The Transport Planning Society offers £500 bursaries to young transport planners to produce some original thinking on a topic of current relevance to transport planning. The topic for the 2014 competition was 'What should an incoming government do for transport planning?'. 

The Society is delighted to announce four winners :

Ward Alsafi (JMP Consultants) – who advised government to reconnect spatial and transport planning

John Bradburn (Atkins) – who advised government to introduce a national spatial strategy

Stuart Northall (Mott MacDonald) – who advised government to better understand the wider benefits of transport investment

James Rhodes (JMP Consultants) – who advised government to reduce cardiovascular disease rates by better promoting active travel

Stuart Northall was awarded the prize for Bursary of the Year at the TPS meeting on 23 April 2015.

By using readily available Open Data, combined with some complex econometric modelling, he demonstrated that the observed wider economic benefits of Line 1 of Nottingham Express Transit were significant compared with the cost of implementing the scheme – including reduced unemployment, increased business activity, increased property development, and increased land and property values. 

Ruth Bradshaw, TPS Director responsible for the 2014 Bursary competition, commented 'TPS Board members thought his paper was very interesting and that Stuart had clearly undertaken a significant amount of original research and data analysis to produce it. They liked the fact that he concluded with a good clear message about what needs to be done.'

Stuart Northall responded : 'It is great to receive this award and I am very grateful to TPS for facilitating research into a topic which greatly interests me but which was outside my normal day-to-day work experience. The knowledge I have gained will be very useful. I thank my colleagues in Mott MacDonald for their support and my TPS mentor for his insight and guidance throughout. I recommend any Young Professional to take advantage of the TPS Bursary opportunity.'

The competition for the 2015 Bursary Awards will be announced in May.