Happy Holidays to you and your family!
It’s been a strange couple of years but I’m very proud of the work that PTRC has undertaken this year, in the wake of the continued global pandemic.
We had more PTRC Fireside Chats, a series of online events in partnership with Glenn Lyons, Mott MacDonald Professor of Future Mobility atUWE. There were more important conversations with the most influential people in our industry on some enlightening and controversial topics. You can catch up on all the Fireside Chats here (they’re definitely worth a watch!)
We delivered our second online Transport Practitioners’ Meeting to great success. I know many of you are in the same boat as I am, unable to contain your excitement for the return of in person events, but I thought we had a fantastic event and I think you’ll agree it was pretty cool that we were able to get Brent Toderian for a keynote conversation and amazing paper presentations from colleagues from around the world.
We’ll be heading to Greenwich June 29 – 30 2022 for #2022TPM (The 20th Anniversary!) and I hope you’ll join us. We are accepting abstracts for the Call for Papers now.
We assisted The Transport Planning Society with Transport Planning Day and the activities leading up to it resulting in eight discussions you really should catch up on ASAP. We look forward to continuing to work with TPS to grow Transport Planning Day, celebrating the industry and achievements.
In 2021 we delivered over 30 courses entirely online, in addition to two sessions of the 20-Week Evening Lecture Series (now 21 weeks and starting again in January!), two newly developed courses (Statistical Techniques for Transport Planners and New Technologies in Data Collection), a 10-day completely online Road Safety Audit and Engineering Course in Hong Kong and several bespoke courses delivered in-house virtually.
As we look to 2022, we will continue to keep our courses online for the first part of the year. As spring approaches, we’ll look at the situation with COVID-19 and assess if we can start to bring back in-person training – but we will be keeping some core courses online to help those not located in major hubs get the training they need to make their communities more connected and sustainable.
Also, watch this space for a new Joint CILT/PTRC Bus Skills Qualification: In response to Bus Back Better, the Government’s bus strategy, with Ministerial backing we are working closely with officials at the Department for Transport to develop essential qualifications and training for those now tasked with urgently implementing the strategy within Local Authorities. The new qualification will provide a pathway for professional recognition and will be delivered modularly to meet the needs of the sector.
A couple weeks ago the entire PTRC team got together for a festive lunch – it was the first time we had all been in one room together since March 2020. It was strange that it didn’t feel like it had been that long since we had seen each other, I suppose that’s because we get together virtually at least once a week on Teams, keep in constant contact on Slack, and send funny memes through Whatsapp. I’m very grateful that we’ve been able to continue the important work we’re doing while staying safe at home and staying virtually connected (though I do miss the endless supply of biscuits in the office…)
I look forward to seeing more of you in-person in the New Year. In the meantime, if you have any questions or just want a chat, you can reach me on brogan.mcpherson@ptrc-training.co.uk
I hope you all have a safe and happy festive break.