blog: What it’s like to be a Principal Consultant at ITP
Tuesday 3rd August 2021
I joined ITP as a fresh-faced graduate in 2014 and having been at ITP for 7 years, I’m now a Principal Consultant within the Transport Policy & Strategy team, with responsibilities for project management, business development and mentoring junior colleagues.
I serve as our technical lead for parking and kerbside management, but contribute to a wide portfolio of work including electric vehicles, shared transport, disability and inclusion, sustainable development, airport surface access planning and future mobility.
With around 40 staff, there is a very strong sense of community at ITP. Once you’ve been here a little while, you really do get to know everybody. As a group of transport planners, strategists and engineers, we share a passion for making transport more equitable and sustainable which is embodied through our mission statement to improve the way the world moves and enhance society together.
What does my week look like?
A typical week for me is very diverse. I’ll usually be working on at least 3-4 active projects and there’s always a proposal or two to be written. Most of my work relates to projects within our Transport Policy & Strategy team, but I also support projects in other sectors. Here's a little insight to my week:
Monday
After a week off on annual leave, my week started catching-up on emails and a quick assessment of “the damage” to identify a priority list of actions for my 'to do' list.
In the afternoon, I caught up with my colleagues Neil and Geoff regarding our update of Manual for Streets 3, the latest version of UK’s principal highway design guidance document for streets (i.e. sub-40mph environments).
After this, I jumped onto another Teams call with my colleague Georgia regarding the development of a Car Parking Strategy for a local authority – one of several projects that I am currently managing. She has been working with the Council and service providers to obtain and analyse data relating to the demand and financial performance of public car parks and on-street parking places in the local authority area.
Tuesday
Tuesday started with some professional development with a webinar on how to build a business case for electric vehicle charging. I followed this up by finalising and issuing an updated version of a research report to quantify the benefits of shared transport for client review and approval.
We had been requested to update the report to incorporate new and emerging evidence on the benefits of car clubs and bike sharing, specifically, from the time of the Covid-19 pandemic. This had been published in the time since we submitted the initial draft.
In the afternoon, my attentions were diverted to a set of clarification questions posed by a prospective client on a proposal. The proposal related to the development of a set of Technology Route Maps and Action Plans for different (to be defined) transport technologies between now and 2060. The clarifications were of the type you only get asked if you’re bang in the running. I convened a Teams call with a few of our Directors who would be involved in the project to seek their insight and agree how we should formulate our response. I then began to draft it ahead of submitting on Wednesday morning.
Oh… and I started writing this blog!!
Wednesday
Every Wednesday begins with a short 30-minute Teams call with the rest of the Transport Policy & Strategy team. The call is an opportunity to discuss workloads, the project needs and resourcing requirements of each Project Manager, share any new project wins, allocate responsibilities for new proposals to be reviewed or drafted, and allow the Directors to update the rest of us on management-level discussions. It really is a short call… honest!
This was followed by (another) Teams call – the joy of home working – with our client for whom we are developing a Car Parking Strategy, to agree an approach to organising a workshop with Councillors on the emerging Strategy.
Thursday
The day began with an exciting discussion with London-based colleagues about organising a socially-distanced get together in the office for the following Monday. This will be the first time that I’ve seen them (in person) since February last year. There’s so much to catch up on. Geoff’s had a new baby and I’ll be meeting Stuart, who joined us during the pandemic, for the first time.
We also learnt that the proposal I had led (for which we had been invited to submit a set of clarifications) had been successful. This represents a really exciting new opportunity for us in the area of future mobility that we will begin working on from early August. I will be the Project Manager working with colleagues Neil and Jon and with partners at the Centre for Transport & Society at the University of the West of England.
Buoyed by this success, I spent much of Thursday reviewing another proposal in the area of future mobility and determining a suitable approach. I also set up a call between ITP’s Transport Policy & Strategy team and the Industry & Buildings team at our parent company Royal HaskoningDHV UK to discuss our collective capabilities on electric vehicle charging with a view to proactively aligning ourselves to client needs in this emerging area.
Friday
On Friday, I continued working on the new proposal and concluded the day with a farewell Teams call for a colleague in our Nottingham office who will sadly be moving onto pastures new following nearly 10 years of dedicated service. It’s definitely not the same as meeting up in-person for drinks but hopefully that won’t be too far away again now.
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