A VREF Study Visit Grant has been awarded to Takanori Sakai on behalf of the MetroFreight Center of Excellence (CoE).  Mr. Sakai is a PhD student in Urban Planning and Policy at the University of Illinois, Chicago, working with Kazuya Kawamura.  He requested the grant to work with Dr. Laetitia Dablanc, French Institute of Science and Technology for Transport, Development and Networks (IFSTTAR), on logistics sprawl.  The study visit is for a one month period of time and Dr. Dablanc and her MetroFreight team are ready to welcome Takanori.

Takanori has three stated goals for the visit:

1. Share the findings obtained from the past and on-going works on logistics sprawls in Tokyo, Japan (Sakai and Kawamura) and Paris, France (IFSTTAR) and exchange ideas on policies related to urban freight transportation with a particular focus on different models of land-use planning and control for metropolitan areas. 
2. Study the policy framework related to logistics land-use in Paris for the future comparative study of logistics policy and facility distribution among metropolitan regions.  Interview key stakeholders in Paris to gather information on land-use planning and regulations.
3. Establish a collaborative relationship with researchers at IFSTTAR for future research projects.

A variety of activities are planned for the study visit with the expectation that the outcome will be a research proposal paper summarizing the findings on logistics land-use and facility distribution issues in Paris (and Tokyo and Chicago), specifying available data for analysis and identifying research goals. The research is expected to be published and/or presented at various international conferences.

As Professor Genevieve Giuliano, Director of METRANS at the University of Southern California, stated, “Wonderful news! We are pleased to see more international collaboration on this important topic.”