Andy Graham is one of the most recognisable figures in the UK ITS sector. He’s also one of the most widely respected. And well-liked. Putting aside his reputation as one of the most knowledgeable consultants in the space, that one person could be so popular and yet renowned for his unfeasibly high standards is a noteworthy achievement in itself.
A career that started at Wootton Jeffreys in 1986 before he moved to Faber Maunsell (before it became AECOM in 2000) led him, perhaps at first unknowingly, into a lifetime of telematics, intelligent transport systems, road user charging, regional control centres, RDS-TMC and microsimulation, where he would make his name as the UK’s no-nonsense, go-to consultant. His love of cars and motorsport permeates through his work, as does his sense of humour, generosity (financial and of spirit) and enthusiasm, unwavering after nearly 40 years in the industry and, of course, now 20 under the guise of White Willow Consulting.
As synonymous as the company is with connected vehicles, any mention of WWC in conversation is likely to immediately conjure an image of a bright yellow rubber duck. Andy explains why he chose the toy bird as the symbol of his business – returning from a trade show or expo with a White Willow duck is something of a rite of passage for anyone in the ITS sphere.
“When I started White Willow, I wanted to do something non-corporate, and back then the phrase ‘line up your ducks’ was trendy in corporate-land… and the rest is history. People ask about the name – Google it, it’s a cure for a hangover as well as having 3 Ws in it – how dot.com that was in 2005!”
As the sector has moved on, so has White Willow – connected vehicles and in particular data from them is the focus of much of his attention, in addition to being chair of the Rees Jeffreys Road Fund and a director of VESOS, the eCall consultancy and solutions company he formed with Andy Rooke, Danny Woolard and Alan Gentle in 2022.
“I’ve had a delightful 20 years with White Willow, doing over 250 different projects with many interesting people around the world from South Africa to Sofia to Scunthorpe,” says Andy. “I hope along the way I have helped to make transport a bit better through some new ideas. I am really pleased to still be working with many people I knew from before White Willow and always remember those who helped me along the way – particularly those who sadly are no longer with us.”
Testimonially speaking
One way of measuring your success (in life as well as in business) is in how your co-workers, former colleagues and employees view you. In an unforgiving world where finding things to be offended by seems to have become de riguer, Andy’s unique sense of humour has managed to transcend the decades and ride the waves of change. Far from walking on the proverbial egg shells, he’s made a career out of wholeheartedly treading on them and grinding them into the carpets of ‘corporate-land’ etiquette, as his friends and colleagues attest to below.
ERIC SAMPSON, CBE, ex-Department for Transport, former Chair of ITS UK, ERTICO Supervisory Board member
“For all my working years I’ve enjoyed friendship with three individuals with the ability ‘to see round corners’ and Andy is one of the trio. He’s the library catalogue: someone you phone when you’re stuck and can’t see a way forward because he has ideas. You ask if he has 5 minutes; you describe the problem. There’s a long silence and then he asks ‘Have you considered XX?’ or ‘Is YY possible?’ and you wonder how you could have missed it after giving your thanks that he didn’t.
“Congratulations Andy on the second decade; best wishes for the next three.”
RANA ILGAZ, Transport for London
“Andy was a key part in my early career, showing me the ropes to deliver excellent output and, most importantly, to connecting people to achieve strategic outcomes. Now, 25 years later, I still thrive on his initial leadership.”
STEVE GOODING, RAC
“If I had to pick one word to describe Andy it would be ‘generous’: generous with his time, generous with his knowledge – be that in helping technophobes like me understand some obscure aspect of signal control, working to encourage the development of young professionals, supporting charities like his beloved Mission Motorsport, and, of course, supporting his family. It would never cross my mind to pick ‘nerd’ because we should all have an encyclopaedic knowledge of the works of Gerry Anderson, shouldn’t we?”
PAUL HUTTON, co-founder, Highways News
“When I first started my own business in 2011, Andy put a lot of work my way to help me get going – and I’m not the only person he’s helped like that through the years. He is very generous.
“It’s always amused me that whenever anyone asks for advice on an expert they could have to help a bid, for example, if I mention Andy they generally say ‘yeah, he’s already taken by a competitor’. If you look at the major triumphs of ITS over the years that have made a difference to the way we move people and goods around, you’ll almost always find Andy had something to do with it.”
JENNIE MARTIN, MBE, Chair of the Board of Trustees, Bus Users UK and former General Secretary of ITS UK
“Andy has always been the voice of reason and solid technical understanding when it comes to ITS. My first experience of this was during the initial overexcitement and hype around cooperative vehicles/highways systems (acronyms too many to mention here as the concept evolved). He then for several years and quite bravely resisted the much greater overexcitement around automated vehicles with his catchphrase ‘connected and… [long pause]… automated vehicles’.
“We should thank Andy more than we do for speaking out consistently against the commercial and government groupthink which vastly overstated the ease and speed with which vehicle automation would become universal in the UK. We should at least acknowledge how right he turned out to be.”
JASON BARNES, ITS journalist and former colleague at FaberMaunsell
“Andy has a giant mind – an engineer who also understands the commercial side, which is a rare thing, someone who is also pragmatic – again rare. A far better writer than he ever gives himself credit for and a thoroughly nice and perpetually loyal guy.”
So that’s the first 20 years of White Willow Consulting done and dusted. There’s only one more question to ask: what of the next 20 years?
“I don’t know about 20,” he says with a frown. “But we have the ITS World Congress in 2027 in Birmingham and there’s my new role as chair of the Rees Jeffreys Road Fund, plus work away from transport and of course a certain 24-hour in France every year that will keep me busy.”
To celebrate two decades in business, Andy has had some special edition WWC ducks made which will appear at various events –does anyone have all five previous generations of ducks lined up?
Congratulations to Andy and White Willow.
(Pic 1: JCT; Pic 2: TTF)
