Case studies : Travel plan coordinator: James Cecil

James Cecil graduated with a geography degree from the University of Hertfordshire in 2010. He now works as a travel plan coordinator for the university.

In my third year I secured a one-year placement as an assistant environmental and travel plan coordinator within the Environmental Department at the University of Hertfordshire. During this placement I worked on Local Strategic Partnership (LSP) projects. This learning experience inspired me when selecting my dissertation subject in my final year: ‘Public attitude in St Albans to public transport and how this affects usage of buses and trains’ for which I was awarded a 2:1. My employer was so satisfied with my placement performance that I was offered part-time work in the same department throughout my final year of study as an eco-representative within the university.

After graduation I was approached by the newly created Centre for Sustainable Communities with an offer of employment as travel coordinator and I have been working there for the past two months. During the first three weeks of employment, I was responsible for creating and distributing a questionnaire among business leaders who had created their own companies to check their ‘green’ credentials, e.g. how willing were staff to change travel behaviour in transport, etc.This was part of the Business SMILES project that aims to provide 160 small and medium-sized businesses with personalised travel planning. This project is linked with not only promoting existing sustainable travel methods, but with improving the current methods as well, e.g. mobile ticketing.

In my role, I have to liaise on a daily basis with council representatives in the transport field and also with other external organisations. I also have to attend relevant training such as ‘Training on how to develop travel plans for businesses’ hosted by Suffolk and Hertfordshire County Council. I only occasionally need to use my Geographic Information Systems (GIS) knowledge from my course, but I certainly have made full use of my learning from my dissertation topic. My everyday work is varied with new projects and ideas always emerging. Although I am physically located in an office, I spend a good part of my working hours in internal and external meetings.

The travel planning sector is a growing sector due to carbon emission/pollution increase and the demand for carbon credits for businesses. Therefore, this field can provide good career prospects for graduates as well as great personal satisfaction.

My advice to students is that they should complete a work placement during their degree, even if the role is not exactly what they were hoping for. Although I studied physical geography, I completed my placement in human geography (which I really enjoyed) and then chose a human geography topic for my dissertation.

For students who are interested in transport planning, I suggest that they make contacts in the field and get general knowledge from relevant organisations. The University of Hertfordshire Environmental Team provides travel statistics on staff and students’ commuting patterns every year and also has links to other useful websites.