GHD award celebrates innovative approaches to transportation planning

Erin Jackson has won the GHD Chairman’s Award for Technical Excellence for her development of the Network Operation Plan for central/urban Launceston in Tasmania, Australia.

Urban planners, transportation engineers, social scientists and government agencies are all facing the same challenge: our communities are evolving, and we need systems and tools to ensure that the plans we make today can meet our future development, transportation, food and utility needs.

GHD is committed to helping clients make evidenced-based decisions that will shape their communities to be resilient in the face of this uncertain future. Recipients of the GHD Chairman’s Award are at the forefront of developing innovative urbanisation solutions and technologies that address these issues, which are set to affect communities around the world.

Erin, who is also Tasmania’s first Roads Australia Fellow, and her project team worked alongside the Department of State Growth and the City of Launceston to trial a new approach to undertaking network planning. Their Network Operation Plan is a decision-making framework that incorporates components of the Movement and Place methodology, specifically, the better integration of land use and place into the allocation of road space during the design process. This method, which better situates Place as a dimension, provides a graphical output of the proposed development and can be used to resolve conflicts with stakeholders that may not have common objectives.

This augmented tool is a pragmatic approach to planning integrated transport that has the potential to offer major benefits to the residents. If adopted, the tool could provide a framework for improving Inner Launceston’s transportation network, reducing congestion, improving public safety and preparing the built environment for potential future mode shifts to more active transport options. 

Rob Knott, GHD’s Chairman, views Erin’s submission as “an impressive demonstration of synthesising several disparate methodologies to create a solution that is truly innovative.” He also remarked that, “this method for transport planning is a deeply technical approach to a very complex situation that will support the future planning of cities and offer valuable flexibility when leaders are assessing and preparing for mode shifts within their communities.”

The GHD Chairman’s Award for Technical Excellence was awarded as part of the recent virtual Technical Summit, where urban planning, transportation, stakeholder engagement and spatial science professionals across GHD’s global network gathered to explore how they can help clients solve complex challenges related to urbanisation.