Background of TRANSED series of conferences
Founded in the 1970's by Professor Norman Ashford (University of
Loughborough) and Professor William Bell (University of Florida), the
International Conference on Mobility and Transport for Elderly and Disabled
People has been held twelve times in nine countries. From its roots as a small,
specialised meeting of researchers, the Conference today attracts between 600
and 1,000 delegates from up to 40 nations on six continents (see Chronology of
Conferences at Annex A). Conference proceedings are a standard reference for
researchers, planners and operators alike, and are referenced in the TRB
Transport Research Information Database TRID (http://trid.trb.org/).
Professionals
and end users throughout the world recognize the TRANSED series Conferences as
a major forum for scientific and conceptual advances in the pursuit of mobility
and access for elderly and disabled people as well as for the dissemination of
practical information on policy formation and implementation of advances in our
field around the world.
In
recent times, the Conference has been held every three years, with the
exception that the New Delhi Conference in 2012 will be held only two years
after the preceding Conference. From the outset, the TRANSED series of
Conferences have been held primarily to serve the needs of transport
professionals; including researchers, policy makers, planners, administrators
and operators. Elected government officials and end users are also key
participants at the Conferences. The main objective of the Conference remains
to promote and encourage the development of transport services and systems that
meet the needs of people with a disability through the exchange and
dissemination of knowledge and experience.
TRANSED 2015 takes the ambitious goal
of enlarging the scope of the conference to all sorts of disabilities and
sources of exclusion (e.g. physical, logical/cognitive, economic/financial,
temporary/permanent, etc). In New Delhi, September 2012, we have set the scene
for an overarching topic of the 2015 conference that is
