Sustainability in Public Transport

Rachel has a BA (Hons) in Geography from University of Oxford and holds the inaugural Masters in Carbon Management from University of Edinburgh Business School. She is a Fellow of the Chartered Institute of Logistics and Transport.

Since graduating from Oxford, Rachel worked as a consultant beginning her career as a transport planner with WSP then worked for a start-up advising companies in the transport sector on how to reduce their carbon emissions. She then set up her own firm (Surbon Consulting) in the UK supporting transport operators such as Keolis, Go-Ahead, Serco and MTR on  business development and contract mobilisation  covering contract management, sustainability and customer experience. She has worked across all modes of transport: rail, metro, bus, ferry and cycle hire and more recently electric scooters. She set up a UAE branch of Surbon Consulting in 2017 and has delivered work in UAE, Qatar and Saudi.

She has been a member of UITP since 2015 and has found the conferencing and training courses offered by UITP extremely valuable. She has been an UITP trainer delivering training to TGA (Saudi), RTA (Dubai) and LTA (Singapore).

Violeta Peran is a civil engineer and mobility expert with over 15 years of international experience in transport planning, public transport systems, and territorial development. She is the founder of PERANNOVA, a consultancy focused on sustainable mobility, transport planning, and strategic development of cities and regions. Throughout her career, she has worked with cities, regions, and public transport operators across Europe on mobility strategies, transport models, feasibility studies, and EU-funded projects. Her work often looks at mobility in the broader context of how people live, move, and access services, considering urban, rural, and remote areas alike. Violeta is particularly interested in how transport systems can evolve to better support everyday life, helping people reach work, education, healthcare, and public spaces while contributing to climate goals and more balanced territorial development. She is actively involved in European research and innovation initiatives, including programmes such as Horizon Europe and EIT Urban Mobility, contributing to projects focused on climate-neutral mobility and more resilient transport systems. As a trainer and advisor, she brings practical experience from real projects and works closely with cities and organisations seeking to turn sustainability goals into practical and workable mobility solutions.

Gonzalo FERNÁNDEZ Infrastructure Director PhD. MSc. Civil Engineer. He is an expert in sustainability project management and low carbon technologies. He has collaborated in several international congresses and conferences, national and international R&D projects, has published in different scientific and technical journals and is part of different scientific committees related with sustainable infrastructures and urban planning. He is vicechair of the Sustainable Development Committee and currently leading the UITP working group on Renewable energy and energy transition in public transport. He is currently the Infrastructure’s Director of EMT Madrid