Bookings for 2011 TRICS® Conference now being taken

The TRICS® team are pleased to announce that bookings are now being taken for the 2011 TRICS® Transport & Development Conference, which is to take place in London's Mayfair on Tuesday 8th November. We are also pleased to confirm that prices this year are unchanged from the 2010 event, being heavily reduced from previous years.

As with the 2010 conference, we are also pleased to announce that this year's event is being held in association with the Chartered Institute of Highways and Transportation, with the conference contributing towards CPD hours. Our association with the CIHT in 2010 was very successful, and we look forward to working with this highly regarded organisation once again.

This year we have an excellent venue lined up, the Royal Aeronautical Society, a listed building with a state of the art theatre, next to Hyde Park. We also have an excellent line-up of papers, with the theme of this year's event being "Transport, Localism and the Big Society". The conference is to consist of three separate sessions. The first is entitled "Localism Bill - Implications for Transport", and will ask the question "where does Transport Planning make its mark?". There will also be a developer's view on the Localism Bill. The second session is called "Neighbourhood Plans, Big Society, and who can plan Transport?". In this session we'll be looking at Neighbourhood Plans and Community Development, including understanding transport needs, how business can be involved in Neighbourhood Plans, and the resolution of conflicts. Session Three is called "Planning for Transport", and topics include Manual for Streets one year on, the Local Sustainable Transport Fund, and reducing the impact of business travel.

As you can see, we'll have a busy day, but this year's event is also being organised to maximise the potential for networking amongst the members of the TRICS® Community. We are used to a good number of both private and public sector delegates attending, and the conference is always a good place to share ideas and get to know colleagues within the industry. There will be opportunities to chat during tea and coffee breaks, and this year we shall have an extended lunch period, during which there will be an optional quiz using Qwizdom technology for anyone who would like to take part.

This year's TRICS® Conference promises to be another successful event, and will be preceeded by an optional evening meal the night before the conference at a London restaurant. Anyone interested in attending this can indicate accordingly on their booking form. Bookings can be made via the TRICS® website at www.trics.org/conference11/leaflet_2011_distributed.pdf, by completing a booking form, or by contacting any member of the TRICS® team at JMP Consultants Limited.

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TRICS® database grows in London

Every year, TRICS® surveys cover all regions of the UK and Ireland, and at the time of writing this newsletter progress is underway on planning our 2011 surveys in Greater London.

Since 2006, TRICS® has seen its database of transport surveys in the capital almost double, with there now being over 350 London surveys available across a wide variety of land use categories, all of which are subject to the most robust and reliable methodology of any database, both in terms of the production of survey specifications and a comprehensive data validation system.

Our system of directly commissioning surveys through funding obtained by TRICS® licence fees means that we have great flexibility in putting together annual data collection "packages" across all of our regions, with Greater London being one of the regions where a higher number of surveys is concentrated. TRICS® is committed to further expansion of surveys across all areas of the capital, covering sites such as schools, hospitals, residential developments, offices and industrial developments, hotels, leisure facilities, and many others. There are 110 land use categories within the TRICS® database, so it is important that we cover as many of these as possible during our annual data collection programmes. This autumn we will be looking to survey around 20 developments in the capital.

The TRICS® team are always happy to listen to the TRICS® Community's own ideas for potential survey sites in London (as well as all other regions), so if you have any of these in mind please feel free to contact a member of the TRICS® team.

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2011 TRICS® Good Practice Guide available to all

When TRICS® version 2011(b)v6.8.1 was issued at the end of June, it included within its Library module the recently updated 2011 TRICS® Good Practice Guide. This document is now freely available to all organisations, and can in fact be accessed directly from the TRICS® website at www.trics.org.

The Good Practice Guide is considered to be essential reading for both users of TRICS® and recipients of data produced by the system. It was first introduced in 2005, and has been updated annually ever since. Over 22 years of continuous data collection, TRICS® has become a vast database of information, and the system's flexibility and selection process has grown accordingly. The TRICS® Consortium encourages the use of TRICS® in line with our Good Practice Guide, as robustness of data is considered of utmost importance. Copies of the 2011 guidance can be obtained either directly from within the TRICS® Library module or as a PDF document upon request. It should be noted that the guidance is often quoted at Planning Inquiries, so the industry has become used to this document, and there is evidence that it is being used in a growing number of cases.

We also encourage users to give us their feedback on the use of TRICS® so that we can update future editions of the guidance accordingly, so if you have any ideas relating to this please get in touch - we're always keen to listen to your thoughts on good practice in trip generation analysis.

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2012 system development and data collection programmes being planned

The TRICS® team is pleased to announce that we have had a good response to the 2011 TRICS® User Survey, and that analysis of the TRICS® Community's responses is now underway prior to next year's system development and data collection programmes being developed. It was good to hear from so many TRICS® users about what they would like to see in future versions of the system, so thank you for taking part in this important annual survey.

Each year, we take the responses of the User Survey and analyse them in detail, finding out what users of the system have to say about its existing features and what they would like to see introduced in the future. The responses are varied and full of good ideas, which are then summarised and shortlisted for possible development. By this autumn we will have a good idea of what is going to constitute our system development programme through the remainder of 2011/12, with new system features and enhancements being added in the December 2011 and June 2012 update of TRICS®.

The User Survey is also handy in assessing user needs in terms of land uses where they would like to see more survey data collected. By analysing the responses of many users, we can build up a pattern of where the areas for data are most needed, and undertake an assessment alongside this of what we consider are the needs of the database over the next few years. This dual-approach analysis allows us to produce our annual data collection programme, and work then commences on the first site visits and survey specifications in the autumn, ready for two windows of surveys in the spring and autumn of the following year. So by around October/November time work will be underway for the 2012 programme, and we'll update you on this in future editions of this newsletter.

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Bristol hosts another successful TRICS® User Meeting

The 2011 TRICS® User Meeting was held in June in Bristol, and was once again a well-attended successful event. Continuing our practice of moving the event around the country, we chose @t Bristol for this year's meeting, an innovative scientific educational development in the city centre.

TRICS® users from around the UK attended, as is the norm for these events, and a series of presentations were given on TRICS®-related topics. There were talks on system development, good practice in the use of TRICS® (introducing the 2005 Good Practice Guide), how TRICS® may be used as policy changes, a data collection company's perspective on collecting TRICS® data, the Standardised Assessment Methodology (SAM) for monitoring the effect of Travel Plans, and an update on the 2011 TRICS® data collection programme. As usual, attendees were invited to ask questions and present their own ideas, and following the presentations there was the choice of attending an interactive "open forum" session or a TRICS® system demonstration.

As usual, there was also plenty of opportunity to network with other members of the TRICS® Community over tea & coffee and a buffet lunch, and the whole day was productive whilst at the same time friendly and informal. It won't be long before we are planning for the 2012 User Meeting at a different regional location - we'll let you know once we have found a venue for next year's event.

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Get your FREE TRICS® SMS text updates

A new service is now available free of charge to all members of the TRICS® Community. The latest news and alerts can now be sent via SMS text message to your mobile phone, and recipients of messages do not pay a penny!

Whether it's an update on the TRICS® Conference, User Meetings, system updates or the data collection programme, sign up to our new service and we will keep you up-to-date on developments as and when they happen. All you need to do is contact any member of the TRICS® Development Team with your name and mobile phone number, and we'll set up your free alerts account. It's quick and easy, and you don't need to fill out any forms or complete a registration process - just give us your number. Of course, TRICS® will not give your number out to any third party under any circumstances, and you can cancel your free subscription at any time.

The TRICS® Consortium is keen to provide the latest news and updates in a quick and easy manner, and the TRICS® SMS service is the latest method of keeping in touch with the TRICS® Community - so why not get in touch and give it a go?

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TRICS® Training Sessions available

TRICS® training sessions are available to all users. These sessions consist of a full system demonstration plus an interactive workshop session, which allows attendees to fully test the system. These sessions continue to receive good feedback and have been popular with our members at universities, councils and consultancies.

For information on training sessions, please contact Ian Coles.

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Quarterly payment option available

We are pleased to confirm the continued availability of a quarterly payment option for all of our members. We understand that cash-flow can be an issue in the current economic conditions, and this option allows user organisations to spread the cost of their annual licences across four quarterly payments, rather than having to pay for their licence in one go. For those wishing to take up this offer, four invoices will be forwarded instead of one, at three-monthly intervals. This does not affect user expiry dates in any way, and all you need to do to set up this option is contact a member of the TRICS® team when your licence is due for renewal.

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Free 1 month trial of TRICS® available

A free 1-month trial of the latest full version of TRICS® is available to all organisations upon request. Throughout the free trial period full technical support is available at no cost, and there is no obligation once the period has expired.

Many organisations have already found this trial useful. Anyone interested in the free trial should contact the TRICS® team.

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