The Transportationist

International Symposium on Transportation Network Reliability

Save the Date and Call for Papers

July 22-23, 2010 University of Minnesota, Minneapolis, Minnesota

The aim of the International Symposium on Transportation Network Reliability (INSTR) is to bring together researchers and professionals interested in transportation network reliability to discuss both recent research and future directions in this increasingly important field of research. The scope of the symposium includes all aspects of analysis and design to improve network reliability, including:
• user perception of unreliability
• public policy and reliability of travel times
• the valuation of reliability
• the economics of reliability
• network reliability modelling and estimation
• transport network robustness
• reliability of public transportation
• travel behaviour under uncertainty
• vehicle routing and scheduling under uncertainty
• risk evaluation and management for transportation networks
• ITS to improve network reliability

Submission of Papers
Papers will be categorized and ranked by peer reviewers. Theoretical, empirical, case-study, and policy-oriented contributions are welcome. Papers must be submitted electronically at www.instr.org byDecember 23, 2009 for consideration.

Key Dates
• Papers Due: December 23, 2009
• Papers selected and submitted: January 2010
• Final Papers Due (subject to acceptance): February 2010
• Early Registration Deadline: June 1, 2010
• Conference: July 22-23, 2010

More Information

Visit the INSTR Web site at http://www.instr.org

David Levinson
RP Braun/CTS Chair in Transportation
University of Minnesota
dlevinson@umn.edu

Sara Van Essendelft
Conference Coordinator
University of Minnesota
612-624-3708
cceconf5@umn.edu

The conference is hosted by the Center for Transportation Studies at the University of Minnesota.

Posted by David Levinson at 2:24 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I am pleased to say that the International Transport Economics Conference (ITrEC) came off last week (June 15, 16) without a hitch. We had 97 registered participants, About 70 presentations, lots of good conversation and stimulating ideas.

I want to especially acknowledge Herb Mohring, who launched transport economics at the University of Minnesota and made a number of important contributions to both road pricing and transit analysis (the Mohring Effect). The session in his honor was chaired by Lee Munnich, and featured presentations by Robin Lindsey, Erik Verhoef, and David Lewis, the first two describing and extending his contribution on full cost recovery of tolls.

Thanks go to several anonymous paper reviewers (you know who you are), sponsors: State and Local Policy Program at the Humphrey Institute (and especially Lee Munnich)
Taylor and Francis/Routledge, and Edward Elgar; and
Sara van Essendelft, Catherine Flannery, Kristi Miller, and Stephanie Malinoff for getting everything together and Jason Junge and Carlos Carrion for helping keep everything running, the scientific committee, and the local organizing committee.

I anticipate a location for the next ITrEC will be announced soon, and am relieved it will not be Minneapolis.

Posted by David Levinson at 7:55 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

International Transport Economics Conference
Incorporating the International Conference on Funding Transport
Infrastructure

The International Transport Economics Conference (ITrEC) brings
together researchers, practitioners, and policymakers interested in
questions of transport economics. Topics include economic questions
relating to revenue and finance; congestion, pricing, and investment;
production function and cost estimation; transport demand; energy and
environment; safety; institutions and industrial organization; and
transport and land use. The conference is designed to appeal to
participants from varied backgrounds, including economists and
transport professionals in particular.

The conference has previously been held in Banff, Canada(2006);
Leuven, Belgium (2007); and Paris, France (2008).

Submission of Abstracts

Abstracts will be categorized and ranked by peer reviewers.
Theoretical, empirical, case-study, and policy-oriented contributions
are welcome. Abstracts of up to 1,000 words must be submitted
electronically atwww.transporteconomics.org by November 21, 2008 for
consideration.

Key Dates

Abstracts Due: November 21, 2008
Abstracts Selected and Submitters Notified: January 2009
Final Papers Due (subject to acceptance): April 3, 2009
Early Registration Deadline: May 15, 2009
Conference: June 15-16, 2009
More Information

David Levinson
RP Braun/CTS Chair in Transportation
University of Minnesota
dlevinson@umn.edu

Sara Van Essendelft
Conference Coordinator
University of Minnesota
612-624-3708
cceconf5@umn.edu

The conference is hosted by the Center for Transportation Studies at
the University of Minnesota.

Posted by David Levinson at 11:55 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I will be attending and presenting at Transportation Finance and Economics: Policies for the Future tomorrow. The conference is in honor of the late David Forkenbrock, who led the Public Policy Center in Iowa for many years. I will post my presentation after Friday.

Posted by David Levinson at 9:06 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I just attended NetSci 2006 , which was an interesting conference with physicists and social networks people claiming the title "Network Science" (I believe I was the sole representative of physical networks: transportation, electricity, telecommunications, etc.).

What was most remarkable about the conference was the especially large number of audience members who used laptops while someone was speaking, especially if the speaker was not a "name" or an especially experienced. Why bother showing up if you are going to pay more attention to your computer screen than the speaker?

One can understand the next speaker reviewing their powerpoint perhaps, but I think for something like this more communications channels (free wireless) is less, diminishing the effectiveness of the conference by having less common ground among the audience to discuss common issues (i.e. the presentations in the last session).

-- dml

Posted by David Levinson at 7:25 PM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I will be at NetSci 2006 in Bloomington, Indiana over the next few days. This should be an interesting interdisciplinary conference. I will be presenting The Evolution of Transportation Networks written with my former student Lei Zhang.

Posted by David Levinson at 7:06 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)

I will be attending the MeshForum conference in San Francisco May 7th and 8th.

This will be an interesting combination of random people from social networking, futurists, and Web 2.0, and me, apparently representing physical networks. I will be talking about the evolution of transportation networks. The conference also has a wiki. The conference is organized by Shannon Clark of JigZaw.

I saw a reference on a social networks message board, which is how I found out about it, and then saw that Professor Anna Nagurney carried the flag for transportation networks last year. Her talk is available at IT Conversations.

Posted by David Levinson at 9:34 AM | Permalink | Comments (0)