By Victoria Valentine Deguzman
The METRANS Transportation Center hosted its second annual delegation of Chinese port officials from various regions in China on Dec. 10-11. Last year, METRANS welcomed the first group of 21 Chinese delegates, holding a one-day event with three research presentations centered on ports and transportation infrastructure topics identified by the delegation. The program this year expanded to a two-day, nine-presentation event. Both were held on the main USC campus.
Delegates included representatives from five of the busiest ports in the world as well as from the China Ports Association, the Ministry of Transport of China and Sinotrans.
Genevieve Giuliano, METRANS director and senior associate dean at the USC Price School of Public Policy, began the event with a welcome and an overview of METRANS. Over the next two days, 20 delegates from ports, water transportation and shipping companies from across China heard presentations of nine recent and ongoing METRANS research projects in transportation technology, logistics and environmental impacts, including innovative research on port crane operations, optimal transportation of perishable products, and the impact of truck repositioning on congestion and pollution in the Los Angeles Basin, among others.
Presentations were either made in the delegates’ dialect, Mandarin, or translated by two USC transportation engineering graduate students, Jiangbo Yu and Qian Ouyang. Presenters included both students and professors from USC and CSULB, including professors Henry Yeh (Electrical Engineering, CSULB) and Pannada Marayong (Mechanical and Aerospace Engineering, CSULB) and their Master of Global Logistics student Vinay Ganji; Ugur Demiryurek (Associate Director of the Integrated Media Systems Center, USC) and his masters student, Dingxiong Deng (Electrical Engineering, USC); professor Burkhard Englert (Coordinator of Graduate Programs College of Engineering, CSULB); professor Chin Chang (Electrical Engineering, CSULB); professor Shui Lam (Public Administration, CSULB); professor Chen Feng Ng (Economics, CSULB); doctoral student Christine Nguyen (Systems Engineering, USC); doctoral student Cathy Xu (Industrial Engineering, USC); and Master of Global Logistics student Arad Gharebaghi (CSULB).
This event was facilitated by the collaborative effort of administrators, professors and students. The team was organized and led by Vicki Valentine, METRANS administrator, and her assistant Kate Amissah, Master of Transportation Engineering student from USC. Twelve Mandarin-speaking planning and engineering student volunteers from USC also assisted with translation.
The event provided an opportunity for METRANS faculty and students to share research that may potentially provide viable solutions for transportation challenges across the globe. The presentations showcased innovative research centered on goods movement that addresses key issues identified by the delegation as most relevant to China’s goods movement systems.