Lab for Innovative Infrastructure Systems

As a joint team of the International Project Group, I participated in the “Okamura Cup”, an annual softball tournament among the laboratories of the Department of Civil Engineering. The name of the tournament originates from Prof. Hajime Okamura, who holds the record for the most wins in a six-university baseball tournament. He has served as dean of the Faculty of Engineering at the University of Tokyo, and the president of the Japan Society of Civil Engineers.

Our team consisted mainly of M1 students, many of whom had experience in baseball, and we participated in the tournament with the vision of winning the championship. Hence, we needed to play two preliminary games in order to advance to the final tournament.

The result was 0 wins and 2 losses. Next year will be the last tournament for our batch, so we will spend the whole year training in order to win the championship next year!

[Hasegawa]

Mr. Matsumura, who is on a short-term visit and introduced in the previous article, has written a self-introduction for us! (Below is written by Mr. Matsumura)

I am Matsumura, and I am staying here for a month from this month. My supervisor, Prof. Oyama, has arranged for me to stay at the Fukuda Lab for my Musha Shugyo Program.

I am very happy to receive a warm welcome from Prof. Fukuda and his students. Currently, I am able to work on my research with a greater sense of urgency than usual. At the end of the month, I have an opportunity to present at a seminar, so I will do my best for the presentation!

Summer vacation is over! Some students have completed all credits and do not have classes, so the main change is the resumption of laboratory seminars. Our lab seminars have resumed from the end of last month. The frequency of the seminar is once a week as in the previous semester, and basically one student in charge of the seminar gives a presentation on the research progress every week.

I was the one to give the presentation last week. It was hard to prepare because the presentation time for each student was longer than last semester > <. However, because of this, I was able to introduce some formulations that I had not often mentioned in my previous presentations, so I think I was able to let everyone know more concretely about what kind of research I was doing.

In addition, Mr. Matsumura, a first-year master’s student at Shibaura Institute of Technology (SIT), is visiting our lab for a month starting from this month! He is conducting research on MaaS at the Oyama Laboratory. He will give a presentation in the lab seminar this month, so I am looking forward to hearing his presentation.

Moreover, Prof. Fukuda has celebrated his birthday, and we have prepared a surprise celebration for him. Happy birthday!

[Hasegawa]

The midterm presentation for M1 and B4 students was held at the Hongo campus on 27th and 28th September, respectively. This was the first physical interim presentation after the COVID-19 pandemic.From our lab, Mr. Krittanai and Mr. Chee Yung (M1 students), and Ms. Nakamura (B4 student) have presented their research. Their research titles are shown as follows:

• Mr. Krittanai: How does Price Affect the Utilization of Ride-sourcing Services? An evidence from Uber Japan Experiment
• Mr. Chee Yung: Evaluating the Impacts of Dynamic Fare Pricing Considering a Semi-Dynamic Link-Based Transit Assignment within an Activity-Travel Simulator: An Application to the Tokyo Metropolitan Area
• Ms. Nakamura: Optimal Allocation Plan of Residential Area
  during Disaster Restoration Period
  Considering Citizens’ Life-Style[ライフスタイルを考慮した災害復興時の最適居住配置計画に関する研究]

We have received many useful comments from professors in different fields. Here, we would like to take this opportunity to express our gratitude towards them. Moreover, we hope all students can keep going for their research in the remaining days!

[Chee Yung]

On 23rd to 25th September, the Behavior Modeling Summer School 2022 was held in a hybrid form on the Hongo campus and online. This year, a Japanese student team and a foreign student team, have participated the summer school from our lab.

The Japanese student team, including Mr. Uechi from the University of the Ryukyus, analyzed the effect of vaccination on people’s behavior using the Nested Logit (NL) model. On the other hand, the foreign student team adopted a Multinomial Logit (MNL) model to analyze the impact of dynamic train fare on train ridership. The foreign student team placed 8th out of 24 teams! Congratulations on them!

As for the Japanese student team, we were not able to differentiate themselves from the other teams in terms of the research topic. Next year, we hope that the Japanese team will take a unique approach to analyze more interesting topics and achieve better results than this year!

[Hasegawa (Translated: Chee Yung)]

Last week, Mr. Hasegawa (M1) visited the Urban System Science Laboratory of the Department of Geoscience and Civil Engineering in the College of Science and Engineering, Kanazawa University.

Prof. Takayama has accumulated a lot of research on quantitative spatial economics, which I dealt with in my graduation thesis. He asked me questions and gave me some suggestions on my research presentation at the spring conference of the Committee of Infrastructure Planning and Management. Moreover, Dr. Dantsuji, who graduated from our lab, is affiliated with this laboratory as an assistant professor currently. It was through such a connection that I was able to make this visit!

Dr. Dantsuji and Mr. Omori (M1)

As for the contents of my activities, I learned about the latest research trends about quantitative spatial economics throughout the week. In particular, I had some direct discussions with Professor Takayama. He gave me some advices on what kind of research I should conduct for my master’s degree based on my interests. I believe that this experience will greatly contribute to my future research activities.

In addition, I presented my research to Mr. Sugimoto, Dr. Takayama, and Dr. Dantuji from Yachiyo Engineering Technology Development Institute, and they gave me some advices on my research. I have known Ms. Sugimoto and Dr. Takayama in some papers and online conference presentations, and it was a very valuable time for me to gain some advices from them.

Prof. Takayama and Mr. Sugimoto

I also had participated in their laboratory meeting. It was a good opportunity for me to know research topics of their lab students and to know other laboratory’s characteristics. Furthermore, I was able to communicate with their lab students during some research sessions and meal times. Thanks to that, I was able to spend a fulfilling week, and to devote myself to my research.

Lastly, I would like to take this opportunity to thank Professor Takayama and everyone at the Urban System Science Laboratory. Thank you very much for the week!

[Hasegawa (Translated: Chee Yung)]

On 4^th and 5^th September, Mr. Krittanai and Mr. Chee Yung (M1 students) participated in a special summer seminar, “Railway Systems and Urban Development of Mega Cities”, which held at the National Graduate Institute for Policy Studies (GRIPS). It provided international students with a platform to know the full picture of urban transportation in Tokyo and to communicate with each Japanese organization or company directly.

The first day of the summer seminar was the lecture session, which consisted of two parts, “Overview of railway systems and urban development in Tokyo” and “Changes induced by the pandemic and future strategies”. The former provided us with the overview of the mobility development in the Tokyo Metropolitan Area from past to future, especially in the development of the railway network. Prof. Fukuda had given the speech, “The future of mobility in Tokyo after the pandemic”, in the first part of the lecture session. He had clarified some possible changes in daily travel behavior due to the COVID-19 pandemic.

While for the latter part, several speeches had been provided by Japan Transport and Tourism Research Institute (JTTRI), Mitsui Futosan, JR-East, Tokyo Railways and Tokyo Metro. As the pandemic has changed our working styles and travel patterns thoroughly, each organization and company have started to change their business and management strategies against the pandemic.

On the second day of the seminar, participants were divided into two groups for site visiting. We were assigned to the first group where our destinations were Nihombashi, one of the most important commercial areas in Tokyo, and Tokyo Metro General Training Center.

At Nihombashi, the presenter from Mitsui Fudosan presented their plan to revitalize Nihombashi. It was very interesting that they are trying to preserve heritage buildings while pushing the area toward contemporary lifestyle. After the presentation, the presenter showed us around the area and the places they are developing. We got to see Nihombashi bridge which is a landmark of the area and an interesting place in terms of transportation and urban landscape because they are planning to remove the highway above it and construct a tunnel instead to improve the appearance of the area.

After that, we went to Tokyo Metro General Training Center where we learned how they are training their clerks. The presenter from Tokyo Metro walked us around the building and showed us almost all of the trainings and systems, from how the ticket machines work to how to operate a train. All participants were impressed by how advanced their technology for training is. Some of us even got the chance to try operating a train using virtual simulation technology.

[Chee Yung, Krittanai]

[9-10 August 2022]

On 9 and 10 August, Mr. Ebashi (M1) and Mr. Sakurai (OB) presented their research at Japan Society of Traffic Engineers (JSTE), which was held at the Waseda Campus, Waseda University. Their research titles are shown as follows:

Analysis of the impact of introducing congestion charging to tourist attractions on excursion tourism behavior. [観光地への混雑課金導入が周遊行動に与える影響への分析]
(Rikuto Sakurai, Natsuho Iokura, & Daisuke Fukuda) 

Online experimental study of a traffic information provision method based on self-fulfilling signals. [自己実現シグナルに基づく交通情報提供方法のオンライン実験研究]
(Kyoshiro Ebashi & Daisuke Fukuda)

We have received many useful comments on each presentation from Prof. Muromachi of Tokyo Institute of Technology and others. Here, we would like to take this opportunity to express our gratitude towards them.

[Ebashi]

On 1st and 2nd August, we held a joint seminar with Sasaki Kuniaki laboratory of Waseda University in Echigo-Yuzawa, Niigata Prefecture.

During the joint seminar, research presentations were made by mainly M2 and M1 students from both laboratories. From our lab, (M2 students) Mr.Arai, Mr.Tabata, Ms.Hazama, and (M1 students) Mr. Krittanai and Mr. Chee Yung have presented their research. As the students were working on similar research themes, for instance, the utilization of big data, traffic networks during disasters, and land use regulations, there was a lively discussion after each presentation.

Moreover, Mr. Kamaiishi from the Snow and Ice Research Center of the National Research Institute for Earth Science and Disaster Resilience, has given a keynote lecture on snow damage. For those of us who live in Tokyo, snow damage rarely attracts attention from people. However, the snow damage in the snow-rich regions is a very serious problem, especially in terms of the economy. I have realized that the snow damage is a disaster that requires more necessary countermeasures just like other disasters. The whole joint seminar has provided me with good inspiration for my future research activities.

On the night of the first day, we presented a birthday cake to Ms. Nakamura (B4) who had a birthday the day before the joint seminar! The members of the Sasaki Lab also celebrated it with us, making it a grand birthday party!

[Hasegawa]

Yesterday’s lab seminar marked the end of our lab’s activities for the first semester! There were five lab seminars in July. The learning seminar mainly dealt with urban economics, it was closely related to (M2) Tabata-san’s research and there was a lively discussion. Personally, I was in charge of two presentations in the learning seminar this month. It was a bit difficult for me, but I was able to deepen my understanding of this subject.

The laboratory activities have come to an end, it will be summer vacation once our exams and final reports are completed, but I think we will be even busier than before. Besides M2 students, M1 international students will work hard with their research for the mid-term presentation, while B4 students will be preparing for the graduate school entrance examinations at the end of August.

Recently, the number of people infected with the COVID-19 has been increasing. Although the lab end semester party has been cancelled, we are planning to hold a joint seminar with other laboratories in the beginning of next month. I am looking forward to some discussions and opinion exchanges there, and I have to start my research and final reports from now!