Discussion on Paper 4

Dr D. A. Quarmby, London Transport Executive

As a one time academic, I moved, having done transport research, into the Ministry of Transport and then into London Transport to do research, and I now have the responsibility for planning and policy making in London Transport. If people like me cannot make sense of using transport research, then there is not much hope.

2. My remarks refer principally to soft research,

i.e. economic operational policy research. I welcome the Author's remarks about the trend towards policy orientated research, because I believe this is where there are some of the greatest needs for the application of research. I believe research is about better decisions. In the applied field it should probably almost exclusively be motivated by the need for better decisions.