LaTeX class for TRB Annual Meeting papers

The Transportation Research Board of the U.S. National Academies in its Information for Authors, gives detailed requirements for papers submitted for the TRB Annual Meeting and for publication in Transportation Research Record. trbunofficial.cls is a LaTeX class that allows preparation of LaTeX documents meeting these requirements, with minimal adjustments to standard LaTeX code.

Also included are:

• trb.bst — a BibTeX style file.
• trb.bbx, trb.cbx — bibliography and citation (respectively) style files for biblatex.

Usage and features

See the files in the examples directory:

• default.tex — an example with default class settings, using natbib for citations and the bibliography → produces default.pdf.
• biblatex.tex — an example using biblatex for citations and the bibilography.

Class options

% (first line of LaTeX document)
\documentclass[options]{trbunofficial}

The available options are:

• natbib (default) or biblatex — use the specified package for citations and the bibliography.
• numbered (default) or nonumber — number lines.
• compat (default) or nocompat — aim for slavish compliance with the features of the Information for Authors that are clearly aimed at users of Microsoft Word. This currently has the following effects:
  • Blank lines are numbered on the title page between the title, authors, word count and date.

Document preamble

• Give the \title{…}.
• Format the \author{…} block as in the example files. Also, use \AuthorHeaders{…} to set the author surnames in the page header.
• (biblatex only) Use \addbibresource{…} at least once to add bibilography sources.
• (optional) The word count on the title page is calculated automatically. To set the total words manually and avoid automatic word counting, use \setcounter{textwords}{4500} (where 4500 is the number of words).

Document body

• Issue \maketitle as the first command after \begin{document}.
• Format the abstract and keywords as in the example files.
• Caption tables in Title Case, and figures in Sentence case.
• Cite references:
  • for biblatex: use the standard commands.
  • for natbib: use the provided \trbcite{…} command. See examples/default.tex.
• At the end of the document, set the bibilography on a new page:
  • for natbib:

    \newpage
    \bibliographystyle{trb}
    \bibliography{…}
    

  • for biblatex:

    \newpage
    \printbibliography
    

Compiling

The word-counting feature invokes texcount at the time the document is compiled. This requires the -shell-escape option to the LaTeX compiler (e.g., pdflatex) in order to permit it to invoke other programs. If texcount was not installed with a TeX distribution (e.g. TeX Live! or MikTeX) then a Perl interpreter (e.g. ActivePerl) may also be required.

To avoid these requirements, count words by some other method and set the counter manually, as described above.

• Using plain pdflatex:

  pdflatex -shell-escape document.tex
  

• Using latexmk:

  latexmk -pdf -pdflatex="pdflatex -shell-escape %O %S" document.tex
  

• In TeXStudio (source):
  • Go to Options → Configure TeXStudio.
  • Click on Commands.
  • Add the -shell-escape flag to pdflatex:

    pdflatex.exe -synctex=1 -interaction=nonstopmode -shell-escape %.tex
    

• On Overleaf, -shell-escape is enabled by default.

About

This is a lighter version of the former TRB LaTeX template. The previous version was built primarily for people using R, Sweave, and LaTeX. Therefore, this version is created for people who need a straight-forward LaTeX template for TRB papers.

Contributing

Some desirable improvements would include:

• Use titling instead of the current, custom title page environment.
• Add a command for each author that:
  • Correctly formats the name and address blocks.
  • Adds their surname to the page header.
• Document use of nameref for cross-referencing within the document, since the Information for Authors does not specify section numbers.
• Document use of siunitx for units (per Information for Authors requirements on “metrication”).
• Package for CTAN & upload.
• Use the built-in LaTeX abstract environment for the abstract and keywords.