Tom has worked with WSP in Manchester for 11 years and in that time has been awarded the ITS (UK) Young Professional of the Year award in 2014 and became a Chartered Geographer and Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society four years later – an impressive start to a career with a focus on smart and digital roads.

Since he began at WSP, Tom has been part of our teams developing the Smart Roads concepts including smart motorways and expressways. The development of both concepts was innovative and challenging but have set the standard for future multi-£billion programmes of major project delivery. What makes Tom proudest when looking back at over a decade of work is the ability to see the contribution he has made to the road network that connects our country’s people and communities.

Benefits that these digital transformation projects are bringing include significant reduction in congestion, safety improvements and better connectivity for some of the busiest sections of motorway in the UK. Tom is also keen to champion the contribution technology can provide in improving the way people travel and how goods are transported.

It’s this big picture outlook that enables Tom and the teams he works with to build an informed view of the future, mapping trends and the impacts on our respective industries, but also to understand the short-term opportunities that can facilitate longer term objectives to be met.

For his paper, Tom has identified opportunities  gained by combining data, technology and connectivity which could be the key to achieving a net zero transport system. Through digital transformation enabled by these contributors, Tom believes we could be well on our way to achieving our Net Zero targets by 2050.

Read Tom’s insight paper, ‘What if digital transformation was the key to unlocking net zero outcomes?’ here: