I graduated from the University of Nottingham with a BEng in Civil Engineering in 1993 and then attended the Institute of Transport Studies at the University of Leeds, where I graduated with an MSc in Transport Planning and Engineering in 1994.

Subsequently, I undertook my PhD at the Open University (1994-1998), on the subject of Bus-based best-practice and urban transport emissions, and then was a news and features writer for Local Transport Today for 18 months. After four years as a research fellow back at the Open University, I joined Loughborough University as a lecturer in Transport Studies in January 2003 and was promoted to be a Professor of Transport Strategy in April 2017. Consequently, I have been active as a researcher in the transport sector now for almost 30 years and have been teaching for more than 20 years.

Overall my strengths comprise strategic thinking, thought leadership and idea generation, project design and development, the capacity to synthesise data from a range of sources to generate new insights, and the ability to bridge the knowledge gap between academics and practitioners. Such skills are especially important in the sector, given that transport is governed by its (rapidly changing) societal context, and the strong empirical focus of the discipline.  

Membership of Professional Institutions

  • Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society
  • Chartered Member of the Chartered Institute of Logistics and Transport.
  • Member of the Royal Town Planning Institute
  • Member of the Transport Planning Society
  • Fellow of the Higher Education Academy

Current Academic Citizenship Roles

  • Member of the International Board of Directors of the Transportation Demand Management Institute, USA. 
  • External Examiner for the MSc in Transport Planning, University of Hertfordshire, Hatfield

I have examined 20 PhDs – 9 external (3 international)

Awards

  • Principal Investigator for NEW SURFACES, Winner of a £5,000 prize from the Rees Jeffreys Road Fund 150th Anniversary Competition, 2021-2022.
  • Principal Investigator of the TRAVEL PLAN PLUS Project. Winner of the European Platform on Mobility Management Award for Best Policy Transfer Project 2012. Presented at the European Conference on Mobility Management, Frankfurt, 12-14 June 2012.
  • In addition, two of my PhD students have won the Smeed Prize for best student paper at the Universities Transport Studies Group Conference (2012 and 2019), and three more have been runners-up (2010, 2012, and 2020).

Key collaborators

  • Open University
  • University of Mauritius
  • Go Ahead Group
  • The Oval Partnership
  • Vectare
  • BlockDox
  • UK Department for Transport
  • UK Government Office for Science
  • New Zealand Ministry of Transport