2024, a Year of Celebrations [From the Editor]

The year 2024 is a year of celebrations for the IEEE Vehicular Technology Society (VTS) and IEEE. This year marks the 75th anniversary of VTS, which was initially formed as the Institute of Radio Engineers (IRE) Professional Group on Vehicular Communications (PGVC) in 1949 [1] before IRE and the American Institute of Electrical Engineers (AIEE) merged in 1963 to create IEEE as we know it today. The group was then renamed IEEE Vehicular Communications Group before becoming VTS in 1978 to reflect on the expansion of the fields of interest to electronics and transportation [1] . The year 2024 is also the year that will mark the 100th edition of our flagship IEEE Vehicular Technology Conference (VTC), with the VTC 2024-Fall edition in Washington, DC, USA. VTC traces back its origin to the first conference in 1950 of PGVC in Detroit (with only eight technical presentations [1] ). Since then, VTC has grown to become an internationally recognized technical conference, with two conferences per year from 2000 to reflect on the growing international community. Our 75th and 100th anniversaries are significant milestones that highlight the importance and impact of VTS. VTC 2024-Fall will be a great opportunity for all of us to meet and celebrate the achievements of VTS and VTC and their impact in supporting the IEEE mission to foster technological innovation and excellence for the benefit of humanity. For those of you interested to learn more about VTS and the development of vehicular communications, I recommend reading the article “Vehicle Communications Before 1950” that was published in the inaugural issue of IEEE Vehicular Technology Magazine ( VTM ) in March 2006 [1] by Charles Backof, the founding editor in chief of VTM .