The Transportation Network Design Symposium is this Friday and Admission is Free!

I am delighted to be able to take part in the upcoming Symposium on Transportation Network Design and Economics that will take place this Friday at Northwestern University. Information is below. Professor David E. Boyce, along with Professor Hani S. Mahmassani, have made this symposium possible and I thank them.

Symposium on Transportation Network Design and Economics
January 29, 2010
9:00 AM - 5:00 PM

On the occasion of the visit of Professor Martin Beckmann to Northwestern University, a one-day symposium has been organized for January 29, 2010, on topics related to his seminal work on transportation network equilibrium and efficiency theory.

In Part I of his 1956 book, Studies in the Economics of Transportation, co-authored with C. Bartlett McGuire [1925-2006] and Christopher B. Winsten [1923-2005], Martin Beckmann established basic principles for user behavior on congested transportation networks, as well as for optimal network vehicle flows, when user choices are respectively uncoordinated or coordinated. Beckmann’s contribution launched the new subfield of transportation network economics. Two ongoing international symposia (ISTTT and TRISTAN), the founding of three international transportation journals in 1967, 12 books and two academic handbooks may be traced to Beckmann’s pioneering contribution. Today, Beckmann’s findings are being applied to many congested economic network questions, not only to predict road traffic and public transit flows and to establish road tolls in cities around the world, but also to describe and route telecommunication flows on the Internet, and to price electric power transmissions through generation and distribution networks with many intermediaries and decision-makers.

The Symposium on January 29, 2010, will bring together several leading academic researchers to address some of the implications of Beckmann’s contribution for unsolved problems. One focus of the discussion will be the design of transportation and similar networks (communication, electric power, the Internet). Although network design has been explored formally and informally over the past 60 years, operational design methods have yet to be regularly applied in the planning of large-scale transportation systems by public agencies or private firms. A second focus of the symposium concerns decision making about the pricing, expansion, operation or maintenance of such public and private systems.

In addition to several Northwestern University faculty associated with the Transportation Center, speakers and panelists, according to the official announcement, will include:

* Anna Nagurney, John F. Smith Memorial Professor, Department of Finance and Operations Management, University of Massachusetts at Amherst
* T. John Kim, Endowed Professor of Urban and Regional Systems, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign
* John F. McDonald, Gerald W. Fogelson Distinguished Chair in Real Estate, Roosevelt University, Chicago
* Yanfeng Ouyang, Assistant Professor, Civil & Environmental Engineering, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign

Download the agenda here.

The Symposium is open to all interested persons - there is no fee to attend!

Please register online or by contacting
Diana Marek:
d-marek@northwestern.edu
847.491.2280

LOCATION
Transportation Center
Ruan Conference Center
Northwestern University
Chambers Hall
600 Foster St., Lower Level
Evanston, IL 60208

Professor Martin Beckmann's 1956 book, Studies in the Economics of Transportation, is available online here. The Web of Science recently showed 527 citations of this book. Of these, 277 citations (53%) appeared since January 2000, illustrating the significance of this work today. The citing authors represented 39 countries throughout the world.