Address: 6/12 Caledonian Crescent, Dalry, Edinburgh, EH11 2DE, United Kingdom
Email: tim at capsu.org
Semi-Mobile: +44(0)7704298816
Born: 25 September 1975
Transport policy research and consultancy role. Projects included accessibility modelling, inter-urban 'Park and Ride', and multi-operator ticketing.
TAS offered specialist public transport consultancy services to operators and government in the United Kingdom. My role focused on strategic policy, financial modelling, market research and the development of new methods, tools and training within TAS. Areas of interest included Quality Bus Partnerships, rural public transport development and concessionary fares. The job had involved the day-to-day management of one other individual at professional level, and direction and recruitment of casual staff. It required the management of small projects and liaison with clients and sub-contractors, and presentations to external organisations and individuals. Includes period working on a freelance basis.
The strategic policy group was responsible for transport planning, scheme programming and transport policy. My role involved contributing to funding bids for government, European and Private Finance Initiative 'money'; collation and monitoring of programmes of works; and broader policy work. Policy work included rail and bus scheme development, and Urban Traffic Control.
Part of a small team responsible for co-ordination of line based development and undertaking network wide projects across a large urban rail network. Short-term contract, addressing specific problems: the development of a model of rolling stock in service, and re-designing service patterns on the 'subsurface railway'.
Course covered: transport economics, policy and planning; statistical, transport modelling and research techniques; logistics, shipping, marketing, finance and law.
Final year project: The use of pipelines for the distribution of urban goods.
Advanced Level: Economics (B), Geography (C), Physics (C).
General Certificate of Secondary Education: 10 grades A-C, including English, Mathematics and French.
I am a chartered member of the Institute of Logistics and Transport (CMILT).
Central government originally considered Quality Bus Partnerships (QBPs) as relatively simple schemes, in which local authorities and bus operators jointly undertook to improve specific bus routes. It transpired that engineering and investment were secondary details: QBPs were defined by a process or framework allowing the delivery of objectives. By discussion with practitioners and structured investigation of the 'big picture', I was able to demonstrate QBP's strategic importance and slowly alter the original brief to reflect reality. I believe this was instrumental in QBPs' subsequent consideration as a strategic tool by government. It also tried to steer policy-makers away from over-formalisation of an inherently co-operative approach.
When I first joined Birmingham City Council the geographical representation of proposed new transport schemes was partly achieved by placing pins on a map. This could not keep pace with the dynamic process of formulating a funding bid across the West Midlands. Often overlaps between schemes would arise but not be noticed immediately. My solution was to pilot a system that linked an existing computer database of proposals to a Geographical Information System. This highlighted overlapping schemes quickly and clearly. It allowed any officer to see the current state of proposals in a visual form, with options to sort schemes to assist policy-making or to reflect political realities. I believe the pilot project was ultimately most useful in showing managers the potential of such technology to manage information.
Much of my work at TAS involved providing solutions to intractable or poorly understood problems. This included analysis of theoretical policy changes, such as the costs of statutory concessionary fares provision or the implications of subtle changes to education transport policy. In tackling these I was often forced to mix statistical evidence, economic assumptions and simple logic, to provide a best estimate in a relatively short space of time. Other work, such as techniques used for bus industry business market development and analysis, developed slowly over several years. Incremental improvements were made to the method based on experience. This work contributed to shaping the way the bus industry looked at its markets and objectives, although did not address certain organisational issues fully.
Work often involved researching subjects about which relatively little is known. This extended further into private study. I have delved into the history of a little known mode called capsule pipelines, researching areas that few have ever examined. My interests were in questioning why such 'bizarre' ideas did not succeed, and relating them to modern times.
I am competent in the use of Word (word processing), Excel (spreadsheet), Access (relational database), and MapInfo (Geographical Information System). I have a working knowledge of many similar packages. Experience from a student magazine has given me an understanding of common publishing and page layout concepts, and the ability to use software such as Freehand (vector graphics) and Photoshop (bitmap graphics). I am an editor for the largest directory of Internet websites (most commonly known because of its use by Google), and take special interest in taxonomy and the organisation of websites. I have a basic understanding of computer programming, scripting and mark-up languages, including Python, HTML/XML and SQL.