T2M, the International Association for the History of Transport, Traffic and Mobility, emerged from the shared agenda of a number of different groups who increasingly came to the conclusion that a new field of analysis and interpretation was required (for a longer discussion of this process, see Gijs Mom “What kind of transport history did we get? Half a century of the JTH and the future of the field,” Journal of Transport History 24(2) 2003, pp. 121-138). The specific initiative to found a new international association came from the Mobility History Group within COST’s Tensions of Europe programme, with the idea being extensively discussed during the last two group workshops in Trondheim and Munich in 2002. Through further discussion with COST and Arbeitskreis Verkehrsgeschichte (part of the German association of Economic History) plans were drawn up for the launch of the association, which took place in Eindhoven in November, 2003. By this stage some of the most active members in the fields of mobility and transport history were involved. Since 2003, T2M has organized a yearly conference, resulting in a growing network of researchers presenting high-quality papers. At the Paris conference in 2006, general members voted to accept the statutes of the organization, resulting in T2M’s official founding. With new ventures such as Theme Groups and a regular newsletter, T2M continues to be an exciting and innovative association.
