Day: 2013-07-18

Call for Papers: World Symposium on Transport and Land Use Research 2014: June 24-27, 2014 in Delft, the Netherlands

| David Levinson

Call for Papers

World Symposium on Transport and Land Use Research 2014

June 24-27, 2014 in Delft, the Netherlands

About the Symposium

We are pleased to announce the 2014 meeting of the World Symposium on Transport and Land Use Research (WSTLUR) to be held in Delft, the Netherlands, June 24 – June 27, 2014. The conference provides a unique international forum for academics and practitioners at the intersection of economics, planning, design, engineering, and other relevant disciplines. The Conference is aimed at developing a better understanding of the interaction between the dynamics of land use and transport, with an emphasis on the way in which the built environment can contribute to more sustainable transport in a rapidly changing world. Papers are welcome on a wide range of topics covering all modes of transport, both passenger and freight transport, at all spatial scales.

The Delft University of Technology hosts this conference in the bicycle friendly city of Delft in the heart of the Randstad Holland. In addition to the technical program, the conference provides a day tour through parts of the Randstad, including transit-oriented development in the city of The Hague’. Hotel rooms are pre-booked in the historical city center; within walking distance of the university campus (public transport is also available).

In addition to presentations based on peer-reviewed papers, the conference program will include confirmed plenary presentations from:

  • Glenn Lyons (Professor of Transport and Society, University of the West of England, and founding Director of the Centre for Transport and Society);
  • Patricia Mokhtarian (Professor of Civil and Environmental Engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology effective August 1, 2013); and
  • Bert van Wee (Professor in Transport Policy ,Delft University of Technology, faculty Technology, Policy and Management).

Submission of Papers

WSTLUR seeks papers on the interaction of transport and land use. Welcome domains include: engineering, planning, modeling, behavior, economics, geography, regional science, sociology, psychology, health, architecture and design, network science, and complex systems.

Original papers must be submitted electronically November 30, 2013 for consideration. Full papers should be uploaded for peer review at http://jtlu.org prior to midnight (Pacific Standard Time) in the above mentioned date. See http://wstlur.org for more details related to the conference.

All papers accepted for WSTLUR will be considered for publication in the Journal of Transport and Land Use.

WSTLUR welcomes all papers on the topic of transport and land use. In addition to this general call, special calls are listed below in alphabetical order.

  1. Accessibility Analysis and Evaluation, led by Karst Geurs (k.t.geurs@utwente.nl; University of Twente) and Ahmed El-Geneidy (ahmed.elgeneidy@mcgill.ca; McGill University). This is a special session on accessibility modeling and analysis organized by NECTAR (Network on European Communications and Transport Activities Research) Cluster 6 and WSTLUR. Although accessibility analysis has evolved from simple calculations to complex and detailed methods at fine levels of spatial resolution, there are many outstanding questions on accessibility analysis and modelling – and its practical use in transport planning. We particularly welcome papers on the use of accessibility measures in impact evaluations of transport investments, e.g. economic and social impact assessments, also in the light of network vulnerability and resilience issues.
  2. Active Transport and Land use: led by Kevin J. Krizek (krizek@colorado.edu; University of Colorado Boulder). Ideal papers for this special issue will explore detailed aspects of non-motorized travel and its interface with existing transport networks and urban form, policy, or other relevant dimensions of travel behavior or health. Selected papers from this session will be included in a special issue of JTLU. See the WSTLUR paper submission web page for detailed instructions.
  3. Children and Youth Transport and Land Use Theory, Method and Applications: Led by Ron Buliung (ron.buliung@utoronto.ca; University of Toronto) and Raktim Mitra (raktim.mitra@ryerson.ca; Ryerson Univeristy).. A broad call for papers intended to draw attention to the connection between children and youth mobility and land use/ built environment. We invite international research focused on theory, innovative survey methods and applied research.
  4. Empirical Studies of Automobile Parking and Travel: led by Dan Chatman (dgc@berkeley.edu; University of California, Berkeley): The strong influence of the supply and cost of automobile parking on automobile use is both intuitive and theoretically well-established. But there have been fewer empirical studies of how on-street and off-street automobile parking affect auto use or the use of other travel modes. A related issue is whether built environment characteristics like density, diversity, and design have been ascribed influences upon travel that are actually due to variations in the supply and cost of parking, Ideal papers for this special issue will address any aspect of parking supply as a built environment characteristic and its empirical relationship to travel patterns, or novel theoretical relationships that have not already been established in previous literature.
  5. Integrated Land Use and Transport Models: led by Zachary Patterson (zachary.patterson@concordia.ca; Concordia University, Montreal). The past two decades has seen the development and application of increasingly advanced integrated transport and land-use modeling systems. Papers on the application of these models into emerging areas (e.g. social equity), innovations in submodels of these complex modeling systems and their incorporation in the planning process are welcomed.
  6. Network Structure: led by David Levinson (levin031@umn.edu; University of Minnesota), Stephen Marshall (s.marshall@ucl.ac.uk; University College London), Kay Axhausen (axhausen@ivt.baug.ethz.ch; ETH Zurich), and Basil Vitins (basil.vitins@ivt.baug.ethz.ch; ETH, Zurich). The structure of transport networks depends on, and shapes both demand for travel and patterns of land use. Empirical and theoretical analyses of rules or grammars for generating networks and places, systematic characterization of networks, studies of the development and evolution of networks, comparative network analysis, and the relationship between network structure, land use, and travel behavior are welcome.
  7. Transit Oriented Development (TOD): led by Kees Maat (C.Maat@tudelft.nl TU Delft). TOD principles have been developed in metropolitan areas, in order to promote more sustainable travel behaviour. Papers providing empirical evidence and discussing implementation and governance issues are welcomed.

When submitting your manuscript please verify which session stream you are interested in.

Key Dates:

  • Papers Due: November 30th, 2013
  • Decisions for included papers: Early March 2014
  • Final Papers Due (subject to acceptance): Late April 2014
  • Early Registration Deadline: March 15th, 2014
  • Conference: June 24-27, 2014

Questions?

For questions regarding the conference please direct them to

How Planners Deal with Uncomfortable Knowledge:

| David Levinson

Bent Flyvbjerg writes a paper about writing a paper (or more precisely, a paper about promoting a paper):

Abstract: With a point of departure in the concept “uncomfortable knowledge,” this article presents a case
study of how the American Planning Association (APA) deals with such knowledge. APA was
found to actively suppress publicity of malpractice concerns and bad planning in order to sustain a
boosterish image of planning. In the process, APA appeared to disregard and violate APA’s own
Code of Ethics. APA justified its actions with a need to protect APA members’ interests, seen as
preventing planning and planners from being presented in public in a bad light. The current article
argues that it is in members’ interest to have malpractice critiqued and reduced, and that this best
happens by exposing malpractice, not by denying or diverting attention from it as APA did in this
case. Professions, organizations, and societies that stifle critique tend to degenerate and become
socially and politically irrelevant “zombie institutions.” The article asks whether such degeneration
has set in for APA and planning. Finally, it is concluded that more debate about APA’s ethics and
actions is needed for improving planning practice. Nine key questions are presented to
constructively stimulate such debate.

Highlights:

>A study of moral hypocrisy with the American Planning Association (APA).

>”APA seriously breached its own ethics”, according to JAPA editor.

>APA is found to deny and divert evidence of malpractice and bad planning.

>APA’s hypocrisy is shown to place transparency and billions of dollars of citizens’ money at risk.

>Nine points for debate aimed at reducing hypocrisy with APA and improving ethics in planning.

Keywords: Planning, uncomfortable knowledge, moral hypocrisy, professional ethics, planning
ethics, malpractice, the American Planning Association, Journal of the American Planning
Association.

Several comments:

0. In general I like Flybjerg’s work and have cited it. However no journal or professional organization I am a member of has ever gone to any lengths to promote any of my papers. I am not sure that specific article promotion is the proper role of APA or other professional associations. Aside from being a bit unseemly, giving excess attention to one paper necessarily detracts attention from other papers. While inevitably the scientific and practicing community will come to conclude which papers are important, the quality of “significance” should not be a criteria for publication (or in my view, article promotion).

1. I am no longer a member of APA or AICP (though I did pass the AICP exam many years ago), primarily because of the benefit/cost proposition of membership. I did not see any professional value to membership personally, and at >$300 per year, this was a non-trivial cost (I now see where some of my money was going). Similarly I do not attend the very expensive APA conference except when somebody comps my registration, as when it was in Minneapolis. I am inclined to think a lot of professional certification is a racket. (Professionals of course should engage in continuing education, and we need ways of accurately assessing professional ability, the licensing game is excessive. In the beginning, who assessed the assessors?)

2. I have withdrawn a couple of papers from JAPA because of failure to review, though this is a competence issue which I believe the new editors are aiming to rectify. Still unhappy having lost a few years of review time with a journal not doing its job.

3. Professor Flyvbjerg has been critiqued elsewhere (Retraction Watch) for dual publication (an ethical problem, as when submitting papers to journals it is expected they have never before been published in peer-reviewed journals, and simultaneous review is also verboten. However given journal’s failure to respond, it is possible that one thinks the paper has been rejected when it hasn’t. I don’t know the circumstances in this case.).

4. There is a certain irony in this paper being published in an Elsevier journal.

5. Chuck Marohn at Strong Towns has made ethical critiques of American Society of Civil Engineers.

6. Mike Spack has made ethical critiques of Institute of Transportation Engineers for not making its basic tools open access.