I started my career as a transport planner nearly 40 years ago in the most simple way by counting cars at a highways junction to find out which way they were turning, employing the tried and tested ‘five bar gate’ method recording on a paper form. I would then analyse this data wondering what this had to do with engineering. The profession was interested in cars and had been since the Second World War and I was taught how to assess traffic generation and model traffic capacity; it was all about machines in the system and not people and their journey. The nearest we got to the person was understanding the numbers of pedestrians or cyclists being injured on our roads in so called ‘accidents’. “It was not my fault, I didn’t see him” said the mother of two small children in court, the police prosecuting her for an ‘accident’ in which her car had turned into me and knocked me off my bicycle on my way home from school and left me with a broken thigh bone, a month in traction and many missed lessons from my third year at secondary school. There is a person in the car and on the bike.

Our trajectory in progressing the transport planning discipline towards a more people centred transport planning has been upward but very gradual. We widened our focus to public transport, cycling and walking but our interest remained on the peak commuting hours. Travel Plans and other behavioural change interventions have led us to look wider at individual people and their travel habits in our quest for greater sustainability and now Equality, Diversity and Inclusivity (EDI) is in our consciousness and offers further opportunity.

That is Equality, ensuring individuals are not treated less favourably, Diversity, recognising and valuing difference and Inclusion, embracing and valuing people’s difference. The Equality Act 2010 provides the legal framework in the UK to protect individuals from unfair treatment and promote a more equal society and is important for us as employers and designers. There are nine characteristics that are protected by the Act which aims to eliminate discrimination, harassment and discrimination and advance equality of opportunity.

Can we work for transport that is for everyone? For real people? Transport and a built environment that does not exclude the 1.2M wheelchair users, the 2M people with sight loss, the 7.4M who have heart/circulatory disease, the 1.5M with autism, the 10M who have arthritis and the 850,000 with dementia. Of course not all disabilities are visible e.g. deafness which I understand to some degree as my Mum is deaf, there is a lot to learn here and to understand. This all relates to disability which is a protected characteristic.

Words by CIHT Technical Champion David Knight

David is a Director - Transport Planning at Norman Rourke Pryme. He is a Chartered Transport Planner with 34 years experience working on consultancy projects in the private and public sectors.

I thought it would be useful to see how the other eight protected characteristics directly affect me. The first to consider is Age and at 57 this is likely to become a more important matter to me in the future where I want local facilities in easy walking distance from home and step free public transport access more so than I do now. I am heterosexual (sexual orientation is protected) and married (marriage and civil partnership is protected). I am male (sex is protected), but I am concerned at the gender pay gap that exists (women are paid 15% less than men on average). I am White English with some Welsh in the DNA (race is protected) so I am in the majority in UK, Ethnic minorities represent 14% of the population. My Christian faith is protected (religion) so I can write this in the love of Christ. It’s important to identify the other protected characteristics that aren’t part of my make-up, pregnancy and maternity and gender reassignment. The goal of EDI seeks to go beyond minimal compliance to legislation and to the consider and be responsive to additional diverse characteristics.

The CIHT has launched a comprehensive Equality, Diversity & Inclusion (EDI) Strategy that is aiming to 'Shift the dial' and bring about meaningful change at scale. The CIHT’s Routes to Diversity & Inclusion Toolkit was launched in 2015 and was the first toolkit designed specifically for, and with, the highways and transportation sector. The CIHT is also working with its Corporate Partners, like Norman Rourke Pryme (NRP) who I work for, to continue to strengthen the case through its Diversity and Inclusion Charter which has been updated and due for launch soon. As a Charter signatory NRP welcomes CIHT continued progress in the EDI landscape. More details can be found here Diversity & Inclusion | CIHT

How does your Employer fair on EDI? At NRP we have an Equality, Diversity and Inclusion Committee; EDI is important to us. The committee helps to promote equal opportunities for everyone and we are looking to nurture good relations with different parts of the company. All people with diverse characteristics have a platform and a direct channel to the board and the Committee provides a safe space to raise questions, concerns or matters relating to the working environment. We also want to share knowledge, embrace our differences and promote the benefits of having, supporting and retaining a diverse workforce. We are providing specific EDI learning and development opportunities  and events. We want to recognise, respect, capitalise and celebrate contributions from different people to strengthen the NRP team performance and to help create meaningful progress across the sector.

How does your Employer respond to EDI? How are you thinking about EDI in your professional work in practice? Can the voices of the different individuals that make up humanity be heard, supported and genuinely valued in our space?

As part of my PhD studies I sought to identify five values for transport planning to mirror those given in Coming Home: Tackling the housing crisis together published in 2021 by the Commission of the Archbishops of Canterbury and York on Housing, Church and Community. This sets out a vision for housing which is centred on five core values of sustainable, safe, stable, sociable and satisfying that are rooted in the Christian story but that have wider resonance. The  values are identified as the benchmark for all that is done in the housing sector and aimed at all stakeholders in the industry and it is easy to see that these apply to transport and our streets. To these are added the Transport Planning values of sending, shifting, serving, shaping and sharing from my research. It is considered that these values are important for the Transport Planning practitioner and the related professional institutions. These are seen as overarching values for what is done in Transport Planning. This is my individual voice to the space and the more we hear the steeper our future trajectory will become. If you would like to know about this please contact me David.knight@nrpltd.com .

In order to provide the very best transport infrastructure and services for a diverse society whose needs must be reflected in what we do as professionals, we need to reflect the communities we serve; we need everyone for transport. We must attract and retain more people from the widest talent pool possible so we can hear from all individuals to improve what we do for society; male and female, young and old, rich and poor…… No wait a minute…….being poor is not a protected characteristic, but getting rid of poverty is certainly a sustainable development goal (Goal 1 = End poverty in all its forms everywhere) and an important issue in transport. Meaningful commitment to EDI is therefore important to an inclusive and sustainable transport and highways system. It needs to be firmly in our thinking, our design vision and our typing fingers.

CIHT Statement

The opinions expressed in this article are those of the authors. They do not purport to reflect the opinions or views of the CIHT or its members. Neither the CIHT nor any person acting on their behalf may be held responsible for the use which may be made of the information contained therein.