The 11th annual World Conference on Transportation Research (WCTR) http://www.wctrs.org/ took place June 24th– 28th on the UC Berkeley campus this year, bringing together over 1000 transportation experts from 49 different countries worldwide. UCSB attendees included Professor Kostas Goulias, Professor Helen Couclelis, and Professor Goulias’ graduate students Jarad Beckman, Shaunna Burbidge, Kate Deutsch, Manu Kemel (visiting French student), and Seo Youn Yoon. Dr. Goulias was asked to close a double session of Activity Based Modeling with a talk titled “The current and future of activity-based models”, and both Dr. Goulias and Dr. Couclelis chaired numerous sessions throughout the conference.
WCTR sessions covered everything from logistics and construction to travel behavior and decision-making. Additionally, students were assigned to different sessions as volunteers, and each had the opportunity to attend sessions on topics that may have been outside our normal interest or area of expertise. This helped each student learn more about the broader field of transportation research.
“While the conference was heavily oriented towards French and American academics, it was a wonderful experience to see how the other country’s representatives felt about many topics of concern to the (like SOV mode choice). In contrast, many presenters from
“The highlight of the conference was the opportunity to meet with leading transportation researchers from around the globe in a more informal friendly environment. The UCSB crew enjoyed many ad hoc ‘meetings’ at the evening receptions as well as late night gatherings at the local brewery.” Shaunna Burbidge
“It was great learning from and having conversations with people that are so renowned in the field of transportation. It was a really good experience to be totally immersed in transportation and have the opportunity to learn so much about the field, it really motivated me.” Kate Deutsch
“The WCTR 2006 was an amazing opportunity to discover the diversity of the world of Transportation research in a convivial atmosphere. Indeed, every night, the stimulating sessions of the day were followed by a reception where the participants could meet and share their interest in a relaxing environment. Every single day, participants could attend up to four thematic sessions chosen among a huge range of topics. All of them sounded so interesting that one had to face a dilemma to make a choice. Each session lasted two hours and contained of up to six presentations. This tight planning was managed by a chairman and was really intense. Nevertheless, the lack of time for discussions and debates was sometimes frustrating. This year, UC Berkeley chose to host the seventh French speaking East West Transport Planning seminar along with the WCTR. This seminar lasted three days and presented a panorama of the French research in transportation, but it wasn’t limited to that: researchers from the USA, Canada, Hungary, Greece, Italy, Belgium and Cameroon also gave presentations in French (a team of interpreters ensured of course the translation for English listeners). The quality and diversity of these French-speaking presentations allowed the organizers of the seminar to assert that French is a second language of transportation research.” Manu Kemel
“WCTR 2007 was my first experience of an international conference which is specifically focused on transportation. The keynote speech titled "The behavioral science of transportation" given by Nobel Laureate Daniel McFadden showed his insight into behavioral modeling and encouraged me a lot in doing my research. I really enjoyed the variety of research topics that WCTR invited and the friendly atmosphere between the researchers from all over the world.” Seo Youn Yoon
“The award for the nicest and most helpful group of students goes to UCSB! Betty Deakin, the chair of the conference, approached me at the end of the WCTR conference to tell me that our students are an exceptional group – always pleasant, well informed, enthusiastic, and eager to help. She added: ‘you are lucky to have them as students.’ We in Geography should be proud for having these great ambassadors of our program.” Kostas Goulias
Article contributed by the attendees
