From the Vice President - May 2019

Acting President’s Message - Gary Wood

Welcome to the May 2019 edition of the AITPM Newsletter.  I hope you all had a well-earned Easter break after the first four busy months of the year and you’re back fresh and energised as we track towards the 2019 AITPM National Conference.

One philosophy that I have always maintained is that the only constant in our working life is change, and that some people say the change we are currently experiencing with digital disruption in the transportation field is the slowest it will ever be!  Change is a theme that runs through the newsletter this month, starting with the President’s Message.  Our President, Paul Smith, is taking a deserved family holiday through Italy and the Mediterranean and will no doubt share his transport holiday snaps with us in the next newsletter.  Therefore, I have the pleasure of writing this section this month.  For those whom I haven’t met, or who are new to AITPM, I am Gary the AITPM National Vice President and look forward to working with the industry in this capacity for the next few weeks.

With only three months until Adelaide welcomes the AITPM community to the National Conference, the registrations are now open and tickets are selling fast.  This is going to be another bumper three days of exciting papers, knowledge sharing, keynote addresses, networking, entertainment and most importantly South Australian hospitality. 

The conference this year has a fourth stream as we saw in Perth last year, but the change for this year is that the additional fourth stream is Transport Advisory.  This will bring another dynamic to the conference with sessions promoting changes for the transport industry, such as Planning for Mobility as a Service. I believe this is going to be a popular stream.

There is a whole section in this newsletter on the conference and how you can be involved as a delegate and/or sponsor. However, I encourage you all not just to attend the conference but also to think about making the most of being in South Australia and stay for the weekend.

Whilst most of us think about disruption and change to the transport industry and how this will impact us in the future, sometimes we forget about the operational disruptions that occur on our transport network on a daily basis.  On Sunday April 14, Brisbane embraced the inaugural Tour de Brisbane, a 110km cycling UCI Grand Fondo road race on the back of the Brisbane Cycling Festival attracting international and national riders to the event.  With almost 100 traffic controllers and 100 police on the ground directing traffic and people on the day of the ride, a transport management hub was set up at the Brisbane Traffic Management Centre in the centre of the city, using Brisbane City Council, Transport and Main Roads and Queensland Police resources.  The planning beforehand and the transport management on the day excelled, and kept Brisbane moving with drivers diverted throughout the city with key initiatives such as making the Clem7 tunnel toll road free until 9.30am.  As a keen cyclist myself, I was happy that whilst this event disrupted the normal transport network, the plans and transport management put in place meant that Brisbane could continue to operate, and the event itself showcased Brisbane!  There are so many major events throughout the country on a similar or even bigger scale throughout the year, including the recent Anzac Day parades, and it always impresses me how we can all work together as an industry to deliver temporary operational changes to the transport network, sometimes within very short timeframes.

Thank you all for reading and if you have any questions, please get in contact with myself or your local branch representatives.