1. History

In January 2005, the School of Urban Rail Transportation, the first university-enterprise cooperation-based college in China, was co-founded by Shanghai University of Engineering Science and Shanghai Metro Operation Co., Ltd. (currently known as Shanghai Shentong Metro Group Co., Ltd.), offering undergraduate program in Transport (Urban Rail Transit Operations Management), which is administered by the Department of Operations Management.

1) Program history

(1) The Transport (Urban Rail Transit Operations Management) Program started official enrollment in September 2005 to grant degree in engineering.

(2) National enrollment kicked off in 2010 to serve the demand for rail transit operations management personnel in the Yangtze River Delta and even the whole country.

(3) In 2011, the Program was approved by the Ministry of Education as a pilot program under the “Excellent Engineer Education and Training Program” and, in the same year, approved as a key project of off-campus internship base for Shanghai municipal universities and a model project of off-campus internship base for Shanghai universities.

(4) In 2012, a complete credit system training plan was implemented to form a basic platform for transport disciplines.

(5) In 2018, with the approval of the school, the Program was officially renamed as “Transport” to better support the school’s discipline and program development positioning.

2) Quality

Thanks to more than 10 years of development, the program has made great progress in personnel training, faculty building, scientific research and beyond.

(1) In 2008, the Program became a project under Shanghai’s Undergraduate Education Heights (Phase III);

(2) In 2009, the Program became a National-level specialized program in transport;

(3) In 2009, the Experimental Teaching Center for Urban Rail Transit Operation became a Shanghai Municipal Experimental Teaching Demonstration Center (5th batch);

(4) In 2011, the Program became a pilot under the “Excellent Engineer Education and Training Program” of the Ministry of Education;

(5) In 2011, the Program became a Top 10 off-campus internship base for university students in Shanghai;

(6) In 2019, the Program was certified in engineering education with the Ministry of Education (2019).

(7)In 2019, the Program became Shanghai first-class program.

Figure 1 Engineering Education Certification

2. Program features

Based on the national development strategy and needs of the urban rail transit sector, the Program relies on the Enterprise School to establish synergy with enterprise for talent cultivation, teaching development, innovation and employment. It has formed a unique talent training mode that combines classroom theoretical teaching, comprehensive training in the laboratory, and application and practice in production. It works comprehensively with Shanghai Shentong Metro, including personnel training, cooperation in research projects, salary payment for teaching, joint construction of on-campus laboratories, off-campus practice base development, and student practice education and teaching.

It focuses on the major professional needs of the organization, guarantee and safety management of urban rail transit network operation. Based on engineering practice ability and innovation consciousness, it trains advanced application-oriented technical and management talents who can engage in transport planning, engineering design, transport organization and dispatching decision-making, project management and administrative management in the field of transport, especially in the direction of urban rail transit.

The Program is centered on modern rail transit planning, design and transportation management theories and methods, with attention to the multidisciplinary integration of management, economics, statistics, safety engineering, and human factor psychology, as well as the application of advanced technologies such as big data, artificial intelligence, and virtual reality. It features the special positioning of networked and intelligent rail transit organization and safety management, and emphasizes on training students to solve complex engineering problems in the field of rail transit.

3. Faculty

The Transport Program has 24 full-time faculty members, including 1 professors, 5 associate professors and 18 lecturers. 19 faculty members have doctoral degrees and 5 faculty members have master’s degrees, 17 of whom are under 35 years old, 6 are between 36-45 years old and 1 are between 46-55 years old. 17 senior corporate professionals and technicians work as part-time faculty members and corporate mentors. Prof. Liu Zhigang is the person-in-charge of the Program. There are two teaching teams responsible for talent cultivation: Urban Rail Transit Operation Engineering Teaching Team and Urban Rail Transit Operation Technology Teaching Team.

The former consists of 12 faculty members who are responsible for 5 fundamental undergraduate courses, 10 specialized undergraduate courses and 3 practical courses on transport, and mentoring of about 200 undergraduate students.

The latter consists of 11 faculty members who are responsible for 4 fundamental undergraduate courses, 10 specialized undergraduate courses and 3 practical courses on transport, and mentoring of about 200 undergraduate students.

4. Employment

Graduates are mainly employed with nationwide rail transit enterprises, railway transportation companies, transport enterprises and public institutions, etc., and engaged in advanced technical and management work such as transportation planning, transportation organization, station design, station management, dispatching command, safety management, etc., and possibly in public transport of passengers, logistics, freight transport and other fields. The Program has an employment rate of 100%, and has delivered thousands of technicians and managers to nearly 20 subway operators across the country.

The perseverance in talent training has produced remarkable results. At present, thousands of graduates from the School are working for about 10 subway companies nationwide including Shanghai, Hangzhou, Ningbo and Wuxi, many of whom are holding key technical or managerial positions in the organizations they serve in five or more years after graduation. In the past three years, the Program has carried out mid-term and short-term graduate surveys, including 322 questionnaires for graduates of class 2010 to class 2014, 125 of which are returned, with a sample proportion of 38.8%. In additional, 141 questionnaires were provided for graduates of class 2016 to class 2017, 66 of which are returned, with a sample proportion of 46.5%.

The survey results show that 88.2% of the graduates are working in related fields even several years after graduation, which indicates a high sense of identification among students with the Program as well as a high degree of recognition among transport enterprises of graduates of the Program. Graduates of the Program from 2016 to 2017 expressed 96% satisfaction rate with the support from their alma mater, which is 12 percentage points higher than the graduates of class 2017 of the national transport programs (84%), showing high recognition of the Program.

5. Teaching programs and outcome

By integrating internal and external, online and offline, interdisciplinary and international teaching resources, the Program shares resources and promote the cultivation of excellent engineers and new engineering talents. The Program has 14 teaching projects, including 6 Shanghai municipal teaching projects and 8 university-level curriculum curriculum development projects.

Table 1 Teaching Projects of Transport Program

Relying on the industry-university-research strategic alliance, the Program trains multi-functional and compound talents in the field of rail transit network operation and development. According to engineering education and industry standards, the Program reversely designs and develops innovative talent training system, establishes an all-round multi-level school-enterprise education platform, and achieves significant talent training results.

Table 2 Teaching Achievements of Transport Program

6. Scientific research and achievements

Name of discipline orientation: Safety and Management of Rail Transit Operation

Unique features & advantages: The Program is to ensure the wisdom, safety, efficiency and reliable operation of the rail transit network. Based on the intersection and integration of multiple disciplines such as Transportation Planning and Management, Data Science and Big Data Applications, Safety Engineering, Behavioral Psychology, etc., it carries out theoretical and applied research in the fields of intelligent passenger and traffic management, operational big data analysis and mining, human factors and work efficiency of key posts, operational risk identification and safety assessment.

Major outcome: In recent years, the Program has undertaken more than 20 national, provincial and ministerial projects such as the National Key Research and Development Program, the National Natural Science Fund, etc., and published more than 20 high-level academic papers. It edited 3 local standards and specifications, participated in the compilation of 3 national standards, and presided over the trial operation safety review of multiple new rail transit lines and the dynamic safety supervision review of existing lines as a third-party independent evaluation agency. The Program works with over RMB 10 million of social funds, and many achievements have been put into applications.

Table 3 Scientific Achievements of Transport Program

Figure 4 National Standards Prepared by the Program

7. Student innovation and competition awards

Relying on the Rail Transit Operational Safety Inspection and Evaluation Service Center, the Program strongly supports the cultivation of students' ability to serve the society and technical innovation, including the development of industry demand-oriented research and innovation activities and the selection of targeted graduation thesis topics. In recent three years, students have won more than 100 prizes for competitions at the provincial and ministerial levels, with a total of more than 197 prizes and over 300 participants in various competitions and university student innovation and entrepreneurship projects.

In 2020, the Program has been granted 3 university student innovation and entrepreneurship projects at national-level, 1 at municipal-level and 4 at university-level, involving 44% of faculty members as instructors for these projects.

In 2019, the Program has been granted 6 university student innovation and entrepreneurship projects at municipal level (including 5 municipal innovation training projects and 1 municipal entrepreneurship practice project), 5 at municipal-level (including 4 university-level innovation training projects and 1 university-level entrepreneurship practice project), involving 41.4% of faculty members as instructors for the Program.

The faculty members of the Program actively encourage students to participate in academic competitions and support as instructors. In the 2019 academic year, 33 students of the Transport Program participated in competitions and won 14 awards.