Dear all EASTS members,
It is a great honor for me to take the chair of EASTS-ISC for the next two years (2016-2018) under Professor Tetsudo Yai, President of EASTS. As the new ISC chair, I feel a deep responsibility to maintain and improve the scientific function and activities of the EASTS after the successful period of the ISC activities with the former ISC chair, Professor Akimasa Fujiwara and his ISC team members.
I would like to express a great appreciation to Professor Fujiwara and his team members for their voluntary and dedicated works and contribution. Now, the EASTS has established a firm status as the largest academic society of transportation studies in the east Asian region.According to the ISC report of the 2015 EASTS Cebu conference, the number of submitted papers by the 17 domestic societies and other countries is 475 papers in total and the number of papers has been continuously increasing during the last 20 and more years.
The high-quality reviewed papers are presented in the conference and published through the selected Proceedings, Journal of EASTS and Asian Transport Studies (ATS).
The organization of the new ISC team is in large as follows: Chair (Dr. Jaehak Oh, KOTI), Vice-Chair (Professor Jason Chang, National Taiwan University), Chief Secretary (Dr. Heecheol Shin, KOTI), Paper Management Sub-Committee (Dr. Youngin Kwon, KOTI), Recruitment Sub-Committee (Professor Ilsoo Yun, Aju University), Awarding and ATS Editing Sub-Committee (Professor Hironori Kato, The University of Tokyo) and Information Officer (Dr. Seokjoo Lee, KOTI).
As everybody recognizes, the EASTS is facing new challenges to become the more influential and loved transport academic society in Asia. Firstly, we need to make ATS a journal with a good citation index. The journal with a high citation index is a basic condition for members to submit many qualifying papers to the conference.
Now, a realistic solution to improve the citation impacts of ATS is under discussion. Secondly, the network and communication among the EASTS members are to be increased through various scientific activities such as multilateral seminars with domestic societies other than biennial conferences.
Finally, I would like to favor your support for the ISC activities of EASTS. The most important function of ISC is to make the 2017 EASTS Ho Chi Minh City (HCMC) conference organized successfully through the ISC works including conference programming, ISC member recruitment, papers management and journals publication. The work cannot succeed without every member｡ﾇs support.
Rather ISC works need a high level of communication and voluntary team works for papers submission and review. I believe that the participation of all the EASTS members is making the EASTS more active and successful. I am looking forward to meeting you with a better result in the 2017 HCMC EASTS conference.
Best wishes
Jaehak Oh
Chair, International Scientific Committee of EASTS
Vice President of the Korea Transport Institute (KOTI)