Professional Development

Whether you’re an experienced professional, you want to become qualified, or you’d like some career advice, TPS can help.

Developing skills

Transport planning is about preparing, assessing and implementing policies, plans and projects to improve and manage our transport systems. But it is also about understanding and why demand for travel occurs in the first place, in particular the link between transport and land use. It has a major impact on the future shape of our towns and cities, and the activities which people undertake. It is critical to the future of the economy, the state of our environment and how we tackle climate change. There is a need for transport planning on a local, regional, national and international level.

Transport planners have to consider what the future would and could be like, and recognise that their actions as transport planners will help to shape it. At different times they will have to think like a psychologist, a civil engineer, a vehicle engineer, a development planner, a computer analyst, an environmental scientist, a social scientist, a fitness expert, and at least two sorts of economist. They have to be able to work across disciplines and put the pieces of the transport jigsaw all together. They have to make transparent decisions and communicate complex issues to the public, to key stakeholders, and to politicians.

Transport planning therefore includes a very wide range of disciplines — in fact the wide range of work is one of the big attractions.

The work of transport planners touches almost every aspect of our day-to-day lives. This makes acquiring the skills that transport planners need a complex but rewarding process.

Transport planners spend their time:

Preparing, assessing and implementing policies, plans and projects

Understanding how and why demand for travel occurs

Working across disciplines to join the transport jigsaw together

Communicating complex issues to the public, stakeholders and politicians