modal transit networks, https://doi.org/10.1007/s12469-019-00221-0
  • For more info, contact Prof. Ehmke

Analytics in Freight Transportation

• Flexible Slotting of Customer Time Windows in E-Fulfillment
  • Köhler, C., et al. (2020): Flexible time window management for attended home deliveries, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.omega.2019.01.001
  • For more info, contact Prof. Ehmke
• Urban Transportation Analytics – State-of-the-art in Network Design
  • Scherr Y., et al. (2019): Service network design with mixed autonomous fleets, https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tre.2019.02.001
  • For more info, contact Prof. Ehmke

The following topics are currently under supervision (but similar topics are often possible):

Analytics in Passenger Transportation

• Customer experience in multimodal travel itineraries: an exploratory data analysis
  • Alt, R. et al. (2019): Towards customer-induced service orchestration - requirements for the next step of customer orientation, https://doi.org/10.1007/s12525-019-00340-3.
  • Valderas, P., et a. (2020): Towards the Composition of Services by End-Users, https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s12599-019-00617-z?utm_source=toc
  • For more info, contact Prof. Ehmke

Analytics in Freight Transportation

• Efficiency of parcel lockers in a two-tier city logistics context
• Identification of potential for strategic behavior in collaborative transportation
  • Gansterer, Margaretha; Hartl, Richard F. (2016): Request evaluation strategies for carriers in auction-based collaborations, https://doi.org/10.1007/s00291-015-0411-1
  • Gansterer, Margaretha; Hartl, Richard F. (2018): Centralized bundle generation in auction-based collaborative transportation, https://doi.org/10.1007/s00291-018-0516-4
  • For more info, contact Steffen Elting
• Robot-Based Attended Home Deliveries
  • I. Bakach, A. M. Campbell, J. F. Ehmke (2020): A Two-Tier Urban Delivery Network with Robot-based Deliveries, https://doi.org/10.24352/UB.OVGU-2020-002
  • J. F. Ehmke, A. M. Campbell (2014): Customer Acceptance Mechanisms for Attended Home Deliveries in Metropolitan Areas. European Journal of Operational Research, 233(1):193-207, doi 10.1016/j.ejor.2013.08.028
  • For more info, contact Prof. Ehmke
• Truck-and-drone delivery in the field of e-fulfilment

Writing your master thesis requires regular participation and presentation within our Master Thesis Conservatory.