Associate Professor Roger Chen in the University of Hawaiʻi at Mānoa Department of Civil, Environmental and Construction Engineering has received a Fulbright U.S. Scholar Program award to study transportation systems engineering in Japan for the 2025–26 academic year.
Chen will research how online shopping (e-commerce) changes the way goods are transported and delivered in cities. He will work with Professor Takanori Sakai, head of the Urban Freight Research Lab (URFL) at the Tokyo University of Marine Science and Technology, to analyze data and use technology to make urban delivery systems more efficient.
“As online shopping grows, we need smarter, more efficient ways to deliver goods in busy cities like Tokyo and Honolulu,” Chen said. “This research will help improve urban freight systems, reducing traffic, cutting costs and making deliveries more reliable for businesses and residents alike.”
With the support of URFL, Chen will use location-based data on freight and goods in Tokyo to analyze truck schedules and route choices. The collaboration will develop pathways towards leveraging these models in a Tokyo version of SimMobility Freight, an agent-based urban freight simulation platform developed and used by URFL.
The results of this Fulbright will help Chen, Sakai and URFL build a long-term partnership to study how e-commerce growth and advanced technology in Japan impact travel and urban freight demand. They will explore ways to use large amounts of data from different systems (e.g., ETC2.0, a system that uses two-way communication between vehicles and roads to improve driving safety and traffic management and IC Transit Cards, prepaid cards that can be used to pay for public transportation and other services in Japan) to better understand and predict travel patterns and improve both personal and freight transportation.
According to Chen, the COVID-19 pandemic underscored the critical roles of e-commerce, travel/activity behaviors and freight services for meeting household delivery needs. These are further accelerated with a future envisioned with big data, Internet of Things, artificial intelligence and robots intertwined with industry and society.
Chen joins a long history of Fulbright awardees from the UH Mānoa College of Engineering, which include Professor Phillip Ooi, Professor Sayed Bateni, Professor Olga Borić-Lubecke and Professor Victor M. Lubecke.
The Fulbright U.S. Scholar Program supports faculty, researchers, and professionals in teaching and conducting research abroad, fostering international collaboration and long-term partnerships. Since 1946, it has provided over 400,000 participants opportunities to exchange ideas and tackle global challenges, including Nobel Laureates, Pulitzer Prize winners and world leaders. Annually, more than 800 scholars and 2,000 students take part in Fulbright programs across 160+ countries, supported by the U.S. government and international partners.
