Students from the Institution of Highways and Transportation visit PTV
- Feeling happy at PTV: The students group from the Institution of Highways and Transportation.
Paulo Humanes, a graduate of The Chartered Institution of Highways & Transportation (CIHT) who now works at Jacobs Consulting in Newcastle, came up with the idea for the trip. Last year, he was the Chairman of the North East branch of the Institution of Highways and Transportation, and one of his objectives for the year was to promote the University and the students in terms of their integration with the transport industry. This resulted in the idea of a field trip, to enrich their knowledge of best practice of transport in a European context. The students who attended the trip were principally full-time (one year) postgraduate students studying for one of the three Masters level degrees – Transport Engineering and Operations, Transportation Planning and Policy and Transport and Business Management. They were a truly international group with students from the UK, France, China, Hungary, Jamaica and India. The trip would not have been possible without the generous support of the Institution of Highways and Transport, the German Academic Exchange Service, Newcastle University and the staff at PTV.
- Anita Py presentating the development of public transport in Strasbourg.
The students had the opportunity to get deep insight into transport planning and development in both Germany and France. The programme included presentations given by Dr. Tobias Kretz on pedestrian simulation in VISSIM, by Thomas Hauenstein, City of Karlsruhe, on 3D models and by Dr. Tobias Kuhnimhof from KIT on “The Mobility Panel in the Context of National Travel Surveys in Germany“. Further highlights were a visit to Südwestbus with a demonstration of regional traffic in Baden-Wurttemberg and a trip to Strasbourg, France where Anita Py gave a presentation on the development of public transport in Strasbourg.
And apparently, the cultural aspect of the trip has not been neglected either: at the end of the sunny days filled with technical presentations and after for example a night-watchman tour through old Durlach, more than one of the students enjoyed …
…a good german beer.
The students were thrilled: “Expert explanations of cutting edge software“; “Amazing integration of tram and train systems”, “Excellent examples of pedestrian zoning coupled with really advanced cycle paths”, “Just needed more time”.
The representatives of the University of Newcastle, Jacobs Consulting and PTV have been business partners for many years and this event showed once again that this cooperation proves extremely fruitful.
