🎓Early Academic Pursuits 

Education and Training

Jiaqi Shen began her academic journey in 2013, pursuing a Bachelor of Science in Transportation with a focus on Traffic Safety Engineering at the College of Automobile, Chang’an University. During her undergraduate years, she cultivated a deep interest in the mechanisms governing transportation systems, laying the groundwork for her later specialization in freight transport and modal shifts. Her early academic performance demonstrated a promising aptitude for analytical thinking, systems modeling, and transportation dynamics, which led to her admission to the prestigious College of Transportation at Tongji University for integrated master’s and doctoral studies in 2018.

💼Professional Endeavors 

Academic Positions

Currently a dedicated PhD student at Tongji University, Jiaqi Shen has been actively involved in advanced transportation research since 2018. Her doctoral research concentrates on freight transportation systems with a particular focus on modal shift from road to rail and automobile freight pricing strategies. Over the years, she has consistently participated in leading international conferences, including the WCTR2023 (World Conference on Transport Research), ITSC2022 (IEEE International Conference on Intelligent Transportation Systems), and CICTP2022 (COTA International Conference of Transportation Professionals), showcasing her ability to contribute to scholarly discourse on a global platform. Jiaqi has completed five significant research projects to date, reflecting her unwavering commitment to understanding the complexities of freight transport and offering data-driven solutions.

📚Contributions and Research Focus on Transport Economics

Jiaqi Shen’s research revolves around freight mode choice behavior (FMCB), modal competitiveness, and price modeling. She employs discrete choice models and latent class modeling to analyze how economic and operational variables impact the shift in freight transport from road to rail. Her research is both timely and impactful, given the global emphasis on sustainable transport solutions.

Her notable publications in SCI, Scopus, and EI-indexed journals underscore her analytical rigor. These include:

• A railway pricing model for automobile transport published in Research in Transportation Business & Management (SCI, Scopus, 2025).

• Studies on fuel price fluctuations and their impact on transport competitiveness in Journal of Transportation Systems Engineering and Information Technology.

• Technical papers on freight market segmentation and road-rail competition presented at international IEEE and COTA conferences.

🏆Accolades and Recognition 

Although still at an early stage in her academic career, Jiaqi Shen’s work has been recognized in highly regarded academic forums. Her research on pricing models and freight competitiveness has attracted citations and attention from the transportation research community, as reflected in her ResearchGate profile, which boasts a citation index of 10.8, eight citations, and a growing h-index of 1. Moreover, her association with the World Conference on Transport Research Society (WCTRS SIG B3) highlights her active engagement with the global academic community.

🌍 Impact and Influence 

Community Impact

Jiaqi’s research has meaningful implications for policymakers and transportation planners, especially in China’s rapidly evolving transport sector. By developing empirical models based on revealed preference data and integrated freight behavior modeling, she provides insights that are critical for promoting eco-friendly modal shifts and optimizing rail freight systems. Her analytical tools are designed not just for theoretical exploration but to support real-world applications in pricing strategy development, infrastructure investment, and transport policy evaluation.

🔮Legacy and Future Contributions