During September 25 and 26, 2017, the Fifth International Symposium on Transportation Safety was held at Tongji University. The symposium was jointly held by Tongji University, Traffic Management Research Institute of the Ministry of Public Security, and the Research Institute of Highway of the Ministry of Transport. Zhu served as a volunteer for the meeting organizing.
A group photo of attendees
Background
Traffic crashes have caused about 1.25 million fatalities all over the world each year, and traffic injury has been listed in the top 8 death causing factors; it is critical to conduct transportation safety improvements. The theme of the symposium is Human Behavior, Psychology, and Transportation Safety. Discussions and keynote speeches were given on the following subthemes, Connected and Autonomous Vehicles and Road Safety, Transportation safety Management Experience, Public Health and Safety Policy, Human Behavior and Transportation safety, as well as Road Design and Human Behavior.
Part of the symposium's program
Participants
The symposium invited international well-known experts to share their latest research on connected-autonomous vehicle, safety management, driver behavior and psychology, public health and traffic safety, and roadway safety design. Over 200 scholars and experts from research institutions and government agencies attended the symposium.
A group photo of guest speakers
Impact
The symposium facilitated the communication of basic theories, analysis methods and engineering experience on transportation safety from developed countries and promoted the collaborations on transportation safety between experts from different disciplines, including engineering, human behavior and psychology, and public health.
Future Prospects
The symposium was supported by 111 Project on Transportation Safety Discipline, which is jointly funded by Ministry of Education and State Administration of Foreign Experts Affairs. The symposium aimed to facilitate the future major improvement on transportation safety in China through collaborations between world leading experts on safety issues concerning human, vehicles, roads, and management. It is hoped that key theories and technologies on road safety analysis and improvement could be developed according to China’s situation, bringing rapid and positive changes in the future.
My Volunteer Work
I served as a volunteer for the meeting organizing, and I am also a team leader for all the 20 volunteers. Specifically, I picked up 13 international symposium attendees at the airport, prepared the invitation letters, and was in charge of the symposium registration. It’s a cherished experience because of two reasons: (1) the excitement of communicating with international well-known experts; (2) the sense of achievement coming from the hard-working of meeting organizing. The photo below shows the celebration of successful meeting organization.
Celebration of successful meeting organization