"Train2" Initiatives

[DragonflyStats]

Apropos of more sustainable travel models, several attendees at UseR! opted to take the train rather than fly. Conscientiousness of the environmental impact should be supported.

The proposal is to assist prospective attendees who choose train for their travel plans by

• pooling knowledge and providing information about rail travel.
• Seeking discounted ticket prices from railway operators through partnership programs (e.g. OBB).
• Assist attendees in finding travel buddies. This potentially gives rise to a social dividend for doing this.

This is evidently outside the scope of Forwards, and would more likely to be a matter for Conference Organizers, from the R community and beyond. We can initiate this project, and then let it take on a life of its own.

Conferences that can be part of the project development phase.

• uRos (Vienna, May 2020)
• eRum (Milan, May 2020)
• JuliaCon (Central Europe)
• PyCon DE
• PyData Berlin
• PyCon Italia

[hturner]

I don't know if it happened in other years but in 2016 folks booked a carriage from Vancouver to Portland to go to Pycon, which I thought was awesome (https://www.eventbrite.com/e/python-on-cascades-tickets-23068601809#).

I did look into it for useR! 2017: it might have been possible to book a coach from Paris, but people would have had to arrange separate tickets to Paris, which probably would have ended up costing more. Still, group bookings might be another benefit of finding travel buddies, e.g. SNCF do a 4 for the price of 3 deal: https://www.sncf.com/en/passenger-offer/travel-for-everyone/group-travel/travel-with-others.