Transport Planning Day 2023 

Transport Planning Day is led by the Transport Planning Society to celebrate the best in transport planning, highlight its benefit to communities and chart a direction for the profession.

Every year we choose a specific theme for the campaign to focus on a different topic or issue within the Transport Planning profession.

Transport Planning has never been more important

– Gavin Newlands MP, Transport Planning Day 2020 Virtual Parliamentary Reception

The campaign includes several events which allows transport planners to network and promote their achievements.
The campaign also looks to encourage young professionals into the industry by highlighting what an attractive and rewarding career transport planning can be.

I joined Transport Planning Day 2020 to understand where transport planning is heading as an industry

– 2020 Audience Survey.

The theme for 2023 – Planning and delivering a rapid and equitable transition to a decarbonised transport system

This year the campaign focussed on planning and delivering a rapid and equitable transition to a decarbonised transport system. As we start to transition to a decarbonised model, equity is fundamental to not marginalise groups of people or accentuate existing inequalities.

The cost of living crisis is increasing existing disparities in our society, including transport provision. People on lower-incomes contribute the least to CO2 emissions, while being impacted the most by the effects of climate change. They must not face the worst of the impacts.

But a just transition also provides an opportunity to distribute the benefits of good transport connectivity more evenly between, and within regions across the UK. For example, by increasing local accessibility through land-use planning, supporting active travel and improving local public transport services.

Throughout the campaign we explored and highlighted how transport planners, with support from the government, can tackle the socio-economic problems that arise from the transition to a zero-emission network, and the role transport planners will play in planning and delivering this transition.

Transport Planning Day 2023

Held at the Institution of Civil Engineers, the first session focussed on the role of government and industry in fostering a rapid and equitable transition to a decarbonised system, and saw a keynote speech from Glenn Lyons - Professor at the University of the West of England. This was followed by two insightful presentations by Emma Griffin, co-founder of Footways, Vice-Chair of London Living Streets and Trustee for Integrated Transport, and Federico Cassani, Global Director of Transport at Mobility at Buro Happold.

The second session included a panel discussion chaired by Ben Plowden, Chair of the TPS, on what is an equitable transition and how we can plan for it. Panellists included:

• Michael Evans Ford – sales and business development manager, Ioki
• Caroline Stickland – CEO, Transport for All
• Michael Solomon Williams – campaigns manager, Campaign for Better Transport
• Aoife Dudley – senior transport planner, City Science and Young Transport Planner of the Year Runner up
• Maya Singer – senior research fellow, IPPR
• Shireen Ali-Khan - programme director and intersectionality lead, Women in Transport

This was followed by refreshments and networking late into the evening.

You can watch the recording from Transport Planning Day 2023 here.

You can also access the slide deck from the day here.