Dear members of the International Transport Economics Association,

Due to reasons you all know, year 2020 begun with unexpected barriers on passengers’ travel, something that links with our research subject directly: crowding in vehicles has finally become a real issue, and the reallocation of time from travel to other activities is attracting increasing attention. These difficulties have also impacted some of our programmed activities, the main one being our Conference in Beijing, which had to be canceled.

Other planned activities, however, went as programed; in spite of everything we have renewed our Executive Committee. As a result the Committee now includes the following persons: Sergio Jara-Diaz (President), Maria Börjesson (Vice-President), Marc Ivaldi (Past-President), Ismir Mulalic (Secretary), Tiziana D’Alfonso (Treasurer), Esko Niskanen (Communications and web page), Eren Inci (Venue Committe Chair), Ricardo Flores-Fillol (Scientific Committee Chair), Sofia Franco, Yacan Wang, Anming Zhang and Andrew Smith.

So this message is to welcome all of you to a new period of activities where uncertainty will pay a role indeed. We have gained experience in virtual communication not only because of our teaching, research and professional duties, but also because of ITEA activities such as the virtual conference that was quickly organized this year by the Scientific Committee headed by Leo Basso in agreement with the Executive Committee headed by Marc Ivaldi, including a selected subset of papers submitted to this year’s Conference. The sessions went very well and were attended by a large audience.

The new Scientific Committee chaired by Ricardo Flores-Fillol, in charge of the selection of papers for the next conference in Rome during 2021, will be formed very soon. I hope that the world health situation evolves in such a way that in this conference (and in the next one in Beijing) we are able to ask-receive incisive questions in person. If not, we will plan as needed.

Because of the effective work of my predecessors ITEA is growing in terms of activities and membership, and the Journal has indeed established as an important reference for knowledge in Transport Economics. Growth brings new challenges in many dimensions, which I am confident that we will address effectively with the collaboration of its members.

Regards to all,
Sergio Jara-Diaz
President of ITEA
August 13, 2020