Preface Special Issue on Latin-American Transport Research

Abstract

Latin America is a living laboratory for transportation innovation. Innovativesolutions, such as the pioneering implementations of Bus Rapid Transit systems inCuritiba (Brazil) and Bogota (Colombia), are examples of the work done in LatinAmerica. A growing community of practitioners and researchers in transportation iscreating research centers of excellence of international stature. An importantcomponent of this process is the Pan-American Conference on Traffic andTransportation Engineering (PANAM), which, for three decades, has been thegathering place for academics from Latin-America, Europe, United States, andCanada interested in the exchange of ideas with Latin-American professionals.This Special Issue includes a sample of the work conducted by Latin Americantransportation researchers, in several cases in collaborations with scholars comingfrom other countries. Due to the breadth of the topics discussed, the Editors decidedto organize the papers according to the level of aggregation of the analysis, startingthe volume with papers dealing with the individual’s behavior and ending with thosethat focus on behavior of the entire markets.In bringing these papers to the attention of NETS readers, the Editors hope toraise the level of awareness about the research done throughout Latin-America andSpain, and foster collaboration among researchers from all over the world.The Special Issue is comprised of eight works. In the first paper, entitled “On theTreatment of Repeated Observations in Panel Data: Efficiency of Mixed LogitParameter Estimates,” Maria F. Yanez, Elisabetta Cherchi, Benjamin G. Heydecker