Coventry is a city making ground-breaking strides in transport innovation. Drawing on decades of expertise in automotive manufacturing, strong academic institutions and innovative businesses, the city is becoming a testbed for some of the UK’s most forward-thinking transport projects.
At TRANSPORT Smart Class, Midlands 2022, two such projects, Urban Airport and Coventry Very Light Rail, were the subject of the keynote presentation given by Coventry City Council’s Transport Innovation Manager, Sunil Budhdeo, and Senior Rail Programme Manager, Nicola Small.
The Council is working with Urban-Air Port Ltd to demonstrate the world’s first Urban Airport at a strategic location in Coventry: Air One. Rapidly deployed and with a small footprint, Sunil explained how Air One could be used in cities throughout the UK to provide environmentally friendly drone operations with authorisation from civil aviation authorities.
Coventry Very Light Rail is yet another world first that is seeking to drive down the costs of urban light rail through the development of a new, battery powered vehicle and a breakthrough track form that takes advantage of the latest materials science. Nicola believes the system could make urban light rail a real possibility in smaller and medium-sized cities throughout the UK.
If you meet our regular delegate qualification criteria but were unable to join us at Nottingham Council House for the live in-person event on February 24th, CLICK HERE and complete the short “Download form” (located at the bottom of the post) to receive a unique link enabling free access to the presentation video recordings and slides (including the film footage and slides from Sunil and Nicola’s two part keynote).
Those qualifying to receive the rich content from these presentations include commissioning, procurement, trialling and partnering leads, senior influencers, strategic decision makers and planners from: local authorities (e.g. city, borough, metropolitan, district and county councils); public and private transport operators; regional transport partnerships, sub-regional transport bodies, combined authorities, integrated transport authorities and passenger transport executives; highways authorities and road operators; government and supporting national transport agencies; fleet operators, vehicle manufacturers, parking operators, prime contractors etc.
