Chair’s message - April 2023

Time flies when you are having fun!  I cannot believe it’s only been a few weeks since I was elected as the new Chair of the TPS. These few weeks have amply confirmed my view that the TPS is a fantastic organisation, punching well above its weight in the sustainable transport debate and through its work developing and promoting the professional skills needed to deliver a fair, decarbonised transport system. 

I have been talking to my fellow Board members since the AGM and a few themes have emerged:

• The TPS does a huge amount with very limited resources, including significant voluntary effort from members of the Board, members of the Board working groups and TPS members;
• We have developed great programmes led by members of the Board, around policy, membership, events, comms and regions and nations;
• We can build on this work by exploiting the synergies between different activities, so our policy work can be amplified through our events and communications, which can in turn attract more members and influence the national policy debate;
• Our work on skills and professional qualifications led by Keith Buchan is critical and needs to continue to develop.

I’m really excited about working with the Board to build on the great work done by Mark Frost in his time as Chair. 

The TPS has been busy over the past few weeks. The ever-popular TPS Annual International Quiz took place on 31 March, with no fewer than 99 teams entering from across England, Republic of Ireland, Wales and New Zealand. The “No Name” team from the Ireland NTA were the winners and the Quiz raised almost £2000 for charity, which is fantastic.  Congratulations to the winning team and bring on 2024.

Due to popular demand, we’ve extended the deadline for nominations for the Transport Planner of the Year and the new Young Transport Planner of the Year Award. The deadline is now this Friday 28 April, so if you know a transport planner who has made an exceptional contribution to transport planning over the past year, make sure you nominate them for one of these prestigious awards.  You can find more information HERE.

Meanwhile plans are well-advanced for the Bradshaw Address 2023 at the ICE (and on-line) at 18:00 on Thursday 4 May. We’re thrilled that Elaine Seagriff, former TPS Chair and Director of Strategic Planning at the Great British Railway Transition Team (GBRTT), has agreed to talk about the progress in delivering rail reform, the impacts of recent political changes and what to expect next.  You can register for the event HERE.

Looking further ahead, we’re gearing up for this year’s Transport Planning Day, which will be held on 13^th November at the Institution of Civil Engineers in London and on-line. The theme of this year’s TPD is “Tackling transport-related social exclusion and delivering a just transition to a decarbonized future”.  Research from Transport for the North (TfN) suggests that 30% of the population in their region suffer from transport-related social exclusion. This highlights the urgent need to tackle this problem and have an honest debate about social and economic impacts of decarbonisation and how to mitigate these.

Meanwhile, the national debate about how to prioritise transport investment continues. The DfT have published a draft revision of the national networks national policy statement (NNNPS), which covers the strategic road and rail networks, and strategic rail freight interchanges (SRFIs). This is a critical document, as it will set the policy framework for future decisions on major transport infrastructure.   Former TPS Chair (another one!) Glenn Lyons has done a typically pithy analysis of the draft NNNPS, which is well worth a read. The deadline for comments on the draft NNNPS is 6 June.

The TPS was a Supporter of the new Interchange Conference, which was held last week in Birmingham.  Interchange is the brainchild of Andrew Dowding, who set up Highways UK and ran the first conference on the Sub-National Transport Bodies last year.   Mark Frost and I were both on the Interchange Steering Group and it was fascinating being involved in development of the programme. The conference focuses on how to improve integration in transport – within the sector, with other sectors and between infrastructure and data.  There were some great speakers and a lively debate about how to overcome the silos that get in the way of delivering and operating a truly sustainable transport system. 

Similarly interesting was the first Round Table organised by TAPAS (Transport and Accessibility Policy Alternative Solutions).TAPAS is a new platform developed by Peter Stonham of Local Transport Today and transport planning consultant Arman Farahmand-Ravazi. It aims to provide a forum for discussion about the key transport challenges of our time.   The first Round Table opened with a sobering presentation from Prof Greg Marsden of Leeds University, whose talk “The Death of Sustainable Transport” concluded that there is currently no credible pathway to a decarbonised transport system on the timescale necessary to meet our net zero commitments.  I gave a brief response on the importance of understanding that transport is as much a political issue as a technical one.  You can see a summary of the event here. 

Greg’s presentation brought home to me that the next 18 months are going to be very important, both in the transport sector and more widely.  We face a continuing cost-of-living crisis, global economic uncertainty, local and national elections and growing concern that we are not acting anything like urgently enough on the Climate Emergency. 

The TPS is well-placed to promote the role of transport planners in meeting these challenges and to make the case for a sustainable transport system in what are, by any standards, interesting times.  I look forward to seeing you face to face or on-line as we work together to make that case.