Scottish Region Young Professionals' Event - Transport: Biggest and Best Ever!

On 22nd May 2008 the annual Scottish Young Professionals’ Event – Transport took place at the somewhat unusual venue of Easter Road Stadium, the home of Hibernian Football Club in Edinburgh. With over 125 delegates registered, the event was a huge success including delegates from Public Passenger Transport, Transport Planning, Transport Academia including university students and Local Authorities amongst other roles.

In addition to many of the big names in the profession, we were pleased to welcome our Patron – HRH The Princess Royal and our new President Richard Brown.

Titled “Innovation in Transportation for a new Generation”, the event ranged over bus services, street infrastructure looking at the new Scottish Design Manual for Streets, new trams for Edinburgh, an Urban Dynamic Model relating to Transport Planning, the Eurostar rail service and a different focus on the army - moving people in active theatres.

The Scottish Region Regional Chairman John Fender welcomed delegates from near and far, including delegates from Aberdeen in the north to others from London, Liverpool, Manchester and points in between.

Willie Gallacher, Executive Chairman of Transport Initiatives Edinburgh explained the background to delivering an all new tram service to the City of Edinburgh, against a projected growth of nearly 24,000 houses and 30,000 new jobs in the city by 2015. The tram project is expected to deliver £1.77 return on every £1.00 invested, through reduced congestion and improved access to the city centre, airport and heavy rail network. He indicated that the greatest challenge so far has been putting together and managing the complex consortia required to design, build and implement the project while keeping Edinburgh moving. Future possibilities run to extending the first phase of the line and eventually, dependent on funding, closing the loop in Leith. Links with other parts of the rail network, access to the second Forth crossing and other Park and Ride locations are also possibilities in the future.

Brian Souter, Co-Founder and Chief Executive of Stagecoach, followed with a sparkling presentation on New Opportunities for Modal Shift. This centred on the 4P’s for public bodies and the 4I’s for private enterprise:

Priority - for passenger transport; Park & ride - key to de-stigmatising bus transport; Parking policy - pricing and availability; Planning - location of retail and services facilities for cities; Ideas - but not ideology, e.g. wi-fi on buses; Investment - targeted in conjunction with the 4P’s; Intuition - where to place initiatives; Infrastructure - like purchasing park & ride sites.

He indicated that results of passenger surveys showed that there is a desire to move away from cars to buses and trains and passenger figures support this but in most cases an initiative like free/cheap tickets is required as a catalyst to start modal shift.

Keith Gowenlock, Senior Technical Director of WSP Development & Transportation took the audience on a whistle-stop tour of Designing Streets - not just a job function but an exciting key ingredient of the future of planning policy in Scotland. With 25 -30,000 new houses per year required in Scotland there is a need to deal with the rise in car ownership and turn around the reduction in walking, through planning living streets. A key principle is that streets should not just be car corridors but an integral part of the living space: key innovations are the move away from long cul-de-sacs, which are difficult to service by bus and by public service vehicles; a move away from segregation and signage to manage vehicles and traffic and putting the onus back on drivers to self manage; a reduction in the amount of “black-top” and an increase in ease of movement through developments on foot, cycle and by bus, reducing the current dominance of the car. The Scottish Government are supporting Designing Streets as a policy document, its equivalent in England is as a guidance document.

Richard Brown, Chief Executive of Eurostar plc and CILT(UK) President spoke on the challenges of providing sustainable travel to Europe. Having managed the major logistics challenge of moving the entire Eurostar operation to the rebuilt St Pancras Station, the latest quarter results show travel numbers up 21%, ticket revenue up 25% and punctuality sitting at 93.6%. Corporate consumers in particular are very keen to know about the carbon footprint of their travel mode and despite a flight from London to Paris or Brussels being 10 times less carbon efficient, Eurostar have committed to reduce carbon emissions per passenger by 25% by 2012. They are implementing a 10 point environmental plan and in November 2007 became the world’s first ever train operator to make all journeys carbon neutral. The next step is, through a group of 8 North European high speed train operators called Railteam, to create a high speed rail network in Europe. While the UK is now part of the European High Speed Network and London to Paris is 2 hours 15 minutes, London to Edinburgh and Glasgow is still over 4 hours so there is a major opportunity to build on the existing 50% growth in use of Eurostar from Scotland.

Her Royal Highness, The Princess Royal, Patron of CILT(UK) was the special guest. Arriving before lunch she visited the exhibition stands, mingling and talking to delegates during the refreshment break. She then addressed the audience on the topic of innovation in the work of charities and the evolution of Transaid some ten years ago, from a discussion with the then CIT, on delivering targeted help to Save the Children.

For the first time since these events started in 2002, a BBC Question Time style Panel Debate took place, expertly chaired by Jim Steer Director of Steer Davies Gleave. The Panel featured several of the day’s speakers including Richard Brown, Brian Souter, and Keith Gowenlock with Ali Clabburn, founder and Managing Director of Liftshare.com, joining the group to bring his particular expertise to the debate. The discussion was lively and featured questions from the audience submitted in advance, as well as supplementary questions and comments from both audience and the chair. Questions ranged from “What did the Panel see as the effect on transportation from the increasingly high price of oil and how can the customer be protected from the rise in oil prices to preserve modal shift ?” to “Could the £500 million investment in trams in Edinburgh have been better spent to achieve similar objectives?” ; from “How can travel information and single ticket availability be made universally accessible and seamless?” and “Are RTP’s (Regional Transport Partnerships in Scotland) likely to be abolished as a result of political naivety and if so what will the effect be on funding for local transport initiatives?”

John Swanson, Head of Operational Research at Steer Davies Gleave, ran an excellent simulation workshop after lunch. Delegates were split into groups to attempt to rescue the fortunes of an ailing semi-rural settlement suffering from a declining population and high unemployment. By altering various factors, such as bus and rail subsidies and usage, building availability and road pricing, teams were encouraged to improve the fortunes of the town. Their predictions were fed into the simulation program and the results made available for review – it is fairly safe to say that while the program is impressive in its abilities, the delegates were perhaps in need of some fine tuning, producing results that were interesting to say the least!

Captain Jeremy (Jez) Pattinson of the Royal Logistics Corps gave a lively and thought provoking presentation on the movement of people during military operations in active theatres. After training in many areas, including with the Royal Marines Commando, Jez Pattinson had spent time recently running what he described as a “small airport” – controlling the air bridge that ferries troops into and out of both the Afghanistan and Iraq theatres of war. Amongst the main issues affecting operations he highlighted the ageing aircraft fleet (the maintenance hungry Tristar is over 30 years old), the 6-monthly changeover programme for personnel, the demands of urgent medical evacuation and compassionate relief demands, multi-national bureaucracy and the extremes of climate, from 50oC to below zero, with dust everywhere! He concluded that the three negatives of a capable and committed enemy, the effects of budgetary limitations and the lack of commercial awareness to place robust contracts with service providers from local tanker drivers to international airlines, were outweighed by the twin positives of an ability to learn quickly and apply the lessons and the presence of the Dedicated British Soldier.

The day was overall expertly chaired by Sarah Longair, Operations Director Stagecoach West Scotland – her timetabling experience in the bus industry was tested and not found wanting by the need to keep the day’s schedule absolutely on time, particularly for the arrival of our special guest. Her touch on the tiller was light but firm and speakers and the audience of over 100 people, were tightly managed without ever noticing!

The day culminated in a Prize Draw for Transaid which raised £469 for the charity.

The event also had a fairly extensive exhibition filling a complete suite at the venue and featuring a wide range of services and products which added much interest to the day.

The event was the result of the hard work and input from a group of Young Professionals in Scotland working with Dave Reid the Scottish Regional Officer. Each year, two major events take place for Young Professionals – one Logistics and the other Transport and in each case young people contribute in a wide variety of ways. The employers of the group often facilitate meetings and companies such as WSP, Arup, Agilent Technologies, Menzies Distribution, Faber Maunsell and Lothian Buses are thanked for their ongoing support as are our many speakers, sponsors and exhibitors.

Dave Reid FCILT Regional Officer – Scotland & Archie Hipwell FCILT