The keynote speakers at the popular JCT Traffic Signals Symposium in September have detailed their session where they’ll explain their concept delivering transport based on real human wants and needs.

Rory Sutherland and Pete Dyson will present the hour-long session at the event in Nottingham, basing their talk on their book Transport for Humans: Are We Nearly There Yet?

In it they’ll talk about how engineers plan transport systems but people use them.  They’ll explain how the ways in which engineering measures success, such as speed, journey time and efficiency, is often not the way that passengers experience a good trip.

“After all,” says leading behavioural science researcher Pete Dyson, “People are not cargo. We choose how and when to travel, influenced not only by speed and time but by habit, status, comfort, variety – and many other factors that engineering equations haven’t yet captured.”

The pair will discuss how, as we near the practical, physical limits of speed, capacity and punctuality, they believe the greatest hope for a brighter future lies in adapting transport to more human wants and needs.  In their talk they will bring to life concepts, examples and new ideas for designing transport for humans.

“The entire topic fascinates me, as someone who has worked in advertising for 32 years,” added Rory Sutherland, the vice chairman of advertising agency Ogilvy, Spectator magazine columnist and Radio 4 presenter. “In particular the extent to which signage and wayfinding affects us to such a huge extent without our noticing it – something which equally applies when it is done well and when it is done badly!”

The 28th JCT Traffic Signals Symposium takes place on Thursday 14 and Friday 15 September at Nottingham Trent University, with the MOVA User Group and welcome barbecue the day before.

To book a place and find out more about the event, click here.

(Picture – Pete Dyson’s twitter)