Lab for Innovative Infrastructure Systems

Mr. Uechi (2nd year master’s student) from University of the Ryukyus visited Fukuda laboratory for a week! Mr. Uechi visited the University of Tokyo during the summer vacation this year, so this was his second visit to our lab. Moreover, at the JSCE Fall Conference held in Okinawa last month, Mr. Uechi and other members from the University of the Ryukyus were very kind to us. (Hereafter, from Mr. Uechi)

I am Uechi, and I am staying here for a week this week.
Thanks to the arrangement of my supervisors, Prof. Kamiya and Prof. Fukuda, I came from Okinawa this time to confirm my master’s thesis following the visit in September.
I am very happy that Professor Fukuda and all the students treated me kindly.
In the seminar, I gave a presentation in English, which I was not accustomed to, and in the discussion with everyone, I was able to reaffirm what I lacked in my research.
I will do my best to complete my master’s thesis when I return to Okinawa!
Thank you for giving us a valuable experience!

A group photo of Mr. Uechi (front row, third from right) and all members of the Fukuda laboratory

[25 – 27 November, 2022]

The 4th Urban Redesign Conference was held at the University of Tokyo from 25th November (Friday) to 27th November (Sunday). (From B4 Nakamura)

On the first day of the conference, an urban redesign field tour was held. There were two tours, one was the Arakawa River Basin Flood Control Tour and the other was the Reconstruction Tour around the remains of the Great Kanto Earthquake. In the morning, we visited the Yokoamicho Park Museum. We then returned to the school for a discussion session in the afternoon after the field tour. It was the route from Ryogoku to Asakusa, which I had traveled many times before, but when I looked at it from the viewpoint of remains, I realized how much the city was lost in the Great Kanto Earthquake, and what we see in our daily lives was formed after that. It was a tour that made me think about what it is. At the discussion session, we had a valuable time to discuss Shinpei Goto’s topic in groups and talk about the pros and cons of urban development.On the second and third days, various lecture programs were held at the university. As I am also working on my thesis on disaster recovery, it was a great honor to meet with the professors whose papers I had read. I was also impressed by the presentations by the Disaster Prevention Geography Department, in which students from elementary school to high school actively proposed what they could do to increase their disaster prevention capabilities in order to raise awareness of disaster prevention.

The theme of this year’s Urban Redesign Conference was “Cities Living between Disasters,” and it stated that phase-free disaster prevention is important, rather than classifying normal times and disasters. In order to achieve this, it is necessary for many people, regardless of their field, to rethink “disaster” from multiple perspectives and on a daily basis. This phrase really stuck with me, and I would like to keep it in mind in my graduation thesis.

Thanks for this learning opportunity!

Please click here for details of the conference.[中村]

[11 – 13 November, 2022]

Mr. Ukai, an alumnus from our lab, presented his paper at the Fall Conference of the JSCE Committee of Infrastructure Planning and Management, which was held at the University of the Ryukyus from 11st (Friday) to 13rd (Sunday) November. The title of his presentation is as follows:

Information Design Based Transportation Management: A Fundamental Study under Fluctuating Demand
(Kenta Ukai and Daisuke Fukuda)

Moreover, six Japanese students from our lab participated in the conference as assistants. We mainly acted as a  timekeeper at the presentation venue, and were able to listen to various research presentations, ranging from areas close to my own research to areas I had never touched before (of course, the role of timekeeper took precedence). Furthermore, I had a chance to meet many people who helped me during my visit to Kanazawa in the summer, and I was able to spend a very enriching time there.

In addition, through this opportunity, I was able to deepen my friendship with the student members of Kamiya Laboratory. I would like to take this opportunity to thank Prof. Kamiya and everyone at the University of the Ryukyus for this valuable opportunity. Let’s keep in touch and inspire each other in the future!

[Hasegawa]

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]