The Australian Institute of Traffic Planning and Management. Supporting transport planners' and engineers' careers now and in the future.

Last week, I attended the 2016 AITPM National Traffic and Transport Conference in Sydney (26-29 July, Westin Hotel). The Australian Institute of Traffic Planning and Management (AITPM) is celebrating 50 years as the peak industry body for transport planners and traffic engineers. With five branches across Australia and more than 850 members and corporate members, AITPM provides leadership and support not only to its members but also to the wider community.

Among the objectives of the organization is to promote the positive and productive aspects of traffic and transport planning and management. It is also to increase members' knowledge within the field and to foster research. To reach these objectives, AITPM centrally and also through the State branches undertakes a range of activities. Technical seminars where the latest advances in transport planning and engineering are presented; networking events that present excellent opportunities for collaboration; and training courses in a variety of sub-disciplines are some of the types of events held every year.

Right from my first couple of months when I moved to Australia back in September 2011, I decided to join AITPM and participate in my first event, the annual Gold Coast dinner. As per the Australian tradition, during the Christmas period, lots of networking events held by AITPM in Gold Coast and Brisbane allowed me to quickly set up a network of fellow transport professionals. This proved very useful in securing my first Australian role with Brisbane City Council. Since then, I attended all National conferences (Sydney 2012, Perth 2013, Adelaide 2014, Brisbane 2015) and almost every event organised by the QLD branch

Grateful of all the help I got from my participation, I decided I should give something back and volunteered for assisting with the AITPM activities. Being part of the AITPM QLD committee since 2012 and Vice President for 2014 and 2015 gave me great satisfaction in contributing to the Institute’s growth in members and reputation. The highlights of these past years were my presentations at the National Conferences in Sydney and Adelaide, winning the NZ Study Tour award and organising the “Underground Bus and Train project - A new way to travel” breakfast seminar. The first AITPM event to be held at the newly renovated Brisbane City Hall where Transport and Main Roads’ Deputy Director-General - Policy, Planning and Investment Division Matt Longland and the –at the time- TMR General Manager - Major Planning Projects and Project Director for BaT (Bus and Train) Arthur Stamatoudis informed our members about a world first design that saw buses and trains travelling at the same tunnel, while we all enjoyed a luxury breakfast. Some other contributions worth mentioning were organising a breakfast seminar with the -at the time- TMR Deputy Director-General Customer Services, Safety and Regulation, Graham Fraine; helping organise the sold-out breakfast seminar with TMR’s Director General, Neil Scales; and of course being part of the organising committee of the 2015 National Conference held in Brisbane.

I was even more pleased when my colleagues in AITPM QLD branch committee recognised my efforts and contribution and elected me unopposed as the new president of the branch, starting from 1 August 2016. I consider it a great privilege and honour to have my name next to people that are widely recognised in the transport planning and engineering industry and served from this role in the past. From the early presidents of AITPM, or Australian Institute of Traffic Technology as it was the first name back in 4th July 1966 when about 60 members and a budget of $33 formed the Institute, all the way to 22 June 1981 when the constitution was amended on to change the Institute’s name to the Australian Institute of Traffic Planning and Management. And from 1989 when the Queensland branch was established, all the way to today, a number of people served AITPM and helped it become the organisation that is now. With the risk of missing people that in the past have played an even more significant role, I have to mention the last Qld president Gary Wood from Translink and Dan Sullivan the AITPM National Secretary that we worked closely together over the last two years to achieve great outcomes. I will also need to mention, Miranda Blogg, Haider Yousif, Torry Crellin, Manu Hingorani, Deva Neiker, Jon Bunker, Jon Douglas, Mel Hallet, John Olsen, Sandra Finster, Bob Taylor, Tony Avent and Wendy Adam, all past AITPM Qld presidents that contributed in growing the Institute and getting it to the point that is today.

I am certain that even more exciting times lie ahead of us. With the Young Professional Group and the Transport Modelling User Group established in 2012 and growing ever since and with our Strategic Plan 2013-2017, I am confident that we have strong foundations to build upon. An enhanced focus on Professional Development, new tools for Information Dissemination and the commitment and drive of all committee members across Australia ensure that we will keep providing enormous value to our members and the communities we live in. I wish to invite all Transport and Traffic practitioners to join AITPM. For just $175 per year and at no cost for students, you get a very informative technical seminar or networking event each month and a range of other membership benefits. I wish also to invite engineering and planning consultancies to become corporate members and take part in all the discussions for the future of transport.

AITPM@IPENZ - Last day. Ingenuity now more than ever.

Last day of the conference and I am happy to report on the conference proceedings back from Brisbane. I fully enjoyed my stay in Wellington but... give me Brisbane any day.

The conference day kicked of with keynote speaker Steven Newman, CEO of EROAD. I was hoping that Steven will speak about the work he did on road charging but Steven preferred to speak about future transport systems or as he called it super intelligent transport systems.

The second keynote speaker for the day was Rob Merrifield. Rob has worked for more than 50 years on road construction and management but his passion was always studying the historic development of transportation. From the Diolkos and the other ancient Greek rutways to the 1834 Newcastle upon Tyne railway and other tramway systems in England it seems that archeology takes more and more interest in transport systems of the past.

One of the morning streams was dedicated to the Railway Technical Society of Australasia a joint Technical Society of Engineers Australia and IPENZ New Zealand, formed to further the interests of the railway industry at large and its individual participants. With their upcoming conference CORE 2014 in Adelaide they are directed towards providing leadership for the facilitation and coordination of professionalism in the railway industry and the encouragement of member contributions to the application of railway technology and good management practices.

Michael McKeon from KiwiRai and then Randall Prestige from Target Railway Progress presented current and proposed New Zealand railway projects that will enable more efficient movement of freight and passengers across the country.

Overall the IPENZ Transportation Group 2014 conference was a great opportunity to learn about transport projects from the other side of Tasman sea. There are also  some good opportunities and ideas to enhance the collaboration between IPENZ and AITPM that are worth exploring the following days. I also found some good ideas that we can maybe adopt for our AITPM 2015 conference in Brisbane.

The quest for transport ingenuity is ongoing and more relevant now than ever in the history of 100 years of Engineers of New Zealand.

AITPM@IPENZ Day 3 - Freight, logistics and ... dogs.

Day three of the IPENZ Transportation award and as always with the conferences, people start to feel a bit tired and thinking of all the work that they have left behind.

Luckily there were a few interesting presentations starting with Geoff Dangerfield, CEO of NZ Transport Agency. Geoff presented the work that NZTA is doing to provide for transport solutions for today and tomorrow. He presented the “one network” thinking behind all NZTA actions and focused specifically on freight, where he described the agency’s goal for more freight on fewer trucks.

 

 

Of course he presented the already famous TV road safety ad, part of the wider Safer Journeys strategy.

 

One of the conference streams this morning was dedicated to the Signals NZ user group. The group has recently extended their activities to cover Intelligent Transport Systems to enhance people and freight movement through traffic control and ITS. An interesting fact from the presenters was that in New Zealand enforcement of red light cameras in not yet legal.

The organising committee has set aside some time in the program for delegates to have the chance to go through the “Active Poster Display”. Authors stood beside their posters and gave everyone the opportunity to ask questions and clarify things.

 

Another distinct stream of the day was the presentations of the Chartered Institute of Logistics and Transport a worldwide professional body with presence in more than 100 countries.

 

Finally the day closed with another fairly unique feature, the roundtable presentations. Seven different presentations were set up around tables and repeated three times with a duration of 25 minutes each. That gave the presenters the opportunity to have a true interaction with everyone witch worked quite well for most of them.

 

 

In the case of Jo Draper from NZ Transport Authority was a huge success, where she and her colleague Dean Ingoe from Auckland Transport presented the challenges behind stakeholder consultation on transport projects land acquisition and engaged us in a role playing game that helped everyone understand all the critical factors. As Jo said “when you visit people at their houses, beware, there is always a dog”

AITPM@IPENZ Day 2 - Is it all about perception?

Second day of the conference and it was time for papers, presentations and posters. But the start of the day had a bit of a surprise for all delegates. The fire alarm went off and everyone got out with no problems. The Fire Services arrived at the spot within a short time and it must have been something minor, cause a few minutes later we were allowed back in and the second day of the conference officially began.

 

 

Dr Soames Job from Global Road Safety Solutions delivered a very interesting presentation on the Safer Journeys Strategy. He put the emphasis on speed and stated that speed is “in the heart of safer systems”. He also commented on how we dramatically underestimate the role of speed in serious crashes. He said that all the research shows that when we lower speed limits, crashes go down. He ended his speech by saying: When it comes to speeding; Think publicly – act personally.

 

 

Malcom Douglass and Ron Fisher two of the older members of IPENZ transportation group presented the history of transport in NZ and the role of engineering inheritance. IPENZ celebrates 100 years of presence and the Transportation Group celebrates having more than a 1000 members.

3M one of the major sponsors of the conference had a short but very helpful contribution to the discussion at the conference. Michael Holderness revealed part of a wider research that shows that major improvements to signs can be made by simply cleaning them.

 

Shared spaces was a big part of the Active Travel session. Presenters from Auckland Transport and University of Auckland showed examples where shared space schemes were implemented in NZ.

 

A common theme on several presentations was the notion of perception. Presenters were talking about the perception of safety and about the perception of benefits or about the perceived cost for the user and how projects should include perception surveys. That made me wondering; are we focusing too much on perception?

 

The final presentation for the day came from Dave Ferguson. Dave leads the vision, learning and mapless driving team for Google’s self-driving car program. And while other companies are working on the same research topic that will make us all one day Knight Riders, it was impressive to see a blind person sitting on the driving seat of a self-driving Google Toyota Prius.

 

 

AITPM@IPENZ Day 1

A few days ago, I had the pleasure and the honour to win the AITPM New Zealand Study Tour Award. This award gives the opportunity to an AITPM member to have the conference registration costs, reasonable travel & accommodation expenses to attend the conference and accommodation costs for an additional two days in the conference city fully paid by AITPM.

Wellington is a lovely city, relaxed but yet vibrant, with a very friendly atmosphere.

It kind of made me homesick as it reminded me a bit of Kavala. Harbour town build amphiteatrically around the water.

Wellington though, has some amazing museums with astonishing Maori art and artifacts.

The highlight of the CBD tour was the cable car ride. Wellington's cable car is more than 110 years old.

Networking with my New Zealand (and a few Australian) colleagues was fun with activities like the geocaching/ treasure hunt at Zealandia and a bridge building competition that proved that traffic engineers and transport planners are not only good in planning and designing bridges but also at building them.

This first day was very promising. I hope the rest of the IPENZ Transportation Group conference is as interesting and as fun.

The online mobility management toolbox goes on a ride.

The Australian Institute of Traffic Planning and Management (AITPM) is an organization that aims mainly to promote the positive aspects of traffic & transport planning and management for the benefit of the whole community and to increase members' knowledge within the field. Since I came to Australia, more than a year ago, and being member of The Hellenic Institute of Transportation Engineers (HITE – ΣΕΣ), I became also member of AITPM.

 

The AITPM 2012 annual national conference was held in Sydney from 9 to 12 October at a fantastic venue Luna Park and it was a great honour for me to be selected to present my work on the on line mobility management toolbox.

Presentation Part 1

 Presentation Part 2: Conclusions

Camera Director: Pam Andritsakis.(thank you Pam).

Overall it was a great conference with many very interesting papers presented. I found most interesting the presentations on alternative and sustainable modes of travel like walking and cycling. In the same session as me, there were two colleagues that I think they are very good ambassadors of Brisbane transport professionals. Rachel Smith was passionate as always, suggesting that we should trial the closure of some CBD streets for a couple of hours at lunchtimes to experiment with giving pedestrians priority and creating new economic opportunities. Michael Roth  commented on ways that we can convince more drivers to drive ecologically improving this way both their environmental impact and their weekly spending on fuel.  Both presentations were within the philosophy of mobility management and sustainable mobility. 

On the second day of the conference there were also quite interesting presentations and at times it was difficult to choose between the two different sessions taking place in different halls. Matthew Harridge presented the work on a carpooling system implemented at Tally Ho Business Centre, Victoria. Again carpooling is a solution that can reduce congestion and air pollution in cities with intense problems as Melbourne. Matt Tilly's work on Improving the walkability of Brisbane's City Centre was also very interesting. This work on the Brisbane City Centre Active Transport Study was part of the new Brisbane City Council Master Plan.

The last day of the conference I participated in the official multi modal tour of Sydney. Even though the weather that day was not so good the participants had a chance to learn about the new transport projects that are planned for North and West Sydney. But Sydney's transportation system is a very interesting story of it's own and something tells me that in the near future I will have the chance to share it.