Keith Keen Industrial Liaison Coordinator at Kingston University presents new ITSS Masters course

Now we have the tools and some clearer strategy paths it’s a good time to get to grips with the task of really viewing transport as a continuous line from start to finish. While all the transport-related disciplines – engineering planning administration operations finance have their parts to play – there’s one specialism that has a pivotal role in bring the action together. However you see intelligent transport systems maybe from the technical side or from the strategy implementation side the advances in the technologies that now permit travellers to know where they are and what they will confront next are no longer a dream. Freight logistics can precisely move materials from source to sale locations in the desired quantities and at the right time. Plans and strategies exist to prepare to implement and to amend travel choices as local conditions change.

But does this happen? Not as much as it could do and surely will do before long. But why is this happening for just a few? Of course leading edge advances take time to penetrate the wider spectrum of the population and need all the bricks to be in place at affordable prices. We have the bricks navigation system hardware and the delivery systems that update the network status near to real time and these are available in-vehicle and outside the vehicle. So increasingly wherever you are you can know where you are. These tools continue to be made more useful but often we find that the one we use is limited in scope often only helping us on the road – in the vehicle and walking and less so cycling. When we would like to change networks it is not always feasible to revise the overall journey routing and mode as you go along. In some locations and with some Apps we are getting there.

Our desire to make a seamless journey is there – we all must have said to ourselves at some time “Had I known that I would have travelled differently!” – but are there the all-round specialists to fix it so that sometime in the future we will not need to ask the question? It seems not.  If the answer does lie in a better understanding of linked-up services and conveying that to network users then bringing forward new graduates who have learned how to deliver them is a must.

There is no doubt that existing Masters courses in transport provide many capable graduates. However new Masters courses among them the Intelligent Transport Systems & Services M.Sc. being established at Kingston University aim to focus student’s thinking on the linked-up transport essentials. At Kingston the School of Computing and Information Systems and the Business School have come together to build the new Masters course. Applications are open now for a January 2012 start. Students will cover a broad programme based around the information system infrastructures and techniques required by modern intelligent transport systems and services. Core modules will be shared by all participants to benefit from cross-disciplinary discussion. Optional modules and a dissertation project give the opportunity for deeper study. Plans are also in hand to offer elements of the Masters as stand-alone short courses. You can view the course structure here.

If all goes well perhaps we will see linked-up training increasingly becoming the norm in the years to come.

 

For more information please visit Kingston University ITSS Masters webpage or contact Keith Keen or Tim Ellis

Link to original Article

http://www.ertico.com/time-for-linked-up-training-in-its-kingston-university-london-has-a-new-masters-course/

Original Publication Date: Thu 06 Oct 2011