JoN Parker BiographY

Jon is one of the UK’s leading sustainable transport planners, business leader, and the 2015 ‘smarter travel professional of the year’. He has 30 years’ experience in the development, implementation and evaluation of transport strategies, policies and programmes, and has particular expertise in overseeing creative and innovative sustainable transport and behaviour change programmes, using visioning and behavioural science techniques. Jon brings the necessary skills of technical understanding, personal qualities, analytical expertise, exceptional presentational abilities, and a deep understanding of relevant national & local policy to all the projects he is involved in. 

Whilst working at ITP... Jon led and contributed to some of the most pioneering ‘smarter choices’ research and evaluation projects, including: 

• Department for Transport (DfT) ‘Making Personal Travel Planning Work’.
• DfT ‘Making Car Sharing and Car Clubs Work’.
• DfT research into the training requirements for travel plan coordinators.
• DfT research into the effectiveness of ‘Better Use’ measures.
• DfT evaluation of travelling to school initiative.
• Transport for London (TfL) research into the application of personal travel planning techniques in the workplace.
• TfL school travel plan data validation.
• TfL workplace car sharing schemes.
• Scottish Government Smarter Choices Smarter Places Evaluation. 

He is the lead author of DfT national best practice guidance in the fields of car sharing, car clubs and personal travel planning, and was a steering group member and expert advisor to the DfT guidance ‘Delivering travel plans through the planning process’.  He advised DfT on the evaluation of the Better Bus Area programme. He was an externally invited advisor to the DfT sustainable travel towns programme, is a Council member of the Chartered Institute of Highways and Transportation sustainable transport panel, is a regular speaker at conferences, and was appointed by the DfT to chair, speak and run workshops on sustainable travel issues across the UK. 

Jon is a guest lecturer and Visiting Professor at the University of West of England, Bristol (Jon Parker - Members | UWE Bristol ). He was the chair of a specially convened working group to examine issues surrounding personal travel planning evaluation techniques, and chaired the ministerial task force on the future direction of car clubs. He has developed strategic smarter choices delivery programmes and written successful major bids for funding such programmes, and led the evaluation of Local Sustainable Transport Fund (LSTF) / Better Bus Areas (BBA) funded programmes in Leicestershire, Leicester, Hampshire, Milton Keynes, West Midlands, Nottingham and Gloucestershire.

Jon has developed and delivered outstanding sustainable transport solutions at over 100 UK sites, for some of the most prestigious public and private sector clients, and as such is respected across the profession. He is appointed to the Advisory Board of the DfT Bus Centre of Excellence, and is the independently appointed chair of the Nottingham Bus Partnership, and has worked extensively on transport strategy and the development of business cases across the East Midlands. 

Jon’s wider experience includes the management of integrated land-use and transport planning studies, accessibility assessments, the preparation of transport assessments, development and delivery of intelligent transport systems, intelligent mobility, transport modelling and public transport planning / strategy development. He has written award winning Local Transport Plans, and contributed as an ‘expert witness’ at planning inquiries / public examinations, and was the lead transport advisor to the Black Country Authorities at the Examination in Public of the Joint Core Strategy. 

He authored the highly regarded ‘Network Resilience Strategy for the West Midlands’ on behalf of TfWM, led the transport strategy for the regeneration of Leeds Southbank, was the project assurance advisor on the TDM programme for Hinckley Point C, and recently led a notable study into the application of Artificial Intelligence (AI) on behalf of CIHT ( The role of data and artificial intelligence in achieving transport decarbonisation | CIHT ).