The first 50 years of TRANSED Conferences
Friday, 15 Sep 2023
By Mr. C G B Mitchell, Emeritus Member, AME(50)
Cambridge 1978
Professor William Bell, a gerontologist at the University of Florida, and Professor Norman Ashford, a transport planner at the University of Loughborough, initiated the first International Conference on Transport for the Elderly and Handicapped, to be held in Cambridge, England in 1978. As Head of Access and Mobility Division at the British government Transport and Road Research Laboratory, I served on the Steering Committee along with Professors Bell and Ashford, Jackie Garden from the Greater London Council and Anne-Jacqueline Belibio from the French Ministry of Equipment (Transport). Our role was to find speakers on a number of practical aspects of accessible transport. The conference was sponsored by the US Transportation Research Board, the French Ministère de l'Équipement (Transports), and the British Transport and Road Research Laboratory. In our case the funding was, from memory, £600; not a fortune. TRRL and Loughborough University provided the administrative support for the Conference, using existing staff resources.
The Conference attracted about 80 delegates with 46 papers from 9 countries (UK, USA, Canada, France, Belgium, Sweden, Germany, Norway and Austria). It was held in Corpus Christi College which dated from 1352 and in 1978 was totally inaccessible. Rooms were on staircases, often without toilets or washrooms, and the dining hall was on the first floor up a stone staircase. Fortunately enough strong people were available to carry wheelchair users up and down to dinner, and enough ground floor bedrooms were just about accessible.
The Minister for Disability, Alf Morris, attended the Conference dinner and made an excellent speech. The Conference technical sessions ran as a single stream and many of the speakers were senior practitioners, such as Ingmar Berg who ran Stockholm’s Special Transport System, at the time pioneering good practice in transport for people with disabilities. Cambridge in April was too cold to encourage punting but the ‘Backs’ (college grounds by the river) were beautiful with the trees in blossom. The Conference was judged a success and repeated in Cambridge in 1981 and Orlando, Florida in 1984. The papers for the 1978 and 1981 Conferences were published in separate books by Loughborough University and Gordon and Breach.
Scaling up – Orlando 1984
The 1984 Conference was a much larger event, with 270 delegates from 14 countries. It was held in a hotel on International Drive in Orlando, with staff from the Center for Gerontology at Florida State University providing administrative support. Sixty-two papers were presented, classified as 3 keynote presentations, 8 overviews, 5 on air transport, 4 on micro-computer applications and 42 on various aspects of state-of-the-art, based mainly on research findings. These 42 were presented at workshops running in parallel sessions. The Conference included technical visits for the first time, to a paratransit operator. The papers were published in a US DOT Report.
1986 Vancouver
The 1986 Conference in Vancouver was somewhat unusual. It was brought forward by more than a year to fit in with a World Fair/Expo in Vancouver. This made it a lot of fun to attend but there was less new material to report and the only publications from the Conference were keynote papers on ‘Mobility in the Global Village’, celebrating Canada’s very considerable achievements in making transport more accessible and inclusive.
1989 to 1995 Stockholm, Lyon and Reading
The next three conferences were organized by universities or research establishments with experience in transport for people with disabilities. In each case they were organized by members of staff; Agneta Stahl of Lund University for Stockholm 1989; Maryvonne Dejeammes of INRETS (Institut National de Recherche sur les Transports et leur Sécurité) for Lyon 1992; and Kit Mitchell of TRRL for Reading 1995. For Agneta and Maryvonne the organization of the Conferences was additional to their full time responsibilities, which was undoubtedly a serious burden. Kit had recently retired and was able to devote the time needed without conflicting with other work.
The Stockholm Conference attracted over 380 delegates from some 40 countries and included 10 plenary and 97 parallel session papers from 26 countries and was a continuation of the pattern established by the 1984 Orlando Conference. It was held in Stockholmsmässan, an exhibition centre, with the title “Towards Mobility as a Human Right”, and included technical visits to show delegates some of the things happening in Sweden, which at the time was, and still is, a world leader in making transport accessible and inclusive. It also included a splendid formal reception in the ancient City Hall. The papers were printed in a book published by Gordon and Breach. The book includes a note from Norman Ashford reporting the death of Professor Bill Bell in April 1990 and recognizing the extent to which he had improved transport for elderly and disabled people.
The Lyon Conference was particularly significant for introducing presentations in English and French with simultaneous translation and the proceedings published in both languages by INRETS. The Conference included 121 papers and was held at the INRETS laboratories, some distance from the city centre hotel used by delegates. This caused a degree of travel delay, an issue which was to become a problem in some subsequent conferences. The Conference took the short name of COMOTRED (Conference on Mobility and Transport for Elderly and Disabled).
The Reading Conference was held in the headquarters of Berkshire County Council, on the edge of the town and again some distance from delegates’ hotels. As part of the Department of Transport the organisers hoped that travel would not be a problem but road congestion got the better of them and there were serious delays moving delegates between the conference and their hotels. The Conference was attended by 350 delegates and included 75 papers and 46 posters, introduced for the first time. There were technical visits before the conference and social visits to Ascot Racecourse and Highclere Castle (subsequently the setting for Downton Abbey). The conference was timed to allow delegates to attend the Mobility Roadshow at Transport and Road Research Laboratory, before the start of the conference proper. All the papers were translated into French or English as necessary and separate proceedings in each language published by Cranfield University Press.
1998 to 2007 Perth, Warsaw, Hamamatsu and Montreal
The 1998 conference in Perth, Western Australia, was another unusual one, in that it was organized and funded by a commercial organization, with the theme of “Setting the Pace”. It was a relatively low key conference plus a small exhibition, which consisted of five plenary sessions and 12 parallel sessions during which 59 papers were presented. Attendance was less than that at the previous three conferences.
In 2001 the conference in Warsaw was back to the pattern of earlier conferences. Organised by Liliana Schwartz and with the theme “Towards Safety‚ Independence and Security”, it was sponsored by the Ministry of Transport, the National Road Safety Council, Warsaw City Council and the Foundation for the Rehabilitation of the Disabled. The first conference in an East European country, the conference introduced the short name TRANSED. Fourteen sponsors are listed in the programme. It included 78 papers, 12 in plenary sessions and 66 delivered through three parallel streams. There were also two poster sessions. Polish and English simultaneous interpretation was provided during all plenary and parallel sessions. Before the conference there was a sightseeing tour of Warsaw, which unfortunately took delegates using wheelchairs across the cobbles of the old town, and a welcome reception at the Palace of Culture and Science, where the conference was held. This was a 5-10 minute walk from the delegates’ hotels, to overcome the travel delays that had been an issue at some previous conferences. Abstracts of papers and posters were printed in Polish, English and French. Conference Proceedings including full papers and summaries of posters were published in English only by Polplan Co. Ltd.
The 2004 conference was held in Hamamatsu, Japan, a town that is home to Yamaha, Suzuki and other manufacturing companies. The conference was in a spectacular modern hotel, which obviated any problems with travelling. There were 370 delegates, 96 papers and 54 posters and an exhibition in an adjacent hall. Before the conference delegates were offered 5 detailed training courses on aspects of accessible transport. The welcome reception was in the exhibition hall, and on the evening of the first day of the conference a party was held at the Matsuri Kaikan building with a display of traditional kites, drumming and fireworks. The conference dinner was in a German Bier Keller in a replica Bavarian castle in Hamamatsu, unlikely as this may sound. The conference secretariat was provided by the ECOMO Foundation, with Daisuke Sawada as conference organizer. The conference offered scholarships to enable participants from developing countries and participants with disabilities to attend, and the US DOT provided scholarships for some participants from USA. The report on the conference is exemplary and explains the measures needed to make the conference a success.
In 2007 Transport Canada hosted TRANSED at the Montreal Convention Centre. The secretariat was provided by Transport Canada, with Murielle Fong as Project Manager, who chaired the organising committee. The Technical Programme Organiser, also from Transport Canada, was Dr Valérie Gil, who chaired the scientific committee. The conference attracted 590 registered delegates from 41 countries, of whom 562 actually attended; a high proportion of delegates had disabilities. The conference was held in French and English. Three plenary sessions and 5 parallel tracks of 44 sessions allowed 158 papers to be presented. There were also 82 posters displayed in two sessions. The associated exhibition hosted 39 exhibitors. The conference dinner was held in the Convention Centre. The day before the conference four tutorials were offered in the morning, a choice of four technical tours in the afternoon and an evening welcome reception in the exhibition hall. The day before that delegates were offered a choice of two social events, a city tour of Montreal and a visit to the botanical gardens. There were 5 major sponsors, 4 strategic sponsors and 9 conference collaborators listed in the programme for the Conference.
2010 Hong Kong
The 2010 TRANSED was held in Hong Kong, hosted by the Hong Kong Society for Rehabilitation which runs a Rehabilitation Network and a Vocational Rehabilitation and Retraining Centre, and also Rehabus with a fleet of over 110 accessible vehicles for door to door services for people with disabilities. The theme was “Sustainable Transport and Travel for All”. The organizing committee was led by Mabel Chau. The conference was held in the HK Convention and Exhibition Centre, a huge building of which TRANSED only needed part. Accommodation was in hotels, many within walking distance of the Centre, the rest linked by the HK Metro. The principal sponsor was the S K Yee Medical Foundation and the HK Society for Rehabilitation. A further 24 sponsors are listed in the programme.
The day before the conference there was a choice of three technical visits (the airport, Kowloon Motor Bus Company and the MTR (Metro)) and five workshops. The welcome reception was held in the Convention Centre.
The conference achieved a number of benchmarks in the history of TRANSED:
The large exhibition, in the Convention Centre, included a photographic competition cum exhibition on the theme of “Accessibility and Social Inclusion” The conference dinner was held in a VIP stand at the Hong Kong Happy Valley racecourse, complete with racing for entertainment.
There were 911 registered delegates, and a total of around 2,000 participants including the exhibition. 35 different countries were represented, some of whom were new to TRANSED.
2012 Delhi
The 2012 TRANSED was held after only two years for complicated reasons involving hosts having to drop out. It was held in Delhi and organized by Swayam, the charitable arm of Jindal Saw Ltd. The conference theme was Seamless Access for All: Universal Design in Transport Systems and Built Infrastructure‚ a Key Element in the Creation of Liveable Cities. The organising committee was chaired by Abha Negi, with Subash Chandra Vashishth as Project Coordinator. Support came from 25 organisations, including the Government of the National Capital Territory of Delhi, Ministries of Transport, Urban Development and Tourism of the Government of India and Jindal SAW Ltd.
394 abstracts were received from 46 countries. Three plenary session included 11 papers, two plenary workshops included 8 presentations, and 21 parallel session, arranged in three or four streams, included 110 papers. The quality of papers was good but they were grouped into the parallel sessions strictly according to the theme identified by the author, which led to sessions containing a mixture of topics.
The day before the conference started, four workshops were offered in the morning and two technical tours in the afternoon. An exhibition with 16 exhibitors was held in the hotel used for accommodation and the conference sessions. The benefit of co-locating accommodation and the conference was considerable, as any need for transport between venues was avoided. The hotel did not have enough wheelchair accessible bedrooms but was willing to remove bathroom doors and allowed us to add suction attached grab handles to make rooms acceptable for the more mobile wheelchair users. The Conference was attended by over 600 delegates from 46 countries.
2015 Lisbon and 2018 Taiwan
I did not attend these TRANSEDs so cannot report from first-hand knowledge. The 2015 TRANSED was organised by the Instituto Superior Técnico (the largest school of Engineering, Science and Technology and Architecture in Portugal) with relatively little input from TRB Committee ABE60 or the international community. Its theme was “Aim and Manage for Inclusive Access”.
The 2018 TRANSED was organized by the Eden Social Welfare Foundation in Taipei, founded to serve persons with disabilities and other socially marginalized groups. It operates 120 service centres in Taiwan and employs 3,000 staff, of whom 25% have a disability.
The conference was held at the Taipei International Convention Centre. The Eden Social Welfare Foundation, based in Taipei, served as the conference organizing and funding entity, engaging in partnerships with the Government of the Republic of China (Taiwan), several universities, and various transportation and technology providers. The theme was “Mobility for All: Connecting the World with Accessible Transportation.” A total of 638 individuals attended the conference, representing 31 countries in Asia, North America, Africa, South America, Europe, and Australia.
Lessons
From being involved in the organization of most of the TRANSED conferences, a number of lessons and experiences have emerged.
Practical
The difficulty of moving delegates a significant distance between accommodation and the Conference should be appreciated. Conferences have worked best when accommodation and sessions are in the same building or within say a 5-10 minute walk, so transport is only needed for those delegates who cannot walk or use wheelchairs for that distance.
It is usual to have insufficient formally accessible bedrooms for delegates. Rooms which are not formally accessible can often be made accessible enough by removing doors to bathrooms, adding small temporary ramps at doorways, and using temporary handrails (attached by suction pads).
It is essential to check the venue and all the planned activities beforehand with a group of volunteers with disabilities. This helps with making rooms accessible, providing signing that can be read by people with poor vision and avoids the situation we had at one conference where the pre-conference city tour involved wheeling wheelchairs over surfaces of harsh cobbles.
Do not promise what you cannot deliver. In 1995 we aimed to include enough finger food during the visits to Ascot and Highclere to act as supper, but in the event there was not enough and delegates were left desperately looking for late suppers when they got back to Reading.
We have generally been fortunate to have helpful, knowledgeable and friendly people of the information desk for delegates. This does a lot to set the atmosphere of the conference.
Conference
The pattern of plenary and parallel sessions plus one or more poster sessions seems to work well. Similarly, the three-day length seems about right.
Although authors are often asked to identify the topic of their paper by one of a number of key words, these should not be used to assign papers to sessions. In all the conferences in which I was involved I read all the abstracts, and papers when they came in, and used the content of the paper to construct sessions with consistent themes and papers that related to each other. In at least one conference the chair of the scientific committee insisted on using the keywords for assigning papers to sessions, which led to sessions of papers that had little in common.
Providing tutorials before the conference seems to work really well.
Technical visits before the conference are usually of interest to delegates.
Timing the conference to link to a relevant activity, such as the 1995 conference linked to the Mobility RoadShow as an alternative to an exhibition, works well. Linking to a non-relevant activity, such as the 1986 World Fair, does not work well.
Past Conferences.
Triennial Conferences (except 1986, 2012 and 2022)
1. 1978 Cambridge, UK. Title “Mobility for the Elderly and Handicapped”. Content concentrated on practical issues of service delivery, plus effects of mobility on lifestyles.
2. 1981 Cambridge, UK. Title “Mobility for Elderly and Handicapped Persons”. Content included methodology, concepts, technology and software, as well as operational experience in the field and evaluation.
3. 1984 Orlando, Florida. Title “Mobility and Transport for Elderly and Handicapped Persons”. Content covered policy, transportation systems modifications, legal rights of disabled people, international air travel and specialized transportation in developing countries.
4. 1986 Vancouver, Canada. Theme: “Mobility in the Global Village”.
5. 1989 Stockholm, Sweden. Theme: “Towards Mobility as A Human Right”.
6. 1992 Lyon, France. Theme “From Human Rights to A Better Quality of Life”.
7. 1995 Reading, UK. Theme: “Ideas into Actions”.
8. 1998 Perth, Australia. Theme: “Setting the Pace”.
9. 2001 Warsaw, Poland. Theme: "Towards Safety, Independence and Security".
10. 2004 Hamamatsu, Japan. Theme: ‘‘Accessible Transportation and Road Design: Strategies for Success”.
11. 2007 Montreal, Canada. Theme: "Benchmarking, Evaluation and Vision for the Future".
12. 2010 Hong Kong, China. Theme: “Sustainable transport and travel for all”.
13. 2012 New Delhi, India. Theme: “Seamless access for all: Universal Design in Transport system and built infrastructure, a key element in the creation of livable cities.
14. 2015 Lisbon, Portugal. Theme: “Aim and Manage for Inclusive Access”.
15. 2018 Taipei, Taiwan. Theme: “Mobility for all: Connecting the World with Accessible Transportation”.
16. 2022 Virtual conference USA Title "TRANSED: Mobility, Accessibility and Demand Response Transportation Conference"
References for Proceedings
Mobility for the elderly and the handicapped: proceedings of the International Conference on Transport for the Elderly and Handicapped at Cambridge, April 4-7, 1978, organized by Loughborough University of Technology in conjunction with Florida State University
Loughborough University of Technology Press, 1978 - Social Science - 374 pages
Mobility and Transport for Elderly and Handicapped Persons (N. Ashford, W. G. Bell, and T. A. Rich, eds.). Gordon and Breach, London, England, 1982.
Third international Conference on Mobility and Transport of Elderly and Handicapped Persons William G Bell Report DOT-1-85-07, Technology Sharing Program, Office of the Secretary of Transportation, Department of Transportation, Washington DC 20590 https://archive.org/details/ERIC_ED296490
Mobility and Transport for Elderly and Disabled Persons (Proceedings of a Conference Held at Stockholmsmassan May 21-24, 1989) Norrbom, Claes-Eric; Stahl, Agneta Proceedings of the 5th International Conference on Mobility and Transport for Elderly and Disabled Persons Published by Routledge, 1991 and Gordon & Breach Science Publishers, Philadelphia, PA, U.S.A. (1991) ISBN 10: 2881247636 / ISBN 13: 9782881247637
Mobility and Transport for Elderly and Disabled Persons: Proceedings (INRETS 1992)
Editors Maryvonne Dejeammes, Jean-Pierre Medevielle
Publisher INRETS, 1992
Mobility and transport for elderly and disabled people (Reading 1995)
English version - Volume 1
Mitchell, C G B and Oxley, P R
Cranfield University Press
ISBN 1 871315 50 6
8th International Conference on Transport and Mobility for Elderly and Disabled People, Perth, Western Australia Published 1998 by Indomed Pty Ltd, 144 Northwood Street, Leederville 6007, Western Australia ISBN 0-646-36154-6
Transed 2001. Towards Safety, Independence and Security. 9th International Conference on Mobility and Transport for Elderly and Disabled People, POLPLAN Company Limited, Nowolopki 1079, Warsaw, Poland 00 153
TRANSED 2004. Qureshi, Aqeel, Transed 2004. Universal Transportation and Road Design: Strategies for Success, Japan Society of Civil Engineers, 1-chome, Yotsuya, Shinjuku-ku, Tokyo, Japan 160-0004, Language English, Media Type: CD-ROM https://trid.trb.org/view/890515
By Mr. C G B Mitchell, Emeritus Member, AME(50)
Cambridge 1978
Professor William Bell, a gerontologist at the University of Florida, and Professor Norman Ashford, a transport planner at the University of Loughborough, initiated the first International Conference on Transport for the Elderly and Handicapped, to be held in Cambridge, England in 1978. As Head of Access and Mobility Division at the British government Transport and Road Research Laboratory, I served on the Steering Committee along with Professors Bell and Ashford, Jackie Garden from the Greater London Council and Anne-Jacqueline Belibio from the French Ministry of Equipment (Transport). Our role was to find speakers on a number of practical aspects of accessible transport. The conference was sponsored by the US Transportation Research Board, the French Ministère de l'Équipement (Transports), and the British Transport and Road Research Laboratory. In our case the funding was, from memory, £600; not a fortune. TRRL and Loughborough University provided the administrative support for the Conference, using existing staff resources.
The Conference attracted about 80 delegates with 46 papers from 9 countries (UK, USA, Canada, France, Belgium, Sweden, Germany, Norway and Austria). It was held in Corpus Christi College which dated from 1352 and in 1978 was totally inaccessible. Rooms were on staircases, often without toilets or washrooms, and the dining hall was on the first floor up a stone staircase. Fortunately enough strong people were available to carry wheelchair users up and down to dinner, and enough ground floor bedrooms were just about accessible.
The Minister for Disability, Alf Morris, attended the Conference dinner and made an excellent speech. The Conference technical sessions ran as a single stream and many of the speakers were senior practitioners, such as Ingmar Berg who ran Stockholm’s Special Transport System, at the time pioneering good practice in transport for people with disabilities. Cambridge in April was too cold to encourage punting but the ‘Backs’ (college grounds by the river) were beautiful with the trees in blossom. The Conference was judged a success and repeated in Cambridge in 1981 and Orlando, Florida in 1984. The papers for the 1978 and 1981 Conferences were published in separate books by Loughborough University and Gordon and Breach.
Scaling up – Orlando 1984
The 1984 Conference was a much larger event, with 270 delegates from 14 countries. It was held in a hotel on International Drive in Orlando, with staff from the Center for Gerontology at Florida State University providing administrative support. Sixty-two papers were presented, classified as 3 keynote presentations, 8 overviews, 5 on air transport, 4 on micro-computer applications and 42 on various aspects of state-of-the-art, based mainly on research findings. These 42 were presented at workshops running in parallel sessions. The Conference included technical visits for the first time, to a paratransit operator. The papers were published in a US DOT Report.
1986 Vancouver
The 1986 Conference in Vancouver was somewhat unusual. It was brought forward by more than a year to fit in with a World Fair/Expo in Vancouver. This made it a lot of fun to attend but there was less new material to report and the only publications from the Conference were keynote papers on ‘Mobility in the Global Village’, celebrating Canada’s very considerable achievements in making transport more accessible and inclusive.
1989 to 1995 Stockholm, Lyon and Reading
The next three conferences were organized by universities or research establishments with experience in transport for people with disabilities. In each case they were organized by members of staff; Agneta Stahl of Lund University for Stockholm 1989; Maryvonne Dejeammes of INRETS (Institut National de Recherche sur les Transports et leur Sécurité) for Lyon 1992; and Kit Mitchell of TRRL for Reading 1995. For Agneta and Maryvonne the organization of the Conferences was additional to their full time responsibilities, which was undoubtedly a serious burden. Kit had recently retired and was able to devote the time needed without conflicting with other work.
The Stockholm Conference attracted over 380 delegates from some 40 countries and included 10 plenary and 97 parallel session papers from 26 countries and was a continuation of the pattern established by the 1984 Orlando Conference. It was held in Stockholmsmässan, an exhibition centre, with the title “Towards Mobility as a Human Right”, and included technical visits to show delegates some of the things happening in Sweden, which at the time was, and still is, a world leader in making transport accessible and inclusive. It also included a splendid formal reception in the ancient City Hall. The papers were printed in a book published by Gordon and Breach. The book includes a note from Norman Ashford reporting the death of Professor Bill Bell in April 1990 and recognizing the extent to which he had improved transport for elderly and disabled people.
The Lyon Conference was particularly significant for introducing presentations in English and French with simultaneous translation and the proceedings published in both languages by INRETS. The Conference included 121 papers and was held at the INRETS laboratories, some distance from the city centre hotel used by delegates. This caused a degree of travel delay, an issue which was to become a problem in some subsequent conferences. The Conference took the short name of COMOTRED (Conference on Mobility and Transport for Elderly and Disabled).
The Reading Conference was held in the headquarters of Berkshire County Council, on the edge of the town and again some distance from delegates’ hotels. As part of the Department of Transport the organisers hoped that travel would not be a problem but road congestion got the better of them and there were serious delays moving delegates between the conference and their hotels. The Conference was attended by 350 delegates and included 75 papers and 46 posters, introduced for the first time. There were technical visits before the conference and social visits to Ascot Racecourse and Highclere Castle (subsequently the setting for Downton Abbey). The conference was timed to allow delegates to attend the Mobility Roadshow at Transport and Road Research Laboratory, before the start of the conference proper. All the papers were translated into French or English as necessary and separate proceedings in each language published by Cranfield University Press.
1998 to 2007 Perth, Warsaw, Hamamatsu and Montreal
The 1998 conference in Perth, Western Australia, was another unusual one, in that it was organized and funded by a commercial organization, with the theme of “Setting the Pace”. It was a relatively low key conference plus a small exhibition, which consisted of five plenary sessions and 12 parallel sessions during which 59 papers were presented. Attendance was less than that at the previous three conferences.
In 2001 the conference in Warsaw was back to the pattern of earlier conferences. Organised by Liliana Schwartz and with the theme “Towards Safety‚ Independence and Security”, it was sponsored by the Ministry of Transport, the National Road Safety Council, Warsaw City Council and the Foundation for the Rehabilitation of the Disabled. The first conference in an East European country, the conference introduced the short name TRANSED. Fourteen sponsors are listed in the programme. It included 78 papers, 12 in plenary sessions and 66 delivered through three parallel streams. There were also two poster sessions. Polish and English simultaneous interpretation was provided during all plenary and parallel sessions. Before the conference there was a sightseeing tour of Warsaw, which unfortunately took delegates using wheelchairs across the cobbles of the old town, and a welcome reception at the Palace of Culture and Science, where the conference was held. This was a 5-10 minute walk from the delegates’ hotels, to overcome the travel delays that had been an issue at some previous conferences. Abstracts of papers and posters were printed in Polish, English and French. Conference Proceedings including full papers and summaries of posters were published in English only by Polplan Co. Ltd.
The 2004 conference was held in Hamamatsu, Japan, a town that is home to Yamaha, Suzuki and other manufacturing companies. The conference was in a spectacular modern hotel, which obviated any problems with travelling. There were 370 delegates, 96 papers and 54 posters and an exhibition in an adjacent hall. Before the conference delegates were offered 5 detailed training courses on aspects of accessible transport. The welcome reception was in the exhibition hall, and on the evening of the first day of the conference a party was held at the Matsuri Kaikan building with a display of traditional kites, drumming and fireworks. The conference dinner was in a German Bier Keller in a replica Bavarian castle in Hamamatsu, unlikely as this may sound. The conference secretariat was provided by the ECOMO Foundation, with Daisuke Sawada as conference organizer. The conference offered scholarships to enable participants from developing countries and participants with disabilities to attend, and the US DOT provided scholarships for some participants from USA. The report on the conference is exemplary and explains the measures needed to make the conference a success.
In 2007 Transport Canada hosted TRANSED at the Montreal Convention Centre. The secretariat was provided by Transport Canada, with Murielle Fong as Project Manager, who chaired the organising committee. The Technical Programme Organiser, also from Transport Canada, was Dr Valérie Gil, who chaired the scientific committee. The conference attracted 590 registered delegates from 41 countries, of whom 562 actually attended; a high proportion of delegates had disabilities. The conference was held in French and English. Three plenary sessions and 5 parallel tracks of 44 sessions allowed 158 papers to be presented. There were also 82 posters displayed in two sessions. The associated exhibition hosted 39 exhibitors. The conference dinner was held in the Convention Centre. The day before the conference four tutorials were offered in the morning, a choice of four technical tours in the afternoon and an evening welcome reception in the exhibition hall. The day before that delegates were offered a choice of two social events, a city tour of Montreal and a visit to the botanical gardens. There were 5 major sponsors, 4 strategic sponsors and 9 conference collaborators listed in the programme for the Conference.
2010 Hong Kong
The 2010 TRANSED was held in Hong Kong, hosted by the Hong Kong Society for Rehabilitation which runs a Rehabilitation Network and a Vocational Rehabilitation and Retraining Centre, and also Rehabus with a fleet of over 110 accessible vehicles for door to door services for people with disabilities. The theme was “Sustainable Transport and Travel for All”. The organizing committee was led by Mabel Chau. The conference was held in the HK Convention and Exhibition Centre, a huge building of which TRANSED only needed part. Accommodation was in hotels, many within walking distance of the Centre, the rest linked by the HK Metro. The principal sponsor was the S K Yee Medical Foundation and the HK Society for Rehabilitation. A further 24 sponsors are listed in the programme.
The day before the conference there was a choice of three technical visits (the airport, Kowloon Motor Bus Company and the MTR (Metro)) and five workshops. The welcome reception was held in the Convention Centre.
The conference achieved a number of benchmarks in the history of TRANSED:
- A record 360 abstracts were submitted, of which 327 were accepted, due to the high quality of submissions
- Four plenary sessions, and seven parallel tracks consisting of 50 technical sessions and forum, grouped under 4 major conference themes
- About 66 poster presentations, classified into 5 subject areas
- A technical track of 7 sessions on accessibility issues and challenges in tourism including marine travel
- Two sessions on the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities
- Three sessions to discuss issues and challenges in accessible air travel.
- Ten sessions devoted to safe mobility of seniors and persons with sensory and cognitive impairments as pedestrians and drivers.
The large exhibition, in the Convention Centre, included a photographic competition cum exhibition on the theme of “Accessibility and Social Inclusion” The conference dinner was held in a VIP stand at the Hong Kong Happy Valley racecourse, complete with racing for entertainment.
There were 911 registered delegates, and a total of around 2,000 participants including the exhibition. 35 different countries were represented, some of whom were new to TRANSED.
2012 Delhi
The 2012 TRANSED was held after only two years for complicated reasons involving hosts having to drop out. It was held in Delhi and organized by Swayam, the charitable arm of Jindal Saw Ltd. The conference theme was Seamless Access for All: Universal Design in Transport Systems and Built Infrastructure‚ a Key Element in the Creation of Liveable Cities. The organising committee was chaired by Abha Negi, with Subash Chandra Vashishth as Project Coordinator. Support came from 25 organisations, including the Government of the National Capital Territory of Delhi, Ministries of Transport, Urban Development and Tourism of the Government of India and Jindal SAW Ltd.
394 abstracts were received from 46 countries. Three plenary session included 11 papers, two plenary workshops included 8 presentations, and 21 parallel session, arranged in three or four streams, included 110 papers. The quality of papers was good but they were grouped into the parallel sessions strictly according to the theme identified by the author, which led to sessions containing a mixture of topics.
The day before the conference started, four workshops were offered in the morning and two technical tours in the afternoon. An exhibition with 16 exhibitors was held in the hotel used for accommodation and the conference sessions. The benefit of co-locating accommodation and the conference was considerable, as any need for transport between venues was avoided. The hotel did not have enough wheelchair accessible bedrooms but was willing to remove bathroom doors and allowed us to add suction attached grab handles to make rooms acceptable for the more mobile wheelchair users. The Conference was attended by over 600 delegates from 46 countries.
2015 Lisbon and 2018 Taiwan
I did not attend these TRANSEDs so cannot report from first-hand knowledge. The 2015 TRANSED was organised by the Instituto Superior Técnico (the largest school of Engineering, Science and Technology and Architecture in Portugal) with relatively little input from TRB Committee ABE60 or the international community. Its theme was “Aim and Manage for Inclusive Access”.
The 2018 TRANSED was organized by the Eden Social Welfare Foundation in Taipei, founded to serve persons with disabilities and other socially marginalized groups. It operates 120 service centres in Taiwan and employs 3,000 staff, of whom 25% have a disability.
The conference was held at the Taipei International Convention Centre. The Eden Social Welfare Foundation, based in Taipei, served as the conference organizing and funding entity, engaging in partnerships with the Government of the Republic of China (Taiwan), several universities, and various transportation and technology providers. The theme was “Mobility for All: Connecting the World with Accessible Transportation.” A total of 638 individuals attended the conference, representing 31 countries in Asia, North America, Africa, South America, Europe, and Australia.
Lessons
From being involved in the organization of most of the TRANSED conferences, a number of lessons and experiences have emerged.
Practical
The difficulty of moving delegates a significant distance between accommodation and the Conference should be appreciated. Conferences have worked best when accommodation and sessions are in the same building or within say a 5-10 minute walk, so transport is only needed for those delegates who cannot walk or use wheelchairs for that distance.
It is usual to have insufficient formally accessible bedrooms for delegates. Rooms which are not formally accessible can often be made accessible enough by removing doors to bathrooms, adding small temporary ramps at doorways, and using temporary handrails (attached by suction pads).
It is essential to check the venue and all the planned activities beforehand with a group of volunteers with disabilities. This helps with making rooms accessible, providing signing that can be read by people with poor vision and avoids the situation we had at one conference where the pre-conference city tour involved wheeling wheelchairs over surfaces of harsh cobbles.
Do not promise what you cannot deliver. In 1995 we aimed to include enough finger food during the visits to Ascot and Highclere to act as supper, but in the event there was not enough and delegates were left desperately looking for late suppers when they got back to Reading.
We have generally been fortunate to have helpful, knowledgeable and friendly people of the information desk for delegates. This does a lot to set the atmosphere of the conference.
Conference
The pattern of plenary and parallel sessions plus one or more poster sessions seems to work well. Similarly, the three-day length seems about right.
Although authors are often asked to identify the topic of their paper by one of a number of key words, these should not be used to assign papers to sessions. In all the conferences in which I was involved I read all the abstracts, and papers when they came in, and used the content of the paper to construct sessions with consistent themes and papers that related to each other. In at least one conference the chair of the scientific committee insisted on using the keywords for assigning papers to sessions, which led to sessions of papers that had little in common.
Providing tutorials before the conference seems to work really well.
Technical visits before the conference are usually of interest to delegates.
Timing the conference to link to a relevant activity, such as the 1995 conference linked to the Mobility RoadShow as an alternative to an exhibition, works well. Linking to a non-relevant activity, such as the 1986 World Fair, does not work well.
Past Conferences.
Triennial Conferences (except 1986, 2012 and 2022)
1. 1978 Cambridge, UK. Title “Mobility for the Elderly and Handicapped”. Content concentrated on practical issues of service delivery, plus effects of mobility on lifestyles.
2. 1981 Cambridge, UK. Title “Mobility for Elderly and Handicapped Persons”. Content included methodology, concepts, technology and software, as well as operational experience in the field and evaluation.
3. 1984 Orlando, Florida. Title “Mobility and Transport for Elderly and Handicapped Persons”. Content covered policy, transportation systems modifications, legal rights of disabled people, international air travel and specialized transportation in developing countries.
4. 1986 Vancouver, Canada. Theme: “Mobility in the Global Village”.
5. 1989 Stockholm, Sweden. Theme: “Towards Mobility as A Human Right”.
6. 1992 Lyon, France. Theme “From Human Rights to A Better Quality of Life”.
7. 1995 Reading, UK. Theme: “Ideas into Actions”.
8. 1998 Perth, Australia. Theme: “Setting the Pace”.
9. 2001 Warsaw, Poland. Theme: "Towards Safety, Independence and Security".
10. 2004 Hamamatsu, Japan. Theme: ‘‘Accessible Transportation and Road Design: Strategies for Success”.
11. 2007 Montreal, Canada. Theme: "Benchmarking, Evaluation and Vision for the Future".
12. 2010 Hong Kong, China. Theme: “Sustainable transport and travel for all”.
13. 2012 New Delhi, India. Theme: “Seamless access for all: Universal Design in Transport system and built infrastructure, a key element in the creation of livable cities.
14. 2015 Lisbon, Portugal. Theme: “Aim and Manage for Inclusive Access”.
15. 2018 Taipei, Taiwan. Theme: “Mobility for all: Connecting the World with Accessible Transportation”.
16. 2022 Virtual conference USA Title "TRANSED: Mobility, Accessibility and Demand Response Transportation Conference"
References for Proceedings
Mobility for the elderly and the handicapped: proceedings of the International Conference on Transport for the Elderly and Handicapped at Cambridge, April 4-7, 1978, organized by Loughborough University of Technology in conjunction with Florida State University
Loughborough University of Technology Press, 1978 - Social Science - 374 pages
Mobility and Transport for Elderly and Handicapped Persons (N. Ashford, W. G. Bell, and T. A. Rich, eds.). Gordon and Breach, London, England, 1982.
Third international Conference on Mobility and Transport of Elderly and Handicapped Persons William G Bell Report DOT-1-85-07, Technology Sharing Program, Office of the Secretary of Transportation, Department of Transportation, Washington DC 20590 https://archive.org/details/ERIC_ED296490
Mobility and Transport for Elderly and Disabled Persons (Proceedings of a Conference Held at Stockholmsmassan May 21-24, 1989) Norrbom, Claes-Eric; Stahl, Agneta Proceedings of the 5th International Conference on Mobility and Transport for Elderly and Disabled Persons Published by Routledge, 1991 and Gordon & Breach Science Publishers, Philadelphia, PA, U.S.A. (1991) ISBN 10: 2881247636 / ISBN 13: 9782881247637
Mobility and Transport for Elderly and Disabled Persons: Proceedings (INRETS 1992)
Editors Maryvonne Dejeammes, Jean-Pierre Medevielle
Publisher INRETS, 1992
Mobility and transport for elderly and disabled people (Reading 1995)
English version - Volume 1
Mitchell, C G B and Oxley, P R
Cranfield University Press
ISBN 1 871315 50 6
8th International Conference on Transport and Mobility for Elderly and Disabled People, Perth, Western Australia Published 1998 by Indomed Pty Ltd, 144 Northwood Street, Leederville 6007, Western Australia ISBN 0-646-36154-6
Transed 2001. Towards Safety, Independence and Security. 9th International Conference on Mobility and Transport for Elderly and Disabled People, POLPLAN Company Limited, Nowolopki 1079, Warsaw, Poland 00 153
TRANSED 2004. Qureshi, Aqeel, Transed 2004. Universal Transportation and Road Design: Strategies for Success, Japan Society of Civil Engineers, 1-chome, Yotsuya, Shinjuku-ku, Tokyo, Japan 160-0004, Language English, Media Type: CD-ROM https://trid.trb.org/view/890515
