The leading intelligent transport systems consultant Andy Graham has been awarded an MBE in the King’s New Year Honours List.

The principal of White Willow Consulting has been recognised for his “services to transport safety and efficiency”.

After gaining a first-class degree in Civil Engineering in 1986 from Southampton University, Andy has had a career leading traffic technology and management projects, particularly connected and in-vehicle technologies, and assessing and optimising their operational and business benefits for road operators, all types of road users and policy makers.

In this lengthy career, he has built up expertise covering Connected Mobility, traffic control and monitoring, data systems, and communications networks. His activities have encompassed both public and private sectors, notably with vehicle makers, highways authorities and road concessionaires. He has a long track record on successful in-vehicle services, notably the Connected Vehicle Data Strategy for DfT and leading the UK’s deployment plan that led to over six million connected sat navs being deployed, and appraisal and assessing traffic management options for many cities.

He worked with the Department for Transport during COVID to collect data on changes in traffic patterns, and led Traffic Technology Forum work piloting and demonstrating in-vehicle services using apps and existing communications. He continues to lead this DfT-funded work to raise awareness of innovative technologies in UK local authorities and has helped to deliver new services from Dundee via York to Bristol and beyond. He has launched innovative new projects such as creating the world’s oldest connected cars on the RAC London to Brighton veteran car run.

He has worked on projects as diverse as The National Parking Platform, HGV charging in Bulgaria, Digital Traffic Regulation Orders, tolling systems in Canada, Ireland and the UK, radio traffic data, in vehicle warnings of road conditions, vehicle recovery and EV charging.

He also co-founded VESOS, a company exploiting the untapped data that comes from the eCall system fitted to all UK cars and vans since 2018. This won the DfT Chief Scientist’s award for most innovative project in 2023 and the ITS UK Award for connected vehicles.

Andy is a Fellow of the Chartered Institution Highways and Transportation, and a Fellow of the Institution of Engineering and Technology. He was also founding Chair of the ITS-UK Connected Vehicles Group. He has also won the ITS UK Hills Rees Award for outstanding personal contribution.

He has been a Trustee of the Rees Jefferys Road Research Fund for five years, and is now Chair, and has contributed to many of their charitable objectives with his personal enthusiasm.  He is an active fundraiser and volunteer for Mission Motorsport, supports many charities in his home town of Redhill and for more than 15 years has been a governor and/or trustee of several schools. 

“This award is exciting not only for me, but for the whole industry because it shows that those who make decisions have seen the value of technology in making our roads safer and more efficient,” Andy Graham MBE told Highways News. 

“I would like to thank all the people I have worked with over my 40 years in transport and without their help in all the great projects I’ve worked on, I would never have won this award.  My next challenge is to help deliver the best-ever ITS World Congress in Birmingham in 2027.”

(Picture courtesy of Andy Graham MBE)