Transportation to the city is what blood to the body. Since China's reform and opening up, the transportation of Nanjing has undergone great changes. Countless transportation engineers have devoted scientific knowledge and down-to-earth efforts to embody traffic design portraying future into civil institutions benefiting generations. Traffic facilities in Nanjing, ranging from streets bridges to metro, are closely related to a transportation planner, Tao Yang, the chairman of Nanjing urban traffic planning and design institute.
In the mid-1980s, Nanjing took the lead in compiling the comprehensive urban traffic plan and incorporated it into the overall urban plan. At that time, Tao Yang had just got a master's degree from Southeast University and decided to conduct furthered education on campus. Under the guidance of his mentor professor Jiqian Xu, Tao Yang participated in the first round of Nanjing’s comprehensive traffic planning. In 1996, Tao Yang was shifted from School of Transportation in Southeast University to Nanjing Planning Bureau, establishing Nanjing Transportation Planning Research Institute.
Over the past decades, Yang Tao has witnessed Nanjing's traffic changes from personal experience. Now as a leader of Nanjing's traffic planning, he continues to make efforts to build Nanjing a brighter future. Yang Tao spends almost all his time working, only to sleep 6 hours every day.
Yang Tao is one of the few transportation experts who take an active part in the media. He is often interviewed by journalists and makes his own comments on hot issues. Yang considers it as a way of social interaction. Entitled with many titles, Yang Tao acts more like a simple researcher than a sophisticated businessman.
The publication of major planning research and consulting projects, such as Nanjing comprehensive transportation planning, white paper on the development of Nanjing transportation, research on the strategic planning of Nanjing metropolitan area rail transit and Nanjing urban rail transit network planning, have made outstanding contributions to urban transportation planning, influencing Nanjing, Jiangsu and China. Thanks to Yang’s efforts, projects like Nanjing metro and underwater tunnel got started ahead of schedule. Yang also made great contributions to preserving valuable trees on Zhongshan East Road and postponing the west extension of Hankou Road.
Yang Tao always likes to share a motto with his employees and his students: Do not be a city planner with no feelings and passion. Dreams and passion are significant for planners. Yang Tao has set himself an example of transportation planners with dreams and ambition.