You are here: > Special Interest Groups > Topic Area A: Transport Modes – General

Topic Area A: Transport Modes – General

National Taiwan University

Topic Area A covers research issues related to a single mode, and which are not addressed in other topic areas. In particular it provides a focus for the work of the Special Interest Groups on Air, Maritime Rail, and Road (Urban and Intercity) Transport. Given the likelihood of overlap with the work of other topic areas, care is needed to avoid duplication of activity. As a general rule, sessions are only included in Topic Area A where the focus is on the characteristics of the mode, or it is clear that they cannot be integrated into other topic areas. In particular, papers on the safety of a given mode may be submitted to this Topic Area A, but will also be copied to Topic Area C, where SIG C4 has the responsibility of convening all safety-related sessions.

 

SIG A1 – Air Transport and Airports

Objectives

This SIG’s principal objective is to facilitate the development, exchange, and dissemination of research ideas and results related to aviation among various constituents, including academics, government officials and industry managers, through various means, such as annual conferences, session tracks at the WCTR, joint meetings with other organizations and through research reports.

Background

This Special Interest Group (SIG) was launched during the 7th WCTR in Sydney, Australia in July, 1995 with strong support from the air transport industry executives and academics doing air transport research.  In particular, senior executives of British Airways, Lufthansa, United Airlines, Qantas, and Korean Air participated in this SIG’s inaugural event in Sydney.

Activities

The ATRS has organized annual World Conferences since 1997.  Recent conferences have been held in Tainan, Taiwan (2012), Bergamo, Italy (2013) and Bordeaux, France (2014). Future conferences are scheduled for Singapore (2015) and Shanghai, China (2016). In addition, the ATRS has organized a session track at WCTR conferences on air transport and airports. Third, the ATRS has participated with the International Civil Aviation Organization (ICAO) in jointly organizing two air transport symposiums.  Finally, since 2002, the Global Airport Performance Benchmarking Task Force of the ATRS has published its annual benchmarking report. The Task Force’s reports are presented annually at ATRS World Conferences.

The next ATRS conference will take place in Antwerp, Belgium from 5th to 8th July 2017.  It will be organized at the University of Antwerp, by the Department of Transport and Regional Economics in collaboration with the Centre for Maritime and Air Transport Management (C-MAT).  More information can be found on the ATRS website: www.atrs2017.org.   The call for abstracts as well as registration are now open. The deadline for submitting an abstract is 31st January 2017.

Membership

Membership is open to all academics, researchers, industry managers, executives and policy makers with research interest in the subject area.  Anyone interested in joining the ATRS, please do so by visiting the website, www.atrsworld.org.

Contact

(SIG/ATRS Secretariat; ATRS Administrator): atrs@rhsmith.umd.edu  Phone: 1-301-405-2204

Members

(The full membership list for this SIG is maintained by the SIG Chair/Co-chair)

SIG A2 – Maritime Transport and Ports

Objectives

SIG-A2 is dedicated to create a network of people involved in maritime and port activities, including academic and industry researchers, policy makers and operators. Its targets are the following:

  • Promote the exchange of ideas, methodologies, and results of maritime and port research through conferences, symposia, and regional meetings
  • Promote healthy interaction among academics, government and private sector researchers, industry executives, and policymakers on important policy, strategy, operations, and technology issues affecting maritime transport and ports
  • Organize and coordinate maritime and port sessions at the WCTRS conferences
  • Develop maritime and port research capabilities for projects of international scale requiring multidisciplinary cooperation
  • Establish good practice in the evaluation of policy instruments

Background

SIG-A2 was established in 1989 at the Yokohama WCTR. Since then, the SIG had a most distinct presence in all WCTRS conferences, and has established a strong brand with a dedicated conference hosted in Antwerp every three years since 2009.

Activities

In the Antwerp conference of 1998, SIG-A2 had the largest single presence, with about 60 papers distributed in 14 sessions throughout the week. People joining the SIG-A2 activities of the WCTRS have developed over the years strong research links.

Check the SIG-A2 website at http://www.wctrs-maritime-ports.org

SIGA2 conferences are not just a conference, but have a number of specific features:

  • Finished research and as well ‘research in process’ can be presented and discussed;
  • A meeting between scientists and practitioners;
  • Stress on interdisciplinarity, i.e. all disciplines will be treated (engineering, economy, legal, mathematic,…);
  • The subject is about theory and empiry, secondly derived products;
  • New research areas and business opportunities will be dealt with.
  • Explicit attention will be devoted to PhD researchers, who will get the chance to have their presentations in dedicated sessions with specific academic support;
  • Dedicated scientific discussants will be selected for each paper;
  • Each half day of the conference will feature a thematic top keynote speaker, from academia as well as from the port and maritime industry;
  • A selection of scientific papers will be made for dedicated journal special issues.
  • A dedicated international scientific committee supervises the scientific conference preparation

Membership

Membership is open to any academics, researchers, industry managers, executives and policy makers with research interest in the subject area.  Anyone interested in SIG-2 can contact any of the following:

Contacts

Prof. Enrico Musso   
Dipartimento di Economia e Metodi Quantitativi
University of Génova

E-mail:  emusso@transportnet.org

Prof. Thierry Vanelslander
Department of Transport and Regional Economics
University of Antwerp
Belgium

E-mail: tvanelslander@transportnet.org

Members

(The full membership list for this SIG is maintained by the SIG Chair/Co-chair)

SIG A3 – Rail Transport

Objectives

The SIG Rail Transport focuses on academic research and education on rail operations, planning, policy and economics.  It covers passenger and freight and long distance, regional and urban (including metro and light rail) services.  Its objectives are to:

  • Promote the exchange of ideas, methodologies, and results of rail transport research and education through conferences, symposia, and regional meetings
  • Organize and coordinate rail transport sessions at the WCTRS conferences
  • Promote interaction between academics, government and industry researchers, industry executives, and policymakers on important policy, strategy, operations and technology issues affecting rail transport
  • Develop rail transport research and education capabilities for projects of an international scale requiring multidisciplinary cooperation
  • Promote linkages between the research and education communities and international agencies and institutions dealing with rail policy and capacity management
  • Facilitate the formation of international research teams for conducting world-scale research programs on critical rail transport issues

Background

The SIG Rail Transport was launched at WCTR12 in Lisbon (2010) and organized the review of the related abstracts and papers, as well as the Rail sessions at WCTR13 in Rio de Janeiro (2013).

Activities

The SIG Rail Transport collaborates with the Board and members of the International Association of Railway Operations Research (IAROR) and contributes to the bi-annual International Conferences on Railway Operations Modelling and Analysis (ICROR). The recent 6th ICROR, RailTokyo March 23-26, 2015, was attended by 175 participants from 20 countries. The 7th ICROR will take place in spring 2017 in Lille, France.

Membership

Membership is open to any academic researchers or educator with an interest in rail technologies, operations, planning, policy and economics. The SIG is currently jointly led by Professor John Preston (University of Southampton), who leads the policy and economics aspects and Professor Emeritus Ingo Hansen (Delft University of Technology), who leads the planning and operations aspects. Dr Marin Marinov (Newcastle University) acts as a champion for international railway education and the research–base that underpins this. Contact details are given below.

We particularly exploit synergies with the International Association of Railway Operations Research (IAROR), of which Professor Hansen is Vice-President and there are Board Members from Australia, China, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy, Japan, Sweden, Switzerland, the UK and the US.

In Asia, we have contacts with the Korean Railroad Research Institute (Yong-Sang Lee), the Japanese Society of Transportation Economists (Fumitoshi Mizutani) and the Railway Technical Research Institute in Japan (C. Hirai).

Industrial contacts will be made via the International Union of Railways (UIC), the International Union of Public Transport (UITP) and the International Transport Forum (ITF), as well as relevant national bodies.

Contacts

John Preston
Professor of Rail Transport
Faculty of Engineering and the Environment
University of Southampton

Tel: +44 (0)2380594660
E-mail: jpreston@soton.ac.uk

http://www.southampton.ac.uk/engineering/about/staff/jpreston.page

Yung-Cheng (Rex) Lai
Associate Professor
Railway Technology Research Center
Department of Civil Engineering
National Taiwan University

Tel:  +886-2-3366-4243
Email: yclai@ntu.edu.tw

http://sites.google.com/site/yungchenglai/

Marin Marinov
Rail Education Group Manager
New Rail
Newcastle University

Tel: +44 (0)1912083976
E-mail: marin.marinov@ncl.ac.uk

http://www.ncl.ac.uk/newrail/people/profile/marin.marinov

Members

(The full membership list for this SIG is maintained by the SIG Chair/Co-chair)