Torben Holvad is Analysis Team Leader at the European Union Agency for Railways (France). He joined the Agency in 2006. In his current role, Torben is leading the Agency’s work on economic analyses (impact assessments and ex-post evaluations), as well as coordinating the monitoring of the railway system regarding interoperability and safety along with data and information analyses. Before joining the Agency Torben held research positions at several UK universities, most recently with the Transport Studies Unit at University of Oxford. He obtained Economics degrees from Copenhagen University (MSc) and the European University Institute in Florence (MA and PhD). Torben has more than 30 years of experience in applied economic analysis with particular focus on the (rail) transport sector.

Rolf Tuchhardt is team leader in DG MOVE (European Commission, Single European Sky unit), responsible for a team that implements the performance and charging schemes of the Single European Sky in collaboration with the Performance Review Body.  He is economist by education and worked in the rail sector (Deutsche Bahn and CER in Brussels) prior to joining the European Commission in 2004 where he first spent eight years in DG COMP dealing with regional State aid and merger cases in the transport sector. In 2012, he joined DG MOVE’s Aviation Directorate.

Dr. Kurosaki is a professor at Toyo University in Japan. He has 31 years of experience in the railway sector and specializes in railway management. In 2008, he gained PhD from the University of Leeds with his thesis titled “An Analysis of Vertical Separation of Railways.” In addition to his career in a Japanese railway company and academic work, he has also rich experience in consulting for overseas railways as a railway policy specialist.

Marylin is leading EUROCONTROL’s Aviation Sustainability Team, supporting European aviation with data-driven models on aviation’s environmental impact. She contributes to research and innovation programmes and is responsible for EUROCONTROL’s support facilities on the EU Emissions Trading Schemes and CORSIA. Marylin has over 20 years of technical, operational, and environmental experience within the air traffic management community, including managing multinational projects. She was also a member of the Council of Engineers for the Energy Transition (CEET) under the United Nations Secretary-General, co-leading the working group on Energy for Transportation in 2022-2023.

Thanos Pallis is a Professor of port and maritime economics and policy at the Department of Maritime Studies, University of Piraeus, Greece. The founder and co-director of PortEconomics and the Vice-Chair of the global Port Performance Research Network (PPRN), He has served as President of the International Association of Maritime Economists (IAME), was a Fulbright Scholar at Columbia University, New York, US, and held adjunct professorships at Dalhousie University, Canada, and Universidad de Los Andes Colombia. Thanos has co-authored the books European Port Policy, The Common EU Maritime Transport Policy, and Port Economics, Management & Policy (Routledge, 2022). Today, he is a member of the International Association of Ports & Harbors (IAPH) Risk and Resilience Committee and the IAPH Cruise Committee and co-author of the IAPH World Ports Tracker. He chairs the Advisory Board of the Italian Regulatory Authority for Transport. In 2024, he was included in the 2% of the world’s most cited researchers in transport & logistics.

Bram Peerlings is a specialist in the field of aviation sustainability at the Royal Netherlands Aerospace Centre (NLR) and leader of NLRs research programme into climate neutral aviation. This programme is focused on better understanding the current and anticipated future climate impact of aviation, contributing to the development of alternatively-fuelled aircraft and addressing related operational challenges in a holistic way.

Employed on research and consultancy assignments, his interests go out to both global as well as local environmental impact, covering CO2 emissions and non-CO2 climate effects, but also noise, annoyance and community engagement. Often, these projects see him investigating and modelling future aircraft emissions, reduction opportunities and/or anticipated policies and their effects. He is working for a variety of clients in both the public and private sector, such as KLM Royal Dutch Airlines, Royal Schiphol Group and various ministries of the Government of the Netherlands, participates in European research projects and has been a key author of the DESTINATION 2050 series of reports. This includes the early 2025 updated roadmap report, showing a possible pathway to net-zero CO2 emissions from European aviation and including assessments of related expenditures, cumulative emissions and compatibility with carbon budgets.

Bram holds MSc-degrees from Delft University of Technology (the Netherlands) in both Aerospace Engineering and Science Communication. He regularly publishes about his work or recent developments in the field of sustainable aviation, both through international conferences as well as by newspaper contributions and blogs.

Russell Pittman is Director of Economic Research in the Antitrust Division of the U.S. Department of Justice.  He is also a visiting professor at the Kyiv School of Economics and has previously taught at the New Economic School (Moscow), Korea University, and Georgetown University.  Among his most influential papers have been those on productivity measurement in the presence of negative externalities, in the 1983 Economic Journal; on the IBM antitrust litigation, in the 1984 International Journal of Industrial Organization; on U.S. railways regulation, in the 2010 Journal of Regulatory Economics, the 2010 Administrative Law Review, and elsewhere; and on Chinese, Russian, and Ukrainian railways restructuring, in various journals and books.  In the 1990’s especially, he was a member of DOJ/FTC teams consulting with developing and transition country governments on competition and regulatory policies. He was a member of the World Bank’s World Development Report team in 2001; a co-author of the 2004 report of the European Conference of Ministers of Transport, Regulatory Reform of Railways in Russia; and part of the ECMT team consulting with the Mexican government on the establishment of its freight rail regulatory agency in 2015.  In 2022 he received the Antitrust Division’s William F. Baxter award “in recognition of the lifetime contributions in economic analysis and contributions made to the effective enforcement of antitrust law by an economist.

Aurore Laget-Annamayer (PhD Law, Université Paris Cité) is Full Professor of public law at the University Paris Dauphine-PSL in Paris.

Her research is focused on regulation of network industries, in particular railways, telecommunications and energy, and public business law. She has expended her fields of research on international and european environmental law and sustainable mobility. She has published many scientific articles notably on regulation of networks industry, independent regulation, competition in the rail transport sector and sustainable mobility. Her most recent books are « Economic public order” (LGDJ coll. Droit et économie, 2018) and “The opening up to competition of passenger rail transport in Europe : Comparative law perspectives” (Bruylant, 2023)

Herald Ruijters is Deputy Director General, responsible for Investment, Innovative & Sustainable Transport in DG Mobility and Transport. As regards investments in transport, his main responsibilities are the funding instruments Connecting Europe Facility and Horizon Europe and the financing instrument InvestEU. He is also responsible for the relationship with the EIB and with national and promotional banks. As regards innovative and sustainable transport, he assumes responsibilities for the development of the trans-European transport network, of the urban mobility framework, of alternative fuels infrastructure, of intelligent transport systems, as well as of passenger rights, social aspects and equal opportunities.

Since 1997 and until December 2023, Mr Ruijters held several positions in DG MOVE, as Director, Head of Unit, advisor to the European Coordinators, and in different roles developing the road safety policy. Before joining the Commission, he held various positions in The Netherlands related to transport.

Mr Ruijters holds degrees from Nijmegen and Amsterdam Universities in both French literature and European Studies, and was post-graduated at the Centre Européen Universitaire in Nancy, in European Law, and in Business Studies at the University in Leuven.

Steven Truxal is Full Professor of Air and Space Law and Director of the International Institute of Air and Space Law at Leiden University. He is an alumnus of The George Washington University and the University of Westminster. His studies in international relations, economics and law have informed his research, which focuses on multilevel economic and environmental regulation of air transport. He has held past appointments at the University of London, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Deutsche Lufthansa AG and the U.S. Department of Commerce.

He regularly advises and provides trainings for governments and industry stakeholders on a range of legal and regulatory matters affecting air transport. He is also frequently invited to speak at academic conferences and diplomatic meetings, to international media and at industry events.

He serves on the advisory boards of the Zeitschrift für Luft- und Weltraumrecht (German Journal of Air and Space Law) and the Indian Review of Air and Space Law. In addition to his track record of publications on air law and policy, he has produced two monographs: Competition and Regulation in the Airline Industry: Puppets in Chaos (Routledge, 2012) and Economic and Environmental Regulation of International Aviation: From Inter-National to Global Governance (Routledge 2017).