WHY ATTEND?

Managing parking and traffic is an essential public service supporting the local communities and economies. Traffic and parking teams managing town center's and destinations for the benefits of residents, visitors and businesses.

They are working to: ensure the free flow of traffic and public transport; provide safe routes for pedestrians, cyclists, children and people with disabilities; and make space for delivery vehicles, electric vehicles and new mobility services.

Besides being a public service, parking is in itself a business, generating valuable revenue for local authorities and a range of private sector providers. This means parking operations are continually working to harness data, deploy new technologies and provide a seamless and secure service to drivers.

The parking sector is:

Finding fresh ways of offering a better service to residents, businesses and society at large
Developing new approaches to offering cashless payment such as the National Parking Platform (NPP)
Using Digital Traffic Management Orders to modernise the management of roadspace and the kerbside
Protecting the integrity of the Blue Badge scheme
Ensuring front line staff are protected and able to carry out their roles.

Traffic + Parking 2025 provides a space where local authorities and their partners can share best practice, learn about policy changes and check out innovations in systems and services that will help them deliver an excellent service.

Why attend

TALKING POINTS

Traffic + Parking 2025 will discuss themes such as...

Civil parking enforcement
Moving traffic regulation
Clean air schemes
Parking payment services
Kerbside management
Traffic Regulation Orders, signs, lines and street mapping
Appeals and representations
Debt recovery
Artificial Intelligence (AI)
Public consultation and community engagement

Residential and permit parking
Blue Badges and accessibility
School Streets
Pavement parking
Customer service
Event management
Training and skills development
Electric vehicle charging infrastructure
Cycle, e-bike and e-scooter parking
Mobility hubs and parklets

WHO YOU WILL MEET

The Traffic + Parking event attracts senior parking and traffic managers, transport planners and urban professionals, including:

Local authority officers
Councillors and stakeholders
Parking operators and contractors
System and service suppliers
Technologists
EV charging specialists
Shared mobility and car club providers
Academics and researchers
Parking and traffic adjudicators
Consultants
PR experts
Campaigners and charities

Who you will meet

PROGRAMME

The conference programme is under development. If you would like to suggest ideas or participate please contact:
Gavin Manger

Programme

09.15 REGISTRATION

Tea & coffee served in the exhibition area

09.45 PENDULUM ROOM

Parking: An essential service

Traffic and parking teams managing town centres and destinations for the benefits of residents, visitors and businesses provide an essential public service...

Welcome

Gavin Manger, Strategic Engagement Manager, Landor LINKS

Session chair

Ollie Miller, Director (Liveable Places), WSP

Keynote: Why parking matters

Parking and traffic management is an essential public service supporting the local communities and economies.

Tina Glover, Director, WSP

Keeping Manchester moving

Manchester is Traffic + Parking's home town. This year the teams that manage its car parks and kerbside will share their experiences of devising and delivering policies that keep this vibrant city moving.

Patricia Wilkinson, Group Manager, Manchester City Council & Pedr Davies, Senior Service Delivery Manager, NSL Manchester

Future mobility

This presentation will explore how future mobility solutions are being planned and delivered through a real-world case study. It will highlight innovative approaches to integrating new technologies, managing demand and creating more sustainable, accessible transport systems.

Antonia De Winter, Technical Director Future Mobility, WSP

Panel Discussion and Q&A

11.00 MORNING BREAK

Tea & coffee served in the exhibition area

11.30 PENDULUM ROOM

Technology Showcase

Innovations shaping the future of Traffic + Parking

Explore the latest technology trends set to transform parking and traffic management. This showcase brings together a series of presentations highlighting practical systems and services that could enhance your operations, including: Payment technology; permits; CCTV and ANPR; back office systems; and Digital Traffic Regulation Orders.

Session chair

Peter Lowe, Managing Director, RTA Associates

Presentations by leading technology providers including:

Ghost Plates: You don’t know what you’re missing

Andy Fretcher, Business Development Manager, Neology

Data enhanced ecosystems

Sally Wheeler, Head of Account Management, Arrive

Real world benefits of camera enforcement for making communities safer and healthier

Steve Dale, Intelliscape

Collaborative technology partnerships: Case studies on how the right partnerships deliver

Hannah Fuller, Director of Commercial Strategy and Partnerships, Unity5

Showcase presentations will be drawn from the accompanying Traffic + Parking exhibition.

Panel discussion and Q&A

COTTON THEATRE

Places and spaces for all

Traffic and parking teams are working to design and manage acccessible, legible and safe streets, town centres and parking facilities.

Session chair

John Dales, Co-founder and Director, Urban Movement

Gender inclusive design

How inclusive parking strategies can make urban spaces more accessible and efficient for everyone. From innovative design and technology to policy approaches, we’ll examine how parking can support diverse communities, improve mobility, and create a better experience for all road users.

Susan Leadbetter, Associate, WSP

Creating fairer and safer streets

PATROL supports initiatives that seek to make streets safer for the public and patrol officers. The PATROL Driving Improvement awards champions campaigns that seek to reduce violence against parking patrol officers (Beyond the Uniform) and raise awareness about abuse of the Blue Badge scheme.

Sarah Baxter, Democratic Services and Policy Manager, Parking and Traffic Regulation Outside London (PATROL)

Protecting the Blue Badge scheme

The Blue Badge scheme ensures that people with mobility issues and other disabilities can access servcies and destinations in a fair and equitable manner. This presentation will discuss; detecting and deterring abuse of Blue Badges; how the parking sector can work together; how the Blue Badge scheme can be improved.

Richard Boultbee, Parking Consultant, National Blue Badge

Visualising better streets

BetaStreets is a purpose-built software design platform, made to change the way people design streets and places. See how BetaStreets can be combines photos of real street scenes with assets from a library of things to create a vision of the future in minutes.

Jon Little, co-founder, BetaStreets

Panel discussion and Q&A

13.00 LUNCH BREAK

Refreshments served in the exhibition area

14.00 PENDULUM ROOM

The digital parking revolution

Digital technology has the potential to transform how public authorities and commercial operators plan and manage parking, and how they interact with the public when providing this vital service

Session chair

Gavin Manger, Strategic Engagement Manager, Landor LINKS

Digital Traffic Regulation Order (D-TROs): The transition to Public Beta and beyond

The Department for Transport will discuss the move towards Digital TROs, highlighting progress to date, the transition of the service into Public Beta, and what this means for local authorities and the wider sector. The presentation will also explore challenges for D-TRO and opportunities for improvement.

Gareth Tilley, D-TRO Stakeholder Engagement Manager, and John Cooper, Senior Engineer (Digital Projects), Department for Transport

The Business Case for D-TROs: Cost, benefit and funding options

The transition to D-TROs has significant opportunities for local authorities – a single source of truth, easily accessible by the public, on-street enforcement and officers has potential to improve compliance, reduce the likelihood of appeals and provide significant resource efficiencies for local authorities.

With further funding unlikely to be made available to support local D-TRO, this session will explore how local authorities can tap into funding opportunities, make a strong value-for-money case and deliver a cost-effective and efficient transition to D-TRO, which supports wider local authority services.

Olaseni Koya, Technical Director, Project Centre

National Parking Platform: The next steps

The National Parking Platform is a sector-backed service whose development has been tracked by Traffic + Parking since its launch. Manchester played a key role in trialling the service, which will enable drivers to use the app of their choice when paying for parking. This presentation and discussion will bring delegates up to speed on the new NPP Consortium's plans for rolling the platform out nationally over the coming months.

Sarah Randall, Chief Executive, NPP Consortium

Traff-iCase: A digital case library

As part of its mission to make justice accessible and more understandable, the independent adjudicator for traffic appeals in England (outside London) and Wales, the Traffic Penalty Tribunal, has developed a website that provides access to key parking, moving traffic and clean air cases. Curated for their common facts, issues and points of law, these cases provide a reference for motorists who may have received similar penalty charges, local authorities or other interested parties, such as the media.

Caroline Hamilton, Chief Adjudicator, Traffic Penalty Tribunal

Panel discussion and Q&A including all speakers and Peter Lowe, Managing Director, RTA Associates

15:15

AFTERNOON BREAK

Refreshments served in the exhibition area

15.30 PENDULUM ROOM

Looking after our people

The safety and wellbeing of people working in the traffic and parking sector is the focus of the closing session

Opening presentation and session chair:

Mike Marrs, Chief Executive, APN Group

The parking sector is a great place to work. It is full of committed people who are passionate about their teams, businesses and the communities they serve. The session will explore issues such as:

Recruitment
Skills development
Creating a safe environment
Wellbeing at work.

Life on the streets

A personal reflection on the risks and challenges of working on the front line.

Mike Marrs, Chief Executive, APN Group and President, British Parking Association

A call to action: The right to safety, dignity and respect in the workplace

Protecting frontline staff is an issue that is not just a professional concern, but a fundamental matter of safety, dignity and respect. We cannot, and should not, allow a culture where enforcement officers are seen as easy targets for frustration and aggression. Frontline staff need better training, police assistance and legal support. And the public needs to understand that enforcement officers serve the community.

Alexandra Hobbs, Parking Manager, South Tyneside Council

Defending the frontline

Debt recovery agents face verbal hostility and physical abuse on a daily basis. We need to work together to protect frontline professionals who are carrying out a task that ensures traffic and parking penalties are paid, providing revenues that support public services.

Gary Carr, Director, Empira

Looking after our people

Having spent more than a decade in parking, Paul Dawson believes it is one of the most exciting and transformational services to be involved in. Agena Group has launched a comprehensive wellbeing strategy built around empathy, support, and meaningful connection. Paul invites invites you to engage and learn more about transforming the experience of your team and customers

Paul Dawson, Group Chief Executive, Agena Group