From the President - March 2020

It’s membership renewal time!  It's an opportunity to reflect on why you are a member of the Institute, what you expect from it and what you will give/share with your fellow members and the wider industry over the coming year.

I like to think of the strength of AITPM as essentially the product of the number of members, their passion for our industry, and their level of wider involvement in our industry.  To this end, we are seeking to retain passionate, involved members and recruit lots more new ones! At around 1,000 members against an industry that must have tens of thousands of people - and increasing all the time as transport is being embraced by new technologies and new ways of management - there is plenty of room for growth.  Our recent governance and organisational changes strongly position us to capitalise on this latent demand and to broaden our horizons into areas not previously considered.  AITPM has lots of ‘friends’ and we need these ‘friends’ to convert to members.  We need to increase the conversion rate of our students to members, and we need to highlight the benefits of AITPM membership to anyone who will listen. 

That is a job for all of us every day.

To do this takes an understanding of why each of us is an AITPM member.  How do you perceive value? What do you ‘get’ for your $185 and is it worth it?  Understanding your value proposition is important.  Your Board and CEO would love to hear why you are a member.  To know this is to know what services to provide, how many we should provide, where we should provide them and, just as importantly, which ones we should do less of or stop.  This challenge will always exercise the mind of your Board, CEO and State Branch Committees, and responses will change in line with a continually evolving industry environment.

Personally,  I’m a member for a number of reasons; namely to increase my depth and breadth of the industry, to have a wider interest and perspective outside of my own organisation and position, and for the comradery.  Meeting and talking to like-minded (relatively!) people strengthens both your personal and professional development which in turn makes you more confident, resilient, employable and a plain-old more informed individual.

Finally, I’d like to give a plug for our Fellow program. Many of our members are eligible to transfer to Fellow.  If you have 10 years in active practice in the field of transport planning and/or traffic management and have held the grade of Member for at least five (5) years, I encourage you to consider the eligibility criteria https://www.aitpm.com.au/membership-upgrade-member-fellow.  From a professional perspective, it provides an immediate insight to others, including prospective employers, that you are an experienced, passionate, involved member of the traffic and transport industry.

I therefore invite you to promptly renew your membership when it arrives and to espouse the benefits of membership with your colleagues and friends.