PhD student wins Best Poster Award at symposium
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Department of Civil, Materials, and Environmental Engineering PhD student Ziyu Qiu recently won the Best Poster Award at the 2026 Southeast Annual Symposium on Freight and Mobility in Knoxville, Tennessee.
Qiu works under the direction of Professor Bo Zou and co-authored the paper with Zou, Professor Jane Lin, and PhD student Jialu Yang, all from the Department of Civil, Materials, and Environmental Engineering (CME) at UIC.
The paper, “Optimal subsidy design for hydrogen fuel-cell truck adoption with competitive markets,” focuses on energy options from heavy-duty trucking freight transportation. One possible solution is hydrogen fuel cell trucks (HFCTs), which can significantly lower tailpipe emissions and noise from large trucks, and could potentially reduce long-term operating costs.
However, these trucks are expensive, and there are not enough hydrogen refueling stations yet, which makes it hard for companies to adopt them widely.
To address the issue, the UIC researchers developed a mathematical model to determine the optimal way for governments to encourage companies to adopt HFCTs through subsidies.
“The model looks at two key stakeholder groups in HFCT adoption: the government and the businesses involved in making hydrogen trucks and operating hydrogen refueling stations,” Qiu said. “The government’s goal is to reduce emissions by replacing diesel trucks with HFCTs, while companies of various kinds want to be profitable during and after the fleet transition.”
The model also considers how demand for HFCTs and refueling stations changes over time. Using this information, the optimal government subsidy can be calculated at different stages of adoption.
“To solve the problem, we have developed advanced mathematical models that integrate microeconomic theories and optimization methodologies. The results will provide policymakers with useful guidance on how to create incentive programs to promote HFCT adoption while supporting the national truck freight businesses,” Qiu said.
The Southeast Annual Symposium on Freight and Mobility symposium brings together outstanding researchers and transportation professionals from academia, industry, and federal and state agencies with an interest in transportation. It is geared toward providing recent research outcomes and updates on various projects in transportation research, education, workforce development, and technology transfer at the Center for Regional and Rural Connected Communities University Transportation Center, and at Tier 1 Freight Transportation for Efficient and Resilient Supply Chain centers.