Dr Nigel G Harris, PhD, MSc, BSc

Dr Nigel G Harris is amongst Britain's leading railway planners, with a reputation based initially on technical advances in fares policy research (at Newcastle University) and network modelling (during eight years at London Underground). In addition, he has expertise in service planning, operational simulation, demand forecasting, scheme appraisal and railway business planning, which gives him one of the best understandings in the country of practical railway economics. has co-authored/edited key texts on “The Privatisation of British Rail” and on both Planning Passenger Railways and Planning Freight Railways, as well as having published over 50 other papers.

He is a visiting lecturer at the Universities of Newcastle and Birmingham, and has made presentations to a wide variety of groups ranging from railway union representatives to international conferences in Europe and North America. His PhD from Newcastle University was on “the maximisation of net revenue on inter-urban railway routes". He is a Member of the Transport Planning Society and the Transport Economists' Group.
Since 1995 he has been Managing Director of the Railway Consultancy Ltd and has undertaken projects on every continent except Antarctica. He is responsible for all aspects of running the Consultancy, ranging from promotional activity to managing projects, which have included:

• strategic planning for the proposed National Railway Network of Ethiopia
• historical analysis of rail performance data, for the UK Department for Transport
• management consultancy for station operations, for Norwegian State Railways
• route planning and demand forecasting for a proposed maglev system, for UK Ultraspeed
• specifying a business planning model for Irish Railways
• carrying out an appraisal of the economic case for both passenger and freight trains on new rail infrastructure in Flintshire, North Wales
• railway operations performance audits for the Danish Government, FGW and Southern;
• compiling a sub-regional investment programme in station upgrades, for London local councils
• estimating the likely patronage of a new airport interchange station, for Merseytravel PTE
• a database of train operators’ track access rights, for Railtrack plc
• train service simulation of Hong Kong's new airport rail link
• assisting the Department for Transport in their economic and operational assessments of options for developing various rail corridors in London & the South East
• bid preparation and analytical support for a number of UK rail franchises
• a wide range of international metro benchmarking exercises
• operational and journey opportunity assessments of a major timetable change, for the Southern Rail Passengers’ Committee and South West Trains;
• demand forecasting for rail access to Heathrow airport
• business planning and funding advice for London Underground Ltd's Jubilee Line, and for LB Lambeth in respect of new platforms at Brixton
• planning work to support the reintroduction of rail services to Radstock, Somerset
• operational research on train boarding and alighting issues for Crossrail and SWT
• fares policy advice for MTRC (Hong Kong) and Sydney Metro
• running training courses for the Department for Transport, Office of the Rail Regulator, Strategic Rail Authority, Rail Passengers’ Council, train operators etc.
• industrial research for rail sector suppliers
• assisting a number of property developers in their provision of associated railway facilities
• appearing for L B Camden as an expert witness at the CTRL Connections Bill Public Inquiry, and for L B Lambeth at the reopened Thameslink Inquiry
• an audit of rail planning research at the KTH University, Stockholm