New Institute Director
Professor Richard Batley has taken up his appointment as the new Director of the Institute.
Richard is an ITS alumnus with a 20 year association with the University of Leeds. Having completed his Masters and PhD he joined the staff of the University as a Research Officer and has progressed on a research and innovation track, culminating in his promotion to Professor of Transport Demand and Valuation in 2014.
With a disciplinary background in transport economics, Richard’s expertise covers two related areas: first, valuing qualitative aspects of travel (e.g. journey time, punctuality and comfort) in monetary terms, and second, forecasting the impacts of changes in these qualitative aspects on the demand for travel. He has operated mainly at the interface between academe and public policy, and can demonstrate lasting impacts from his research, especially in the form of official UK policy and practitioner guidance issued to transport operators and transport scheme promoters. He has directly reported his research outcomes to senior policymakers, including transport ministers and to the House of Commons Transport Committee.
Within the University, Richard has developed comprehensive leadership experience, as a Research Group Leader, Director of Research (including leadership of ITS’ REF2014 submission), and most recently as Faculty Pro-Dean for Research and Innovation. Richard also brings substantial experience as a project director and manager. In the course of his career at the University he has led or made major contributions to many significant research projects for government and industry, including studies for the Department for Transport, National Audit Office, Office of Rail Regulation, and Rail Safety and Standards Board. He recently led the ITS project team’s input to revised values of travel time savings for the DfT.
Professor Batley, who succeeds Professor Greg Marsden and takes up the directorship for a five-year term of office said “This is an exciting time to be taking over the leadership of ITS, as we implement substantive refreshes to both our teaching programmes and research and innovation strategy, and move into our £4M redeveloped building. These initiatives will reinforce ITS’ ability to deliver internationally leading academe that addresses the global societal challenges facing our transportation sector”.
