A return to analytical transport planning

Networking & interactive debate

17-18 June 2026

"In 2026 Modelling World will be in Leeds, home of my alma mater. The event will look back at what have we learnt over the years – since the publication of the key Analytical Transport Planning book in 1971– and also forward, to assess whether emerging tools and approaches will help or hinder transport modelling and analysis in our uncertain times.

As modellers, what we really do is analytical transport planning: using our skills and experience to understand current and future transport systems – deserving a role in the boardroom rather than the backroom.

For 2026 there is a new location, the beautifully restored Leeds Met Hotel, more interactive sessions and workshops, and the old-hat formal dinner replaced by the Modelling World Social, with informal drinks and lot of canapes (as Harry Enfield said: “Don’t talk to me about sophistication, I’ve been to Leeds!").

I am excited, and I hope you are too."

Tom van Vuren

Chair, Modelling World

What's happening?

Programme

Conference

Organised by experts in the sector with extensive and up-to-date knowledge of current and emerging issues

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Networking Reception

Great to network and catch-up in an informal and social environment

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Exhibition

Software suppliers, expert consultants, related equipment suppliers & industry-shaping organisations

Simpler when sufficient, more complex only when inevitable...

The 2026 Annual Conference & Exhibition for data and modelling

We haven’t been modelling transport for a very long time; I put its origins in the 1960s (others perhaps a bit earlier). Sixty years later, we can look back with some pride in how the profession and its tools have established a way of working and a code of practice, that is solid, but rarely understood or valued by our end users.

Too rigid? Too expensive? Too slow? Outdated tools? The wrong answers?

Looking forward, where many see opportunity, others see threats. With evolving tools such as activity-based models becoming even more expensive to use, and AI, rather than supporting modelling, perhaps replacing robust forecasting techniques and overwhelming us with data.

Language matters. A reset to viewing our role as analytical transport planners, and being viewed as such, comes with responsibilities. That means suggesting, developing and using a wider range of methods and approaches, not just the strategic transport models we feel comfortable with, not using the guidance to hide behind, and not just relying on commercial software packages that limit our simulations to their capabilities.

It means being not only a modeller, but also a planner with expertise outside just operational roles. Relying on data analyses when more formal modelling is unwarranted. Simpler when it is sufficient, more complex only when it is inevitable.