This grant provides participant support funds for the 19th International Symposium on Transportation and Traffic Theory (ISTTT) to be held July 18-20, 2011 in Berkeley, California. The symposium will showcase 35 original papers drawn from a pool of over 500 submissions from around the world. Selections were made via a rigorous, multi-stage peer-review process. The 35 selected papers will be presented in plenary sessions. To disseminate their findings, all papers will be published in i) hard-copy proceedings; ii) Elsevier's on-line Procedia series; and iii) the prestigious archival journal series Transportation Research. A special workshop session will be held to explore additional ways of placing the symposium findings into professional practice. The funds from NSF will support key elements of the symposium. Part of the funds will cover fellowships to foster participation from a select set of advanced graduate students from underrepresented groups.
Since its inception, the ISTTT has been the premier gathering of transport theorists. The coming Berkeley Symposium promises to build on that tradition: the papers accepted for the event represent breakthrough research from around the world. These papers have the potential to challenge current thinking about transport science, and perhaps even to transform the field. And the papers address a variety of pressing topics in transportation: they include ideas for promoting greener, more sustainable travel modes, and for transporting people and goods in emergency situations. Given the role that transportation plays in the world and in the lives of her people, the ideas unveiled in the coming symposium are expected to be of real significance.
The funding went to support participants of the 19th International Symposium on Transportation and Traffic Theory, held July 18 – 20, 2011 in Berkeley, California. Since its inception in 1959, the symposium series has been the premier gathering for transport scientists. This 19th symposium showcased 36 original papers that were selected from over 500 submissions via a rigorous, multi-stage peer-review process. For the first time ever, the 36 selected papers were published not only in symposium proceedings, but also on-line and in the prestigious archival journal series Transportation Research, thanks to agreements reached with Elsevier (the journal publisher) and the editors of that journal series. This unprecedented collaboration helped to make the symposium a resounding success. The agreement to journalize the selected papers ensured that the pool of submissions was outstanding. Hence, the papers ultimately selected from that pool are each potentially transformative, and collectively reflect the best thinking in transport research today. Topics include traffic flow theory, transport safety, network analysis, the planning and operation of public transit and other greener transport modes, and a number of other key subjects in transportation. This excellent program attracted nearly 150 participants (a new record for this symposium series) from around the globe. Seven of these participants were doctoral students who received fellowships to defer their costs of attending the symposium, this thanks to the support from NSF. The funds from NSF also went toward covering the costs of meeting room space, audio-visual equipment, on-site meals for participants, and the publication of the symposium proceedings.
