For further info visit the website or contact Dr Stephane Hess 
(Email: [log in to unmask], Tel: +44(0)113 34 36611 ).  Please do 
not reply to this email address.


With apologies for cross-posting.

Dear colleagues,

The Institute for Transport Studies at the University of Leeds is 
pleased to announce that the inaugural International Choice Modelling 
Conference will beheld in Yorkshire in the North of England from 30 
March 2009 to 1 April 2009.

The conference will bring together leading researchers and 
practitioners from across the many different areas in which choice 
modelling is a key technique for understanding behaviour and 
evaluating policy. Presentations will look both at state-of-the-art 
methodology as well as innovative real-world applications of choice models.

The highlight of the conference will be a presentation by Professor 
Daniel McFadden from the University of California at Berkeley, Nobel 
Prize laureate in Economics and chief architect of random utility modelling.

We are similarly delighted to announce that five other leading choice 
modellers have agreed to give keynote presentations at this 
conference.These are:

Professor Moshe Ben-Akiva,Massachusetts Institute of Technology
Professor Chandra Bhat,University of Texas at Austin
Professor Michel Bierlaire,EPFL Lausanne
Professor David Hensher,University of Sydney
Professor Riccardo Scarpa,Waikato University

We are also pleased to announce that three highly regarded 
international organisations in the field of choice modelling, MVA 
Consultancy, Rand Europe and Significance,have agreed to sponsor this event.

The conference website is <http://www.jocm.org.uk>www.jocm.org.uk/conference

The conference will use a two stage review system for submissions to 
ensure a high quality programme, and only one submission will be 
allowed per lead author.

Initial submissions should be in the form of abstracts (up to 500 
words), to be submitted before 20 October 2008. The abstracts will be 
reviewed by the academic committee for the conference, and a decision 
on acceptance will be made by the end of October 2008.

Full papers are due by 31 December 2008. The papers will go through a 
peer review process which will lead to a decision on acceptance of 
the paper for presentation at the conference. Authors will be able to 
submit papers at this stage even without an accepted abstract but 
inclusion in the programme will then be subject to programme capacity.

Selected papers will be published in an edited book and we are also 
envisaging a number of special issues of the Journal of Choice Modelling.

The final conference venue will be confirmed in the coming weeks. The 
different options we are exploring will provide a residential setting 
for the conference within half an hour from Leeds city centre and 
Leeds Bradford airport. The conference location will also be on the 
edge of the unique Yorkshire Dales National Park,which we hope 
provides a further attraction. We are planning to put together 
asocial programme for the conference that will involve an outing into 
the dales.

The conference will be organised immediately after the Lausanne 
discrete choice modelling course 
(<http://transp-or.epfl.ch/dca>http://transp-or.epfl.ch/dca), giving 
attendees the possibility of combining the two events.

Please feel free to distribute this announcement to your students and 
colleagues.

We hope to see you in Yorkshire in Spring 2009.

Conference organiser: Stephane Hess

Conference chair: Andrew Daly

-----------------------------------------

Dr Stephane Hess

Principal Research Fellow

Institute for Transport Studies

University of Leeds

Tel: +44(0)113 34 36611

[log in to unmask]

<http://www.stephanehess.me.uk>http://www.stephanehess.me.uk

-----------------------------------------



#####################################
James Miller
Department of Statistics
University of Glasgow
15 University Gardens
G12 8QQ
0141 3302474
[log in to unmask]

The University of Glasgow, charity number SC004401