Stephen Joseph was executive director of Campaign for Better Transport from 1988 until earlier this year. His wide-ranging expertise and contacts have helped to make the organisation the country’s leading transport NGO.
The last 20-plus years have had many highlights for Stephen, including persuading the Treasury to cut the road-building programme in the 1990s, campaigning for increased rail investment and new/ reopened lines and stations, and highlighting the importance of buses and the impact of cuts in bus services.
Stephen was a member of the Commission for Integrated Transport from 1999-2005, having been one of the panel of external advisers on the Transport White Paper 1997-8, and was a member of the Standing Advisory Committee on Trunk Road Assessment (SACTRA) during its inquiry on transport and the economy. He was also on the steering group for the Government’s road user charging feasibility study 2003-4. More recently he has been a member of challenge panels or advisory groups for Government plans on high-speed rail, eco-towns, transport appraisal and the Local Sustainable Transport Fund.
He was awarded the OBE (Order of the British Empire) in 1996 for services to transport and the environment, and received an honorary doctorate from the University of Hertfordshire in November 2010.
Presentation: Better mobility for older people (working title)
The next generation of older people will have grown up with car ownership and driving – and will be much harder to move away from cars even if their health dictates it. We need to create a transport system that works for older people – those in cars, those walking or in mobility vehicles, and those reliant on public transport.
This will require different transport priorities – more on repairing/gritting pavements rather than just the roads, more crossings and crossing time, more local facilities and less car-based sprawl, and a usable shared transport system that reflects wider social benefits such as reduced isolation.