Welcome to the 18th TRB National Transportation Planning Applications Conference! This year, AppCon will be an entirely virtual event, streamed live over four days – June 21^st – 24^th.

Hundreds of transportation planners from around the country and abroad will share their experiences through presentations and panel discussions. The goal of our conference’s technical program is to provide an outlet for showcasing new transportation planning techniques and methods emphasizing practical, innovative, and timely technical and policy approaches to transportation planning.

This year a number of topics have risen to the forefront in transportation planning, including the long-term impacts of COVID quarantining on travel demand, planning with an emphasis on inclusion, equity and resiliency, and ever-emerging “Big Data” sources that expand what we know about how people and goods move around. There are many presentations that address these topics and many more bread-and-butter transportation planning issues.

While it is impossible to fully create the experiences and networking advantages of an in-person conference, the Planning Committee together with TRB has worked hard to make this event as informative and engaging as prior meetings. We’ve *uploaded* our popular Speed Data-ing networking session, and brought back the popular “Ask Me Anything” for career Transportation Planning Professionals. We’ve also added a “Bringing it all Together” panel discussion on the last day of AppCon, to synthesize and attempt to understand the trends and topics highlighted over the course of the conference. We hope you find ample opportunity for learning, sharing, networking, and catching up with colleagues and friends new and old.

The Planning Committee strives each year to bring new ideas in content and format. Do you have suggestions or questions? Please let us know what we can do to maintain this as a premier event for transportation planning professionals. Comments can be sent to techchair.appsconf@gmail.com, and please remember to fill out the post conference survey!

We would like to thank our patrons, exhibitors, and all the committee members and friends who have helped make this conference possible. Last, but not least, we want to thank each of you for attending. The success of the conference depends on planners, engineers, and data scientists like you who are willing to share their time and experience.

     Peter Bosa                                                                        Becky Knudson

        Oregon Metro, Conference Chair                                   Oregon DOT, Conference Program Chair