2019 Annual UTSG Conference, Leeds

Prof Tom Rye chaired the 2019 annual UTSG conference at Leeds University as one of his final activities during a 3.5 year period chairing the organisation. With support from the UTSG community Tom introduced a number of innovations in the format and operation of the conference to make it more attractive to both postgraduate researchers and academic staff, not least of which was moving the conference from its traditional January date to early July. This and other innovations have been successful in attracting in a broader range of participants, with 125 abstracts submitted for the 2019 conference – a record. Tom closed the event by handing over to his successor, Prof John Parkin of the University of the West of England, in whose capable hands the organisation will continue to grow and prosper.

TRI was well-represented at this year’s UTSG conference in Leeds with papers from PhD students Mohamed Jama Mohamed and Augustus Ababio-Donkor, and from Dr Greg Fountas and Prof Tom Rye on the topics of:

• ‘The utilisation and user characteristics of Uber services in London’ – Mohamed Jama Mohamed, Tom Rye and Achille Fonzone
• ‘An Empirical Analysis of the Effect of Driver Fatigue, Gender, and Distracted Driving on Perceived and Observed Aggressive Driving Behaviour’ – Grigorios Fountas, Sarvani Sonduru Pantangi, Kevin Hulme and Panagiotis Anastasopoulos
• ‘What is the big problem with cars? Problematisations, measures and blind spots in local transport and land use planning’ – Robert Hrelja, Tom Rye and Karin Thoresson
• ‘Understanding transport mode choice for commuting: The role of Affect’ – Augustus Ababio-Donkor, Wafaa Saleh and Achille Fonzone

Their contributions were extremely well received, generating a large amount of debate and many questions, helping to make this year’s conference a particularly stimulating and useful one.