TRICS® News
Issue 44 - September 2012

2012 TRICS® Conference - Bookings Now Being Taken



Bookings are now being taken for the 24th annual TRICS® Transport & Development Conference (in association with the CIHT), which this year takes place in London on Tuesday 13th November. This year's event, which has the title "New Policies, New Challenges, New Approaches", will take place at the Institute of Contemporary Arts on The Mall, using the venue's impressive and comfortable cinema and its function rooms overlooking some of London's historic landmarks. It is an ideal place to hold the 24th TRICS® Conference.

The full programme is now available at www.trics.org/conference12, and as you will see we have put together a collection of contemporary transport and development related topics across four sessions through the day, with there also being an optional interactive lunchtime session taking place. Subjects to be covered this year include The National Planning Policy Framework, assessing the impact of construction traffic, rural Transport Assessments, data collection technology, the Dublin Bikes Scheme, Enterprise Partnerships, and a paper on the current and future role of Travel Plans.

We are pleased to confirm that prices have been frozen at 2011 levels, and that bookings are already coming in from both the public and private sectors. As well as an informative set of papers, the TRICS® Conference is also an ideal opportunity to network with other members of the TRICS® Community, with there being plenty of opportunity throughout the day for discussion. We are also pleased to confirm that this year's event is being run in association with the Chartered Institute of Highways and Transportation, with the event contributing for CPD hours.

As well as the main event, there is also the opportunity to attend the pre-Conference meal that is taking place in London on the evening of Monday 12th November. Booking forms for the event and the meal can be found at www.trics.org/conference12. You can submit a booking on-line, or you can just contact one of the TRICS® team at JMP and we'll take your details. As always, bookings are available on a first come first served basis. We look forward to welcoming you to what is always a popular event in the Planning and Development Management calendar.

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TRICS® 2012(b)v6.10.2 is Released

The latest update of TRICS® goes live on Thursday 27th September 2012, and contains over 60 new surveys across various land uses and regions. As usual with our quarterly updates, all member organisations will be able to log in with their current usernames and passwords to access the new version, with it also being made available as a download.

In addition to the new data being added to the system, there has also been a system enhancement relating to food superstore sites with and without petrol filling stations. This update now shows individual food superstores as having three possible states for the presence of a petrol filling station, which are as follows.

  • PFS is present at the site and is included in the survey
  • PFS is present at the site but is excluded from the survey
  • There is no PFS at the site

This change provides clarification to users in that it replaces the previous two possible states for this data field that sometimes could be confusing. Users should note that if the first option is displayed then it means that trips solely to the petrol filling station would also be included in the survey, in addition to trips solely to the superstore and trips that included both. This change is also reflected in the trip rate calculation filtering process, where users can now select one or more of the options. Note that this change has only been implemented for the food superstore land use sub-category.

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First of Two Greater London Datasets Added to the Database

The September update of TRICS® includes 19 new surveys undertaken in Greater London, with a second batch also taking place this autumn. Every year we make sure that there is a good coverage of TRICS® surveys in the capital, covering a wide variety of land use categories. TRICS® remains committed to regularly undertaking surveys in London, as it does to all of its 17 regions across the UK and Ireland.

For the September release we made a point of undertaking surveys at an "Academy" (Primary School) and a "Free School" (Secondary School), as these were development types that were highlighted as those of interest. We would of course welcome any feedback you may have on potential land uses for future surveys in the capital, and indeed any particular sites that you may have in mind across any of the London Boroughs.

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Data Collection Programme for 2013 - Work Underway

Following much-valued feedback from members of the TRICS® Community via the annual TRICS® User Survey (and many thanks for the impressive response rate that we received from our users), we have recently been working on our data collection proposal for 2013, and we are pleased to confirm that this has now been approved by the TRICS® Consortium.

Next year we shall see an increase in the number of surveys (the majority of them multi-modal) taking place across all 17 of our TRICS® regions covering the UK and Ireland. In total, 251 surveys will be undertaken during the Spring 2013 and Autumn 2013 survey windows, an increase from 240 in 2012. Our current plan is to steadily increase the number of surveys being undertaken, as we recognise through your feedback that the continuous supply of survey data into the database is of utmost importance. The TRICS® Consortium remain fully committed to replenishing the database, which is about to climb over the 7,000 survey day mark.

The first site visits for the 2013 data collection programme have already commenced, to ensure that we get a good coverage of surveys in both the Spring and Autumn windows. These site visits, the production of survey specifications, the gathering of survey permissions and the regional tendering process, are a continuous process for the TRICS® team, with our aim to always deliver a comprehensive and robust survey programme for our users year on year. The input from the TRICS® Community via our User Survey is always greatly appreciated, and does have a direct influence on our annual data collection programmes.

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TRICS® to Support Windows 8 and Internet Explorer 10

We are aware that Windows 8 and Internet Explorer 10 will soon be made available, and we can announce that the December 2012 release of TRICS® 2013(a)v6.11.1 will officially support both of these upgrades. Users should be aware that the September release of TRICS® 2012(b)v6.10.2 will not support Windows 8 or Internet Explorer 10, although some users may find that TRICS® appears to work in these environments.

In the event that any users are forced to use Windows 8 with Internet Explorer 10, or are forced to use IE10 with Windows 7, then it is recommended that Chrome or Firefox browsers are used with TRICS® until December. All users that do not intend to upgrade to Windows 8/IE10 prior to the December release of TRICS® will face no potential usage issues.

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TRICS® Multi-Modal Methodology Document 2012 Now Available

The TRICS® Multi-Modal Methodology Document is updated each year, and provides guidance on the methods used to undertake multi-modal site visits and produce our subsequent multi-modal survey specifications. It provides, in good detail, the steps undertaken in the initial part of our data collection process, and forms the basis of a good understanding of how we go about examining potential survey sites and working out just how each one is to be surveyed.

Members of the TRICS® Community find that the document is a handy reference if they are considering undertaking TRICS®-compliant surveys themselves. The 2012 version of the document is to be made available in the Library module of TRICS® 2012(b)v6.10.2.

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Get your FREE TRICS® SMS text updates

A SMS text updates 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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DIRECTORY
Hampshire County Council

Kevin Travers
Consortium Chair
T: 01962 846856
E: kevin.travers@hampshire.gov.uk

JMP Consultants Ltd
Lynn Basford
TRICS® Director
T: 020 3714 4358
E: lynn.basford@jmp.co.uk

Ian Coles
TRICS® Project Manager
T: 020 3714 4381
E: ian.coles@jmp.co.uk

Siddika Begum
TRICS® Co-Ordinator
T: 020 3714 4383
E: siddika.begum@jmp.co.uk

Owen Edwards
TRICS® Co-Ordinator
T: 020 3714 4384
E: owen.edwards@jmp.co.uk

Helpdesk
To log a TRICS® Helpdesk request, please select “Help” when using TRICS® followed by “Helpdesk”.