I ran a small survey in May 2025 with the goal of helping transportation researchers in Canada coalesce around a primary annual conference to gather, exchange knowledge, and strengthen Canadian institutions and scholarship. The survey was sent to faculty members at Canadian universities active in transportation research.[1] Of 118 invitations, 44 complete responses were received, predominantly from professors in engineering departments.
Among these professors, there is strong interest in a Canadian substitute for the Transportation Research Board (TRB) Annual Meeting.
Respondents would prefer a multidisciplinary conference that prioritizes student & faculty involvement, and to a lesser extent government & industry involvement; preferences for submission/acceptance format are more varied, but there is a preference for a journal publication path.
Respondents would prefer a 3-day conference in spring or summer.
CTRF is viewed as the most viable current option, followed by TAC, although neither is currently ideal. A main challenge noted in comments was CTRF’s reliance on volunteer resources. Open comments also mentioned the online-only option of the Bridging Transportation Researchers (BTR) conference.
In conclusion: Let’s all go to CTRF next year, and maybe TAC, too! To enable this, CTRF and TAC could consider:
- Enhancing opportunities for student involvement,
- Enhancing representation of various disciplines,
- Developing a publication option for high-quality conference papers, and
- Holding 3-day events in spring or summer.
Thank you for your time and attention!
A PDF version of this post is available here: Canadian_Alternative_to_TRB_May2025
[1] An incomplete list of publicly-available email addresses for names sourced from separate lists provided by two colleagues, my personal network, and a quick search of TRID for past TRB/TRR papers by authors at Canadian universities; apologies for anyone who did not receive an invite – let’s assume it was due to spam filters!