European Association for Research in Transportation is born at EPFL
© 2012 EPFL
The Latsis Symposium on Quantitative Methods in Transportation Systems took place at EPFL from the 4th to the 7th of September 2012. The event saw the launch of the European Association for Research in Transportation (hEART) and announced the venue of the 2nd symposium which will take place in KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm, in September 2013.
What will mobility be like in 2030, 2050, 2100? Whatever the answer, we must be ready to anticipate its evolving trends, and have a clear picture of emerging needs to guide our long-term decisions on future infrastructures and systems. So the EPFL Transportation Center (TraCE) thought when the Center decided to launch the first Latsis Symposium on Quantitative Methods in Transportation Systems. The event took place at EPFL from the 4th to the 7th of September gathering more than 200 scientists from 28 countries.
“The Symposium brought together strong scientists and promising young researchers in the fields of Traffic flow Modeling and Operations, Operations Research, Economics, Physics, Multimodality, Logistics and Discrete Choice models, in a setting highly suitable for scientific discussions and active interactions », summarized Prof. Nikolas Geroliminis, chairman of the conference.
13 leaders in transportation science, coming not only from Europe but also from the US, Canada and Japan, provided keynote speeches for the state of the art and the big challenges of the future. Plus, 75 PhD students from all over the world participated in an enhancing 6 hours summer course during the first day of the Symposium.
For Dr. Michaël Thémans, Deputy Director of TraCE, this event shows that the Center is now a visible leading actor in the field of transportation research in Europe. “It demonstrates our ability to federate the best multidisciplinary research teams in various fields that are crucial to the future of transportation. Actually, TraCE has the ambition to strengthen the quality of transportation research in Europe through strong and structured partnerships with other European transportation centres.” The Latsis Symposium was jointly organized by The Urban Transport Systems Laboratory (LUTS), the Transport and Mobility Laboratory (TRANSP-OR) and TraCE. The LATSIS Foundation provided its financial support.
From the beginning the Latsis Symposium was meant not to be a single event but the first step of a long-term view. « This event is the starting node of successful high quality scientific conferences in Europe through a new research association which was launched at the conference », explains Nikolas Geroliminis. « Gathering already 20 institutions, the European Association for Research in Transportation (hEART) will promote excellence in transportation research in Europe, with a strong emphasis on the promotion of PhD students and young researchers », adds Michel Bierlaire, chairman of hEART. The 2nd symposium is already on the agenda and will take place in KTH Royal Institute of Technology, Stockholm, in September 2013.