Junhua Xiao, Ph.D., born in December 1980, is currently a professor of College of Transportation Engineering of Tongji University. His research interests are primarily centered on earth structure applied in rail transit. Xiao has managed 4 national and provincial research projects, 1 international-collaboration provincial research project, and 2 significant industrial supported projects. More than 30 of his research papers were published in the SCI/EI indexed journals, and he was a chief editor of an academic monograph. His achievements have been awarded the first prize of the Scientific and Technological Progress Award from the Ministry of Education (ranking second) and the first prize for progress in science and technology from CSRME (ranking first).

Xinwen Yang, Ph.D., born in June 1973, is a professor of College of Transportation Engineering of Tongji University. His research direction is vehicle-track-environment coupling system dynamics. Yang has been in charge of and participated in 6 national research projects, 6 provincial research projects and 20 other projects. He has published more than 50 papers, including more than 30 of SCI/EI.

Yu Zhou, Ph.D., born in January 1977, is an associate professor of College of Transportation Engineering of Tongji University. His research directions are track structure, wheel/rail relation, rail defects and maintenance. Zhou has hosted and participated in about 25 research projects. Nearly 50 of his papers were published of which more than 20 of SCI/EI were included. His achievements were rewarded the first prize in science and technology progress award of China Railway Society.

Rail transit plays an important role in many strategies of China such as new-type urbanization, the Silk Road Economic Belt and the 21st-Century Maritime Silk Road and the Globalization Strategy of China’s High Speed Railway. In future, with continuing large-scale construction, rail transit of China will enter into the stage of safe operation and maintenance. The structure safety is the precondition for the safe operation of the rail transit. Therefore, researches on the safety and performance of rail structure in service should be carried out immediately.

Aiming at the performance of rail transit structures, our team has taken related researches on system dynamics of line engineering, maintenance of rail structure and control of differential settlement of foundation. Our team has undertaken dozens of related research projects and published nearly 100 papers in SCI/EI indexed journals. Our achievement has been awarded the first prize of the provincial-level scientific and technology progress award 3 times.

Through the peak discipline construction, expected objects of our team go as follows:

1. introduce 1 elect of the Thousand Talent Program for Young Outstanding Scientists and one assistant professor from aboard

2. receive the first prize of the provincial-level scientific and technology progress award 1 time

3. publish more than 10 papers in the SCI indexed journals

4. publish 1 or 2 academic monographs

5. manage 2 national research projects or significant crossing research project (more than 1.5 million)