On the morning of 31 October 2025, the 2025 International Symposium on Smart Transportation (ISTS 2025)—co-organized by the China Highway & Transportation Society and Southeast University, and jointly organized by the International Road Federation (IRF)—was grandly opened in Shenzhen. Under the theme “Boundless Smart City, Borderless Smart Mobility: Co-creating a New Ecosystem for Future Cities and Transportation,” the conference brought together government representatives, heads of international organizations, renowned scholars, industry leaders and young researchers from across the globe to explore cutting-edge trends, technological breakthroughs and future pathways in smart transportation.Invited to attend, Dean Ma Tao of our college led a delegation to chair several key sessions, release forward-looking research outcomes and take part in high-level dialogues, vividly demonstrating our college’s deep academic heritage, formidable research strength and outstanding leadership in the field of smart transportation.
The centerpiece of the conference, the “AI + Transportation Round-table,” was chaired by Professor Ma Tao, Dean of the School of Transportation at Southeast University. Panelists—including Wang Gang, Deputy Director of the Highway Network Monitoring & Emergency Response Center of the Ministry of Transport; Liang Hua, Director of the Information Center of Guangdong Provincial Communication Group; Andres Pizarro, Public Affairs Manager of the Asian Infrastructure Investment Bank; Thierry Goger, Secretary-General of the Forum of European National Highway Research Laboratories; and Wu Qiong, Baidu’s Chief Expert on Autonomous-Driving Safety & Policy—delved into how artificial intelligence is powering the construction of smart-transport systems, sharing practical experience and scalable pathways in traffic governance, infrastructure O&M, mobility services and other scenarios.
During the Technology Release session, Professor Ma Chunye, representing the joint Southeast University–Nanjing Tianlu Flying-Car team, briefed global delegates on the team’s latest breakthroughs and application prospects in flying-car development. The presentation sparked intense interest and wide discussion, spotlighting the college’s pioneering advances in three-dimensional future mobility. Huawei, China Merchants Highway and other companies also unveiled their newest smart-transport achievements on site.
The forum additionally celebrated the finalists of the 6th Smart-Transport Innovation Competition. A total of 163 entries were received across four tracks: innovative products, key technologies, scenario applications and a university-student contest. Student teams from our college captured top honors: “Key Technologies and Applications of Urban-Traffic Intelligent Control Driven by Full-Spatiotemporal Trajectories” won the only Grand Prize, and “A Traffic-Conflict Detection System for Smart Mobility Governance” earned second prize—vivid proof of the college’s solid talent cultivation and technological innovation, and a living example of tight industry–university–research–application integration.
Moreover, the college-hosted “2025 China–U.S. Young Scientists Dialogue on Smart Cities & Smart Transportation” was successfully held, fostering academic exchange between young scholars from both countries and underscoring the college’s commitment to international S&T cooperation and youth development. The dialogue was moderated by Teacher Wang Siqi.
The closing ceremony was chaired by Vice-Dean Xu Chengcheng. Spanning four days, the conference covered digital transformation, multi-scenario deployment of autonomous driving, high-quality urban-transport development and other key topics through extensive in-depth exchanges. As the organizer, our college was involved from top-level design to on-the-ground execution, from academic leadership to outcome showcase, earning wide recognition and high praise from domestic and overseas peers. Going forward, the college will continue to deepen research, focus on translating results, and keep contributing Southeast University Transportation’s wisdom and strength to the innovative development of smart mobility in China and around the world.