University Partnership Program

The METRANS Transportation Consortium was selected in June 2024 to lead a United States Department of Transportation (USDOT) University Partnership Program (UPP). The UPP was created to support the U.S.-ASEAN Smart Cities Partnership (USASCP) Mobility Program and advance international collaboration on innovative transportation solutions. Through this initiative, METRANS partners with four leading Southeast Asian universities to foster knowledge exchange among researchers, practitioners, and students.

Launched in 2022, the USASCP Mobility Program brings together paired cities in Southeast Asia and the United States that share common transportation challenges. The program is designed to facilitate the exchange of expertise, pilot innovative approaches, and identify scalable solutions to improve urban mobility through the adoption of emerging transportation technologies and shared mobility systems.

The program’s four city partnerships each address a distinct mobility challenge:

• Jakarta (Indonesia) – Los Angeles (USA): Expanding transit access through open-loop payment
systems
• Johor Bahru (Malaysia) – Portland (USA): Optimizing transit station siting and multimodal integration
• Phnom Penh (Cambodia) – Boston (USA): Advancing sidewalk design through community-informed
approaches
• Phuket (Thailand) – Las Vegas (USA): Enhancing mobility planning in tourism-driven economies

Led by the University of Southern California, the UPP consortium includes California State University, Long Beach; Chulalongkorn University (Thailand); the Institute of Technology of Cambodia; Universitas Indonesia; and Universiti Teknologi Malaysia. Together, these partners conducted applied, field-based research to support each city pair’s objectives.

This work has culminated in a series of practical, evidence-based toolkits that translate research findings into actionable strategies. Designed for policymakers, planners, and practitioners, these resources offer adaptable frameworks to support cities across Southeast Asia in developing more efficient and resilient transportation systems.