The Editors-in-Chief Face-to-Face Conference on Transportation Economics of the 11th International Conference on Transportation and Space-time Economics (TSTE 2023) was successfully held at Beijing Jiaotong University from November 27 to December 6, 2023. The conference was organized by School of Economics and Management of Beijing Jiaotong University, and co-organized by Elsevier Group. The editors of seven top journals in the field of transportation economics were present online at the conference to discuss journal publication issues and share their latest research on the theme of “High-quality Development of Transportation”. The conference was held in the form of a ZOOM online conference and simultaneously live-streamed worldwide by Elsevier. With its high-level positioning, cutting-edge themes, rich contents, multi-dimensional interactions and innovative forms of activities, the conference attracted nearly 50,000 participants. Registered scholars, teachers and students came from 413 universities and research institutions at home and abroad including University of Cambridge, Stanford University, National University of Singapore, University of Michigan, Northeastern University, University of Leeds, Ghent University, Peking University, Tsinghua University, Renmin University of China, Fudan University, Shanghai Jiao Tong University, The University of Hong Kong, The Hong Kong Polytechnic University, TongJi University, Zhejiang University, Sun Yat-sen University, and so forth.
The seven invited editors of the top transportation economics journals were: Karen Smilowitz, editor-in-chief of Transportation Science, professor at Northwestern University; Chandra Bhat, editor-in-chief of Transportation Research Part B: Methodological, Professor at the University of Texas at Austin; Nikolas Geroliminis, editor-in-chief of Transportation Research Part C: Emerging Technologies, Professor at École Polytechnique Fédérale de Lausanne; Shuaian Wang, co-editor-in-chief of Transportation Research Part E: Logistics and Transportation Review, Professor at Hong Kong Polytechnic University; Jonas De Vos, co-editor-in-chief of Transport Reviews, Associate Professor at University College London; Frank Witlox, editor-in-chief of Journal of Transport Geography, Professor at Ghent University; Xiaowen Fu, editor-in-chief of Case Studies on Transport Policy, Professor at Hong Kong Polytechnic University.
The conference kicked off with the first module of the thematic lecture series from November 27 to December 5, 2023. Six editors gave lectures on “On a causal analysis of factors affecting housing choices”, “On the (in)efficiency of ride-sourcing services towards urban congestion and multimodal mobility”, “Air travel choice, online meeting and passenger heterogeneity – What shall be done for the aviation industry?”, “Prescriptive analytics for logistics and transport system management: state-of-the-art development”, “The perception of travel: from travel satisfaction to perceived accessibility”, and “On the future of urban mobility… Shedding light on cycling in the dark”. For each lecture, two peer discussants were invited to share their comments and reflections after the editor’s presentation. Then, participants were involved in discussing and interaction in the Q&A session. Exciting new thoughts, ideas and insights were generated one after another during the talks and interactions.
On December 6, 2023, the second module of the plenary meeting was held, inviting the seven editors to present their journals and offer suggestions on manuscript submission and publication. The positioning, characteristics, research themes, submission and acceptance status of the seven top journals were clearly illustrated, which helped participants tremendously in selecting relevant journals for submission. The editors gave a number of specific precautions to help participants avoid usual mistakes during the process of submission and revision of the returned manuscripts. All participants, especially young scholars, benefited a lot from the speeches and talks.
The conference was highly praised and appreciated by the editors, peer discussants, and participants. The editors were impressed by the excellent quality and efficiency of the conference organization. The discussants and participants learned well from both the cutting-edge lectures and the speeches on publication issues. Many participants rejoicingly said that they became more confident and better able to submit manuscripts to top journals.
This conference stands out for three more reasons, in addition to being fully accepted by invited guests and participants. First, it can be traced back to a 6-year history of establishing an open, flexible, sustainable, and efficient academic platform for researchers and scholars, with TSTE 2018 starting with the launch of the international conference in its first attempt to establish such a platform. Together with successful experiences and influences of previous conferences, especially the Editors-in-Chief Face-to-Face Conference held from 2021 to 2023, the conference this year has made continuous efforts in consolidating and developing the academic platform by inviting more top journals to join the “the Editors-in-Chief Face-to-Face” event.
Second, Elsevier was invited to co-organize the conference, greatly increasing the international influence of the conference and enriching channels of free academic exchange and communication. Elsevier not only provided global live streaming, but also carried out great promotion supports for this event including social media subscriptions, the conference poster on all Elsevier transportation journal webpages, and emails from Elsevier introducing the conference.
Third, the conference was also an important initiative of School of Economics and Management of Beijing Jiaotong University in its continuous exploration and innovation of transnational, cross-border, and cross-discipline transportation research and teaching. On one hand, it provided the channels and opportunities for the faculty members to establish academic cooperation with senior researchers both from China and abroad. On the other hand, it provided a new attempt for the cultivation of international talents at Beijing Jiaotong University and contributed to the construction of “New-typed Talents” cultivation pattern (i.e., Integration of Undergraduate and Graduate Studies, Integration of Disciplines, Integration of Industry and Academia, and International Connectivity).
The “Editors-in-Chief Face-to-Face” series will keep on going in the future. More efforts will be made to continuously elaborate international academic communication and cooperation platforms, to tentatively establish channels for cultivating young scholars, and to efficiently promote the construction of high-quality transportation systems worldwide.