TRANSED: Mobility, Accessibility & Demand Response Transportation Conference

Omar Kabbani, our Transit Data Specialist, will be presenting some of his work at the conference.

Convened by Transportation Research Board, the TRANSED: Mobility, Accessibility & Demand Response Transportation Conference will be held virtually, September 12-16, 2022. This conference combines two long standing conferences with similar content: the “16th International Conference on Mobility and Transport for Older Adults and People with Disabilities (TRANSED)” and the “5th International Conference on Demand Responsive Transport (DRT)”. The theme of this combined conference is “Inclusive Accessible and Sustainable Demand Response Transportation”. The Conference aims to describe current global research, services to improve mobility and accessibility for individuals with disabilities and for older adults, and best practices in providing demand responsive transportation (paratransit).

The overarching conference theme addresses the chasm between academic research and real-world planning practice and project implementations of sustainable, inclusive and accessible mobility. Conferees will also address the disconnect between the transportation analyses that agencies conduct and conditions on the ground for providers of sustainable and accessible mobility solutions. Successful implementation of mobility concepts is reliant on inclusive design, a business and service plan to attract and retain riders and funding, staff and user training, and a comprehensive accessible technology base. Accordingly, we seek contributions from researchers, practitioners, and others, such as non-profits and charitable organizations and manufacturers.  Participants will represent a wide range of lived and professional experiences and discuss how diverse perspectives are included in policy development, project selection, and mitigation to advance transportation inclusion and accessibility.

The combined TRANSED DRT conference will offer an agenda for participants to attend traditional panel and technical sessions. The conference will include sessions using accepted submissions from this Call for Abstracts that are socially interactive, engaging, and enable creative learning and sharing

Overview
The TRANSED series of conferences have, since 1978, provided the premier international forum to exchange ideas on what works and why, and to share innovations, promising practices, and technological developments, and research on accessible transportation, mobility and travel. TRB’s series of Demand Response conferences have explored the state of practices and innovations in paratransit operations and planning by leading practitioners, planners and researchers in the paratransit community from across the country and the world. This combined conference will enable a vibrant exchange of perspectives and information, offering a venue to develop future collaborations.

This combined conference will showcase international innovation and technological solutions for accessible transportation and travel through papers, posters and other media presentation formats, as well as through an exhibition of products, services, and best practices.  Conferees will also have the opportunity to participate in training workshops and technical visits.  Above all, attendees will study and use the concept of the Complete Trip or Trip Chain to identify elements of trips that need improvement to achieve inclusion for everyone and reduce difficulties and barriers for individual users.

Two major crises – global climate change and the COVID-19 pandemic – have highlighted the need for the provision of demand responsive services to reach healthcare, and accelerated development of new mobility options within the Transit Family of Services. New and developing technologies like microtransit, micro mobility, automated vehicles, and app-based services are also beginning to transform our transportation systems. This conference is the continuation of a long-term effort and process to understand how demand response and fixed route transit and other transportation systems are integrated while addressing accessibility and inclusion. Sustainable projects serving the entire community needs to be the product of community expertise from multiple perspectives, technical and academic research and analysis, management motivation, staff training as well as better design and new accessible technology.