School of Traffic and Transportation, formerly known as Railway Transportation Department of Lanzhou Railway Institute, was established in 1958, the year when the institute was founded. It was one of the first five departments set up then. The department was set up under the leadership of Professor Lin Damei, the dean of Transportation Department of Beijing Railway Institute (the present Beijing Jiaotong University), one of the founders of and initiators of the discipline of railway transportation in China, who moved to Lanzhou in 1958 with some professors and core teachers of the Railway Transportation Department of Beijing Railway Institute. The year also witnessed the enrollment of 60 undergraduates in the faculty of railway transportation. From 1988 on, 3 new majors have been added, including Packaging Engineering, Management of Industry Enterprise and Accountancy, and the department was renamed Management Engineering Department. In 1995, the department changed its name to Department of Transportation Management Engineering with its faculty members pursuing research in the economic field and relevant subjects transferred to the newly established Department of Economics. During the reorganization of the departments and schools of Lanzhou Jiaotong University in 2003, the department was finally named the School of Traffic and Transportation.

With the consecutive efforts of several generations inside and outside the university, the school has built up great school-running capabilities over the past 50-odd years. Over 8,000 students have graduated from our school. Some outstanding alumni have emerged, among whom are Liu Xueliang, the Vice-governor of Heilongjiang Province, Guo Yunchong, the Vice-minister of Ministry of Housing and Urban-Rural Development, Huang Min, the Director-general of National Development and Reform Commission, Xu Ruihua, Doctoral Supervisor of Tongji University, and Li Ertao, chairman of JiTai Logistics Co., Ltd., etc. The graduates of our school enjoy a high reputation in the departments of railway transportation, especially in those in the West.

The school currently has 2 primary discipline doctoral programs (Traffic and Transportation Engineering, and Management Science and Engineering), 1 post-doctoral station (Traffic and Transportation Engineering), 5 Master programs (Traffic & Transportation Planning and Management, Logistics Management, Management Science and Engineering, Safety Science and Engineering, and System Engineering), and 4 undergraduate programs (Traffic and Transportation, Traffic Engineering, Logistics Management, and Information Management and Information System), of which Traffic and Transportation is a featured specialty of national level. There are 2 national excellent courses, including Operations Research and Railway Transportation Organization, and 3 integrated centers for production, teaching and research, namely the Center for Research and Consultation on Hazardous Cargo Transportation of Ministry of Railway, the Center for Research and Consultation on Freight Loading and Fastening of Ministry of Railway, and Gansu Packaging Industry Technology Center.

There are over 90 teaching and staff members in the school at present, including 5 doctorate supervisors, 17 professors and 22 associate professors. Among them, 39 teachers are doctors (including doctoral candidates). The school has a current enrollment of approximately 2,000 undergraduate students and 300 graduate students. In recent years, the faculty members have published 27 monographs and course books, four of which are selected as the national key construction textbooks. Eleven teaching reform research projects have been awarded the Provincial Prize for Teaching Achievement. With an approximate number of 400 papers published on journals of various levels, the faculty has engaged in more than 120 research projects, such as the National Natural Science Foundation Project and the National Social Science Foundation Project, of which about 20 achievements have been awarded the prizes at the provincial or ministerial level or above. Among them, China Railway Tickets Sale & Reserving System, in which we have taken part, is honored the first prize of National S&T Advance Award; Operational Research Application in Railway Transportation, which is presided over and accomplished by us, is awarded the second prize of National Application of Operational Research Award; Research on the Mode of Cultivating Innovative Personnel for Traffic and Transportation and Its Practice, which is also presided over and accomplished by us, is awarded the second prize of 2009 National Teaching Achievement Award.

In recent years, our school has strengthened the cooperation with many high-level universities abroad. It has established cooperative relations with Montreal University of Canada, Queensland University of Technology of Australia, Waseda University of Japan, Hong Kong Polytechnic University, etc. Several famous professors are employed as our concurrent or honorary professors, including Yang Zhaosheng of Jilin University, Mitsuo Gen of Waseda University, Liu Baoding of Tsinghua University, Luis Ferreira of Queensland University of Technology, and Akimasa Fujiwara of Hiroshima University, etc. The school successfully hosted the third International Information and Management Conference in June, 2004. In 2008, we co-organized the Sixth International Conference on Traffic & Transportation Studies.

We feel proud of what we have done in the past but we have to shoulder more responsibility for the future. With the great development of education and the implementation of the Western Development Policy, our school is now faced with unprecedented challenges as well as opportunities. Being the united, diligent, and pragmatic faculty members of the school, we believe that we will entertain lofty aspiration, have a practical attitude, keep pace with the times, and struggle for building the school into an influential high-level teaching-and-research-oriented one in China. We believe the school will surely have a splendid and wonderful future!

Address: School of Traffic and Transportation, Lanzhou Jiaotong University,

Lanzhou 730070, P. R. China

Tel & Fax: 0086-931-4938015

Email:lihaijun@mail.lzjtu.cn