USST Makes a Historic Breakthrough at the 17th NACTranS

From July 9th to 10th , the final of the 17th “PATENT International Logistics Cup” National Competition of Transport Science and Technology for Students (NACTranS) was held online, and after fierce competitions, two teams supervised by Mr. Li Wenxiang from the Business School of USST won a second prize and a third prize respectively, the best achievements made by our university in this competition, making a historic breakthrough.
Sponsored by the China Institute of Communications Education (CICE) and the Ministry Education College of Road Transport and Engineering Teaching Steering Commission, the NACTranS is a science and technology competition for national undergraduate students with the largest number of participating institutions of higher education and student participants and the greatest social influence in the field of transportation in China. It is also a Class A discipline competition accredited by USST under the competition evaluation range of China Association of Higher Education. Taking “Digital, Smart, Low-carbon Transportation” as its theme, this year’s competition was organized by Shanghai Maritime University and the Deans’ Chapter of CICE, with 1,473 entries from 177 universities. After the internal selection and recommendation of each participating university and the double-blind online evaluation in the national preliminary round, a total of 213 works from 94 universities made it into the finals, and the entering rate of the final was only 14%.
USST held the internal selection competition from March 18th to April 22nd this year, with students from relevant majors enthusiastically applying to take part in it. After preliminary evaluation, a total of 12 groups of works from different tracks were recommended to participate in the national competition, among which the undergraduate project from the Department of Transportation System Engineering of Business School, “Carbon Wallet: Precise Transportation Carbon Footprint Measurement and Carbon Inclusion Platform Under MaaS Environment” (team members: Zhang Yiwen, Yang Zijie, Li Xiaomei, Li Cihang, and Tang Shihang) and the postgraduate project, “Carbon Emission Reduction Recognition Algorithm and Application Through Carpooling When Hailing a Car Based on Machine Learning” (team members: Li Yuanyuan, Yu Tianxiang, Cheng Jianan, Chen Siwei, and Ouyang Huijie) stood out after a series of selections and made it into the finals, winning a second prize and a third prize respectively in the national competition.
Behind the achievements were the tireless efforts of the student participant team members, the diligent and rigorous tutoring by the team of supervisors from the Department of Transportation System Engineering, and the unity and collaboration of the entire Business School. During the preparation period, which coincided with the most severe period of the epidemic in Shanghai, the students persisted in holding their daily online discussions with their supervisors while completing their daily course work. With his professional insight, Supervisor Li Wenxiang carefully revised and repeatedly polished the students’ works, updating the versions of their works more than twenty times altogether. Particularly during the preparation period for the final, three professional teachers, namely Liu Weiwei, Associate Professor and Deputy Director of the Department of Transportation System Engineering, specially organized a pre-defense and counseling session for the students, inviting Associate Professor Dong Jieshuang, Associate Professor Wang Jiawen, as well as Dr. Tang Yang, Dean of the Shanghai Branch of Zhejiang University Urban and Rural Planning and Design Institute, to propose modifications to the students’ works from different dimensions, such as innovation, professional knowledge, application value and completion, which played a key role in winning the prizes. At the same time, Zhang Zheng, Vice Dean of Business School and Shu Yiming, Director of Teaching Affairs, took the initiative to encourage the students to actively participate in the competition, and helped them solve varied difficulties during the epidemic, providing a solid guarantee for the teams to successfully complete the competition.
The breakthrough achievements made in this competition have not only enhanced the confidence of students majoring in Transportation System Engineering to participate in innovation and entrepreneurship, but also fully reflected the effectiveness of the talent cultivation of our major of Transportation System Engineering, laying a good foundation for the future discipline  assessment and professional accreditation of USST’s Engineering Education.