Tom van Vuren has been Chair of Modelling World since its inception in 2006. Operating at the interface of academic robustness and practical pragmatism, he is always on the look-out for better ways to collect data, enhance the efficiency of methods and improve accessibility of transport model results.

He is Regional Director for the UK and Europe at Veitch Lister Consulting, a Visiting Professor at the University of Leeds, and a Chartered Transport Planning Professional.

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Firuz is the Principal Transport Modeller for the 2022 Commonwealth Games with TfWM, starting last year. He is responsible for technically putting together and assessing the impacts of the additional demands for the Games and their effects on the West Midlands transport networks, utilising existing West Midlands strategic models such as PRISM and the Birmingham City Centre Model.

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He has 18 years experience working in the private sector and has worked on diverse highway and public transport strategic model developments and applications projects. Matrix building is one of his key strengths and areas of expertise. He is also passionate about the use of innovative and emerging modelling solutions.

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Firuz will be speaking at the networking dinner on the 5th October.

Dr Patrizia Franco is Principal Demand Modeller at Connected Places Catapult, interested in research and innovation in new and emerging mobility services for future mobility in order to achieve greater sustainability and resilience in smart cities.

She is technical lead for the DfT funded projects Rural Innovation for Sustainable Environments (RISE) for Decarbonising Last Mile Road Freight, and Assessing Sustainable Transport Solutions (AsSeTS) for Rural mobility.

David Aspital has four years’ experience in transport modelling.

David specialises in demand modelling and the application of PTV Visum for novel use cases including modelling electric vehicle charging demand and mesoscopic pedestrian simulation. He has led the development of a wide variety of models at a national, regional, and local level.

Aruna is a senior lecturer in travel behaviour and urban systems modelling at the Centre for Transport Studies, Imperial College London.

She is director of the Urban Systems Lab, and leads several smart city and systems modelling initiatives including, for example, the monitoring and evaluation work package of the EU Sharing Cities project, decentralised modelling of energy demand in the EPSRC-funded IDLES project, accessibility framework for equity analysis in the Wellcome Trust-funded Pathways project

Corin’s research investigates how models used in transport science can be adapted for modelling public health impacts.

He holds a Master of Science in Transportation Systems from the Technical University of Munich. Funded by a Fulbright scholarship, his MSc specialised in integrated land use and transport modelling.

Corin previously worked in research and consulting positions related to traffic safety, clean air strategies, and travel demand modelling.

Michiel de Bok works as a research leader at Significance. He holds a PhD and a Master’s degree in Civil Engineering from Delft University of Technology in the field of transportation and planning. In his PhD-thesis, Michiel developed a micro-simulation model for spatial economic impacts of transport planning scenarios. During his work as a PhD-candidate, he worked for different quantitative consultancies (ABF Research and RAND Europe). At Significance, Michiel works on the development of various strategic transport modelling studies in freight- and passenger transport, for clients in different countries. In addition, he advices on the application of strategic models in complex policy studies. In addition, Michiel holds a position as researcher at Delft University of Technology at the Department of Transport and Planning, in which he works on the improvement of behavioural detail in strategic freight transport models.

James Fox is an Associate Director and Research Leader at RAND Europe. James has over twenty years of experience in estimating multi-modal variable demand models in urban, regional and national contexts and in the development of forecasting systems for these models.

His PhD research investigated the temporal transferability of mode-destination models.

Wei has sixteen years of experience in transport modelling and planning. Wei joined Transport for the North (TfN) in 2018, where she is responsible for technical management and assurance support on TfN programmes. Wei is leading the freight modelling requirements and development, which is as part of the TfN’s Analytical Framework to deliver evidence base for freight assessment for the North.

Chris is a Transport Modeller at the City of York Council. He specialises in Vissim microsimulation modelling and strategic modelling with Visum and Saturn. Chris has detailed understanding of transport modelling analysis and experience in analytical research gained through preparation of major business cases and scheme assessments.

Chris has been working with PTV and Wood Group to develop York’s real time model in Optima.

Jan Zill is a Senior Model Developer at Veitch Lister Consulting in Brisbane, Australia. His background is in theoretical physics, and he has professional experience as an Algorithm and Software Engineer in remote sensing. He has an interest in both demand and network modelling and he enjoys the wide variety of projects he gets to work on at VLC, from implementing static traffic and public transport assignment algorithms, to estimating route choice and multi-modal demand models, to working with new big data sources. Recently, his focus has been on the use and usability of agent- and activity-based models in practice.

Based in Paris, Göknur is the founder and CEO of deep-tech start-up GeoTwin, launched in January 2019. Today, GeoTwin is a Paris and Singapore-based software development company, offering a human-centred global intelligence platform to empower urban market analytics.

Passionate about complex city science and its underlying, data-driven insights and breakthroughs, she believes that GeoTwin’s primary tool is capable of tackling critical uncertainty issues, by accurately portraying people movement and consumption. Her dynamic vision is aligned with today’s world, where city planning for the future happens very quickly.

Hussein is a transport modeller in the transport modelling division within WSP. He holds more than seven years of experience in demand modelling, transport planning, and traffic engineering. He has a civil engineering background combined with a master’s degree in engineering management.

He is specialized in strategic demand modelling, machine learning in transport, model automation, and data analysis. Hussein always thrives to support the transport modelling community including students and professionals who are interested in a career in transport modelling

Matteo is currently involved in the maintenance of the freight models at TfN such as: Great Britain Freight Model by MDST (GBFM), the Local Freight Tool and the Freight Meta-Model, and occasionally working on the road and rail modelling for NoHAM and NoRMS.

As an Assurance team member, Matteo contributes to TAME’s evidence robustness by monitoring the quality of TAME’s Expert Panel performance.

Warren Hatch, CEO, Good Judgment, spoke at Modelling World 2020. Back in 2011, the Good Judgment Project, led by Philip Tetlock, author of Superforecasting: The Art and Science of Prediction, was the undisputed victor in a tournament led by the US-based Intelligence Advanced Research Projects Activity (IARPA) to gauge the accuracy of forecasts. Good Judgment Inc is the commercial successor to this research project, and now has a network of superforecasters working on economic, social and investment issues, including transport

Tim Gent is a Technical Director at Atkins, with a leading role on travel demand and multi-modal modelling. Over a 25+ year career, he has managed the development and application of both large and small scale models, including the DfT’s new National Transport Model (NTMv5). Tim takes a keen interest in areas of innovation and digital methods, seeking to apply these in modelling wherever possible, but with a close focus on how they address real requirements. He has had the pleasure of training and mentoring many transport modellers, and looks forward to training more and more in future

Luis Martinez is the Lead Modeller / Transport Analyst at the International Transport Forum (ITF) at the OECD in Paris, France. At the ITF he has been working on the ITF Transport Outlook long term analysis models (urban mobility, non-urban passenger mobility and freight) and coordinates and develops projects related with shared urban mobility modelling in several cities (Lisbon, Helsinki, Auckland, Dublin and Lyon).

Prior joining the ITF in 2014, Luis spent three years as Invited Assistant Professor with the Civil Engineer Department, Instituto Superior Técnico, Portugal and is author of several research papers on transport modelling, transport economics and public transport design optimisation and simulation.

Dr Olga Feldman has more than 25 years of experience in a wide range of studies bridging in-depth academic research with industry projects. A mathematician and an economist by background, Olga has actively maintained technical project roles in parallel to management and leadership responsibilities. She provides economics, appraisal and business cases, analytics, transportation, financial modelling and advisory due diligence services to various clients and help clients on complex infrastructure deals to minimise their exposure and maximise returns.

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Olga is the Council Chair of the Association for European Transport, and a member of the European Transport Conference’s Data Committee. She is a reviewer of the American Mathematical Society, as well as of various journals and conference papers. Olga has numerous publications and her methodologies have been recognised as best practices.

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Stephen Cragg is Head of Appraisal and Model Development at Transport Scotland which is very fortunate as he loves both Appraisal and Modelling.  He’s now been thinking, talking and doing uncertainty ever since he was introduced to the subject by Prof. Glenn Lyons through the CIHT Futures project back in 2016.

Elena Golovenko, Senior Associate Director in Jacobs and specialises in travel behaviour and demand forecasting. In recent years Elena led modelling for the Crossrail 2 SOBC, acted as an expert witness at the Silvertown Tunnel DCO and led the development of TfL’s MoTiON, developed to reflect London’s changing drivers of travel demand and support TfL’s scenario planning.  Through these projects she gained a unique insight into challenges and opportunities faced by transport planners in the context of ongoing changes in technology, consumer behaviours and economic uncertainty. She authored methodologies for modelling future mobility and the use of digital data with these tools.

Laurence Chittock is a Transport Modeller and Project Manager for PTV Group. He has a keen interest in sustainable transport planning and modelling, particularly around electric vehicles and the assessment of charging infrastructure requirements.

Laurence’s talk will showcase how the DfT’s BODS data can quickly be integrated into a model and – using this data – can be used to plan a transition to an electrified bus fleet.

Dr Birendra Shrestha is a Principal Traffic Modeller in Network Performance Modelling and Visualisation Team at Transport for London (TfL). After joining TfL in the summer of 2015, he has carried out various modelling works including: Differential Bus Priority at Traffic Signals (Winner of National Transport Award 2017), Use of multiple detections for bus priority at traffic signals, Aimsun mesoscopic modelling trial, Emissions modelling study of Putney High Street and TfL ONE model rebase. Currently he is working on Predictive Capability component of TfL’s Surface Intelligent Systems (SITS).

Prior to joining TfL, Dr Shrestha was a Senior Research Fellow in Transportation Research Group (TRG) at the University of Southampton. During his period at the University of Southampton, he carried out research in various aspects of the Bus Priority at Traffic signals including: detection technology, methods and strategies. Other areas of his research included: new urban traffic management technologies, transferability methodology of urban mobility measures and public transport needs of aging society. He has published a number of papers in various conferences and academic journals.

Devrim Kara is a transport planner and PTV Group Director for UK & Ireland.

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He is passionate about transport modelling and always strives to innovate in the applications of software and modelling techniques.

He is always keen to support the modelling community and especially students and young professionals that are interested in a career in transport planning.

Grace Kagho is a research assistant and a doctoral candidate at the Institute of Transport Planning and Systems (IVT), ETH Zurich.

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At IVT, Grace's work is focused on agent based models and their application in the field of transport planning. She works with the multi-agent transport simulation framework MATSim and has used it to model cities such Zurich, Detroit and Lagos. Her current project investigates the impact of integrating on-demand services with public transit systems.

Suzie is a data analyst in the Strategic Planning and Advisory team within Transportation and has been with AECOM for three years. She has a mathematical background and has applied data analysis and processing techniques to a variety of transportation projects.

She specialises in the development and analysis of highway demand matrices and variable demand models, as well as the development of bespoke software and tools. She has worked with key UK clients on a range of projects, such as Highways England, Transport for the North, and the Rail Delivery Group

He was formerly a transport economist at the Greater London Council, director of the Oxford University Transport Studies Unit, a member of SACTRA, Chair of the panel of advisors for the 1998 Transport White Paper, a non-executive director of the Port of Dover, and Professor of Transport Policy at UCL and UWE. Professor Goodwin was appointed a Foundation for Integrated Transport Senior Fellow in 2020.

Transport modelling and analysis specialist with particular expertise in evaluating environmental impacts. PhD in Transport (Civil Engineering) from Imperial College London.

Significant public sector experience across a variety of transport modes, including public transport, traffic and aviation. Skilled in communicating complex technical information to non-technical and senior audiences. Member of the Chartered Institution of Highways and Transportation.

Claire has worked at Transport for London for more than 10 years and during that time has been privileged to play a pivotal role in the design and development of London’s air quality schemes. This has included the retrofit of London’s buses; the Ultra Low Emission Zone and its extension; and London’s zero emissions transport vision. Claire currently leads TfL’s Streets Analysis team who are responsible for developing and maintaining TfL’s strategic highway assignment model (LoHAM); cycling model (Cynemon); as well as conducting analysis to understand walking and freight activity in the Capital. Recently her work has involved looking at London’s recovery from the pandemic using scenarios and multi-modal forecasts

Eve is a social and market researcher, delivering projects within the transport and environment sectors for government, local government and private clients across the UK and Europe.

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With a background in Anthropology, she conducts research studies in the areas of public attitude and behaviour change, with a focus on policy and modal shift. She leads SYSTRA’s research into behavioural response to Covid-19, which considers the longer-term implications to travel changes.

James is a research fellow with the Transport Studies Unit and Environmental Change Institute at the University of Oxford and the Institute for Energy & Environment at the University of Strathclyde, working on the interplay between transport, electricity systems and demand flexibility in advancing understanding of Net Zero trajectories for the transport-energy system.

Matthew Buckley is a Transport Modeller for the Strategic Modelling team at WSP UK. He has abackground in data analysis and modelling from his Master's degree in Physics, from the University

of Leeds.

Matthew is primarily interested in various forms of demand modelling and strategic highway modelling and has been involved in some of the UK's regional transport models. However, his experience with programming has also allowed him to develop bespoke tools to assist with a variety of modelling tasks.

Steve Melia is a Senior Lecturer in Transport and Planning at the University of the West of England.  His research focusses on policies and practices designed to achieve (or frustrate) more sustainable transport and development, including traffic removal measures.  He has advised government departments, local authorities, political parties and the UK Climate Assembly.  His book Roads, Runways and Resistance tells a 30-year story of UK transport politics and controversial issues that have provoked protest movements.  A selection of his writing for professional and general media is on: www.stevemelia.co.uk

Henri Palm is a consultant at Dat.mobility in the Netherlands. Henri has thirty years’ experience in transport modelling and data. As a project manager he worked on various strategic transport models at regional and national scale. His projects are more and more focused on real-time data and real-time predictions. The development of realtime modelling is financed by the innovate programme at Dat.mobility and external programmes (for example the ECSEL project Prystine).

Benjamin is an Associate at Systra Dublin with over 10 years’ experience in transport planning. Most of his work is related to the development and calibration of strategic regional transport models for the Irish National Transport Authority (NTA). Benjamin also worked on several transport schemes appraisal projects in Ireland (Bus Connects, Dublin MetroLink, Greater Dublin Area Transport Strategy). Prior to joining SYSTRA, Benjamin spent three years working for a private French railway freight operator, where he was managing train drivers and also held a train driver licence!

Alberto is a civil engineer graduated from Coruña University (Spain). He completed an MSc in Transport and Business Management at Imperial College London. He has developed technical skills in the consultancy sector such as strategic demand modelling, programming, data analysis and GIS. He is currently a transport modeller working for Connected Places Catapult in London where his role is to analyse and promote innovation through the implementation and roll-out of new modes of transport. In one of his current projects, he is researching and working towards modelling autonomous taxis in London using choice modelling to understand people’s choices.

Luis is Managing Partner of Willumsen Advisory Services, of Nommon Solutions and Technologies (a company specialised in the use of big data in transport), and Visiting Professor in the Department of Civil, Environmental & Geomatic Engineering at University College London.   He is co-author of the “Modelling Transport” book and author of “Better Traffic and Revenue Forecasting”.  His current interests focus on dealing with uncertainties from disruptive events and new technologies of MaaS and CAVs,  and how to incorporate these in modelling and project appraisal. He is also engaged in the rigorous use of mobile phone and smartcard data to generate trip matrices and mobility insights.

Sandhya is a senior transport modeller at Connected Places Catapult. With a masters degree in Transportation Systems Engineering from IIT Bombay and with over 11 years of experience in public and private sectors she has been involved in developing travel demand forecasting models in the UK, Middle East and India. In her current role as a technical lead for one of the Innovate UK funded projects, she is focusing on developing choice models to explore consumer’s behaviour towards new modes of transport. Her other work involve working towards net zero emissions using transport models and user-centric designs.

Masoumeh Rajabi is a principal transport planner at Jacobs with 11 years of experience of working in the UK and the Middle East. She has expertise in strategic and micro-simulation modelling, demand forecasting and economic appraisal. In the UK, she has worked on a number of transport schemes to develop transport models to support business cases for local authorities and National Highways. As part of her Middle East experience, she has been involved in developing transport master plans for various regions in Abu Dhabi and Dubai. She has also undertaken a number of highway impact assessment through the use of micro-simulation models in VISSIM, Dubai VISUM model and Abu Dhabi STEAM.

Malithi is a transport policy analyst and modeller at the International Transport Forum (ITF) at the OECD. She managed and co-authored the ITF Transport Outlook 2021. While at the ITF, she has developed strategic transport models at the national and city level, advised on MaaS implementation, and evaluated the economic case for transitioning to electric postal delivery vehicles. She brings valuable experience from her private sector and academic roles across North America, and the UK prior to joining ITF. Her work has spanned all transport sectors, with a special focus on active mobility, public transport, and their social impacts.

Malithi holds an MSc in Transport Planning from the University of Leeds, UK and a BSc in Civil Engineering with a Minor in Transportation from the University of Calgary, Canada.

Sayed Faruque is a researcher and currently a PhD candidate in Transport Research Insititute at Edinburgh Napier University. His research focused on peoples' perceptions of using driverless vehicles in shared ownership and ridership in different urban contexts. With this aim, he followed a discreet choice modelling approach to analyse the online data related to his topic 

Aside, in Transport Planning and Modelling field, Sayed has more than 10 years of expertise. With an MSc from ITS, University of Leeds, Sayed possess a broad spectrum of transport planning experiences from the UK and the Middle East. With affiliations of several transport organizations, Sayed has expertise in traffic impact studies, strategic and micro-simulation model development, discreet choice modelling application in transport, GIS application in spatial and transport data visualization. Sayed's current research interests include automated vehicles and demand analysis, traffic safety and user behaviour evaluation in automated mobility

Ed Dawes, Principal Analyst at Transport for London, is responsible for the development and application of TfL’s public transport assignment model – Railplan. Ed has played a leading role in informing TfL’s strategy during the pandemic by utilising their industry leading strategic modelling tools to create powerful new insights for decision makers. He has worked with colleagues across TfL and the wider industry to monitor trends in travel demand and behaviour to help create a range of plausible future scenarios. These scenarios will enable TfL to help London to emerge from the pandemic is the best possible way – ensuring a greener and more equitable future for the capital.

Mark is Project Manager for Aimsun’s UK R&D Projects, as well as also playing a role in the organisations participation on H2020 activities. He has been involved in driver behaviour and simulation studies for three decades and has held roles in both Academia and Industry. He is an active member of a number of TRB Committees as well as being a Chartered Member of the IET and the Institute of Physics. In recent years he has been particularly active in leading Aimsun involvement in InnovateUK funded Connected and Automated Vehicle projects including, HumanDrive, OmniCAV and CAPRI.

Tony Dichev is a Lead Transport Modeller in Network Performance Modelling and Visualisation Team within the Network Management directorate at Transport for London (TfL).

He has been involved in the traffic and transportation industry in UK and worldwide for the past 20 years, where he has gained a varied experience in both private and public sector. He has been in with TfL since the Olympics in 2012 and been involved in numerous strategy and policy related schemes/projects, including some of the most challenging ones in London like of the East-West Cycle Superhighways, Parliament Square and the Oxford Street scheme design, operation and modelling and assessments. He believes this exposure to London's most politically sensitive areas has provided him with an excellent grounding. He has represented TfL and the Mayor at Public Inquiries as expert witness.