Information for ETC Speakers

AET, through this conference, actively encourages presentations from speakers with all levels of expertise and experience within the transport profession. Some of the speakers will have made numerous presentations to international audiences and for some this may be the first, of hopefully many, presentations. The presentations made are also extremely varied in their content, some highly technical and some more theoretical.

Our aim within these notes is to assist speakers in how they set out their presentations to help ensure that they are clear and informative for an international audience. Below are some guidelines we recommend speakers follow when putting together their presentations, and preparing their papers, prior to submitting them to the conference.

Key Dates for Speakers

Preparation of ETC Papers and Presentations

Our aim within these notes is to assist speakers in how they set out their presentations and how to write their papers to help ensure that they are clear and informative for an international audience. Please note the information on this page and consult the downloads for detailed and offline information:

• Presentation writing guidance
• ETC 2024 paper style sheet (Word file)
• Sample paper from ETC2020
• Notes for speakers (all the information on this webpage as a download)

Abstracts, papers, presentations and making changes

You have uploaded your abstract after the Call for Papers, after which it has been accepted for presentation at the conference by one of our Programme Committees. The conference delegates can view your abstract page from our conference-app from the beginning of September. Conference delegates can read the title, authors, short and long abstract. They can also open documents that you as abstract owner uploaded to your abstract, for example your paper and/or ETC presentation. You can make small changes (spelling or clarification) to your abstract yourself and add your paper and/or presentation. Those changes will be updated on the database on our website automatically.

While our website updates automatically, some of the content on our conference app is updated manually by our team. Should you make any changes to the abstract title or author names after 13 September, please let us know via aetransport.events@aetransport.org so we can copy the change to our conference app.

We strongly encourage our speakers to upload a paper to their abstract page before the conference. Should you receive feedback during the conference that you would like to include in your paper, you are able to upload a revised version after the conference.
While we would love to have as many papers available to our delegates as possible, we do understand not everyone will be able to provide one. Should you not be able to upload a paper to your abstract page by 9 September, please consider uploading your presentation instead. Having one of these documents available on your abstract page will allow our conference delegates to inform themselves on which sessions they would like to attend. After the conference the uploaded papers and presentations become a valuable open source of knowledge via the ETC repository.

To revise your abstract or upload documents, access your AET account and navigate to the “your abstracts” section under the welcome message at the top of our website.

Delegate access to uploaded papers or presentations

Before and during the conference, only registered delegates will be able to access any uploaded conference papers on the AET website (alphabetically via the Conference Repository on our website, or chronologically via the programme on our conference-app)
Three months after the conference, papers will be made publicly available on our website. Those papers which have been selected and peer reviewed will be submitted to specialist journals and published online at a later date.

Session organisation – Chairs, Stewards and bringing your presentation

The session you are scheduled to present in at our conference will be chaired by one of our volunteer chairs. Speakers will receive the contact details for their session chairs and other presenters in the same session. Please make sure to reach out to your chair and let them know if you are on track with your preparation for the conference or if you need their help. Chairs would like a few biography lines to introduce you to the audience and might contact you for an opening question on your work to kick off the Q&A after your presentation. The chairs will arrange the order of speakers and inform you of the time you will have for your presentation. 

Please be aware that some chairs will have volunteered to chair multiple sessions. It helps their preparation if you can send them your paper or (provisional) presentation as soon as you have something available for them.

Every session room will have a laptop available that will be connected to internet access. Presenters are required to make sure they have their own presentation ready before the session. Please calculate some time before the session starts to make your way to the room and bring your presentation on USB-stick or available for online download onto the laptop. Every session will have a steward present to help with any technical issues you might encounter.

If you have any questions about presenting at your session, please contact your session chair.

Publication opportunities

AET has published peer reviewed papers that have been presented at our conference since 2013. Selected papers will be reviewed and published in specialist journals and/or will be included in the ETC selected proceedings. If you are interested in these publication opportunities, please make sure you have ticked the appropriate box on your abstract page. After the conference, the Publication Team will be in touch with the authors of uploaded papers about the selection process. There will be time to revise the paper you uploaded before the conference and to re-upload a revised version. The Publication Team will inform the authors of the process and timeline.

Information for ETC Session Chairs

The Association is keen to ensure that participants (both speakers and delegates) gain the maximum benefit from attending the Conference and, to that end, asks Session Chairs to take responsibility for the structure and management of the session. Please note the information on this page and consult the downloads for detailed and offline information:

• Notes for session chairs

Before the conference

• Review the period of time allocated to your session and decide on the format, speaker presentation lengths and question and discussion time.
• Decide on the ideal order of presentations. It is for you and the speakers to agree on the optimal format of the session. Please inform Sanderijn Baanders of your decision if you decide on an order that is different from the order on the website programme, so it can be rearranged. This way the programme on the website and in the conference-app reflects the conference itself.
• Contact session speakers informing them of timings, request a few words of biographical information (for your own use for introducing them at the event) and confirm their attendance.
• Prepare introduction notes for use during the session about each speaker and comments in case there are no questions and discussion is slow. 

Please make sure that you have contacted those speakers who have asked for help from a Programme Committee member. They are likely to be inexperienced speakers or those who have not attended the Conference before. It is very easy to lose those who come once and do not have a good experience. Please help AET to retain their interest.

An unexpected good outcome of the experience of ETC online in 2020 and 2021 were the pre-conference familiarisation sessions for chairs and speakers. The purpose was to make sure that all chairs and speakers were comfortable with the technology to be used.  In fact, we realised that the pre-conference face-to-face contact of the speakers and the session chairs led to more cohesive sessions.  We advise chairs to initiate a get together online with their speakers before the conference to discuss the session in general terms and to “put faces to names”.

Other Preparation Ideas

• Notable innovations or points of interest.
• Common threads and contrasts with previous papers.

At the conference

Speakers and Presentations

• Ensure session starts and ends at the correct time.
• Introduce speakers to the audience (speakers should have provided a few words of biographical introduction).
• Ensure speakers keep to their allotted time – this is really important as it is very upsetting if earlier speakers use too much time and later speakers do not have enough time.
• Ensure the audience can hear, see the slides and understand the speaker’s presentation and resolve any issues should they arise. 
• Remember it may be the first time some speakers have presented or may be particularly nervous so please ensure they are supported and encouraged. 

Common Threads

• The organisers are aware that there are occasionally instances where speakers introduce their paper and presentation and cover the same introductory material in setting the scene.  If you think that this might happen, please agree with your speakers that either you, or one of them, sets the scene once and repetition will be avoided.

Discussions and Questions

• Invite comments from the audience and guide the discussions.
• It is advisable to have some questions or comments ready in case discussions are slow. You are encouraged to present your own point of view, ensuring not to monopolise discussions.
• The audience will include delegates with many differing levels of expertise, interest and fluency in English, it being a second language to a large number of attendees. Please be constantly aware of this issue and assist, ensuring clarity from the speakers (asking the speaker to repeat if required), repetition of questions, expanding any abbreviations, intercepting between the speaker and delegate if required and also offering to take written questions. 
• The balance in the audience between practitioners on the one hand and researchers and academics on the other may be rather uneven, in which case it may be appropriate for the Session Chair to invite comments from particular individuals or representatives of particular groups. All discussants should be asked to announce their name and employing organisation.

Delegates

• As always, we welcome all delegates, especially those attending for the first time which can be an intimidating experience. Please make the experience of your session as welcoming and interesting as possible.

Stewards

• Each seminar will have a steward allocated to the particular presentation room for the day and will be asked to introduce themselves to you at the start of each session.  
• The steward is generally a student with an interest in the topics covered by the seminar.  The name of the steward will be given to you.
• The stewards are there to assist and support you and the Conference Organisers .
• Their role is to ensure the smooth running of the sessions by supporting the speakers and Session Chair throughout the seminar as well as organising the visual aid equipment, noting the numbers attending each session etc.  
• They are also your link with the Conference Desk and technician in case of any problems or an emergency and can be called on to assist with any issues which may arise.

Social media

We are grateful for any social media exposure we can get from conference participants during ETC. Our main social platforms are LinkedIn and X (formally Twitter). Should you write any posts about the conference online, be sure to use our hashtag #etcAntwerp2024 in order to link to our other posts. 
On LinkedIn, you can find us here to tag: Association for European Transport (AET)
On Twitter, you can find us here to tag: EuTransportConf and AET
While many speakers and participating organisations already create their own LinkedIn posts about their conference contributions, we also encourage our chairs to post to LinkedIn about their session. If you want to, feel free to choose yourself if you want to post before, after or about your session. A picture of the session or of yourself and/or speakers is a great eyecatcher for a post, but please make sure you have the explicit permission of anyone in any picture you would like to post online!