Experts’ Innovation Forum on China’s Rail Transit Urban Construction and Development Held in Shenzhen

From Nov. 24th through 25th, the “Experts’ Innovation Forum on China’s Rail Transit Urban Construction and Development”, a forum sponsored by the Rail Transit Branch of China Civil Engineering Society, undertaken by UCD, Shenzhen Metro and Shenzhen University and co-organized by Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd., was held in Shenzhen.

The forum was aimed at giving further play to the power of expert think tanks, building a high-end exchange platform for the industry, and giving an impetus to the sustainable and high-quality development of the industry by way of organization of research focus, exploration and innovation, and strategic discussion and in two-wheel drive of “talent” and “science and technology”.

The forum was greatly supported by the urban rail transit industry in China, and senior leaders of 27 urban rail transit construction management units across the country attended the forum, including chairpersons and general managers of 15 units. Experts and scholars from dozens of key universities and industry chain units were also present at the forum.

Wang Hanjun, UCD’s general manager and chairman of the Rail Transit Branch, said in his speech at the forum that as a new link to promote urban interconnection and interaction the urban rail transit has accelerated its pace towards a new stage of high-quality development. He said that in face of new circumstances and new requirements cropping up in the development of the industry in the process all parties in the industry should work together and be of one mind to tackle difficult questions.

At the forum, the Rail Transit Branch newly appointed 28 experts as its members. Chairman Wang Hanjun and Gao Liang, vice chairperson, deputy expert-director of the expert committee of the Rail Transit Branch and vice president of Beijing Jiaotong University, jointly issued letters of appointment to the newly recruited experts. The branch attaches great importance to the cultivation of industry experts, with the expert talent echelon formed by senior experts and young experts, covering more than 20 key universities, urban rail transit construction management units, and well-known enterprises on the industry chain.

Led by Status-quo of and Reflection on the Development of Urban Rail Transit in China, a keynote report presented by Chen Xiangsheng, academician of the Chinese Academy of Engineering, vice chairperson and expert-director of the Rail Transit Branch, the experts at the forum or at the branch forum of young experts made keynote speeches in terms of urban rail logistics exploration, finance sustainable development, existing line network transformation, high-quality design guide rule, multi-level track network, intelligent development and green and low-carbon technology, and conducted mutual learning and exchange focusing on innovation of urban rail transit industry and key and difficult fields.

In addition to the high-level theme reports, the forum also set up a number of innovative activity highlights. Experts and scholars of "future institutes" of such key universities related to the urban rail industry as the Future Laboratory and the Research Center for Future Materials Design of Tsinghua University, Jeme Tienyow Honors College of Beijing Jiaotong University, Technology and Future Research Institute of Tongji University, Institute of Future Technology of Southwest Jiaotong University, College of Future Technology of Tianjin University, Future Institute of Beijing University of Posts and Telecommunications and Future Underground City Research Institute of Shenzhen University were specially invited to the round-table exchange set up at the forum, shared their views in terms of the features and visions of the "colleges of the future" of their respective universities, the innovation achievements related to the urban rail industry and the direction of future research fields in order to further promote the cooperation and exchange of the efforts of enterprises, universities and research institutions and to propel the future development of the industry.

A parallel sub-forum, namely, the High-level Seminar on Strategy of Sustainable Development of China’s Urban Rail Transit, was set up for the forum. Top leaders of rail transit construction management units from 27 cities gathered together to discuss key and difficult questions, innovation models and policy support needed for the sustainable development of urban rail transit in China in the future, with a view to providing the government with the platform as a reference for industry policy research.

At the forum, experts from MTR and Hong Kong Applied Science and Technology Research Institute took part actively, promoting the interaction and communication with the experts from the mainland through the sharing and introduction of Hong Kong's rail transit and urban synchronous development cases and 5G technology applications. During the forum, experts were organized to pay a visit to Huawei, focusing on cross-field exchanges and learning about industry scenarios and digital transformation.

Activities under the “ Experts’ Innovation Forum on China’s Rail Transit Urban Construction and Development” have been carried out thrice in succession in Chongqing, Tianjin and Shenzhen this year, and the forum has drawn increasingly extensive attention and support from among the whole industry, becoming a high-end brand event for experts to communicate. Activities to launch under the forum will continue in the hope that strength of the industry would be further coagulated to jointly put forth effort to make more contributions for the better future of China’s rail transit urban construction and development.