Transportation is an individual activity that takes place in a communal space by communal means. So many individual trips by different modes with different start and end points overlapping, merging and diverging, sharing space, vehicles, and facilities at different times and places. It is a never-ending bubbling pot of conflicts and potential collisions.

The design, construction, implementation, and management of this multitude of conflicts is the realm of transportation and mobility professionals.

• What are the tools available?
• What solution is best for any given scenario?
• What type of environment needs to be created to maintain peaceful operations?
• How can technology be deployed to encourage positive outcomes?

It is challenging to identify a transport issue that doesn't have conflict management as a core objective, but practitioners often fail to look for synergies that will foster collaboration and sharing and encourage learning from experiences in other sectors or areas because of silos of specialisation that have been created to protect turf.

It is well known that transport is a derived demand that supports and facilitates activities in many other sectors. The destination is the real purpose of the trip undertaken, whether for leisure, education, employment, or any other reason, and improvements in transport services have a multiplier effect for productivity and the economy. Open dialogue about the barriers to operating an effective transport system, as viewed and experienced from different perspectives, will create avenues for learning, collaboration, and growth, in the sector and beyond.

For many people, the first thing that comes to mind, when asked about conflict in transport, is the issue of road safety and traffic collisions. However, the wider perspective involves an appreciation of conflict as being any scenario in which there is a difference that may or may not be resolved, whether at:

• the operating level
• the policy level
• within or between sectors
• where there are complementing or overlapping responsibilities
• cases of dependency and interdependency

The impacts of these conflicts may not cause physical damage as do traffic crashes, but the rifts and gaps that result are often sufficient to tangibly affect the desired outcome, in ways that may go unnoticed. Beyond the physical conflicts between objects (whether animate or inanimate) with mass, there are multiple dimensions and scenarios in which the potential for conflict exists.

The multivariate nature of transport requires balance to be struck between:

At the heart of transport management, engineering, and planning is the objective of organizing systems within private and shared spaces to facilitate individual and collective movement in a safe way that does not result in the escalation of conflict to become impacts or collisions. Understanding conflict and how it is created and expressed in practice is a key component of an effective transport system; comprised of infrastructure, services, administration, and regulation working in sync.

Systems integration, traffic safety, mobility, and efficiency of travel by various modes of transportation, including intermodal facilities, are specific areas of concern for policymakers, planners, implementers, and users. In addition, there is the need for connectivity, equity, and integration that depends on the actions of stakeholders at all levels, so that the travel and transport experience can be one that makes the best use of resources and maximises the time available for productive endeavours.

This conference seeks to squarely place a focus on the issue of conflict in transport and mobility and to address how it has been and should be tackled, as we move forward to develop and operate transport systems that are purpose-driven and place safety at the centre of the decision-making process.