The WCTR Society began in Rotterdam in 1977 as a forum for transport researchers and policy makers. In 1986, it was registered as an international academic society under Swiss Law. 
Nowadays WCTRS includes many eminent scholars, policy and management decision makers, and practitioners/thinkers from all modes of transport and related fields and all
regions of the world including developing, emerging and developed countries. This integration of researchers, decision makers and practitioners makes WCTRS a unique organization in its ability to contribute to the world of transport and related fields from a perspective which is multi-modal, multi-disciplinary and multi-regional. 

Delivering ideas to solve global, regional and national problems for the world:

In the past, it was expected that developing countries follow similar pathways that the advanced countries had gone through to achieve progress in their society. However, during the last several decades, we have witnessed some developing countries leap-frogging advanced countries in various aspects of transport and infrastructure services in order to improve their productivity growth, wealth and social welfare. Therefore, from now on it is essential that the developed and developing countries should work together by learning from each other.

In this 21st century, all countries are facing common problems such as economic and energy crises, pressure of urbanization, mobility needs for aging population, aging/inefficient infrastructure, transport security threats, increasing natural disasters, environmental and global warming issues, etc.  Solutions to these problems need to be found by setting common objectives, identifying new and innovative policy and infrastructure investment approaches, researching for efficient design of transport systems and improving operational efficiency of those system.

Given the above discussion, our Society’s 30+ Special Interest Groups (SIGs) are becoming increasingly important both for promoting our research and as on-going international fora for exchange of ideas and helping to devise policy approaches and solutions. I hope these SIG events should involve not only researchers but also policy makers, government officers, NPOs, and corporate decision makers.

To this end, WCTRS would very much like to invite public and private sector organizations,  including research institutes, government organizations and private corporations, to participate in these WCTRS’ efforts by joining as one of the WTRS Supporting Organizational Members.

I also would like to encourage all WCTRS members to register in one or more SIGs in their field of interests by inspecting our growing list of SIGs posted on our website (www.wctrs-society.com), and actively participate in their activities by contacting the SIG leadership. These SIGs’ future activities will be announced in WCTRS Newsletters on our website, as well as other digital media.

Meetings the Needs of Young Researchers

Young researchers and graduate students determine the future of the WCTRS and thus, our society need to give special attention to take care of their needs which are different from the needs of our mature members. To this end we in the leadership of WCTRS will be working diligently on the following issues:

1. To increase quality and quantity of papers to be published in our Society’s official journals (publishing jointly with Elsevier: Transport Policy, Case Studies in Transport Policy), strengthen publication of WCTRS Selected Proceedia, WCTRS Book Series (currently jointly with Elsevier publisher), etc.
2. To increase opportunities to publish in as many special issues of high quality refereed  academic journals.  We are proud to say that we have organized to publish 20+ special journal issues from the papers presented at the 2023 WCTRS World Conference in Montreal, Canada.  We would like to further improve this good performance when we hold our 2026 triennial World Conferernce in Toulouse, France in July, 2026.  To this end, I would like to also encourage all SIG leadership to organize special issues of good quality journals for the papers presented at their SIGs’ conferences and workshops.
3. The WCTRS Young Initiatives (WCTRS-Y), launched at the 2013 WCTRS World Conference in Rio de Janeiro, has been growing rapidly. It has become a major attraction to young researchers and graduate students to the WCTRS. We have awarded a number of grants to young researchers’ outstanding proposals. We would very much like our sponsoring organizational members, individual members and corporations to consider providing funds for us to expand the number and amount of these very worthwhile excellence awards.
4. To the young researchers and graduate students, I would like to strongly urge you to get involved in one or more SIGs in your fields of specialization, and participate actively in the SIG workshops and conferences.

Thank you very much with my welcoming hands,

Professor Tae Hoon Oum, PhD, MBA

President, the WCTR Society

Sauder School of Business, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada

(please click HERE to see the Profile for Prof. Tae Oum)