Beijing Jiaotong University, a national key university under the direct administration of the Ministry of Education, jointly supported by the Ministry of Education, Ministry of Transport, Beijing Municipal Government and China Railway Corporation, is also an active contributor to the development of the "National 211 Project" and the "985 Innovative Platforms for Key Disciplines Project".

The history of BJTU can be dated back to 1896. Through the past 120 years, the university has developed a comprehensive and coordinated education system with strength disciplines in information and management, characteristic disciplines in transportation and other diversified disciplines such as engineering, management, economics, science, liberal arts, law and philosophy.

The university has already entered the top 500 list of the ARWU Ranking and for 3 years in a row, BJTU's Transportation Engineering discipline has crowned the world leading discipline ranking and 15 disciplines in total were qualified. 10 disciplines have been selected for U.S News world leading discipline ranking, 7 entered the same ranking of QS, 5 were nominated for the Times ranking. Engineering studies maintained a steady placing in the top 1% of ESI and 5 disciplines in total entered the top 1% list.