top of page

CALL FOR ABSTRACTS

13th INTERNATIONAL CONFERENCE ON TRANSPORT SURVEY METHODS
Covering Blind Spots of the Transport Datascape in Times of Turbulence

March 30th to April 4th 2025, Da Nang, Vietnam

 

It is our great pleasure to invite you to submit abstracts for the 13th International Conference on Transport Survey Methods (www.isctsc2025.com), to be held in Danang, Vietnam, at the Naman Retreat (https://www.namanretreat.com/en). The conference will be solely an in-person conference, and there will be no possibility of participating virtually.

 

Since 1979, survey experts, transport researchers, and practitioners have been gathering to improve the conduct of surveys that support transport planning, policy, modelling, monitoring, and related issues for urban, regional, intercity, and international person, vehicle, and commodity movements.

 

The International Steering Committee for Travel Survey Conferences (ISCTSC) organizes these conferences with the aim of offering transport professionals (researchers, practitioners, modellers, planners, and others) the possibility to present their work, exchange information, network, promote international collaboration, identify gaps and research needs and to provide a forum for the presentation of workshops, papers, and posters.

​

The last few years have witnessed important events and transformations while worldwide challenges such as climate change, energy availability, and equity are taking more and more space in local, national, and international dialogues and concerns. More than ever before, objective and science-grounded facts and findings are required to support decision-making at multiple scales, from local to worldwide. These important transformations also question survey processes to capture changes and reflect on long-term trends and transformations.

 

Rapidly evolving problems and policy contexts are compelling us to advance the state-of-the-art of survey methods, question the value of our data sources, identify gaps in what we measure and how we measure it, identify efficient ways to gather and measure behaviors and factors affecting those behaviours and question how relevant data and outcomes are to support strategic decision-making at various temporal and spatial scales. Tools, strategies, and protocols face important tradeoffs in capturing transformations while assuring the stability and coherence of the data from which trends and transformations can be tracked and understood. The Vietnam conference will build on outputs from previous conferences and try to address unresolved and emerging research issues.

 

While all papers considering survey methods and data processing will be considered for the conference, priority topics were identified.

 

 

PRIORITY TOPICS

 

Transport data scape blind spots

  • Relevant transport market segments & behaviours with insufficient data (commercial transport, long-distance travel, parking, online activities)

  • How to survey hard-to-reach groups & neglected segments? How to survey sensitive topics?

  • Data fusion examples: qualitative & quantitative surveys, freight and personal mobility surveys/data, survey and passive data

  • DEI (diversity, equity and inclusion) in survey methods and data analysis

 

Making transport data useful

  • Institutional frameworks for successful travel data collection

  • Surveying the information that is most needed for global challenges (climate change, justice, energy transition)

  • Making sense of inconsistent findings from transport data & managing heterogeneous results

  • Communicating results to stakeholders: visualization, storytelling, reporting

  • Standards: questionnaire, archiving, contextual data, metadata

  • Challenges and examples of open-source data

 

(Emerging) data sources and technologies

  • New vehicle data

  • Virtual reality, social media

  • Gamification & nudging for recruitment and data collection

  • Use of AI for data collection, validation and processing

  • Evolution in app-based and web-based technologies

 

Data quality and validity

  • Sample composition (commercial panels, opt-in surveys, M-Turk)

  • Procedures of data checking and data post-processing

  • Reevaluation of indicators of data quality (e.g. response rates)

  • Novel forms of non-response analyses

  • AI: black box or useful for data quality improvements?

  • Defining and measuring respondent burden & impact on data quality and validity

 

Trends in travel survey methods

  • Survey modes (smartphone tracking, online, face2face, app-based…)

  • Longitudinal vs cross-section vs panel

  • Observation period/time

  • Trade-offs between comparability and adaptability

  • What about sample size and weighting?

​

 

SUBMISSION OF ABSTRACTS

 

Abstracts on any aspect of transport survey methods and data collection are eligible, but we particularly encourage those that address the topics that were listed above. The focus of papers should be on survey methods and data processing approaches, not results of models from the resulting data.

 

Abstracts of 1,000 words are required and should include full contact information for the corresponding author(s).

 

Workshop themes will be defined in accordance with proposed abstracts. Papers will be presented in workshop or poster sessions.

 

Please submit your abstracts in English by June 15, 2024, via https://easychair.org/conferences/?conf=13thisctsc. Authors will be notified of abstract acceptance by September 15, 2024.

 

Full papers will be due January 15th, 2025.

bottom of page