Katie Lewis wins 2024 Vorhees Large Prize

Masters graduate Katie won the prize for her dissertation about the benefits of active travel in transport planning.

The Voorhees-Large Prize, worth £1,000, is awarded by the Brian Large Bursary Fund for the best transport Masters dissertation submitted by a UK university.

Katie’s dissertation is titled: “The Benefits of ‘Running for the Train’: A Review of the Effects of Active Travel on the Business Case of the Transpennine Route Upgrade.” Her main supervisor was Dr John Nellthorp.

She explores how walking and cycling to and from train stations impact the overall benefits of railway upgrade projects. While active travel is widely recognised for its health and environmental benefits, it is currently overlooked in transport planning.

She focused on the Transpennine Route Upgrade to develop a method for measuring these benefits and incorporating them into railway appraisals.

Her findings show that including active travel could improve a project’s value-for-money assessment by 9%, helping justify investment in railway upgrades.

Katie said: “Winning the Prize means a great deal to me. Crucially, it has validated the hard work and sacrifices I made while completing this degree, and it has given me confidence that my ideas matter in the field and that I am capable of driving real, meaningful change throughout my career.”

It’s the second year that the prize has been won by a dissertation from the Institute for Transport Studies.