Recognising the potential of public transport

Prof. Maria Attard, Head of Geography and Director of the Institute for Climate Change and Sustainable Development, University of Malta, will be one of the panel speakers at ‘The Road to Reliable Public Transport’, a business breakfast hosted by Times of Malta.

“Public transport is a critical infrastructure that can help us achieve multiple objectives including those related to social justice and equity, environmental and climate change targets, and much needed improvements in our towns for overall well-being,” she says.

“The faster we recognise this potential, the better we design policies that prioritise and enhance the service and increase its reliability.”

Prof. Attard lectures in urban and transport geography, sustainability and Geographic Information Systems at undergraduate and postgraduate level in Malta and abroad. She has published extensively and edited a number of journal special issues and book volumes related to transport policy and planning. She was a consultant to three transport ministers, helping to develop the first white paper on transport policy (2004), the 2006 Valletta Strategy, and the 2011 public transport reform. She has participated in various funded projects, was nominated on a number of evaluation panels and supported the work of various organisations such the WHO, OECD and a number of institutions within the EU.

She sits on the Steering Committee of the World Conference on Transport Research and is a Cluster co-chair for NECTAR (Network of European Communications and Transport Activities Research). She is co-editor in chief of the journal Research in Transportation Business and Management and associate editor of the journal Case Studies on Transport Policy. She holds a B.A. Hons and MA in Geography from the University of Malta and completed her PhD in transport geography at UCL (London) in 2006.

‘The Road to Reliable Public Transport’ will be held at the?Radisson Blu Resort, St Julian’s, on Wednesday, February 22, from 9am till 11.30am. Times of Malta journalist Mark Laurence Zammit will lead the discussion, with various panellists having their say and answering questions from the audience.

Register here to attend ‘The Road to Reliable Public Transport’.?