08:30 - Exhibitions open & breakfast

12:30 - Lunch & networking

09:30 - Session 1: The Future of North East Transport

• Introduction & Welcome - CIHT NE&C Chair, Grace Smith & CIHT Vice President, Kate Carpenter
• Lucy Jacques - Head of Transport Policy & Strategy, NECA
• Alan Weston - Head of Transport & Infrastructure, TVCA

13:30 - Session 3: Transport-led Regeneration

• Keel Crossing with Rachel Hurdman - Associate Director, Arup
• RTPI Presentation with Andrew Dorrian - Principal Transport Planner, North East CA
• CIHT NE&C Large Project of the Year winner - North Tyneside Seafront Sustainable Route with Laurie Scott - Associate, WSP and Sally Herbert - Head of Highways & Transportation, North Tyneside Council
• CIHT NE&C Small Project of the Year winner - Devonshire Street Public Realm with Caroline Patterson - Capital Programme Manager, Cumberland Council

10:30 - Break & Refreshments

14:30 - Break, refreshments & 'View of stadium'

11:00 - Session 2: Delivering an Integrated Transport Network

• DARe Hub: North East Case Study with Prof Roberto Palacin - Co-Director, DARe
• Realising NE&C Ambition for Active Travel – The Role of ATE with Claire Prospert - Regional Manager (North East), Active Travel England
• Metro to Washington with Tom Hardwick - Head of Systems Development, Nexus
• Women Safety Inclusion with Susan Leadbetter - Associate, WSP
• EV Infrastructure/NECA speaker TBC

14:45 - Session 4: Transport Technology

• Digital Transport Strategy with Andrea Reacroft - Digital Transport Programme Delivery Manager, TVCA
• Autonomous Vehicle Studies with Prof Phil Blythe - Professor of Intelligent Transport Systems, Newcastle University
• Active Travel / M&E - The Proof is in the Data with Paul McKenna - Director at TNC/NCC Consultant, Diego Perera-Solis, Project Manager, Climate Change Team - Northumberland CC & Tom Bailey, Director at Streets Systems
• How AI can help in Highways and Transportation with Lucy Batley - Owner, Traction Industries

15:45 - Summary & Close with Conference hosts Darran Kitchener and Phil Freestone

16:00 - Exhibitions & networking

Kate Carpenter - Director of Operational Road Safety – Buildings & Infrastructure (B&I) Europe, Jacobs 

Kate is a Fellow of CIHT and a Chartered Civil Engineer with 10 years’ experience in the planning, design and delivery of transport projects, and a further 26 years specialising in highway safety governance. This includes casualty reduction; road safety audit; policy and process preparation; collision database management; speed management, development control and safety governance.  She delivers road safety services to local and strategic highway authority clients including National Highways, Welsh Government, Transport Scotland and Transport for London, and represents Jacobs through conference paper presentation and CIHT including SoRSA, PACTS, and Road Safety Observatory. 

Kate is also a Member of PACTS Road Environment Working Party and the Transport Safety Commission.

Lucy Batley - Owner, Traction Industries

Lucy Batley is a tech innovator and AI strategist with 30 years’ experience shaping the digital landscape. She began her career with EMAP’s Best Young Designer award, going on to create digital experiences for Audi, MaxMara, Vespa and The Manic Street Preachers. She also designed the platform to launch the Euro into the UK for Barclays Bank SME division. Lucy later founded digital agencies and now leads Traction Industries, delivering AI-powered innovation. A respected thought leader and broker, she speaks widely on human–AI collaboration and is known for making complex tech accessible, creative and strategically impactful.

Claire Prospert - Regional Manager (North East), Active Travel England

Before joining Active Travel England in May 2023 as the Regional Manager for the North East, Claire had a career in academia, consultancy and local government. She worked for Newcastle City Council for over twenty years, securing funding and investment for economic development and overseeing the delivery of multi-disciplinary programmes in neighbourhood renewal, regeneration, innovation, and high street transformation. She also worked for the Great Exhibition of the North and the North East Local Enterprise Partnership on governance change and investment programmes. She is a passionate and award-winning advocate for walking, wheeling and cycling and never misses a chance to promote the North East, her adopted home since 2001.

Caroline Patterson - Programme Manager, Cumberland Council

Caroline is a Chartered Project Professional with five years’ experience delivering major capital projects for Cumberland Council, she has led investment, design and construction across community buildings, active travel infrastructure, and highway and public realm improvements.

She plays a key role in shaping the future of Carlisle city centre, working across major programmes including the Future High Street Fund, Carlisle Town Deal, Borderlands, and the Active Travel Fund. Caroline is committed to driving transformational, place‑based regeneration and creating a vibrant, connected regional centre with a strong economic, cultural and historic identity.

Paul McKenna - Director, Transport Network Connect Ltd

Paul is a Fellow of the CIHT and Chartered Director of Transport Network Connect Ltd based in Newcastle. He has over 18 years experience working in both the private and public sector. In addition to Project Managing various schemes ranging from Public Realm, Active Travel and Highway design, Paul is an experienced Road Safety Auditor.

Graduating from Newcastle University in 2004, he then continued his studies in Civil Engineering at Teesside University before returning to Newcastle in 2015 to complete his Masters Degree in Transport Planning and Business Management.

Susan Leadbetter - Associate, WSP

Susan Leadbetter is a transport planner with over 10 years’ experience, specialising in gender‑inclusive design and women’s safety.

Susan spearheaded WSP’s Gender Inclusive Design team and now leads work across the UK to embed safety and inclusion into transport networks, public spaces, and infrastructure. Her strengths lie in stakeholder engagement, participatory and co‑design processes, and cross‑sector collaboration. Her work spans research, engagement, and technical assessment, ensuring solutions are both evidence‑based and practical.

She is Vice Chair of Women in Transport’s Women’s Safety Steering Group, where she leads collaborative research, engagement, and design initiatives that centre the needs of women, girls, and gender‑diverse people. She works closely with operators, local authorities, and developers to address violence against women and girls, supporting the delivery of safer, more inclusive environments for all.

Tom Hardwick - Head of System Development, Nexus

Tom leads System Development within Nexus. The current focus of his of teams are the replacement of the Tyne and Wear Metro’s Signalling System and the extension of the Network to Washington in Sunderland.

Before becoming Head of System Development Tom was Head of Metro Flow. The £104million Metro Flow project saw Nexus take ownership of a Network Rail Branch line, merge it into the Tyne and Wear Metro Network and create a dual track, dual use line, increasing the Metro network’s resilience and capacity whilst retaining Freight access.

Since joining Nexus in 2008 Tom has worked on a wide range of pivotal projects including the introduction of smart ticketing on the Tyne and Wear Metro through the innovative ‘Pop card’ and the replacement of the Networks train Radio system.

Laurie Scott - Associate - Roads North East & Scotland, WSP 

Laurie is an Associate Engineer with 19 years’ experience across both the public and private sectors. He currently works within WSP’s Newcastle Roads team, delivering high‑profile, multidisciplinary schemes including industry award‑winning projects. Laurie is highly skilled in the design and project management of highway improvements, urban regeneration, road safety initiatives, sustainable transport, active travel and traffic engineering. Recognised for leading complex projects with a collaborative and solutions‑focused approach, he brings extensive technical expertise and a proven track record of successful project delivery.

Alan Weston - Head of Transport and Infrastructure, Tees Valley Combined Authority

Alan has worked in local government across the North of England in a wide variety of senior roles. As Head of Transport and Infrastructure at Tees Valley Combined Authority, Alan oversees the delivery of the current Transport Investment Programme including the development of new projects to be delivered with the £978m of Transport in City Regions funding the area will receive for the period April 2026 - March 2032. This transformational investment opportunity is part of an emerging wider Strategic Infrastructure Plan for Tees Valley and will contribute towards and enabling the area’s Local Growth Plan aspirations and emerging Spatial Development Strategy.

Lucy Jacques - Head of Transport Policy & Strategy, NECA

Lucy has over fifteen years’ experience working in a wide range of roles covering policy development, stakeholder engagement, public affairs, research and providing local and national policy analysis and advice.

In her current role as Head of Transport Policy & Strategy at the North East Combined Authority, Lucy is responsible for the Local Transport Plan as well as leading the developing of a number of transport strategies including the Mayor’s vision for rail. 

Andrew Dorrian - Principal Transport Planner, North East Combined Authority

Andrew is a chartered Town Planner and Transport Planning Society member, working as a Principal Transport Planner at the North East Combined Authority. He leads on developing and delivering the region’s transport pipeline and transport plan, preparing major funding bids, shaping regional delivery plans, and managing capital and revenue programmes. His role involves close collaboration with local authorities and national and sub‑national partners to ensure transport planning supports wider spatial planning goals.

Beyond his core role, Andrew contributes to the professional planning community through positions on the RTPI General Assembly and the RTPI North East Regional Management Board. He has commissioned national research on strategic and infrastructure planning and volunteers with Planning Aid England, providing planning advice through its helpline service. He has also recently joined the Transport Planning Society’s North East volunteer group.

Professor Roberto Palacin - Co-Director of DARe, the National Hub for Decarbonised, Adaptable, and Resilient Transport Infrastructures, funded by UKRI EPSRC and the DfT

Roberto is Director of Electrification and a member of the Future Mobility Research Group at Newcastle University, and has a background in Mechanical Engineering, Design and Railway Systems Engineering. He has been involved in research projects on subjects such as strategic development of transport systems, energy efficiency of urban and mainline rail systems, urban mobility and sustainability, development of innovative railway concepts, decarbonisation and net zero strategies for transport systems, intermodality of the European rail network, and resilience and adaptation strategies.

His research interests revolve around application of a systems approach to decarbonisation of transport and its adaptation to climate change, human-systems interaction (including mobility and mass-capacity in the context of digitalisation of services), the development of ergonomic and design-led transport environments, and the critical role of policy in achieving all these.

Andrea Reacroft - Digital Transport Programme Delivery Manager, TVCA

Andrea brings extensive knowledge and experience in innovative digital technologies, developed through a career spanning both the public and private sectors. Andrea has over 30 years’ experience across IT and Intelligent Transport Systems. This includes project-managing the rollout of next-generation transport technologies in major global cities such as Boston, Brisbane, Los Angeles, New York, San Francisco, Vancouver and Washington DC, as well as delivering congestion management solutions in Sydney, Australia.

More recently, Andrea has held a senior role providing strategic direction for Digital Transport initiatives at the Tees Valley Combined Authority (TVCA), shaping and delivering digital innovation across the Tees Valley region. This has included the most recent deployment of the region’s first autonomous vehicles, supporting the delivery of intelligent, future-ready transport systems. Andrea has successfully led cross-functional teams to deliver scalable innovations, including the award-winning UK’s first regional traffic management Digital Twin, recently highlighted in the UK Government’s Transport AI Action Plan. Andrea is committed to making transport smarter, more socially inclusive and greener for the future.