Tuesday 19 July 2011

NATU welcomes House of Commons Transport Committee Report into Taxis and Private Hire Vehicles

TAN Members Kris Beuret and John Austin are Chair and Vice-Chair respectively of the National Association of Taxi Users (NATU).  NATU has just issued a Press Release in response to the House of Commons Transport Committee report into Taxis and Private Hire Vehicles, issued today, 19th July 2011

Thursday 14 July 2011

David Crawford writes in ITS International May/June 2011 issue

David Crawford is the author of two articles in the Features section of the latest issue of ITS International. One is about developments in transit activity on the US's Pacific Coast, and the other is on the Danish city of Aalborg's 'virtual' Traffic Management Centre. See http://www.itsinternational.com/

Friday 8 July 2011

Poole Twin Sails bridge

Brian Bing attended a Chartered Institution of Highways and Transportation technical visit to the new iconic Poole Twin Sails bridge site on 7th July.  This unique lifting bridge will be assembled in situ over the next two weeks and the new bridge is planned to be opened to traffic by New Year. The bridge design and implementation is superb and a credit to the team responsible.

David Crawford writes on Transport Modelling in latest issue of LTT

David Crawford has written three key articles on Transport Modelling in the 1 July issue of Local Transport Today.  Access them here

Kris Beuret writes major article on Taxis for July '11 New Transit

Kris Beuret, Chair of the National Association of Taxi Users (NATU) has written on Bringing Taxis into the Transport Mix in this month's New Transit magazine.  Read it here

TAN holds another successful quarterly meeting

TAN's quarterly meeting was held this week, at which we were delighted to welcome Sally Scarlett, with a long career in association management and training advice - particularly in the transport field - who has taken on the role of TAN Secretary/Treasurer.  Much thanks for all her hard work were expressed to Marilyn Miles, our previous part-time postholder, who took the decision earlier in the year to step down.

At the meeting TAN member Keith Keen also told us about the new Kingston University Intelligent Transport Systems and Services MSc course which he has been involved in helping to set up.

Monday 4 July 2011

Activities to publicise National Association of Taxi Users

Kris Beuret and John Austin are continuing to publicise the newly-created National Association of Taxi Users (NATU) - see http://www.taxiuser.com/.  Last month Kris Beuret as Chairman of NATU addressed a conference at Loughborough University with particular emphasis on the potential of taxibuses.  We have also written to Norman Baker asking to be included in discussions about the future of any replacement for DPTAC.  TAN members have also provided comments on the draft DfT Paper on Demand Responsive Transport - these are now being co-ordinated for a response to DfT - watch this space.

Ann Frye chairs session at ITF Annual Summit, Leipzig

Ann Frye recently chaired a session at the International Transport Forum Annual Summit in Leipzig on “Equitable Access: No Passenger Left Behind”. Her paper, which formed part of the discussion on “Mobility Rights, Obligations and Expectations in an Ageing Society” is on the ITF website here. The paper explores the economic and social challenges of meeting the mobility needs of the ageing baby boomer population as well as of people with disabilities. Ann also gave an interview on the subject, which is available on YouTube here

Saturday 2 July 2011

John Austin speaking at TravelWatch NorthWest conference

John Austin, as the Vice Chair of the National Association of Taxi Users (NATU) spoke recently at the TravelWatch NorthWest Conference, on June 16th in Southport, on ‘A new voice for the taxi passenger’

John Austin to lecture on prestigious international MSc course

John Austin is contributing to the MSc course Traffic & Transport Information Design organised jointly by the International Institute of Information Design (IIID) and the University of Applied Sciences FH St. Poelten, Austria, under the auspices of UNESCO

Friday 1 July 2011

David Crawford writes on Ticket Systems for Disabled Travellers

David Crawford reports in the May 2011 edition of ‘New Transit’ on the development of a contactless smartcard that can be easily used by disabled customers.  See the article here