Lanzhou Jiaotong University (formerly Lanzhou Railway Institute), founded in 1958, is the third railway university in China. This school was originally attached to the Ministry of Railways. In 2000, according to the overall planning of the country, the management system of "combining the central and local governments and giving priority to local government management" was implemented. In April 2003, with the approval of the Ministry of Education, it was renamed as "Lanzhou Jiaotong University".

After the reform of management system in colleges and universities, guided by social needs, with the goal of cultivating applied senior professionals with solid foundation, wide knowledge, strong ability, high quality and innovative spirit, and highlighting the characteristics and advantages of engineering and railways, the school has carried out a series of undergraduate education reforms from the aspects of training mode, teaching plan, teaching content and methods, and management system, and achieved remarkable results. In recent years, the school has further emancipated its mind, conscientiously implemented the strategic decision of rejuvenating the country through science and education and developing the western region, closely followed the rapid development of China's higher education, actively cultivated and developed the characteristics of "great transportation", made great efforts to optimize the discipline structure, strengthened the construction of teaching staff and teaching infrastructure, paid close attention to the quality of education and teaching, and improved the management level, thus realizing the transformation from "college" to "university" and from "railway" to "transportation"