Professor Tony May

 

Professor May has over 40 years' experience in transport planning and traffic engineering. He has been a professor at Leeds since 1977, and has served as Director of the Institute for Transport Studies, Head of the Department of Civil Engineering, Dean of the Faculty of Engineering and Pro-Vice Chancellor for Research. Between 1985 and 2001 he maintained a link between research and teaching at Leeds and practical experience in consultancy with MVA Ltd for which he was Director of Transport Policy. Prior to 1977 he spent ten years with the Greater London Council, where he was responsible for policy on highways, traffic management and transport-related land use planning for the capital, and managed major studies on traffic restraint, parking policy and motorway traffic control. He was elected to a fellowship of the Royal Academy of Engineering in 1995, and awarded the OBE (Officer of the British Empire) for services to transport engineering in 2004.  He was elected President of the World Conference on Transport Research Society in 2007.

Professor May’s principal research focus is on urban transport policy.  While at Leeds he has been awarded over 80 research grants and contracts by the Engineering and Physical Sciences and Economic and Social Science Research Councils, the UK Department for Transport, the European Community, the Rees Jeffreys Road Fund, and several local authorities. Amongst these have been studies of the transport problems of inner city firms, techniques for monitoring travel, development of dynamic route guidance, the management of congestion at signalised junctions, the most appropriate structure for the organisation of transport functions in the UK conurbations, the design and assessment of road pricing strategies, the development of trip planning systems and awareness campaigns, the combined performance of transport and land use strategies, the impact of integrated transport strategies and their contribution to environmental policy, the development of guidance on sustainable urban transport and land use policy and decision support for sustainable urban transport strategies.

Professor May has been a specialist adviser to the UK House of Commons Transport Committee and the House of Lords Select Committee on Science and Technology, and a consultant to OECD, ECMT, the World Bank, the US Transportation Research Board, the Singapore Land Transport Authority, the New Zealand Ministry of Transport and the Thailand Commission for the Management of Land Transport.