Exchange study in the University of Melbourne- AOTULE Graduate Student Research ExchangeDept. of International Development Engineering
Hanaoka Lab.

Masashi Sota
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Outline
1. Introduction

2. Details of AOTULE Program
3. Overview of The University of Melbourne and Department I joined
4. Academic activities during exchange period

5. What I got from this experience2Introduction• Period…
From 13th October in 2014 to 10th January in 2015

• University…
The University of Melbourne, Australia• Supervisor…
Professor Russell. G. Thompson… whose research topics are City Logistics,
Disaster Management and Health and Transport• Objective…
• To put me in unfamiliar environment• Get new perspectives by communicating with students and people fromvarious kinds of backgrounds• To progress my research• To know differences between me and students in the University of Melbourne• How do they plan to utilize their knowledge acquired from the university?
• How do they progress their research??
• What is the future plan?
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AOTULE program• What is AOTULE? ….
A league of 13 premiere engineering universities in the Asia-Oceania region.
This aims to promote inter-university cooperation through joint programs
including student exchange.

• Advantages of this program…
• Exchange period is quite flexible• Sufficient scholarship is given from this program• Can focus on research and it is not required to take courses duringexchange period

4Overview of The University• Ranking…
No.33 in the world and No.1 in Australia. (Our university is No.68 in theworld, QS world university ranking 2014/15)• Learning and teaching
22 discipline-specific faculties and graduate schools, over 47,000 students and6,500 staff members. The ratio of international students is around 30%.

5Overview of the Department I joined in• Department of Infrastructure Engineering…
This department constitutes of three research fields
such as Civil engineering, Environmental engineeringand Geomatics• The differences from our university…
• A research is progressed by a team which constitutes several Masterstudents and PH.D students.
• Professors allocate projects to students under their supervision• There are some lectures delivered by Ph.D students to all students andresearchers in Dept. of IE for two or three times a week.

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Academic activities• Discussion with my supervisor
Had a meeting with my supervisor in university of Melbourne two or threetimes a month.
 Made a report of my research progress and discuss how the researchshould be modified Asked other experts for other advices and feedbacks• Attend conference and workshops about urban freight transport
attend a conference where experts share their knowledge and research progress
about urban freight transport

7Research• Research Topic…
Development of schemes for landlocked countries to improve performance oftransport infrastructure across national border in East Africa

Research Framework

Transit Country①

Figure out current schemes Stakeholder analysis

Transport infrastructurePortLCPortTransport infrastructure

Design model to simulate eachstakeholder’s reaction
 Multi-Agent based modelTransit Country②

Design the scheme
8What I got from this experience
what I got from academic activities• Difference of recognition about getting into a doctoral course• Importance of recognizing research as “project”. Objectives to obtain uniqueresults should be achieved within determined period of time.

what I got from daily life in Melbourne• Realization of my biased common knowledge
What I think is common knowledge might not be common.
• Difficulty in integrating various cultures…
Each national group has each national territory such as China town, Vietnam
town and Afghanistan town
• My ignorance of countries’ historical backgrounds including JapanGet curiosity about them and feel necessity to learn them9

Thank you for your kind attention!

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