On the 7th February the West Midlands hosted a National TPS Event entitled “steady as she goes or abandoning ship – dealing with the new modelling challenges”.  There were 35 attendees from a wide range of public and private sector organisations. The event was chaired by Tom van Vuren of Mott MacDonald and the speakers included:

Stuart Lester – Digital Innovation Lead (Transport for West Midlands)

• “Modelling at the edge – let’s do this better?”

Tim Day-Pollard – Senior Transport Modeller (Mott MacDonald)

• “Improving VISUM assignment convergence for roundabouts”

Richard Fernandes – Senior Consultant (Atkins)

• “Measuring the impact of 20mph signed only interventions”

Tim Slater – Associate Director (WSP)

• “CASM – and overview of the strategic transport model for Coventry, Solihull and Warwickshire’

The presentations and discussions highlighting the range of problems that transport modellers face, from the need for speed and simplicity when exploring early options, via the role of new data sources (potentially avoiding the necessity of modelling), to ensuring technically that the software used reflects the conditions on the ground, and finally the eternal challenge of representing outcomes to a sceptical public.

There was pride in what the PRISM regional transport model had enabled the West Midlands to achieve, but also a recognition that a one-size-fits-all approach is no longer appropriate. Rather than rejecting the traditional methods, the meeting concluded that there is a need to  develop complementary analytical methods, particularly in the context of fast-evolving novel data sources.