Testimonials from students in 2007

Maya Abou-Zeid (MIT) says:

Maya Abou-Zeid"The Kuhmo Nectar Summer School and Conference was a valuable and enjoyable experience for me. The summer school focused on a diverse yet coherent set of important topics within transportation economics, including demand modeling, pricing of congestion and transportation services, transportation and land use, and regulation. It also included practical laboratory sessions. The sessions served as a useful supplement to my doctoral research on travel behavior modeling, for which knowledge of transport economics is essential.

The conference, on the other hand, was a great opportunity for me as well as other doctoral students and researchers to present our research and to exchange ideas.

Both the summer school and conference were extremely well organized. Faculty and staff were very friendly and put a lot of effort into making sure everything goes well. Several social activities were organized during the course of the week and attended by most of the participants. This certainly made it a very enjoyable experience and an opportunity to meet other international students and transportation experts.

I would encourage young doctoral/master’s students and researchers to consider attending this summer school and conference next year."

Joakim Ekström (Linköping University) says:

Joakim Ekström"Attending the Kuhmo Nectar Conference and Summer School 2007 in Urbino has given me a deeper insight in transport economics together with a network of contacts.

Having a background in transportation engineering I was attracted to the summer school by the possibility of increasing my understanding of transport economics and also, I have to admit, by the fact that summer in Italy usually means better weather than one can expect in Sweden. The setup was three days of summer school and followed by a two day conference.

The lectures in the summer school suited me very well. Not having an economic background I did have some trouble to take in some of the more advanced parts of a few lectures but nevertheless I found most of them very interesting. In the evenings different social activities were arranged which gave us an opportunity to see other parts of Urbino and the surrounding area, which were very much appreciated. Although the lectures were high-quality and the social activities were very pleasant, I still think that the most important and interesting part of the summer school was to meet the fellow students. During the whole week but especially during the summer school, the atmosphere was casual and we had many interesting discussions. There were not only discussions about our different research areas but also about the similarities and difference in background and current profession.

The conference followed the summer school and I think it had a mixture between practice and theory that was just right. As a result of the summer school I was able to follow some of the more theoretic discussions in the conference presentations.

The week in Urbino gave me a better understanding of transport economics, an opportunity to reflect on my own research and has been an inspiration in my work."