AAG Transportation Geography Specialty Group:
Past Events

TGSG at AAG 2024

2024 TGSG Award Winners

• Edward L. Ullman Award: Antonio Páez is Professor at the School of Earth, Environment and Society at McMaster University, where he has been a teacher and researcher since 2002. Prof. Páez has dedicated his career to the analysis of transport and mobility issues: accessibility, equity and justice in transport, travel patterns, and daily activity to life choices. He is interested in the built and social environments as they affect travel behavior and health, as well as in identifying spatial patterns of residential choices, clustering of medical conditions, businesses and land uses, or social networks. In 2008 he led a team of researchers in a project that examined social exclusion and transportation in Canadian communities. This research was recognized with 2010 AAG Meredith F. Burrill Award which acknowledges excellent research at the interface of geography and policy. A very active scholar, Prof. Páez is author or co-author of more than 150 publications in peer-reviewed scholarly journals, has co-edited three books on spatial analysis, health, and transportation, and recently he is the co-author of Discrete Choice Analysis with R, published in Springer's flagship series UseR! According to the science-wide standardized citation indicators, Prof. Páez is in the top 2% of most cited researchers world-wide, and is among the most cited researchers in the field of transportation. Prof. Páez has been supported at various stages of his career by every federal research council in Canada: the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council, the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council, and the Canadian Institutes for Health Research. He has also travelled widely and has been invited to lecture and teach in Australia, Austria, Brazil, Chile, China, Germany, Greece, Italy, Mexico, the Netherlands, Spain, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, and the United States. He has been a member in more than 10 editorial boards and has been co-Editor-in-Chief since 2008 of Journal of Geographical Systems.
• Ph.D. Dissertation Award: Luyu Liu, University of Florida, "Accessibility in Motion: Measuring Real-time Accessibility with High-resolution Data" (supervised by Harvey Miller, The Ohio State University)
• Master's Thesis Award: Joshua Philip Suarez, National Taiwan University, "Transit-based Job Accessibility and Sociospatial Inequities among Immigrants: A Multi-scale Empirical Investigation in Taichung, Taiwan" (supervised by S.K. Jason Chang and Jen-Jia Lin, National Taiwan University)
• Student Travel Awards: Oforiwaa Pee Agyei-Boakye, University of Minnesota and Xiaohuan Zeng, University of Minnesota

Sessions

TGSG sponsored or co-sponsored ten hybrid, eight in-person, and one virtual sessions at AAG 2024 Honolulu. All times are in Hawaii Standard Time.

• Tuesday, 4/16/2024
• 7:20 am (hybrid): Emerging vehicle technologies and services: Geographies of diffusion
• 9:00 am: Active transportation and resilient cities
• 10:40 am: Measuring motorized urban access
• 1:20 pm: Operationalising access and access-related outcomes
• 2:00 pm: (Workshop): Using accessibility measures: with and without constraints and competition
• 3:00 pm (virtual): Emergent transportation technologies and methodologies
• Wednesday, 4/17/2024
• 7:20 am (hybrid): Symposium on geospatial approaches to pressing grand challenges: Global pandemics, climate change, and food security – GIS, road and accessibility
• Thursday, 4/18/2024
• 7:20 am (hybrid): Transportation Justice 1: Infrastructure and active mobility policies
• 9:00 am (hybrid): Transportation Justice 2: Theory and methods within mobility justice
• 9:00 am: Symposium on human dynamics research: Human dynamics research in action
• 10:40 am (hybrid): Transportation Justice 3: Applications and case studies of mobility justice
• 1:20 pm (hybrid): Transportation Justice 4: Spatial and temporal approaches considering transit
• 3:00 pm (hybrid): Transportation Justice 5: Exploring the dimensions of transit users
• Friday, 4/19/2024
• 7:20 am (hybrid): Understanding weather and climate impacts on surface transportation
• 12:10 pm (hybrid): Transportation Geography Specialty Group business meeting
• 1:20 pm (hybrid): GeoAI and deep learning symposium: Emerging geo-big data applications in human mobility analysis I: Transport & social challenges
• 3:00 pm (hybrid): Fleming Lecture: Dr. Mark Horner: Bridging Theory and Practice in Transport Geography: Retrospective and Prospective
• Saturday, 4/20/2024
• 7:20 am: Geography of mobility transition I: Policy transition
• 9:00 am: Geography of mobility transition II: Industrial transition
• 10:40 am: Geography of mobility transition III: Inclusive transition

2023 AAG Annual Meeting: Denver, CO

TGSG sponsored or co-sponsored 23 in-person and six virtual sessions at AAG 2023 Denver. The biggest day was Saturday, featuring the four (!) COVID-deferred Fleming Lectures, the TGSG business meeting, and a Saturday evening reception.

Sessons

• Thursday 3/23/2023
• 8:30am Transit Landscapes (Virtual 8)
• 10:20am Urban Transportation Equity and Micro-Mobility (Virtual 9)
• 2:40pm GeoAI and Deep Learning Symposium: Emerging Geo-Data Applications in Human Mobility Analysis (Capitol Ballroom 3, Hyatt Regency, Fourth Floor)
• 2:40pm Transport and Logistics: Moving Towards Sustainability 1 (Directors Row E, Sheraton, Plaza Building, Lobby Level)
• 4:30pm Transport and Logistics: Moving Towards Sustainability 2 (Directors Row E, Sheraton, Plaza Building, Lobby Level)
• Friday 3/24/2023
• 8:30am Emerging Vehicle Technologies and Services: Geographies of Diffusion 1 (Directors Row E, Sheraton, Plaza Building, Lobby Level)
• 10:20am Contemporary urban form, COVID-19, social disadvantage, and travel behavior (Mineral Hall A, Hyatt Regency, Third Floor)
• 10:20am Emerging Vehicle Technologies and Services: Geographies of Diffusion 2 (Directors Row E, Sheraton, Plaza Building, Lobby Level)
• 12:50pm Symposium on Human Dynamics Research: GIScience in a Hybrid Physical-Virtual World (Centennial Ballroom B, Hyatt Regency, Third Floor)
• 2:40pm Supply, accessibility and poverty in transportation I (Virtual 10)
• 4:30pm Sustainable Transportation (Directors Row E, Sheraton, Plaza Building, Lobby Level)
• Saturday 3/25/2023
• 8:30am "Detour" Mobilities and Alternate Perspectives on Time-Spaces (Directors Row I, Sheraton, Plaza Building, Lobby Level)
• 8:30am Data-driven Movement Analytics (Centennial Ballroom D, Hyatt Regency, Third Floor)
• 10:20am AAG 2023 Symposium on Harnessing the Geospatial Data Revolution for Sustainability Solutions: Emerging Geo-Data Applications in Road Safety Studies (Centennial Ballroom H, Hyatt Regency, Third Floor)
• 10:20am Fleming Lecture I: Drs. Jean-Paul Rodrigue & Julie Cidell (Centennial Ballroom E, Hyatt Regency, Third Floor)
• 11:45am Transportation Geography Specialty Group Business Meeting (Centennial Ballroom F, Hyatt Regency, Third Floor)
• 2:40pm Transportation Justice 1: Conceptualizing Equity and Justice (Mineral Hall F, Hyatt Regency, Third Floor)
• 4:30pm Fleming Lecture II: Drs. Selima Sultana & David Banister (Centennial Ballroom E, Hyatt Regency, Third Floor)
• 4:30pm Transportation Justice 2: Assessing and Conceptualizing Equitable Planning (Virtual 7)
• 6:00pm Transportation Geography Specialty Group Reception (Centennial Ballroom E, Hyatt Regency, Third Floor)
• Sunday 3/26/2023
• 8:30am Transportation Justice 3: Methods in Transportation Equity Analysis (Virtual 4)
• 10:20am Transportation Justice 4: Exploring (Un)Sustainable and (In)Equitable Mobilities: Part I (Mineral Hall G, Hyatt Regency, Third Floor)
• 12:50pm Transportation Justice 5: Exploring (Un)Sustainable and (In)Equitable Mobilities: Part II (Mineral Hall G, Hyatt Regency, Third Floor)
• 2:40pm Transportation Justice 6: Aging and Transportation (Mineral Hall G, Hyatt Regency, Third Floor)
• 4:30pm Transportation Equity and Environmental Justice (Tower Court B, Sheraton, I.M. Pei Tower, Second Level)
• Monday 3/27/2023
• 8:30am Transportation Justice 7: Transportation Justice in the Global South (Mineral Hall E, Hyatt Regency, Third Floor)
• 10:20am Transportation Justice 8: Transport Poverty (Mineral Hall E, Hyatt Regency, Third Floor)
• 12:50pm Transportation Justice 9: Lessons Learned from Case Studies (Mineral Hall E, Hyatt Regency, Third Floor)
• 2:40pm Transportation Justice 10: Looking Forward" (Mineral Hall E, Hyatt Regency, Third Floor)
• 4:30pm Data-driven Approaches for Planning Smart and Resilient Cities (Tower Court C, Sheraton, I.M. Pei Tower, Second Level)
• 4:30am Transportation Justice 11: Research Agenda on Transport Justice and Mobility (Virtual 4)

2023 TGSG Award Winners

• Edward L. Ullman Award: Mark Horner, Professor of Geography at Florida State University (FSU) where he has served on the faculty since 2004. He earned his Ph.D. from The Ohio State University in 2002 where his dissertation focused on Urban Commuting under the supervision of Dr. Morton O'Kelly. Since then, he has proven himself a leader in the field, publishing close to 100 peer-reviewed journal articles in leading transportation and urban geography journals, accruing over 5600 citations, and making notable teaching and service contributions to the field. Dr. Horner's early work on spatial considerations of commuting including jobs-housing relationships and excess commuting is highly cited, sustained, and well-regarded in the discipline. His background in quantitative geography and, notably, spatial optimization, brought a new dimension to this research - a thread that expands to other research themes as well. He and colleagues – including some notable graduate advisees - have also published widely in the area of evaluation modeling and in the distribution of goods distribution with respect to natural disasters. His collaborations with his Ph.D. advisee, Joni Downs, was a unique blending of transport geography – especially movement and GPS trajectories and GIScience applied to animal and wildlife applications. Most recently, he has collaborated extensively with researchers from urban and transport planning to develop a well-funded agenda addressing Florida's aging population and associated, planning-related challenges. Collectively, his various research themes have each made an imprint on their respective subject areas, bringing a spatial and spatial analytical perspective to them. His regard as a researcher led him to serve as Associate Dean for Research at FSU. With respect to service to our field, Dr. Horner has acted as the Co-Editor-in-Chief of the highly respected journal Transportation since 2013, along with serving on several other editorial review boards, including the Journal of Transport Geography. He has also acted as a leader in the Social and Economic Factors and Transportation and Land Development sections of the Transportation Research Board, representing geographic perspectives amongst that interdisciplinary group of transportation scholars and professionals. Finally, his list of journals for which he has provided a peer review is admirable; he has undoubtably helped to shape our discipline through this extensive feedback.
• Ph.D. Dissertation Award: Qiao Si, University of Hong Kong, "Understanding ride-hailing and inventing future transit: Pathways to spatial justice" (supervised by Anthony Gar-On Yeh). Honorable mention: Jessica Villena, University of Denver, "Mobility of older adults in Mexico City: A mixed methods approach" (supervised by Eric Boschmann).
• Master Thesis Award: Gregorio Costa Luz de Souza Lima, , Federal University of Rio de Janeiro, "Understanding transport-related social exclusion through the lens of capabilities approach: Does better accessibility help to reduce social exclusion?" (supervised by Licinio da Silva Portugal). Honorable mention: Zhaoqi Zhou, University of Oxford, "The dynamic between platform mobility providers, regulators, and users: Lessons from dockless bicycle sharing in Shenzhen, China" (supervised by Tim Schwanen)
• Student Travel Awards: Yaxuan Zhang, University of Minnesota, and Rongxiang Su, University of California Santa Barbara

2022 AAG Virtual Annual Meeting

Sessions

The TGSG sponsored or co-sponsored 18 sessions at AAG 2022:

• Friday 2/25/22
  • 8:00 am: Infrastructure, Logistics, and Space: From Historical GIS to Local Impacts
  • 2:00 pm: Mobility, In/formality, Fluidity, and Space
  • 2:00 pm: Symposium on Human Dynamics Research: Applications of Emerging Mobility Data in Transportation and Social Science
  • 5:20 pm: High-Speed Rail: Promise and Peril, Ten Years Later
• Saturday 2/26/22
  • 8:00 am: Emerging Vehicle Technologies and Services: Geographies of Diffusion
  • 11:20 am: Moving Forward: Researching Transportation and Mobilities during a Pandemic
  • 2:00 pm: Airport and Airlines: International Perspectives
  • 5:20 pm: Global Issues of Transportation
• Sunday 2/27/22
  • 12:50 pm: Transportation Geography Specialty Group Business Meeting
• Monday 2/28/22
  • 8:00 am: Transport Justice I
  • 9:40 am: Transport Justice II
  • 11:20 am: Transport Justice III: Policy and Planning
  • 2:00 pm: Transport Justice IV: Economic Inequalities
  • 3:40 pm: Transport Justice V: Transit Service & Improvement
• Tuesday 3/1/22
  • 8:00 am: Challenging knowledge hegemonies in transport geography (1): policy agendas and myths
  • 9:40 am: The Role of GIS in planning smart and resilient cities II
  • 11:20 am: Challenging knowledge hegemonies in transport geography (3)
  • 2:00 pm: Challenging knowledge hegemonies in transport geography (4): contested infrastructures
  • 5:20 pm: AAG 2022 Symposium on Data-Intensive Geospatial Understanding in the Era of AI and CyberGIS: Harnessing Mobility Data for Spatial Knowledge Discovery

2022 TGSG Award Winners

• Edward L. Ullman Award: Dr. David Banister, Emeritus Professor of Transport Studies at the School of Geography and the Environment (SoGE) and the Transport Studies Unit (TSU) at the University of Oxford. He was Director of TSU from 2006 until 2015, and during 2009-2010. Dr. Banister is a towering figure in the field of transport geography. His wide contributions to the field range from topics such as sustainable mobilities, to the relationship between transport investments and urban and economic development, low-carbon mobility, equity and policy scenario building. Banister also has a long publication record with approximately 29,000 citations and an H-index of 76 according to Google Scholar. He figures as author and editor of 24 research books, (co)author of more than 200 papers in peer-reviewed international journals, and a further 150 papers in other journals or as chapters in books. Dr. Banister has also extensively engaged in outreach activities contributing to the transport geography community and others working on transport, mobilities and urban studies. He has served as editor of the Journal Transport Reviews (2000-2019), as joint editor of Built Environment (1993-) and is on the editorial board of many other leading journals such as Town Planning Reviews (1993-), European Journal of Transport Infrastructure Research (1999-), International Journal of Sustainable Transport (2005-), Logistics and Sustainable Transport (2006-), Environment and Planning B (2008-), and Travel Behavior and Society (2013 - Consulting Editor).
• Ph.D. Dissertation Award: Paul Jung, "Distance Friction and Spatial Interaction Dynamics in International Freight Transportation" supervised by Jean-Claude Thill, University of North Carolina at Charlotte
• Student Travel Awards: Jeff Allen, University of Toronto, and Kyusik Kim, Florida State University

High Speed Rail in America: Promise and Peril - Ten Years Later

This panel discussion was held on 25 February 2022 at the virtual Association of American Geographers Annual Meeting and sponsored by the Transport Geography Specialty Group. This session was a ten-years-later followup to a panel discussion held on 26 February 2012 at the AAG Annual Meeting in NYC. This panel discussion covered perspectives on lessons learned over the past decade, and how those lessons could inform policy and planning in the momentous energy, mobility, environmental, and political transformations that were expected over the next decade.

Part 1: Andrew Goetz (University of Denver)

Part 2: Bradley Lane (University of Kansas)

Part 3: Michael F. Ziolkowski (SUNY Brockport)

Part 4: Selima Sultana (University of North Carolina at Greensboro)

2021 AAG Virtual Annual Meeting

Sessions

The Transport Geography Specialty Group sponsored twelve virtual sessions, the annual business meeting, and our first virtual happy hour.

• Transport Justice I: Distribution of Resources and Benefits
  Organized by Elise Desjardins, Shaila Jamal, Joshua Davidson
• Transport Justice II: Mode Shift
  Organized by Elise Desjardins, Shaila Jamal, Joshua Davidson
• Transport Justice III: Accessibility and Travel Satisfaction
  Organized by Elise Desjardins, Shaila Jamal, Joshua Davidson
• Emerging Vehicle Technologies and Services: Geographies of Diffusion
  Organized by Scott Kelley, Bradley Lane
• Governance Issues in Transport and Mobility
  Organized by Julie Cidell
• Social Issues in Transportation
  Organized by Jessica Villena Sanchez, Elina Sukaryavichute
• Transit Landscapes
  Organized by Michael Minn
• COVID-19 and the Practice of Urban Geography
  Organized by Richard Quodomine
• One Year Later: COVID-19 and the Practicing of Urban Geography
  Organized by Richard Quodomine
• Symposium on Human Dynamics Research: Emerging Themes in a Post-pandemic Era
  Organized by Shih-Lung Shaw, Xinyue Ye, Daniel Sui
• Racial Justice and Mobility Justice
  Organized by Julie Cidell
• Social Geographies of Transport and Mobility
  Organized by Julie Cidell

The 2021 TGSG Award Winners

• Edward L. Ullman Award: Selima Sultana, Professor and Director of Graduate Studies, Department of Geography, University of North Carolina at Greensboro. Dr. Sultana has been engaged in the field of transportation and urban geography for 20 years and made significant contributions to commuting research in both the theoretical and applied domains, and is recognized internationally as a transportation researcher, teacher, and advisor. Her work has focused on two critical areas: first, how processes of urban growth and resulting spatial characteristics, changes affect commuting and transportation decisions; and second, how transportation impacts accessibility and spatial equity for different income, family structure, racial, and ethnic groups. In addition to authoring a book on transportation modes across the world, she has published more than 50 refereed journal articles, book chapters, and research reports, as well as 11 book reviews, blog posts, other scholarly writings, numerous invited presentations and keynote speeches, and conference presentation. Her publications appear in a wide variety of outlets including some of the highest-quality journals in her fields of specialization, including the Annals of the American Association of Geographers, Computers, Environment and Urban Systems, Urban Studies, Urban Geography, Journal of Transport Geography, and Transport Policy. Her research has been supported by the National Science Foundation, Department of Transportation through the University Transportation Center of Alabama, Center for Sustainability at Auburn University, and University of North Carolina Greensboro. Prior to appointment at UNC Greensboro, Dr. Sultana was an Assistant Professor at Auburn University, AL. She has served as a guest editor of special issues for the Journal of Transport Geography and Sustainability. She served as a board member and chair of the AAG TGSG, Co-Chair for Cluster Six of the Network of European Transportation and Academic Research, and is currently serving as an editorial board member of Journal of Transport Geography. She is a co-editor of Southeastern Geographer, the flagship journal of the Southeastern Division of AAG (SEDAAG) and serving as an AAG councilor representing SEDAAG. She was awarded the SEDAAG Research Honors in 2019 for her significant publications and research leadership in the field of transportation geography. Her co-authored book entitled The National Park System: Human Geography Perspectives on "America's Best Idea" will be published in 2022 by the University of Georgia Press.
• Ph.D. Dissertation Award
  • Mischa Young, "What Happens when the Uber Tailpipe Smoke Clears: An Examination of the Impacts of Ride-hailing in Canadian" (supervised by Steven Farber, University of Toronto)
  • Honorable Mention: Ignacio Andres Tiznado Aitken, "Accessibility and Affordability Impacts on Transport-Related Inequalities and Poverty: The Case of Santiago, Chile" (supervised by Juan Carlos Munoz and Ricardo Hurtubia, Pontifica Universidad Catolica de Chile)
  • Honorable Mention: Jinhyung Lee, "Building Ladders of Opportunity: Understanding the Impacts of New Mobility Services on Space-time Accessibility" (supervised by Harvey J. Miller, the Ohio State University)
  • Honorable Mention: Stephanie Sersli, "Getting from here to there: Boosting women's participation in bicycling through adult bicycle skills training" (supervised by Meghan Winters, Simon Fraser University)
• Master's Thesis Award
  • Elise Dejardins, "Cycling in Hamilton, Ontario: A Mixed Methods Investigation on the Built Environment and Route Choice" (supervised by Antonio Paez, McMaster University)
  • Honorable Mention: Paromita Nakshi, "Exploring Travel Behavior and Multimodal Accessibility in Dhaka" (supervised by Aninya Debnath, Bangladesh University of Engineering and Technology)

TGSG Board Statement of Solidarity

22 June 2020

The Transportation Geography Specialty Group expresses their solidarity with the American Association of Geographers and the specialty groups of the AAG, the Black Lives Matter movement, and all of our friends and colleagues of any color, race, gender, or decree in speaking out, protesting, and working to change the endemic racism, injustice, and inequality that permeates society. We are deeply saddened by the murders of George Floyd, Breonna Taylor, Ahmaud Arbery, and Rayshard Brooks as the latest in a long history of violence, discrimination, and brutality along racial, gender, and other lines. These actions are unacceptable in a country that promotes itself as the land of the free and the home of the brave.

Transportation is a unique field of study in that it is deeply embedded in the fabric of all individuals of our species. We all must utilize and rely on it to function and participate in society. Transportation as an industry and a discipline has had a dialectical role in American race relations, both facilitating injustice and contributing to social change. Some examples include the Great Migration that was facilitated by railroads, which were built by suppressed immigrant labor. Discrimination in busing let to Rosa Parks and the Freedom Riders. The Pullman Porters were underpaid, overworked, and disrespected, but these were also jobs that African-Americans desired, and became a catalyst for the development of labor leaders who were later pivotal in the Civil Rights movement.

Our mobility systems today continue to facilitate inequities that divide our society. For example, automobile ownership and use as a requirement for participation in society places disproportionate burdens on lower-income households, which themselves are disproportionately people of color and underrepresented minorities. Efforts to increase active transportation and walkable communities facilitate sustainable mobility, but also place uneven burdens on people of color, including heightened police attention and reduced consideration from motorists. Contemporary work in transit and transportation provides stable, middle-class employment, but these "essential" jobs have proved especially deadly during the COVID-19 pandemic, and exposed the increased vulnerability to already disadvantaged populations.

Transportation has made significant progress in recent decades in diversifying its ranks and in progressing research and teaching on mobility inequities. Work in topics such as sustainability, spatial mismatch, modal choice, and accessibility to name a few have contributed to this progress. But, as is evident with a casual glance at almost any street, much work remains to be done.

This gives our work a special level of responsibility to equality and justice.

We commit to be a more inclusive specialty group, to encourage the participation of members of historically underrepresented peoples in transportation in our conferences, in our collaboration, and in our research and teaching. We commit to project, without fail, an open, supportive, and constructive environment for all who are interested in our fascinating and dynamic field. We commit to ask better questions, to be better listeners, and to learn. We commit to do better.

To these ends, we also ask for your suggestions and input for how to best proceed going forward to building a most equitable and just research group, and to making our contribution to building the just, fair, and sustainable world we all deserve to share in together.

Yours sincerely,

The Leadership of the Transportation Geography Specialty Group

2020 AAG Virtual Annual Meeting

The in-person 2020 Annual Meeting was cancelled due to the COVID-19 pandemic, but organizers assembled 175+ sessions, meetings, and events for the virtual meeting, including four sessions co-sponsored by the TGSG. Video of those sessions will be available for a limited time on the AAG Annual Meeting website:

• Assessment and Mitigation of Hydrometeorological Impacts on Surface Transportation I
  Organized by Alan Black and Curtis Walker
• Critical Geographies of Transport and Mobility I: Society and Culture
  Organized by Julie Cidell, Wojciech Keblowski, and Wladimir Sgibnev
• Critical Geographies of Transport and Mobility II: Governance
  Organized by Julie Cidell, Wojciech Keblowski, and Wladimir Sgibnev
• Accessibility, mobility, and connectivity: Frontiers of geospatial modeling and applications
  Organized by Xiang Chen

The cancellation of the in-person conference forced the cancellation of 37 sessions sponsored by the TGSG, including the 2020 Fleming Lecture, which was to be given by last year's Ullman Award winner, John-Paul Rodrigue. Plans for Dr. Rodrigue's address as well as the Fleming Lecture for 2020 Ullman Award winner, Julie Cidell, will be announced prior to the 2021 AAG Annual Meeting in Seattle.

• Edward L. Ullman Award: Dr. Julie Cidell, Professor in the Department of Geography and Geographic Information Science at the University of Illinois. Dr. Cidell's research areas include urban transport and mobilities, freight transport and distribution, railroads, air transport and airport development, and highways and automobility. Among transport geographers, she has spearheaded efforts to link transport geography with mobilities and urban studies as expressed by her 2015 co-edited book Transport, Mobility, and the Production of Urban Space (Routledge), and her forthcoming textbook An Introduction to Transportation Geography: Transport, Mobility, and Place (Rowman and Littlefield). Her 2016 article, "Developing a framework for the spaces and spatialities of transportation and mobilities," published in the Annals of the American Association of Geographers develops a theoretical structure that incorporates transport geography and mobilities into one framework. In addition to publishing numerous articles in mainstream transport journals, she has also published across a wide range of other academic journals including Mobilities, Social and Cultural Geography, Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, Area, Social Geography, and Critical Planning Journal. Altogether, in addition to her two books, Dr. Cidell is the author or co-author of 33 refereed journal articles, 11 book chapters, 48 invited presentations, and 43 conference presentations. Dr. Cidell was a board member of the TGSG from 2001-2006, was chair from 2010-2012, and has served on the editorial board of the Journal of Transport Geography since 2011. She was treasurer and executive councilor of the AAG from 2016 to 2018 and the West Lakes Regional Councilor from 2015 to 2018. Her dissertation was honored by the TGSG in 2004 and was a finalist for the Nystrom award. Dr. Cidell's work as an educator preparing the next generation of geographers at Illinois has included very popular Transportation and Sustainability, Cities of the World, and Digital Earth courses, along with graduate and undergraduate seminars in mobilities and urban sustainability.
• Ph.D. Dissertation Award: Joris Beckers, "The Logistics Sector in a Consumer Driven Society: Essays on Location and Network Structure," supervised by Ann Verhetsel, University of Antwerp
• Master's Thesis Award: Yun-Hsuan Chen, "Determinants of Flight Delays in East Asia: Airport, Route, and Network," supervised by Jen-Jia Lin, National Taiwan University
• Student Travel Awards: Aimee Krafft University of Nevada-Reno and Elina Sukaryavichute, University of North Carolina, Charlotte

2019 AAG Annual Meeting: Washington, DC

The Transportation Geography Specialty Group sponsored or co-sponsored 24 sessions at the American Association of Geographers Annual Meeting in Washington, DC, April 3-7, 2019. The group's business meeting was held on Friday, April 5, 2019.

The 2019 Fleming lecture was given Thursday, April 4, 2019 in the Washington 4 room on the Exhibition Level of the Marriott. It featured last year's Ullman award winner, Tim Schwanen from the University of Oxford, speaking on Geographies of transport in the new climatic regime.

• Edward L. Ullman Award: Dr. Jean-Paul Rodrigue, Professor in the Department of Global Studies and Geography at Hofstra University. He is the lead author of one of the major geography of transportation textbooks, The Geography of Transportation Systems (Routledge, 2017), which is accompanied by a comprehensive website https://transportgeography.org/. He is also the lead author of The Sage Handbook of Transport Studies (Sage, 2013). Dr. Rodrigue's research focuses on maritime transport systems and logistics, global supply chains and production networks, gateways and transport corridors. He has published 54 peer-reviewed journal articles, 32 book chapters, 58 technical reports and other publications as author or co-author. He served as the editor for the Transport and Telecommunication Geography section for The International Encyclopedia of Geography (2016), is the current editor of the Journal of Shipping and Trade, and has served on the editorial board of a number of transport related journals. Dr. Rodrigue served as chair for the AAG Transportation Geography Specialty Group and is a board member of a number of professional organizations. Besides teaching a number of transport geography courses at Hofstra University he has also taught transport courses in visiting teaching appointments in China and Belgium.
• Ph.D. Dissertation Award: Rafael Pereira Distributive Justice and Transportation Equity: Inequality in accessibility in Rio de Janeiro (supervised by David Banister and Tim Schwanen, Oxford University. Examiners: Bert van Wee, Delft University of Technology and Nihan Akyelken, Oxford University)
• Master's Thesis Award: Kyle Sorlie Titlow "De Alguna Manera Llegas": A Geographic Information Systems Study of Public Transit Accessibility for Precarious Settlements in Buenos Aires, Argentina (supervised by David Plane, The University of Arizona)
• Student Travel Awards: Mischa Young, University of Toronto and Jinhyung Lee, The Ohio State University

2018 AAG Annual Meeting: New Orleans, LA

The Transportation Geography Specialty Group sponsored or co-sponsored 39 sessions at the American Association of Geographers Annual Meeting in New Orleans, LA, April 9-15, 2018. The group's business meeting was held on Friday, April 13, 2018.

2017 AAG Annual Meeting: Boston, MA

The Transportation Geography Specialty Group sponsored or co-sponsored 25 sessions at the American Association of Geographers Annual Meeting in Boston, MA, April 5 - April 9, 2017. The group's business meeting was held on April 7, 2017.

The 2017 Edward L. Ullman Award for contributions to the field of Transportation Geography was given to Dr.Isabelle Thomas, Professor of Geography at Universite Catholique de Louvain in Louvain-la-Neuve, Belgium. Over the span of the past 30 years, Dr. Thomas has authored or co-authored over 150 publications, accruing nearly 4000 citations. Her major contributions can be found in a number of sub-disciplines of transportation and urban geography. She was a leading pioneer in the use of fractals to classify and understand urban growth patterns and the spatial structure of built-up urban areas, including transportation networks. She has also been a prominent researcher on road accident analysis both automotive and bicycling crashes leading to work on determinants of cycling and policies for promoting non-motorized transportation. Other noteworthy research touches on aspects of accessibility, commuting, and transportation-land-use modeling. In addition to research, Dr. Thomas has been an active participant in the NECTAR series and has served or is serving on the editorial board of a number of journals.

2015 AAG Annual Meeting: Los Angeles, CA

The TGSG sponsored or co-sponsored 37 sessions at the 2015 AAG Annual Meeting in Chicago, in addition to the annual Fleming Lecture.

The 2015 Edward L. Ullman Award for outstanding contributions to the field of transportation geography has been awarded to Karen Lucas, Director of Research and Innovation at the Institute of Transport Studies at the University of Leeds. Karen has made significant contributions in the area of transport-related social exclusion. She has worked with numerous governments, both locally and nationally, to develop policies to help alleviate transport disadvantage and social inequalities. In addition, Karen currently serves as an associate editor for The Journal of Transport Geography.

The 2015 Ph.D. Dissertation Award has been awarded to Astrid Wood for her dissertation entitled Peripatetic Planning. Tracing the Mobility of Bus Rapid Transit through South African Cities completed at the University College London.

The 2015 Master's Thesis Award has been awarded to Simon Cook for Running as Transport from Royal Holloway, University of London.

Travel Awards have been awarded to Mengyao Zhang, University of Connecticut and Jerl Levi McCollum from the University of North Texas.

This year's Fleming Lecture in Transport Geography was given by Bert Van Wee from Delft University of Technology on Thursday, April 23 from 10:00-11:40AM in Grand Suite 3, Hyatt, East Tower, Gold Level. The title of the talk wass Accessible accessibility research challenges.

2014 Student Award Winners

2013 Los Angeles Rail Transit Gold / Red Lines and Transit-Oriented Development Field Trip

Andrew Goetz (University of Denver) and Keith Ratner (Salem State University) organized a field trip to visit transit-oriented development along Los Angeles' gold light-rail and red subway lines. The field trip was sponsored by the Transportation Specialty Group and the Urban Specialty Group.

The tour was focused on the Los Angeles County Metropolitan Transit Authority (Metro) Joint Development Program, "a real property asset development and management program designed to secure the most appropriate private and/or public sector development on Metro-owned property at and adjacent to transit stations and corridors." MORE...

2013 Student Award Winners

2012 AAG Annual Meeting: High Speed Rail in America: Promise and Peril

The Transport Geography Specialty Group sponsored this panel discussion on 26 February 2012 at the Association of American Geographers Annual Meeting, New York, NY. The panel discussion was organized in conjunction with a special HSR viewpoint issue of the Journal of Transport Geography

Part 1: Bradley Lane (University of Texas, El Paso)

Part 2: Andrew Ryder (University of Portsmouth)

Part 3: Sean Tierney (University of North Texas)

Part 4: Michael F. Ziolkowski (The College at Brockport, SUNY)

Part 5: Anthony Perl (Simon Fraser University)

Part 6: Andrew Goetz (Denver University - Moderator)

Part 7: Panel response

Part 8: Dedicated vs. shared lines, Paying for it, Integration with air travel

Part 9: Classes of service, Who should run the service?

Edward L. Ullman Award

The Edward L. Ullman Award has been offered by the Transportation Geography Specialty Group of the Association of American Geographers since 1990 for outstanding contributions to the field of transportation geography. Edward Louis Ullman (1912 – 1976) was a highly influential transportation geographer and spent most of his academic career at the University of Washington.

• 2024 - Antonio Páez, Professor at the School of Earth, Environment and Society at McMaster University, where he has been a teacher and researcher since 2002. Prof. Páez has dedicated his career to the analysis of transport and mobility issues: accessibility, equity and justice in transport, travel patterns, and daily activity to life choices. He is interested in the built and social environments as they affect travel behavior and health, as well as in identifying spatial patterns of residential choices, clustering of medical conditions, businesses and land uses, or social networks. In 2008 he led a team of researchers in a project that examined social exclusion and transportation in Canadian communities. This research was recognized with 2010 AAG Meredith F. Burrill Award which acknowledges excellent research at the interface of geography and policy. A very active scholar, Prof. Páez is author or co-author of more than 150 publications in peer-reviewed scholarly journals, has co-edited three books on spatial analysis, health, and transportation, and recently he is the co-author of Discrete Choice Analysis with R, published in Springer's flagship series UseR! According to the science-wide standardized citation indicators, Prof. Páez is in the top 2% of most cited researchers world-wide, and is among the most cited researchers in the field of transportation. Prof. Páez has been supported at various stages of his career by every federal research council in Canada: the Natural Sciences and Engineering Research Council, the Social Sciences and Humanities Research Council, and the Canadian Institutes for Health Research. He has also travelled widely and has been invited to lecture and teach in Australia, Austria, Brazil, Chile, China, Germany, Greece, Italy, Mexico, the Netherlands, Spain, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, and the United States. He has been a member in more than 10 editorial boards and has been co-Editor-in-Chief since 2008 of Journal of Geographical Systems.

2023 - Mark Horner, Professor of Geography at Florida State University (FSU) where he has served on the faculty since 2004. He earned his Ph.D. from The Ohio State University in 2002 where his dissertation focused on Urban Commuting under the supervision of Dr. Morton O'Kelly. Since then, he has proven himself a leader in the field, publishing close to 100 peer-reviewed journal articles in leading transportation and urban geography journals, accruing over 5600 citations, and making notable teaching and service contributions to the field. Dr. Horner's early work on spatial considerations of commuting including jobs-housing relationships and excess commuting is highly cited, sustained, and well-regarded in the discipline. His background in quantitative geography and, notably, spatial optimization, brought a new dimension to this research - a thread that expands to other research themes as well. He and colleagues – including some notable graduate advisees - have also published widely in the area of evaluation modeling and in the distribution of goods distribution with respect to natural disasters. His collaborations with his Ph.D. advisee, Joni Downs, was a unique blending of transport geography – especially movement and GPS trajectories and GIScience applied to animal and wildlife applications. Most recently, he has collaborated extensively with researchers from urban and transport planning to develop a well-funded agenda addressing Florida's aging population and associated, planning-related challenges. Collectively, his various research themes have each made an imprint on their respective subject areas, bringing a spatial and spatial analytical perspective to them. His regard as a researcher led him to serve as Associate Dean for Research at FSU. With respect to service to our field, Dr. Horner has acted as the Co-Editor-in-Chief of the highly respected journal Transportation since 2013, along with serving on several other editorial review boards, including the Journal of Transport Geography. He has also acted as a leader in the Social and Economic Factors and Transportation and Land Development sections of the Transportation Research Board, representing geographic perspectives amongst that interdisciplinary group of transportation scholars and professionals. Finally, his list of journals for which he has provided a peer review is admirable; he has undoubtably helped to shape our discipline through this extensive feedback.

• 2022 - David Banister, Emeritus Professor of Transport Studies at the School of Geography and the Environment (SoGE) and the Transport Studies Unit (TSU) at the University of Oxford. He was Director of TSU from 2006 until 2015, and during 2009-2010. Dr. Banister is a towering figure in the field of transport geography. His wide contributions to the field range from topics such as sustainable mobilities, to the relationship between transport investments and urban and economic development, low-carbon mobility, equity and policy scenario building. Banister also has a long publication record with approximately 29,000 citations and an H-index of 76 according to Google Scholar. He figures as author and editor of 24 research books, (co)author of more than 200 papers in peer-reviewed international journals, and a further 150 papers in other journals or as chapters in books. Dr. Banister has also extensively engaged in outreach activities contributing to the transport geography community and others working on transport, mobilities and urban studies. He has served as editor of the Journal Transport Reviews (2000-2019), as joint editor of Built Environment (1993-) and is on the editorial board of many other leading journals such as Town Planning Reviews (1993-), European Journal of Transport Infrastructure Research (1999-), International Journal of Sustainable Transport (2005-), Logistics and Sustainable Transport (2006-), Environment and Planning B (2008-), and Travel Behavior and Society (2013 - Consulting Editor).
• 2021 - Selima Sultana, Professor and Director of Graduate Studies, Department of Geography, University of North Carolina at Greensboro. A native of Bangladesh, Dr. Sultana earned her PhD in Geography from the University of Georgia in 2000. Her research foci are in the area of Urban and Transportation Geography interested in the commuting/travel patterns of individuals, households, and among different race/ethnic groups, focusing on how people negotiate the conflicting demands of household responsibilities and the changing urban settings of their lives. Dr. Sultana has authored an edited book and more than 40 scholarly articles, and her work has appeared in leading geographical journals such as the Annals of the Association of American Geographers, The Professional Geographer, Journal of Transport Geography, Transport Policy, Tourism Geographies, Urban Geography, Urban Studies, Growth & Change, Southeastern Geographer, and in London School of Economics and Political Science's (LSE) blog website. Her research has been supported by the Department of Transportation through the University Transportation Center of Alabama, Center for Sustainability at Auburn University, University of North Carolina at Greensboro, and Guilford County Child Development. Prior to appointment at UNCG, Dr. Sultana was an Assistant Professor at Auburn University. Dr. Sultana is currently working on several projects including transportation related energy use and Greenhouse Gas Emission, housing issues among immigrants, and a book (co-authored with Dr. Joe Weber) on the National Parks.
• 2020 - Julie Cidell, Professor in the Department of Geography and Geographic Information Science at the University of Illinois. Dr. Cidell's research areas include urban transport and mobilities, freight transport and distribution, railroads, air transport and airport development, and highways and automobility. Among transport geographers, she has spearheaded efforts to link transport geography with mobilities and urban studies as expressed by her 2015 co-edited book Transport, Mobility, and the Production of Urban Space (Routledge), and her textbook An Introduction to Transportation Geography: Transport, Mobility, and Place (Rowman and Littlefield). Her 2016 article, "Developing a framework for the spaces and spatialities of transportation and mobilities," published in the Annals of the American Association of Geographers develops a theoretical structure that incorporates transport geography and mobilities into one framework. In addition to publishing numerous articles in mainstream transport journals, she has also published across a wide range of other academic journals including Mobilities, Social and Cultural Geography, Transactions of the Institute of British Geographers, Area, Social Geography, and Critical Planning Journal. Altogether, in addition to her two books, Dr. Cidell is the author or co-author of 33 refereed journal articles, 11 book chapters, 48 invited presentations, and 43 conference presentations. Dr. Cidell was a board member of the TGSG from 2001-2006, was chair from 2010-2012, and has served on the editorial board of the Journal of Transport Geography since 2011. She was treasurer and executive councilor of the AAG from 2016 to 2018 and the West Lakes Regional Councilor from 2015 to 2018. Her dissertation was honored by the TGSG in 2004 and was a finalist for the Nystrom award. Dr. Cidell's work as an educator preparing the next generation of geographers at Illinois has included very popular Transportation and Sustainability, Cities of the World, and Digital Earth courses, along with graduate and undergraduate seminars in mobilities and urban sustainability.
• 2019 - Jean-Paul Rodrigue, Professor in the Department of Global Studies and Geography at Hofstra University. He is the lead author of one of the major geography of transportation textbooks, The Geography of Transportation Systems (Routledge, 2017), which is accompanied by a comprehensive website https://transportgeography.org/. He is also the lead author of The Sage Handbook of Transport Studies (Sage, 2013). Dr. Rodrigue's research focuses on maritime transport systems and logistics, global supply chains and production networks, gateways and transport corridors. He has published 54 peer-reviewed journal articles, 32 book chapters, 58 technical reports and other publications as author or co-author. He served as the editor for the Transport and Telecommunication Geography section for The International Encyclopedia of Geography (2016), is the current editor of the Journal of Shipping and Trade, and has served on the editorial board of a number of transport related journals. Dr. Rodrigue served as chair for the AAG Transportation Geography Specialty Group and is a board member of a number of professional organizations. Besides teaching a number of transport geography courses at Hofstra University he has also taught transport courses in visiting teaching appointments in China and Belgium.
• 2018 - Tim Schwanen, Director of the Transport Studies Unit, Associate Professor of Transport Studies in the School of Geography and Environment, and Fellow at St Anne's College, Oxford University. His research concentrates on the geographies of the everyday mobilities of people, goods and information. It is international in outlook, interdisciplinary in scope, informed by the thinking in various sub-disciplines within Geography, and organised around five more general concerns: low-carbon mobilities and cities, futures and temporality, social and spatial inequality, well-being, and philosophy of transport and mobility.
• 2017 - Isabelle Thomas, Professor in Geography and Director of Research at the Institut multidisciplinaire pour la modélisation et l'analyse quantitative (IMAQ) at the Université Catholique de Louvain.
• 2016 - Michael Kuby, Professor in Geographical Sciences and Urban Planning at Arizona State University. His work contributes to our understanding of transportation and energy policy, such as the optimal location of alternative-fuel stations and the relationship between public transportation infrastructure and land use. He has served on the editorial board of the Journal of Transport Geography since 1998 and has held in various leadership roles with the Transportation Geography Specialty group.
• 2015 - Karen Lucas, Director of Research and Innovation at the i Institute of Transport Studies at the University of Leeds. Karen has made significant contributions in the area of transport-related social exclusion. She has worked with numerous governments, both locally and nationally, to develop policies to help alleviate transport disadvantage and social inequalities.
• 2014 - Bert Van Wee, Professor in Transport Policy at Delft University of Technology and scientific director of TRAIL research school. Dr. Van Wee is well-known in the field of transport geography for his theoretical and conceptual work on accessibility showing a new way of linking a relationship between urban land use and transportation. Throughout his career, Dr. Van Wee's work has not only centered on accessibility alone, but has considered public transportation as integral transportation policy for enhancing accessibility for everyone. Dr. Wee has been deeply passionate about educating and inspiring future transportation scholars.
• 2013 - John S. Adams is well known in the field of transport and urban geography for his four eras of intrametroplitan growth showing the relationship between urban growth and transportation development in the U.S. He was one of the few distinguished scholars who realized many years ago that transport and urban professionals should work together, not separately. Thus, throughout his career, Dr. Adams' work has not only centered on transportation alone, but has considered transportation as an integral part of urban geography, connected to housing, employment, industry, and regional growth and change.
• 2012 - Jean-Claude Thill. Dr. Thill's career has included contributions to spatial analysis and spatial modeling, along with GIS-T and data mining, concerning routing problems, bicycle and pedestrian crash analysis, airline flows, and port competitiveness. He also established a graduate certificate program in Transportation and Business Geographics at UNCC and is currently Executive Director of the North American Regional Science Council.
• 2011 - David Greene. Dr. Greene's work applies interdisciplinary research findings to national transportation energy and environmental policy. Beginning as a research associate at ORNL in 1977, he is now a senior research staff member for the Center of Transportation Analysis within the Energy Division. He serves as the manager of the Energy Policy Research Programs. From 1982 to the present, Dr. Greene has been a chairman or member of numerous committees for the Transportation Research Board of the National Research Council, including committees on energy conservation and transportation demand, forecasting transportation energy demand, energy and environmental concerns, alternative fuels, freight transportation data, transportation information systems and data requirements, and the impacts of highway capacity improvements on air quality and energy consumption. Dr. Greene has written more than 150 professional journal articles, contributions to books, and technical reports. He has served as editor-in-chief of the Journal of Transportation and Statistics and currently serves on the editorial boards of Journal of Transportation and Statistics, Energy Policy, Macmillan Encyclopedia of Energy, Transportation Quarterly, and Transportation Research Part D. Dr. Greene was elected a member emeritus of the Transportation Research Board Standing Committee on Transportation Energy in 1998. He was honored in 1989 and 1993 by a Distinguished Service Certificate from the Transportation Research Board. He received the Energy Specialty Group Paper Award from the Association of American Geographers in 1986 and the Pyke Johnson Award from the Transportation Research Board, National Academy of Science, in 1984. He is a member of the Association of American Geographers, the Society of Automotive Engineers, and the International Association for Energy Economics. He was named a corporate fellow in 1999.
• 2010 - Andrew Goetz is one of the world's preeminent air transportation geographers and is also one of the disciplines leading authorities on intermodal transportation.  He has published over 30 refereed articles on air transport, intermodal transportation, and transport planning.  In addition to the refereed articles he has published two books; Denver International Airport: Lessons Learned and Airline Deregulation and Laissez-Faire Mythology. The latter was later translated into Japanese.  He has also published numerous invited chapters in books focusing on a wide range of transport topics including but not limited to planning, deregulation, and policy implications.
• 2009 - Harvey Miller is best known for his seminal text on transportation GIS, published in 2001 and co-authored with Professor Shih-lung Shaw. Equally important has been his work in time geography, time-space geography and the analysis of accessibility in urban spaces. He has published over 35 peer-reviewed papers in the most outstanding journals in his field and over 15 book chapters
• 2008 - Shih-Lung Shaw is considered a leader in the field of geographic information systems for transportation (GIS-T), Dr. Shih-Lung Shaw has published dozens of book chapters, conference proceedings, and journal articles, including in the first issue of Journal of Transport Geography as well as securing a variety of research grants. He co-authored a well-received text, Geographic Information Systems for Transportation: Principles and Applications (2001). One of Dr. Shaw's most important and ongoing contributions to the rapidly growing field of GIS-T has been in the representation and analysis of temporal patterns. Dr. Shih-Lung Shaw has won numerous awards for his teaching and has served the transport geography community in many ways, including as chair of the TGSG.
• 2007 - T. R. Lakshmanan established a long record of success as a private sector consultant on urban and transportation planning, as a professor of geography, and as one of the first directors of the US Bureau of Transportation Statistics. Professor Lakshmanan has won dozens of grants from agencies including the National Science Foundation. His research has emphasized the economic and environmental impacts of transportation systems. Professor Lakshmanan's publications include many articles, monographs, and books including Structural Change in Transportation and Communications in the Knowledge Society (2005) which he co-edited with Kiyoshi Kobayashi and William Anderson.
• 2006 - Barry Wellar is recognized as a leader in transportation research for his insights into optimization techniques, interactive land use-transportation models, applications of GIS in transportation planning, new approaches in the design and implementation of alternative transportation strategies, and new thinking about the conceptualization of the sustainable transportation test. Throughout his career as professor, public servant and consultant, Dr. Wellar has demonstrated an exceptional ability to combine theories, methods, and empirical evidence from a number of disciplines, including geography, economics, mathematics, operations research, planning, civil engineering, sociology, political science and computers/communications.
• 2005 - Mei-Po Kwan combined the theoretical and empirical consideration of accessibility with visualization using innovative GIS tools. She has been influential in developing innovative work on the relationships between Information & Communication Technology (ICT) and travel behavior, and modeling of emergency response through 3D network analysis. She thus has contributed to set the agenda in transportation and communication, spatial representation, and mobility.
• 2004 - Richard Knowles, Professor of Transport Geography in the School of Environment and Life Sciences at the University of Salford, UK and a member of its Research Institute for the Built and Human Environment. He has been the Editor of the Journal of Transport Geography (the international quarterly research journal published by Elsevier) since its establishment in 1993. Dr. Knowles is co-Editor of Modern Transport Geography (published by Wiley, 2nd Edition 1998) and is also co-Editor of Ashgate Publishing's Transport and Mobility monograph series. His research has focused on the effects of transport deregulation, privatization and franchising and on impacts of new transport infrastructure on transport and development.
• 2003 - Kingsley E. Haynes is one of the early geographers to apply large regional transport planning models. Among his most significant contribution is his research focused on spatial interaction modeling, which helped establish a solid conceptual and methodological background about transport systems and the relationship between transport systems and regional economic change. His work contributed to policy debate at the regional and national levels.
• 2002 - Brian Slack was among the early contributors to the understanding of spatial impact of the transport service industry and instrumental in establishing connections with other areas such as urban planning through his work on transport terminals and intermodality.
• 2001 - Thomas Leinbach made substantive contributions to understanding issues of transport delivery and the impacts of accessibility on rural settlements. He is a master at relating transport to the broader socio-political and economic context of resettlement processes, employment behavior, peasant household survival strategies, human capital formation, and enterprise development.
• 2000 - Donald Janelle.
• 1999 - Bruce Ralston.
• 1998 - Morton O'Kelly.
• 1997 - Susan Hanson.
• 1996 - James Vance.
• 1995 - William R. Black.
• 1994 - William Garrison.
• 1993 - No award given.
• 1992 - Howard Gauthier.
• 1991 - Harold M. Mayer.
• 1990 - Edward J. Taaffe.

The Fleming Lecture in Transportation Geography

When in 1992 Professor Douglas Fleming retired from his teaching career in transportation at the University of Washington (and his earlier career in merchant shipping), the Department of Geography decided to create a fund that would enable to offer an honorarium for a distinguished lecture at the Annual Meetings of the Association of American Geographers. This lectureship, which honors the long tradition of transportation studies at Washington, including William Garrison and Edward Ullman, as well as Doug Fleming, is designed to recognize outstanding contributions in the field. Since the Transportation Geography Specialty Group includes most of the academic specialists as well as many people in the transportation sectors of the economy, the department at Washington solicits the recommendation each year of an outstanding person to honor. Past speakers include:

• 2023.d - David Banister - Sustainable Mobility at 30
• 2023.c - Selima Sultana
• 2023.b - Julie Cidell - Confluences, Containers, and corridors
• 2023.a - Jean-Paul Rodrigue: A Distributional Places Theory of E-Commerce
• 2019 - Tim Schwanen - Geographies of Transport in the New Climatic Regime
• 2018 - Isabelle Thomas - Interaction Fields and ICT data: Rediscovering (transport)
• 2017 - Michael Kuby - Sustainable Transportation for the 86%: Location Models and Survey Research for Planning Alternative-fuel Infrastructure
• 2016 - Karen Lucas - One Step Beyond: Questing for Sustainable Mobilities in the Global North and South
• 2015 - Bert Van Wee - Accessible Accessibility Research Challenges
• 2014 - John F. Adams - Ten Things to Know about American Cities
• 2013 - Jean-Claude Thill - About Flows, Spatial Interaction, and Spatial Economic Organization
• 2012 - David Greene
• 2011 - Kevin O'Connor
• 2010 - Harvey J. Miller - Transparent Transportation and Mirror Worlds
• 2009 - Shih-Lung Shaw - Individual-based Tracking Data: Potential and Challenges to Transportation Geography
• 2008 - T. R. Lakshmanan
• 2007 - Barry Wellar - Geographic Factors as a Core Element of Sustainable Transport Best Practices in Metropolitan Regions in Canada (slides)
• 2006 - Mei Po Kwan - Mobile Communications and Transportation Geography
• 2005 - Richard Knowles - Transport Shaping Space
• 2004 - Kingsley Haynes
• 2003 - Brian Slack
• 2002 - Yehuda Hayuth - Intermodal Transport and the Integrated Global Trade
• 2001 - Andrew Goetz - Deregulation, Competition, and Antitrust Implications in the US Airline Industry
• 2000 - William Black - Social change and sustainable transport
• 1999 - Thomas Leinbach
• 1998 - Donald Janelle
• 1997 - Morton O'Kelly
• 1996 - Susan Hanson
• 1995 - Gordon Fielding
• 1994 - William Garrison
• 1993 - Edward Taaffe

Dissertation and Thesis Award Winners

The TGSG Outstanding Thesis and Dissertation Awards recognize outstanding theses and dissertations in transportation geography. There are two awards, one for best Master's thesis and one for best PhD dissertation. These awards each have a $300 prize, and winners are recognized and receive a plaque at the awards luncheon. We encourage submissions by students who do not necessarily consider themselves transportation geographers but are working on exciting and innovative transportation topics. Students must be members of the AAG to be eligible for either award.

• 2024 (Phd) Luyu Liu, University of Florida, "Accessibility in Motion: Measuring Real-time Accessibility with High-resolution Data" supervised by Harvey Miller, The Ohio State University
• 2024 (MA) Joshua Philip Suarez, National Taiwan University, "Transit-based Job Accessibility and Sociospatial Inequities among Immigrants: A Multi-scale Empirical Investigation in Taichung, Taiwan" supervised by S.K. Jason Chang and Jen-Jia Lin, National Taiwan University
• 2023 (PhD) Qiao Si, "Understanding ride-hailing and inventing future transit: Pathways to spatial justice," supervised by Anthony Gar-On Yeh, University of Hong Kong
• 2023 (MA) Gregorio Costa Luz de Souza Lima, "Understanding transport-related social exclusion through the lens of capabilities approach: Does better accessibility help to reduce social exclusion?" supervised by Licinio da Silva Portugal, Federal University of Rio de Janeiro
• 2022 (PhD) Paul Jung, "Distance Friction and Spatial Interaction Dynamics in International Freight Transportation" supervised by Jean-Claude Thill, University of North Carolina at Charlotte
• 2021 (PhD) Mischa Young, "What Happens when the Uber Tailpipe Smoke Clears: An Examination of the Impacts of Ride-hailing in Canadian," supervised by Steven Farber, University of Toronto
• 2021 (MA) Elise Dejardins, "Cycling in Hamilton, Ontario: A Mixed Methods Investigation on the Built Environment and Route Choice," supervised by Antonio Paez, McMaster University
• 2020 (PhD) Joris Beckers, "The Logistics Sector in a Consumer Driven Society: Essays on Location and Network Structure," supervised by Ann Verhetsel, University of Antwerp
• 2020 (MA) Yun-Hsuan Chen, "Determinants of Flight Delays in East Asia: Airport, Route, and Network," supervised by Jen-Jia Lin, National Taiwan University
• 2019 (PhD) Rafael Pereira, "Distributive Justice and Transportation Equity: Inequality in accessibility in Rio de Janeiro" (supervised by David Banister and Tim Schwanen, Oxford University. Examiners: Bert van Wee, Delft University of Technology and Nihan Akyelken, Oxford University)
• 2019 (MA) Kyle Sorlie Titlow, "'De Alguna Manera Llegas:' A Geographic Information Systems Study of Public Transit Accessibility for Precarious Settlements in Buenos Aires, Argentina" (supervised by David Plane, The University of Arizona)
• 2018 (PhD) Taylor Oshan, "A New Era of Spatial Interaction: Potential and Pitfalls," supervised by A. Stewart Fotheringham, Arizona State University
• 2018 (MA) Yuqin Jiang, "Urban Accessibility Measurement and Visualization: A Big Data Approach," supervised by Diansheng Guo, University of South Carolina
• 2017 (PhD): Calvin Tribby, "Activity Spaces, Route Choices and Neighborhoods: Assessing the Built Environment Associations with Walking," supervised by Harvey Miller, Ohio States University
• 2017 (MA): Elina Sukaryavichute, "Transit Planning, Access, and Social Justice: Competing Visions of Bus Rapid Transit and the Chicago Street," supervised by David Prytherch, Miami University of Ohio
• 2015 (PhD): Astrid Wood, "Peripatetic Planning. Tracing the Mobility of Bus Rapid Transit through South African Cities," University College London
• 2015 (MA): Simon Cook, "Running as Transport," supervised by Royal Holloway, University of London
• 2014 (PhD - tie): Kathleen E. Deutsch-Burgner, "An Investigation in Decision Making and Destination Choice Incorporating Place Meaning and Social Network Influences" supervised by Konstadinos G. Goulias, University of California, Santa Barbara
• 2014 (PhD - tie): Abu Toasin Md Oakil, "Temporal Dependence in Life Trajectories and Mobility Decisions" supervised by Dick Ettema and Theo Arentze, Utrecht University
• 2014 (MA - tie) Colin Dony, "Using GIS to determine travel impedance to hospitals for infants with spina bifida in Florida, 1998-2007" supervised by Eric Delmelle, University of North Carolina at Charlotte
• 2014 (MA - tie) Daniel Schleith "Investigating spatially disaggregate commuting for workers with different incomes in Leon County, Florida," supervised by Mark Horner, Florida State University
• 2014 (MA - honorable mention) Sylvia Brady, "Mobility and aging in Denver, CO: Travel behaviors, mobility barriers, and perceptions of transit" supervised by Eric Boschman, University of Denver
• 2013 (PhD) - Woo Jang, "Spatial dynamics of disaggregated urban commuting patterns," supervised by Xiaobai Yao, University of Georgia
• 2013 (MA) - Benjamin Lundberg, "Accessibility and university populations: Local effects on non-motorized transportation in the Tuscaloosa-Northport area," supervised by Joe Weber, University of Alabama
• 2012 (PhD - tie) - Danielle Fontaine, "The landscape of potential harm: understanding parents' perceptions of the built environment and what this means for their decisions about their child's mode of travel to school in the City of Worcester, MA," supervised by Susan Hanson and Deb Martin, Clark University
• 2012 (PhD - tie) - Rakim Mitra, "School travel mode choice behaviour in Toronto, Canada," supervised by Ron Buliung, University of Toronto
• 2012 (MA) - Monir Moniruzzaman, "Accessibility and built environment effects on transit use," supervised by Antonio Paez, McMaster University
• 2011 (MA) Kalina Soltys, "Toward an Understanding of Carpool Formation and Use," supervised by Ron Buliung, Sustrans
• 2011 (PhD) Tijs Neutens, "Analyzing Human Activities and Travel Possibilities From a Time-geographic Perspective" supervised by Philippe de Maeyer and Frank Witlox, Ghent University
• 2010 (MA) Michael Widener "Modeling Hurricane Disaster Relief Distribution with a Hierarchical Capacitated-Median Model: an Analysis with Extensions," supervised by Michael Horner, Florida State University
• 2010 (PhD) Dilys Bowman, "Commitment, connectivity and the neighbors: Greenway trail placement in North Carolina towns," Supervised by Melinda Meade, University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill
• 2009 (MA) Kathleen Deutsch, "What's So Special About This Place? An Examination of Sense of Place and It's Correlation to Travel Behavior," University of California at Santa Barbara
• 2009 (PhD) Hejun Kang, "Moving Beyond the Individual: Activity-Based Modeling of Time Use and Travel Behavior Incorporating Intra-Household Interactions," McMaster University
• 2008 (MA) Lisa J. Murawski, "Maximal Covering Network Improvement Problem," University of California-Santa Barbara
• 2008 (PhD) Barton Cramer, "American Freight Rail: Regulatory Evolution, Strategic Rejuvenation, and the Revival of an Ailing Industry," University of Iowa
• 2007 (MA) Laura G. Smith, "Neighborhoods Apart: How the Physical Environment Reinforces Concentrated Poverty and Isolation East of Washington's Anacostia River," George Washington University
• 2007 (PhD) Xuwei Chen, "Microsimulation of Evacuation Strategies," Texas State University - San Marcos
• 2006 (MA) Bradley Lane, "Plains, Trains, and Automobiles: Land Use, Rail Transit, and Urban Travel in Selected Us Cities," Indiana University
• 2006 (PhD) Hongbo Yu, "Temporal GIS Design of an Extended Time-Geographic Framework for Physical and Virtual Activities," University of Tennessee
• 2005 (MA) Sean Tierney, "Airline and Airport Choice by Passengers in Multi-Airport Regions: The Effect of Southwest Airlines," Arizona State University
• 2004 (PhD) Julie Cidell, "Scales of Airport Expansion: Globalization, Regionalization, and Local Land Use," University of Minnesota
• 2003(MA) Jessica Tharpe, "Sustainable Transportation: A Case Study of Telework and Carpool in Atlanta, Georgia," University of Tennessee
• 2003 (PhD) Xiaohong Xin, "An Exploratory Data Analysis Approach for Land Use - Transportation Interaction: The Design and Implementation of Transland Spatio-Temporal Data Model," University of Tennessee
• 2002 (PhD) Joseph Weber, "Evaluating the Effects of Context and Scale on Individual Accessibility: A Multilevel Approach," Ohio State University
• 2001 (MA) Julie Cidell, "The Conversion of Military Bases to Civilian Airports," University of Minnesota
• 2001 (PhD) Agatino La Rosa, "Integrating Location and Logistics Models," University of Tennessee
• 2000 (MA - tie) Owen Robatino, "Evaluating Uses of Abandoned Rights of Way with a Case Study of the Pomeroy and Newark Railroad," University of Delaware
• 2000 (MA - tie) Xiaohong Xin, "A Spatial Decision Support System for Designing Solid Waste Collection Routes in Rural Counties," University of Tennessee
• 2000 (PhD) Brooks C. Pearson, "An Estimation of Potential Production of Agri-based Ethanol and its Contribution to Transportation Emissions," Indiana University
• 1999 (MA - tie) Henry J. Rademacher, "Landscape Interpretation and Historical Geography on Missouri's Katy Trail," University of Missouri
• 1999 (MA - tie) Kerry Wood, "Bicycle Crashes in New Zealand," Lincoln University [NZ]
• 1999 (PhD) Garth Banninga "Static and Dynamic Analyses of Average Worktrip Travel Times for a Large Set of U.S. Cities," Indiana University
• 1998 (MA) Gayle Wilkinson, "Economic Reform and Jobs-Housing Imbalance in Chinese Cities: The Case of Shenyang, China," Arizona State University
• 1998 (PhD) Melissa Joy Loughlin, "Overseas Air Cargo Service, Airborne Export-Producing Industries, and U.S. Cities, 1980-1995," University of Minnesota
• 1996 (MA) Eric C. Neubauer, Ohio State University
• 1996 (Ph.D) Christopher J. Sutton "The Socioeconomic, Land Use and Land Value Impacts of Beltways in the Denver Metropolitan Area," University of Denver
• 1995 (MA) Melissa Joy Loughlin, University of Minnesota
• 1995 (PhD) Timothy Strauss, "Spatial Assessments of Infrastructure: The Importance of Space in Analyses of the Relationship Between Public Capital and Economic Activity," University of Washington
• 1994 (MA) Katherine Jones, "Impact of Double Stack Rail Service on U.S. Ports," University of Kentucky
• 1994 (PhD) Stefan Arredondo, "Railroad Independence in Southern Africa: The Case of the Southern Africa Development Conference," Indiana University

Past Chairs

• Scott Kelley (University of Nevada, Reno), 2023 - 2025
• Isabelle Nilsson (University of North Carolina, Charlotte), 2021 - 2023
• Bradley Lane (University of Kansas), 2019 - 2021
• Irene Casas (Louisiana Tech University), 2017 - 2019
• Elizabeth Delmelle (University of North Carolina, Charlotte), 2015 - 2017
• Selima Sultana (University of North Carolina at Greensboro), 2012 - 2014
• Julie Cidell (University of Illinois Urbana Champaign), 2010 - 2012
• Joe Weber (University of Alabama), 2008 - 2010
• John Bowen (University of Wisconsin - Oshkosh), 2006 - 2008
• Jean - Paul Rodrigue (Hofstra University), 2004 - 2006
• Benjamin Zhan (Texas State University), 2002 - 2004
• Shih - Leung Shaw (University of Tennessee), 2000 - 2002
• Mike Kuby (Arizona State University), 1998 - 2000
• Andrew Goetz (University of Denver), 1996 - 1998
• Ron Sheck (University of South Florida), 1994 - 1996
• Ira Sheskin (University of Miami), 1992 - 1994
• Bruce Ralston (University of Tennessee), 1990 - 1992
• William R. Black (Indiana University), 1988 - 1990
• Tom Bell (University of Tennessee), 1986 - 1988
• Gordon Fielding (University of California Irvine), 1984 - 1986
• Jim Wheeler (University of Georgia), 1982 - 1984
• William R. Black (Indiana University), 1980 - 1982

Annual Reports

• 2022 - 2023
• 2021 - 2022
• 2020 - 2021
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