Rachel has 20 years of transport planning and behaviour change experience developed working in the UK, Australia and New Zealand. She’s the Owner Director of Rachel Smith Pty Ltd, an independent consultancy. She predominately works with Governments and Tier 1 consultancies. Rachel’s passions are strategic transport planning, project reviews, Travel Demand Management and Behaviour Change. Rachel has spoken about ‘Transport Planning and Modern Lifestyles’ in London’s House of Lords, has two TEDx talks, was part of the BMW Guggenheim Lab in new York, Berlin and Mumbai, has published two best-selling books and is a regular social commentator on TV and radio. “Rachel is one of Australia’s brightest thinkers on the perpetual challenge of urban and transport planning” News Limited

Thomas leads the Travel Demand Management Team at Christchurch City Council. An Economist by training, he began his career in Central Government, developing new labour market indicators. He then moved into the customer insight field, taking leadership roles in marketing teams within the insurance and electricity industries. Having always had a personal interest in sustainable transport, he was more than willing to apply his skills towards shaping the direction of Christchurch's transport education programmes, with particular focus in encouraging active and public transportation as well as improving road safety in local communities.

Anne Heins is a Community Travel Advisor in the Travel Demand Management team at Christchurch City Council. She has a Master’s degree in Transport Geography, a discipline she was drawn to as a fascinating intersection of human behaviour, place, environmental sustainability, economics, wellbeing and public policy. Her Master’s thesis looked at residential location choice, and probed to what extent people take transport and commuting implications into account when deciding where to live. She was awarded The Ministry of Transport Award for Outstanding Achievement at Masters Level 2016, and the NZ Geographical Society President’s Award for Best Master’s Thesis 2016. Her role at the Council covers a wide variety of activity including active transport promotion and safety education, as well as transport behaviour change encouraging and empowering people to commute by active and public transport modes to achieve mental, physical, financial and environmental wellbeing benefits for individuals and Christchurch city.

Sue is an internationally experienced transport planner specialising in travel demand management (TDM) for over 23 years. She has worked both in the private and public sectors as well as the tertiary education sector. Her international experience includes projects undertaken in the UK, Dubai, Australia and NZ and research published in the UK, Canada and NZ. In Dubai Sue developed and delivered the TDM plan for the Emirate. Sue’s wide-ranging transport planning skills include, accident investigation and prevention, road safety audit (RSA), road safety education, walking & cycling studies, strategic and detailed parking plans, ITAs and TDM strategy, policy and implementation plans. Sue lectured TDM and RSA courses at Surrey University (UK), Aston University (UK), the University of Waikato (NZ) and lectured the Urban Transport Planning Paper at Wintec. She developed the Auckland TDM programme whilst team leader for the Auckland Transport Travel Demand team, and has been directly involved in researching and promoting TDM in NZ. She has also ‘hands-on’ experience of delivering TDM projects from travel plans to far-reaching TDM strategies. Most recently Sue was commissioned by NZTA on an eight-month contract as a specialist TDM advisor to the TDM Programme business case team.

Fiona Thomas is a Transport and Research Analyst with MRCagney. She comes from a health geography background and worked in medical journalism before moving to transport. Some of her previous research has looked at the effect of distance on ED attendance behaviour. She is interested in the intersection of health and the built environment, including transport systems. In 2019, Fiona lead a research report produced for NZTA looking at international TDM strategies.

Francisca Simone is a Senior Transport Planner in the Developing Regions Portfolio at the NZ Transport Agency. Francisca has been with the NZ Transport Agency for four years based in the Hamilton Office. Her focus is on leading the development of business cases across the country.

Anna Sanson is a Senior Transport Planner in the Developing Regions Portfolio at the NZ Transport Agency. Anna is from the Palmerston North office and her focus is on regionally based projects. Anna comes from a planning background and works on projects considering all modes, accessibility, safety and resilience.

Sarah has recently been seconded into the position of Deputy Programme Director, NZ Upgrade Programme at the Waka Kotahi NZ Transport Agency. As part of this role she will be leading the development of the strategic planning for the Programme Management Office to ensure the successful delivery of the programme. Sarah’s substantive role is as a System Design Portfolio Manager within the Transport Services Group. In that role she led the design phase for projects such as the replacement route for Manawatu Gorge, as well as having accountability for the delivery of walking and cycling activities across New Zealand.