Joan Walker - Moving from Citations to Collective Wisdom in Travel Behavior Research

Описание: This talk focuses on the disconnect between the incentives for academic researchers and the production of collective wisdom to inform transportation planning and policy. While the former emphasizes numbers of publications and citations, the latter is about producing knowledge in a manner that produces societal good. Unsurprisingly, the emphasis on counts has led to tremendous growth in the number of academic papers. However, it is questionable whether this leads to a commensurate amount of wisdom and is arguably harmful. For example, encapsulating the literature is arduous not only due to the volume but also because uniqueness is paramount for publication.

To that end, thoughts are presented on how incentives may be realigned to increase the societal impact of academic research in travel demand, and input from the audience is also solicited. Included in the talk will be research related to autonomous vehicles, telecommuting, and public transportation.