ITEA Conference and School

ITEA Conference and School are the main activity of ITEA, besides the ITEA Journal (Economics of Transportation). The conference and school are organized annually.

ITEA Conference and School have already for 15 years, starting 2005-2006, brought together researchers and students from around the world in all aspects of transportation economics, including infrastructure and spatial development. The conference and school have consistently brought together the most advanced research in transportation economics from around the world.

ITEA Conference is the successor of two highly successful series of conferences: the Kuhmo Nectar Conference and the International Conference on Funding Transportation Infrastructure.

The Kuhmo Nectar series of conferences started in the town of Kuhmo, Finland, in 2005, organized by Esko and Anita Niskanen. This was followed by conferences in Helsinki in 2006, Urbino (Italy) 2007, Amsterdam 2008, and Copenhagen 2009. The International Conference of Funding Transportation Infrastructure began in Banff (Canada) 2006, followed by Leuven 2007, Paris 2008, and Minneapolis 2009. In 2010, these two series merged into the single conference organized by ITEA.

ITEA School offers a high-quality program covering recent advances in transportation and urban economics and is targeted to PhD students, practitioners, and practicing researchers from related fields. The School has been highly successful in attracting young researchers from all around the world.

ITEA School, originally Kuhmo Nectar Summer School, started in Helsinki in 2006. This was followed by schools in Urbino (Italy) 2007, Amsterdam 2008, Copenhagen 2009, Valencia 2010, Stockholm 2011, Berlin 2012, Chicago 2013, Toulouse 2014, Oslo 2015, Santiago (Chile) 2016, Barcelona 2017, Hong Kong 2018, and Paris 2019. The venue in 2020 will be in Peking.

The local organizers for ITEA Conference and School since 2005 have been:

- Staresearch, Finland, in 2005 and 2006
- University of Urbino, in 2007
- VU University of Amsterdam, in 2008
- TU University of Copenhagen, in 2009
- University of Valencia, in 2010
- Centre for Transport Studies of the Royal Institute of Technology (Stockholm), in 2011
- German Institute for Economic Research (DIW) in Berlin and the Technical University of Berlin, in 2012
- Transportation Center at Northwestern University, in 2013
- Toulouse School of Economics (TSE) at the Université Toulouse 1 Capitole, Toulouse, with the support of Institut D’Economie Industrielle (IDEI), in 2014
- Institute of Transport Economics Norwegian Centre for Transport Research (TOI), in collaboration with the Department of Economics at the University of Oslo (UiO), in 2015
- Faculty of Physical and Mathematical Sciences, Universidad de Chile in Santiago, Chile, in 2016
- Institut dEconomia de Barcelona (IEB) at the Faculty of Economics and Business of Universitat de Barcelona, in 2017
- Hong Kong Polytechnic University, in 2018
- Paris School of Economics (PSE), in 2019

The local organizer in 2020 will be Department of Economics and School of Economics and Management at Beijing Jiaotong University (BJTU) in Beijing.

The aim of the annual ITEA Conference is to promote scientific excellence in the field of transport economics and to provide a forum for scientific exchange. Research presented at the Conference covers both theory and empirical work, it includes all transport modes, and it allows a wide range of research methodologies. Specific topics of interest include, but are not limited to, transport pricing and investment, competition policy, transport decisions under uncertainty, agglomeration effects, valuation of intangibles, privatization, the economics of new transport technologies, the political economy of transport decisions, etc.

The aim of the annual ITEA School is to provide young researchers a high quality introduction to academic research on transport economics, including many recent advances in the field. The School’s program consists of a series of lectures and tutorials; all faculty members are among the most prominent researchers in transport economics.