Modelling World moves to Leeds for 2026 - Call for papers now open

Says Tom van Vuren, Modelling World Chair: "In 2026 Modelling World will be in Leeds, home of my alma mater. The event will look back at what we have learnt over the years – since the publication of the key Analytical Transport Planning book by Lane, Powell and Prestwood Smith in 1971 – and also forward, to explore and discuss whether emerging tools and approaches will help or hinder transport modelling and analysis for the questions we face today.

"As modellers, what we really do is analytical transport planning: using our skills and experience to understand current and future transport systems and quantify the impacts of different possible interventions – deserving a role in the boardroom rather than the backroom.

"For 2026 there is a new location, the beautifully restored Leeds Met Hotel, more interactive sessions and workshops, and the formal dinner replaced by the Modelling World Social, with quality networking, informal drinks and lot of canapes (as Harry Enfield said: 'Don’t talk to me about sophistication, I’ve been to Leeds!')."

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Submit your presentation ideas and suggestions by 27 February 2026 using this form

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Key themes for Modelling World 2026 will include:

• Reflecting the complexities of transport systems. Examples of modelling approaches that focus on integrating modes, transport and spatial planning, and different spatial levels of decision-making

• Enhancing existing model approaches to respond to the new challenges – examples of non-traditional modelling techniques that put people front and centre, and enable the benefits of integration to be evidenced

• Are current data sources and survey techniques up to the task? Modelling World will offer the opportunity to showcase emerging data sources and innovative ways of understanding people’s travel behaviour

• How is artificial intelligence making a difference? Examples and applications of artificial intelligence that make modelling better or faster

• Responding to the Green Book Review – do models need to be simpler and faster, or more comprehensive?

• Are developments in open data and open source models delivering the advances we expected?

• Activity-based models – have they matured enough for mainstream usage?

• Allowing for dynamics – both within days, between days and in the long term

• Improving behavioural representation over and above utility maximisation

• Connected and autonomous vehicles – what can we learn for use in modelling the current vehicle fleet and operations

• The post-COVID world – do models really need to change?

Looking back and forwards

"We haven’t been modelling transport for a very long time," adds van Vuren. "I put its origins in the 1960s (others perhaps a bit earlier). Sixty years later, we can look back with some pride in how the profession and its tools have established a way of working and a code of practice, that is solid, but rarely understood or valued by our end users.

"Too rigid? Too expensive? Too slow? Outdated tools? The wrong answers?

"Looking forward, where many see opportunity, others see threats. With evolving tools such as activity-based models becoming even more expensive to use, and AI, rather than supporting modelling, perhaps replacing robust forecasting techniques and overwhelming us with data.

"Language matters. A reset to viewing our role as analytical transport planners, and being viewed as such, comes with responsibilities. That means suggesting, developing and using a wider range of methods and approaches, not just the strategic transport models we feel comfortable with, not using the guidance to hide behind, and not just relying on commercial software packages that limit our simulations to their capabilities.

"It means being not only a modeller, but also a planner with expertise outside just operational roles. Relying on data analyses when more formal modelling is unwarranted. Simpler when it is sufficient, more complex only when it is inevitable."

We look forward to recieving your presentation ideas and welcoming you to Modelling World in June 2026!