"This is a proposal for an early-stage postgraduate research student competition – a kind of Transport Research ‘Olympics’ – to complement the goals of the Transport Research Arena conference, TRA 2008, in Ljubljana, Slovenia. The goal is to stimulate interest among young researchers in the conference and contribute to establishing it as the premier Transport event in the world. This activity will directly support the TRA event and reinforce its profile as a major European and internationally important conference. The YEAR competition will be in two stages. In the first stage, up to 1000 students will submit abstracts, clearly specifying the deliverables and practical outputs of their research. There will be a network of about 100 ‘coaches’, experts in transporation research, to encourage a wide participation from all over European and neighbouring countries. The abstracts will be hosted on a website which will constitute a showcase of early stage research in Europe. There will be five categories, four for PhD research in each of the four pillar areas of the conference and a fifth ‘future vision’ category in which students present their vision of the future in the context of the work of ERTRAC. The fifth category will helpt to disseminate the work of ERTRAC by encouraging many young researchers to read their future vision documents and develop their own ideas in this context. In the second stage, about 50 finalists will be brought to the TRA 2008 conference to present their work in the form of posters or audiovisual displays. There will be gold, silver and bronze medals for each of the 5 categories and winners will be featured prominently at the conference to stimulate interest among delegates, journalists and the general public. The exhibition will be in a prominent area to encourage a wide ranging discussion between students and delegates who constitute future potential employers and stakeholders in road transport."