MSc Transport and Urban Planning

The MSc Transport and Urban Planning is a unique course that brings together two interconnected disciplines, breaking intellectual discourse and practice boundaries typically encountered in both academic and professional settings. It takes an integrated and cross-disciplinary approach to critically examine, understand and address the grand challenges cities and their transport systems face today and in the future. The programme is research-led and practice-oriented and designed to equip you with knowledge, skills, tools and techniques to make a significant contribution to tackling the global challenge of creating towns and cities with better and fairer accessibility and more equitable and sustainable mobility.

You will be exposed to the latest thinking and debates in sustainable place-making, sustainable transport and mobility and complex systems analysis, and build a solid foundation to effectively function as transport and planning practitioners in various international contexts, for public, private and third sector organisations. With the transdisciplinary view of transport and spatial planning, and the strong global perspective you will develop, you will be able to work in project teams dealing with complex urban systems interventions in different planning and socio-economic contexts, and at multiple scales (neighbourhood, city, regional and global). You will develop the ability to think critically and enact solutions to help create more sustainable, efficient, and liveable urban environments with equitable transport systems.

This course is aimed at candidates interested in interdisciplinary work. Prospective students may come from diverse backgrounds, including transport planning, engineering, urban planning, or geography. The programme is well-suited for graduates aiming to pursue careers in either the transport planning or urban planning sectors, both within the UK and internationally, and across public, private, or civil society organizations.

The course is taught by world-leading researchers, including but not limited to:

Ransford Antwi Acheampong (Dr.) : Future transport and mobility with a focus on Urban impacts of new and emerging transport technologies and associated mobility services; Transport integration (policy and technical dimensions); Transport service co-location and mobility hubs planning; Urban forms and transport systems interactions; Transport decarbonization and sustainability.

Nuno Pinto (Dr.) : Decision support in urban planning, Urban simulation, Integrated urban and transport planning, Quantitative methods in urban planning, Big data in urban planning, Urban planning and planning policies, Urban design.

Helen Zheng (Dr.) : Spatial planning; Geospatial data analytics; Social statistics; Machine Learning; Travel behaviour; Transport Decarbonization; Participatory methods.

As a student on this programme, you will experience the longstanding practice-oriented ethos of teaching and learning across all programmes in the Department of Planning, Property and Environmental Management (PPEM). The MSc is built on a sequential engagement with theories and concepts, methods and tools, and case studies that will converge towards an integrated, project-based approach to transport and spatial planning. The programme combines structured lectures, seminars, workshops and fieldtrips (daily and residential), and leverage online learning resources to offer as much flexibility as possible for students to self-direct their learning.