Session 5：Sustainable Mobility for Supporting Regional Communities

Haruo Ishida is currently a Professor Emeritus of the University of Tsukuba and a Program Director of 3rd SIP on Development of Smart Mobility Platform. He earned his Dr. of Eng. from Tokyo University in 1982 and started his academic career at the University of Tsukuba as a professor in transportation policy, national land development policy and infrastructure policy. He also join many academic and administrative committees such as National Land Council and Infrastructure Policy Council under MLIT. As a member of Mobility Working of Digital Agency , he drafted the Mobility Roadmap 2024, 2025 and 2026.

Mr. Greg Winfree was appointed Agency Director of the Texas A&M Transportation Institute (TTI), College Station, TX, United States in December 2016. TTI is a state agency and the largest and most comprehensive higher education-affiliated transportation research institute in the United States, with $126 million in research expenditures and about 700 employees. He is also an Adjunct Professor at the Texas A&M School of Law. Greg served for almost seven years at the U.S. Department of Transportation (USDOT), most recently as Assistant Secretary of Transportation overseeing the department’s research and technology agency. He is a member of the Texas Connected and Automated Vehicle Task Force, the Transportation Research Board AV Forum, a board member on the International Advisory Board for Development of Smart Mobility Platform, a board member for The Airo Group and the Chairman, Board of Directors for the Resilient Navigation and Timing Foundation.  A lifelong attorney, Greg previously served in the civil rights division of the U.S. Department of Justice. He received a Juris Doctor degree from Georgetown University and a Bachelor of Science degree from St. John’s University.

Sho Takahashi received his B.S., M.S., and Ph.D. degrees in Electronics and Information Engineering from Hokkaido University, Japan, in 2008, 2010, and 2013, respectively. He joined the Graduate School of Information Science and Technology, Hokkaido University, as an Assistant Professor in 2013. He was an Associate Professor of the Education and Research Center for Mathematical and Data Science, Hokkaido University from 2017 to 2018. He was a Visiting Professor at the Media Integration and Communication Center, University of Florence from 2018 to 2019. He is currently an Associate Professor in the Faculty of Engineering, Hokkaido University. His research interests include semantic analysis and visualization in various data and their engineering application. He served as the General Chair of the IEEE Global Conference on Consumer Electronics 2021 (GCCE2021). Additionally, since 2019, he has continuously organized and managed sessions at the same conference themed "Digital Twins and Engineering Based on Real-World Data Science for the Advancement of Human Capabilities and Social Infrastructure." He also served as the chairperson of the committee examining systems for autonomous driving in snowy and cold regions of Hokkaido. In recent years, we have advanced a research project on winter road digital twins that applies information science to road traffic management. In addition, we have proposed a wide range of methodologies essential for the realization and enhancement of the precision of these digital twins. He is a senior member of the IEEE and a member of IEICE, Institute of Image Information and Television Engineers (ITE), Japan Society of Civil Engineering (JSCE), Society of Automotive Engineering of Japan (JSAE), Japan Society of Traffic Engineers (JSTE), Japan Association for Human and Environmental Symbiosis (JAHES), EASTS, and WCTRS, etc.

Dr. Sorawit Narupiti is an Associate Professor at Department of Civil Engineering, Chulalongkorn University, where he served as Head of Department from 2012 to 2015. He specializes in transportation and traffic engineering especially Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS), sustainable mobility, and transport policy. He has been conducting research and development on Intelligent Transportation Systems (ITS) for more than 20 years.
He has numerous academic papers and made presentations on topics at regional conference levels. He is currently an editor/reviewer in some ITS-related journals/conferences and a coordinator of the ITS group at Chulalongkorn University.
He has taught classes on Highway Engineering, Traffic Engineering, Transport Policy and Planning, Intelligent Transport System, Simulation and Modeling and more.  Professionally, he served as the President of Thai ITS Association from 2008-2012 and 2017-2024, and secretary of Intelligent traffic information center  (iTIC) foundation which promotes better transport through the use of intelligent transport system data in Thailand. Moreover, he joins many transportation engineering professional associations.
He has involved in ITS activities in Thailand. He served as President of Thai ITS Association (ITS Thailand) and ITS Asia-Pacific Board of Directors from 2008-2012 and 2017-2024.  He is also active in ITS activities in Asia-Pacific region.