By Arpita Sharma, MPP/MPL 2017

Six PhD students from the University of Southern California will present their transportation research at the METRANS International Urban Freight Conference (I-NUF) to be held October 21 to 23, 2015 at the Westin Long Beach Hotel.

Established in 2006, The I-NUF Conference provides a forum for multidisciplinary research on all aspects of urban freight. The Conference raises the visibility of and is recognized as the premier venue for urban freight research, drawing members of the academic community, private sector, and government from around the world. This year the conference will feature research on local/last mile pickup and delivery, trade nodes and hubs; ports, airports, distribution hubs, freight modes – trucking, rail, water, urban modeling and planning, new technology, changing consumption, production and spatial organization, and best practices.

Doctoral students Quan Yuan, Sanggyun Kang, and Nathan Huston, from the USC Price School of Public Policy, will share their research on warehouse locations in urban metropolitan areas. Specifically, Quan Yuan will present “Location of Warehouses and Environmental Justice” as part of the Hub & Network Strategies track, moderated by Philip Davies, Principal at Davies Transportation Consulting. Sanggyun Kang’s project, “Unraveling Warehousing Decentralization Trends in U.S. Metropolitan Areas,” will be showcased in the Last Mile Case Studies track, moderated by John Keisler, Innovation Team Director at the City of Long Beach. Nathan Huston, will present “Examining Tradeoffs between Drayage Costs, Travel Time Reliability and Warehousing Costs in Determining Warehouse Locations in Relation to the Ports of Los Angeles and Long Beach” during the Planning Models track moderated by University of California, Davis Transportation Engineering Professor Miguel Jaller.

Research of doctoral students from the USC Viterbi School of Engineering, Lunce Fu, Yihuan Shao, and Yanbo Zhao, will be heard as part of the Assessment Tools and Technology track, moderated by Omer Benli, Associate Dean of the College of Business Administration and Professor in the Department of Information Systems at California State University, Long Beach. Industrial and Systems Engineering student Lunce Fu will present ”Dispatching Trains through Double Track Rail System Under Exact Travel Time Estimation.” Yihuan Shao, a PhD candidate in Industrial and Systems Engineering and pursuing a Master in Computer Science, will convey “A Hybrid Heuristic Method for the Compressed Natural Gas (CNG) Truck Routing Problem with Fueling Stations.” Electrical engineering student, Yanbo Zhao, will deliver two research papers, “Positive Train Control with Active Communication System” and “Evaluation of Traffic Light Priority for Trucks on Traffic Flow.” Yanbo Zhao’s research paper presentation on positive train control with an active communication system, discusses a new technology that uses globally positioned satellites, sensors on engines and alongside tracks, and computers to monitor and take control of a train if the crew ignores signals or speed limits. His discussion is particularly timely, given proposed legislation to extend the deadline for implementing the positive train control system on most major track lines in the United States from December 31, 2015 to 2018.

The students enjoy the opportunity for feedback from the transportation community.  “I look forward to introducing my research progress at the I-NUF Conference and more importantly to hearing valuable comments from professors, students, and others who attend the conference. The event will provide me a good opportunity to listen to other presentations and may inspire research ideas of my own,” remarked Yanbo Zhao.

Students, researchers, and practitioners interested in attending the conference can register here.

Link to: http://www.metrans.org/2015-i-nuf-event-registration

Information about the agenda is here.

Link to: http://www.metrans.org/2015-i-nuf-conference-agenda

Arpita Sharma

Arpita Sharma is a dual Master of Public Policy and Master of Planning Candidate at the USC Price School. She is interested in issues of health inequities, sustainable land use development and active transportation.  She expects to complete her degrees in May 2017. She can be reached at arpitasharma.net or at [email protected]