Prof. Stern has been active mainly in three research areas: transportation, applied geography and urban & regional planning.

He is among the first to study route choice and jointly with Prof. Piet Bovy (from the Netherlands) they published one of the first leading books on that subject.

Another contribution is the wide study he conducted on drivers choice mechanism in congested situations using the American-developed Decision Field Theory.

Apart from its publicity in the literature, the model has been recognized by the Israeli civil emergency agencies and by the European network of risk evaluation.

A comparative study was conducted simultaneously in Israel, the Netherlands and Sweden to examine the role of culture and infrastructure quality on the simulated reactions of drivers to information.

In addition, Prof. Stern contributed to other applied topics among which are the allocation of subsidy to the inter-city public transport, delineating registration zones for high schools, a scheduling model for urban development projects which has been adopted in South Africa and in China, and a location model for regional service centers.

Jointly with Dalia Lichfield from London they developed a method for dynamic master planning based on the concepts of functional areas and policy zones.

Parallel to his academic career, he consulted to the economic division of the Ministry of Transportation, to the educational television, the banks union, to UNEP "Blue Plan', to Cross Israel Highway company and served in numerous governmental and other public committees.

Prof. Stern's scientific publications include over 120 refereed articles in journals and edited volumes, over 100 research & planning reports and nine books: