Speaker Biographies

Antonia Roberts

Executive Director, CoMoUK

Antonia was part of the team which set up CoMoUK  (as Carplus) in 1999 and spent 10 years helping to nurture the newly emerging car club industry, developing the information programme and accreditation scheme amongst other projects. Antonia re-joined the organisation in 2015 to set up the sister arm Bikeplus to support the development of bike share. For intervening 5 years Antonia managed an Active Travel Project in Leeds for Sustrans. Antonia has 20 years’ experience working in the field of sustainable transport and previously worked in marketing for Oxfam.

Sam Robinson

Director, Love to Ride

Joining the team shortly after its inception in the late noughties, Sam has since helped to shape and develop Love to Ride’s unique offer in the UK and more recently globally, helping to guide them through a rebrand and into a niche area of product and project design and delivery. Love to Ride have a solid reputation as behaviour change experts, now working across multiple sectors and in cities and businesses right around the world to get more people riding bikes. Sam's professional background spans public, private and voluntary sectors – where he has useful experience in CSR, employee engagement and wellbeing. Out of work Sam loves bikepacking with family and friends and kicks a ball around for the world-famous Easton Cowboys!

Patrick Darlington

CEO, Yellow Bike Company

Patrick Darlington is a chartered accountant by training and has a track record of building businesses. Following success in the wine industry, Patrick started Yellowbike to develop the integration of cycling into the urban landscape. Supported by a grant from Innovate UK, Yellowbike has designed a secure transient bike parking unit, which it believes will offer greater on-street security than anything currently available in the UK.

The continued absence of core infrastructure has convinced Patrick of the need for low-cost/no-cost cycle facilities to meet the needs of cyclists and provide the UK with the facilities that will support the delivery of better air quality, less congestion and a fitter, more agile population. Clamp-IT, delivering disruptive bike security, is now emerging.

Brian Deegan

Principal Design Engineer, Urban Movement

Brian is one of the UK’s leading street design engineers and was co-author of the London Cycling Design Standards. With a background in engineering, he has also led high-profile policy and planning projects. He helped develop Transport for London’s Healthy Street Check, a key tool in designing for ‘Healthy Streets’, and helped ensure the design quality of all projects associated with the London Mayor’s £1billion Cycling and Healthy Streets programme. As a design engineer for Camden Council, Brian introduced the UK to ‘light segregation’ for cycling, and subsequently assisted TfL in the testing of innovative approaches to cycling-friendly signalised junction design, such as ‘hold the left’, two-stage right turns and early release.

As a street design all-rounder, Brian has experience tackling the many and varied demands placed on complex urban streets and spaces: from design engineering, traffic modelling and network strategies through to conducting research to the highest industry standards. He is helpful and pragmatic, and passionate about making better streets.

Chris Boardman MBE

Cycling and Walking Commissioner, Greater Manchester Combined Authority

Chris Boardman was appointed as Greater Manchester’s first ever Cycling and Walking Commissioner in July 2017 by Mayor Andy Burnham. His report, Made to Move, published in December 2017, set out a 15 step plan to transform how people get around in the city region.

He is one of the UK’s most prominent cycling and walking advocates and has been policy adviser to British Cycling since 2012. 

A former professional cyclist, Chris won a gold medal in the individual pursuit at the 1992 Barcelona Olympic Games. He also broke the world hour record three times and has worn the yellow jersey on three separate occasions at the Tour de France.

Chris launched his own range of bikes, BOARDMAN Bikes, in 2007 and is company chairman. He also worked as Head of Research and Development for the Great Britain Cycling Team from 2004 to 2012, including at the 2008 Beijing Games where the Olympic team won eight gold medals.

Ross Atkin

Designer and presenter on BBC2's The Big Life Fix 

Ross is a designer and engineer based in East London. He maintains his own design and development practice where he works with software developers to create new products that span the digital-physical divide for leading UK manufacturing companies. As a researcher he has focused on making streets more accessible for disabled people with projects for Guide Dogs, the Royal London Society for Blind People, The City of York, Bath Council and Transport for London. He is also a presenter on BBC2's The Big Life Fix programme.

From an early age Ross was fascinated with making things and was lucky enough to be encouraged in this pursuit by his father, who worked in manufacturing, and two really fantastic Design & Technology teachers. He trained in Mechanical Engineering at The University of Nottingham and Industrial Design at the Royal College of Art. 

Ross is inspired by all the people who let him into their lives to help him with his research, in particular the large number of disabled people who have let him follow them around on the streets.

Martin Lucas-Smith

Developer, CycleStreets

CycleStreets run the UK-wide cycle journey planner website, CycleStreets.net, enabling people to plan cycle journeys from A-B and providing tools for Local Authorities and cycling advocacy groups. CycleStreets' routing aims to emulate as closely as possible the behaviour of real cyclists, is used in a range of websites and apps (e.g. Citymapper), by consultancy companies, and in research projects like the DfT-backed Propensity to Cycle Tool (PCT) and the new Cycling Infrastructure Prioritisation Toolkit (CyIPT). CycleStreets have been working on StreetFocus, a new tool providing open access to planning application data which can be matched to potential funding of on-street changes.

Oliver O’Brien

Senior Research Associate and software developer, University College London (UCL)

Oliver's works as part of the ESRC Consumer Data Research Centre (CDRC). His research interests include geodemographic visualisation, web mapping, shared micromobility data and urban dashboards. 

Simon O'Brien

Cycling and Walking Commissioner, Liverpool City Region

Actor, TV presenter and environmentalist, Simon O’Brien is the Liverpool City Region's cycling and walking commissioner.
Simon, who first rose to fame as as Damon Grant and has been acting and presenting ever since on programmes such as Rough Guide and To Buy Or Not To Buy, is about to take time off from his current award winning Channel 4 series “Find It, Fix It, Flog It’ to be tasked with revolutionising the city’s cycling offer by linking up Liverpool’s major green spaces with a series of new routes.
Having swapped the car for his beloved bike 35 years ago, Simon, who once ran a cycling café in the city centre, is uniquely positioned to carry out the new role having led a major review into Liverpool’s parks and cycled more than 1,500 miles to explore potential routes.

Stephanie Wilkie 

Environmental Psychologist, Sunderland University

Stephanie Wilkie is an Associate Professor in Environmental Psychology with expertise in the impact of built and natural environments on human behaviour.  She regularly works in collaboration with researchers in psychology, public health, and urban design. In doing so, she brings theoretical insights from environmental psychology to help understand the links between people, place, and wellbeing, as well as how environmental social science may help to improve broader national and international population health targets.

Richard Butler

Engineering Manager, Transport for Greater Manchester

Richard is a Traffic Signal Engineering Manager with expertise in Light Rail / Traffic signal design and 2D geometric design of traffic signal controlled junctions.

He has worked at the Greater Manchester Urban Traffic Control (part of Transport for Greater Manchester) for 20 years and been an integral member of the engineering team tasked with the design, approval and installation of all traffic signal junctions in Greater Manchester, including the major Metrolink expansion projects.

He has authored papers on Complex Inter-stage Design and Tram Priority at traffic signals and has spent the last few years spearheading Cycle traffic signal infrastructure design development for Transport for Greater Manchester”

Dave Stevens

Transport for Greater Manchester 

Dave Stevens works at Transport for Greater Manchester in the Infrastructure Support Team, working with Wigan and Manchester to deliver Chris Boardman’s vision for the City Region.

Previously he worked at Sustrans, for over a decade in a variety of roles across the North of England. Career highlights include 3 European Greenway awards, Bradford’s Big Red Bridge, The Ghost Peloton - part of the celebrations linked to Yorkshire’s hosting of the Tour de France in 2014, and the Padiham Greenway, which won “Best Transformational Project” in the awards to celebrate first 20years of the National Cycle Network.

Before that he was at Bradford Council for 3years as a School Travel Plan co-ordinator where he helped pilot a yellow School Bus Scheme and a school cycling project – that became the Bike IT scheme.

He’s a graduate of the University of St. Andrews (in Philosophy and Medieval History) a Dad of two and he’s very worried about Climate Change.

Grant Waters

CEO and Co-founder, Tranquil City

Grant Waters is the CEO and Co-founder of Tranquil City, a start-up of environmental, urban, psychological and data-science practitioners with the common aim of using their knowledge for human and environmental benefit. They are building the Tranquil City API, a curated multi-disciplinary and human-centred dataset on environmental quality so that apps can easily integrate features that promote healthier ways of living, moving and spending time in cities. Grant is an experienced Acoustic Consultant, having worked on many prestigious architectural and soundscape projects, including working with Transport for London on their 'Urban Bus Sound' project for the new electric bus fleet.

Patrick O'Hara

Researcher, Alan Turing Institute

Patrick is a researcher at the Alan Turing Institute and a member of the London air quality project.

The team at the Turing Institute is building machine learning models to predict and forecast air quality across London.

The aim of Patrick’s research is to develop algorithms that minimise the air pollution exposure for people walking and cycling around the city.

Stuart Cole

Innovation and Research, Oxfordshire County Council

Stuart Cole is researcher for the Innovation Hub (iHUB) at Oxfordshire County Council. Currently working on a number of projects looking at active travel, green spaces and air quality.

He is the originator of the Cycle Infrastructure Evaluation; a project looking at how digital mapping tools can lever the knowledge of local communities and councils to better understand the challenges of cycling and, through open publication of data, generate secondary impact from a community level up. He is also co-founder of Greenspace Hack, a series of projects utilising local knowledge and experience of green spaces to better map, understand and design environments for the benefit of public access, health and the environment.

Tom Bailey

Development Director, Streets Systems  

Tom is Development Director for Newcastle based technology & transport data firm Streets Systems.  Tom has worked in the Built Environment and Transport for over 20 years including time with Sustrans delivering walking and cycling schemes in North East England. 

Tom manages projects providing data collection and analysis to support walking and cycling schemes, including evaluating temporary interventions. Streets Systems use of Machine Vision to automatically extract traffic data from video offers added value over and above other methodologies in particular for analysis of pedestrian and cyclist movement.

As well as delivering short surveys to inform urban design projects Streets Systems supplies and maintains permanent equipment collecting and storing real time data on the movement of people and bicycles. Deployments project managed by Tom include vision sensors installed for Newcastle Urban Observatory, Europe’s largest deployment of real time urban sensors

Natascha McIntyre Hall

Assistant Director, Strategic Development, Portsmouth City Council

Natascha is a visionary regeneration specialist driving a multi-billion pound sustainable transformation agenda aimed at making Portsmouth Britain's premier waterfront technology and innovation city.

A former director of Gleeds and AECOM, with 15 years of experience working in the private sector in London and across the world; Natascha's long standing commitment to the sustainability agenda and to eco-conscious design has earned her a reputation as one of the UK's foremost young programme managers.

She is currently using the skills she has developed working directly with high profile clients in developing effective strategy options for large, complex development portolios to bring thousands of sustainable homes, jobs and opportunities to the people of the UK's only island city.

Giulio Ferrini

Head of Built Environment, Sustrans

Giulio leads the design team at Sustrans in London. He is particularly passionate about working with local communities to create people-friendly places that reduce inequality, help address the climate emergency and contribute to the creation of a happy, healthy city. Giulio has led on the development of high quality walking and cycling routes, low-traffic neighbourhood and community-driven placemaking schemes across London. He has extensive expertise in designing healthy streets, developing policy which encourages active travel and in devising innovative design solutions that work for everyone.

Philip McAleese

Co-founder and CEO of See.Sense

Philip is Co-founder and CEO of See.Sense - a UK-based startup on a mission to get people out of cars and onto sustainable transport modes. With over 20 years experience in electronic and software engineering, Philip originally built and maintained trading systems for several multinational investment banks. Prior to this he designed air traffic control simulators for National Air Traffic Services. In 2013 - in a bid to make his cycling commuter safer - Philip invented See.Sense. Their award-winning products are now used by more than 50,000 cyclists across 70 countries.

Neil Guthrie

Independent transport planner

Neil has been working in the field of sustainable transport since the mid 1990s with stints and secondments at various employers including TRL, TfL, London Cycling Campaign, Jacobs, Sustrans, and currently at Atkins. He is presenting at Cycling + Walking Innovations independently, however, having developed a new cycle map of London in his spare time with former colleague, Dermot Hanney. Neil has worked on many cycling related projects over the past two decades from strategy and research work through to concept design, and is particularly interested in the current era of innovation-rich infrastructure. He has given talks to several city authorities around the UK since 2016 to help disseminate the latest thinking, and show what works and, importantly, what doesn't. He presented two papers at Velo City (Dublin) 2019, provides modules on cycling related PTRC training courses, and has also provided lectures for MSc students. He helped to set up the 'Cycling@Teatime' seminar session in 2014 with UCL, and continues to contribute to its programme of events.

Patrick Donnelly

Head of Policy, Beryl

Patrick leads on strategy and business development with local government and transport authorities. He has over 10 years experience working in the transport industry, predominantly on projects based in London.  Before working at Beryl he spent over five years working for local authorities specialising in transportation projects that improve air quality. He managed the Shoreditch ‘Low Emission Neighbourhood’ that introduced pioneering new measures to reduce pollution such as the UK’s first ‘Ultra Low Emission Vehicle’ streets.