Transportation Research Forum

Introduction

• The Transportation Research Forum produces a national in person meetng where members submit and discuss papers on transportation economic
  • The 2026 April 16-17 TRF Annual Forum in Norfolk VA
• 2/20/26 MS Email: My friend, Joe Schwieterman, Director of the Chicago office at the Transportation Research Forum lets set them up as an academic partner of OTNA.

Goals

• Enroll TRF as a Founding sponsor on all Initiatives and IntelliConferences in a trade for $50,000 to $100,000 depending on the event rate
• This would be trade
  • TRF
    • They provided promotion services to all their members for each of our activities
    • They provide a coordinator for our rail economics pages
    • They recurit Academic organizations to be OTNA trade partners
    • They recruit econmics SMEs for the OTNA BrainTrust
    • They supply participating stakeholders to all OTNA relevant IntelliSynthesis
    • Discount of 25% to OTNA members for their forums
    • OTNA papers wil be submitted for TRF events
  • OTNA
    • Listing in all materials as an Initiating Sponsor
    • Co-coordinator on all our rail economics pages
    • Their papers distributed to our community
    • A 25% reduction to all their members when they become OTNA Members for 3 years
    • Promotion to our members to register for their events
    • Promotion to our sponsors to sponsor their events

Strategy

• Work through Joe Schwieterman, President of TRF Chicago Chapter

Questions

• It appears they host one forum annually, is this the case?
• Are their Chapter Presidents volunteers or paid staff
• What do local Chapters do
• What are the challenges that they face
  • Enrolling paying sponsors for their forums and recuriting participants
  • Getting interesting papers submitted for their Forums
  • Only a single 2021 newletter is posted on their site.