Speaker biographies

Tim Rivett

General Manager, RTIG-Inform.

Tim has been successfully involved in transport technology for over 20 years. After many years at SYPTE as Head of Information and Technology he is now runs RTIG and works as an independent consultant.

His particular niche-expertise is in the specifying, development and implementation of systems providing public transport information.

He has played a significant long-term role in many large-scale systems and projects. These include managing the Yorkshire traveline region and its information systems as well as involvement in Transport Direct and national Traveline, the Yorcard smart ticketing project and Yorkshire real time systems. He continues to play an active role in policy development at regional and national level.

Through his consultancy he now supports a wide base of suppliers and authorities with the development, procurement and implementation of public transport information systems.

He is currently the BSI’s representative to CEN for on bus equipment and SIRI standards.

For the last year Tim has been the General Manager of RTIG, running the organisation which has for the last 20 years developed and encouraged good practice in the use of information technology on public transport.

Alan Bailes

Director of The Transportation Consultancy & Chairman of BRTuk

Alan Bailes is Chairman of BRTuk and a Director with “the transportation consultancy” (ttc). He is a transport planner and traffic engineer by profession, having achieved Chartered Transport Planning Professional (CTPP) status and a post graduate degree in “transport planning and management”.  Alan has considerable experience working on BRT assignments throughout the UK and around the world.  Over the past two decades, he has been actively involved in the evolution of BRT globally, being actively involved in BRT assignments in Europe, South America, Asia and Africa, which have included practically all aspects of BRT development. Alan is currently working on the development of a BRT systems in Nairobi, Peshawar and Kigali.

Martin Hirst

Commercial Director - West Yorkshire & York

Martin joined First West Yorkshire as Commercial Director in October 2017 having previously spent 20 years in retail leadership positions with Boots and associated companies latterly as Commercial Director and Retail Director of Boots Hearingcare.

Now with First Bus heading up the Commercial function with responsibility for the network design, scheduling, marketing and customer proposition for First West Yorkshire and York including contracted services like Park and Ride.

Reporting directly to the managing director, Martin has overall responsibility for the local company’s proposition, network and performance. Also overseeing; fares and tickets, the local marketing strategy, local authority engagement and contract tendering.

As a member of the West Yorkshire Bus Alliance working with West Yorkshire and Leeds local stakeholders to support the ambition of doubling passenger numbers supporting the climate emergency through delivering a market leading service that will drive modal shift

Dave Pearson 

Director, Transport Services, West Yorkshire Combined Authority

West Yorkshire Combined Authority is the statutory transport authority for the West Yorkshire conurbation including Leeds, Bradford, Huddersfield, Halifax and Wakefield. Dave is responsible for transport services and facilities leading on the Authority’s relationships with rail and bus operators.  Dave joined the Authority in 2002 as Bus & Rail Manager having previously been a Transport Planner at City of York. He has assisted Transport for the North in establishing and reviewing the current devolved rail franchising arrangements in the North and was seconded to the role of Director of Transport and Highways for the Tour de France in Yorkshire in 2014. Dave is the lead officer at the Combined Authority for the Connecting Leeds Programme.

Andrew Wilson

Integrated Transport Manager, Hampshire County Council

Andrew recently re-joined Hampshire County Council as Integrated Transport Manager. Andrew is responsible for public transport policy including rail, bus, ferry, interchange, Rapid Transit, ticketing and Real Time Information, and oversees the County Council’s local bus network and bus subsidies. Previously Andrew spent four years with Solent Transport, a strategic transport partnership of Hampshire County Council, Portsmouth & Southampton City Councils and Isle of Wight Council, promoting a co-ordinated approach to transport policy and investment across the Solent sub-region. This included working closely with major stakeholders including Highways England, Solent LEP, Network Rail, South Western Railway, bus operators, DfT and ferry operators to develop business cases, submit funding bids and support delivery of strategic transport projects. Solent Transport owns and operates the Transport, Land-use and Economics model for the Solent and runs the Solent Go integrated public transport smartcard and ticketing app. Andrew has chartered status with the Chartered Institute of Logistics and Transport and is Deputy Chair of the Real Time Information Group. He has also worked for Salisbury District Council and Arriva.

Simon Pope

Technical Director, WSP

Simon is a Technical Director at WSP in the UK based in Leeds. Simon has 12 years’ experience working on a wide range of transformational schemes with a particular focus on bus infrastructure.

John White

Civic Engineering Manager, Leeds City Council

John is a Civil Engineering Manager at Leeds City Council and is leading the Connecting Leeds Bus Infrastructure Package Programme team. In this role John is supporting Senior Management within Leeds City Council, together with colleagues from the Combined Authority, Development and Delivery Partners to manage delivery across the programme.

John has worked in highways engineering for 13 years, with sustainable travel being a key focus of the projects he previously worked on for WSP, North Yorkshire County Council and Harrogate Borough Council.

Beate Kubitz

Editor, 3rd Annual Maas Survey

As a thought leader within the rapidly evolving world of innovative mobility, I specialise in  analysing new technology, agendas and behaviours and articulating their potential future impact. I enable messages to be heard by the right people and acted upon, whether they be transport operators and consultants, tech developers or transport authorities.

Colin Brader

Chairman, Integrated Transport Planning

Colin Brader is founder member and Chairman of UK based Integrated Transport Planning Ltd. In 2009 he was voted UK Transport Planner of the Year for his role in implementing Africa’s first Bus Rapid Transit scheme in Lagos, Nigeria. He has led the development of major public transport initiatives in UK, Ukraine, Hong Kong, Ghana, Uganda, Nigeria, Bangladesh, Pakistan, South Africa, Philippines and Vietnam. He has also performed the role of transport adviser in Amman and Delhi. In Europe he has been the lead on examination of user needs in transport and how to apply user orientated transport in the European context. He is currently leading the development of a pubic transport strategy for Sarajevo and a new rapid transit line in Kytiv.

Colin’s approach is based on the recognition that transport choice is part of lifestyle choice, transport must be considered holistically and that the answer often lies outside of traditional transport thinking, but most importantly, that transport must be focussed on user needs. To this end his work is underpinned with social research and defined by stakeholder engagement.

Patrick Warner

Head of Innovation, Go-Ahead 

As Head of Innovation Strategy for our local bus operating brands, Brighton & Hove Buses, Metrobus of Crawley and Spirit of Sussex Coaches, my role is very much centred around what we will be doing in the future and the relationships we will need to help turn them into reality. This is the first such future facing role within any operating company in the UK bus industry and also sees me collaborating with colleagues from our parent company, Go Ahead Group and sister operating companies to share best practice.

My current core areas of activity are focussed on:

1) I am leading a project that will see our first zero emission fuel cell electric buses enter service with Metrobus on the prestigious Fastway routes 10 & 20 next year. This will be the first commercial application of this technology anywhere in the world and set us on a path towards achieving our ambition aim of operating a zero emission fleet by 2030.

2) I am currently the ‘bus lead’ on Go Ahead’s new ‘Mobility as a Service’ (MaaS) solution which will bring all journey planning and payments together into one app for buses, trains, bike hire, car clubs, taxis and possibly even a premium car option that adds a halo product to personal travel choices.

3) I am the ‘bus lead’ on the Go Ahead Group multi-modal transport accelerator lab ‘Billion Journey Project’ which seeks to bring disruptor start up and scale up businesses from outside the transport sector in to help solve challenges that our industry and passengers face every day. Just about to start our third cohort, this has been a very beneficial way of challenging our ways of working, looking at new solutions and exploring new technologies to make our services fit for the longer term future.

In addition to this, I am also working with stakeholder partners to deliver the Coast 2 Capital LEP funded regeneration project ‘the Crawley Growth Fund Deal’ which features a number of new transport innovations along with the creation of 1,000 new homes and 7,000 new jobs in the local economy.

Mikel Aguirre 

UK Director, Datik

Mikel is a business entrepreneur with background in Sustainability. Mikel's main expertise and interested is in behavioural change and how technology can enable change. Mikel is founder of Efergy Technologies Limited and was its COO from 2006 until 2017, during which time he was in charge of large-scale smart energy projects worldwide.

In 2018 Mikel joined Datik, a start up with a unique approach in the transport industry, integrating many niche services into one holistic ITS solution (CCTV, RTPI, Ticketing, Telematics, etc). Datik is currently involved in a few BRT projects in Europe and recently won the contract to supply the entire ITS solution to the city of Vitoria in Spain.

Andrew Munro 

Programme Manager, Greater Cambridge Partnership

Programme Manager with Greater Cambridge Partnership, a partnership of Cambridgeshire County Council, South Cambridgeshire District Council, Cambridge City Council and Cambridge University to deliver the Greater Cambridge City Deal.  He has over 40 years’ experience in transportation engineering, mainly in highways.  He was involved in the early stages of guided transport in Cambridgeshire while working for Atkins.  This continued with delivery of the Cambridgeshire Guided Busway project also with Atkins.

Tanya Neech

UK Sustainability Officer, Scania GB Limited

Tanya Neech joined Scania in 2016 and is responsible for Sustainability across the UK business. Her role covers the local and national strategy and energy reduction roadmap as well as promoting Scania’s sustainable transport solutions. She has experience in the UK bus industry and the sustainability sector. Previous roles include:

• Sustainable Solutions Manger, Scania Bus and Coach
• Marketing & Communications Manager, FirstGroup - Hampshire, Dorset & Berkshire
• Campaign Manager, Ecoisland Partnership CIC
• Commercial Manager, Southern Vectis part of the Go Ahead Group

Outside of work, Mrs Neech is married with two children, enjoys spending time with her family and keeping fit. She’s also a PCV licence holder, spent a summer driving open top buses and holds a national transport manager’s CPC.