The TDM-Symposium

”Visions, Concepts and Experiences of Travel Demand Management” focused on
(1) experiences with pricing measures,
(2) contribution of TDM to the reduction of greenhouse gases and
(3) implementation processes. This three-day symposium was attended by academics,  transport researchers, representatives of local, regional and national authorities in the field of transport and the environment, transport consultants or representing an interest groups in this field.
Background Three international symposia on travel demand management (TDM) have already taken place in the UK to date:
o Travel Demand Management, 1998, University of Newcastle upon Tyne

o Theory and Practice of Congestion Pricing, 2003, Imperial College London

o Success and failure of TDM Measures, 2005, Napier University Edinburgh.
Format of the Symposium As with the previous conferences in this series, the tdm Vienna 2008 symposium was a mixture of presentation and working conference in five-half days. There was a selected number of invited keynote speakers. The focus of the programme is on the presentations of accepted papers followed by discussions in several plenary sessions. Two parallel workshop-sessions took place, offering an opportunity for in-depth discussion of specific topics of TDM. A poster session provided the opportunity to present research results parallel to the oral presentations.
Travel demand management (TDM) measures are some of the most promising transport policy measures in conurbations, especially with reference to climate change, clean urban transport and congestion avoidance. Setting targets for reducing traffic or prospective traffic growth is a basic requirement to fulfil these goals and is a priority on the political agenda. Many activities of the European Commission (e.g. The Civitas-Initiative for Clean and Better Urban Transport) and of national and local governments in Europe and all over the world support this development. But it has to be mentioned that the political decision and implementation process of TDM measures is rather difficult, especially when pricing measures are at car drivers’ expenses. The goal of the symposium was to share the latest high quality research results and developments in the different fields of TDM.