I graduated in 2007 and started my career in local government, project managing surveys and investigations. That was a great job and I got to meet a lot of really interesting people: the survey team I worked with were all ex-civil servants, so they were extremely helpful and I felt privileged as a young grad to have that support.

I travelled to Australia, where I worked on some great projects, and after a while intended to settle. I decided to see New Zealand, just for two years, joining Christchurch City Council, just a couple of years after the 2011 earthquake. The path to earthquake recovery was special to be a part of, and 10 years later, I’m still here.

I’d been involved with the technical groups in New Zealand, and I was facilitating seminars with some generous support from our UK community. Through this, I first heard about the CTTP international pilot the CIHT and TPS were trialling. Back in the UK, before I went travelling, I'd already embarked on training, including the first half of the MSc in transport planning, so I'd always seen myself as being on course to achieve CTPP. When I heard about the pilot, I jumped at the opportunity.

I knew as an undergrad what I wanted to do – and have since trained very specifically and deliberately in transport planning. For me, CTPP success was helped significantly from my foundations laid in the UK. I was excited by the prospect of the CTPP, because it was a natural progression for me. And there's nothing else in New Zealand: historically, if you're not a civil engineer, you've pretty much got no professional recognition in transport.

It takes a lot of time to do a CTPP, especially when you have two preschool aged children, so a huge amount of thanks goes to my wife for her huge support and encouragement. I'm also neurodiverse – I have autism – so I feel quite proud that I've managed to overcome that.

I’ve since shared my experiences inside WSP, and presented a paper at our national conference for the transport group. I’m now always looking to recommend the CTPP because getting the qualification was such a fantastic feeling. It was great to feel recognised, so I am actively promoting it and I'm mentoring somebody as well.

New Zealand has a slightly different system to the UK. Our processes don’t always align, and many of our desired goals are guidelines and policy rather than law. So you need an awareness of all the different processes and how they all fit together.

The other challenge is that we are in a hazardous area, geotechnically. Natural hazards, including earthquakes, can and do change the landscape without warning. And this can really impact you as a transport planner, in many more ways than you can imagine.

We’re working towards more scenario-based planning. I'm involved in modelling and forecasting, including a specific research paper on this very subject, and we're very aware that our current practice doesn't really consider some of these disruptions. We do the same sort of modelling as most other places in the world, producing a forecast and designing towards that, while there are other schools of thought around more scenario testing and resilience-based planning. We need to get better at factoring these uncertain events into our planning, including climate change, and I think we will get there.

Mark Gregory was in conversation with Craig Thomas.

Transport Planners in Australia, New Zealand, India, Hong Kong and the Middle East can now have their professional expertise recognised as Chartered Transport Planning Professionals.

Find out more here or by contacting us at education@ciht.org.uk. 

Words by Mark Gregory, Principal Transport Planner / Team Leader, WSP

Transport Planners in Australia, New Zealand, India, Hong Kong and the Middle East can now have their professional expertise recognised as Chartered Transport Planning Professionals.

Find out more here or by contacting us at education@ciht.org.uk.