Posted on 28 September
A group of 17 Leeds College of Building (LCB) Transport Planning Technician Apprentices have completed a week-long transport field trip across the Netherlands and Germany.
Our apprentices looked at how major cities Delft, Utrecht, Amsterdam, Essen, Wuppertal, Düsseldorf, and Cologne have tackled large scale integrated transport projects.
Taking in the central train stations of Rotterdam and Utrecht, and riding the segregated cycling infrastructure of Delft, our students got hands-on experience of international best practice when it comes to mass transport planning.
During the field trip our apprentices worked towards two units of their qualification and completed seven assessed data-collection activities.
The programme is a collaboration between LCB and with Berufskolleg Essen Ost (BKO) in Germany’s North Rhine-Westphalia region.
BKO and LCB are celebrating 34 years of partnership this year which has seen various staff and student exchanges between the two colleges.
During the trip our apprentices visited BKO’s recently upgraded campus, met the College Principal and worked with German apprentices who visited LCB as part of an exchange earlier this year.
Coming at a time when West Yorkshire Combined Authority are rolling out the Weaver Network across the county, the trip felt particularly pertinent for our Transport Planning department.
Sarah Carter, LCB Transport Planning Project Manager, said:
“West Yorkshire is entering an incredibly important period for transport – we are looking at major investment in Mass Transit, buses, rail, active travel and the creation of a much more integrated network.
“To deliver those ambitions, the region will need people with the right skills, but we also want those people to be curious about what is happening beyond West Yorkshire and the UK.
“That is what makes this experience so valuable, our apprentices aren’t just learning about integrated transport in a classroom, they are standing inside some of Europe’s leading multimodal transport hubs.
“They are cycling on infrastructure designed around active travel and seeing how decades of policy and investment decisions have shaped the way people move around cities.
“They can then come back to their employer and ask: what have we learned, what could work here and what could we do differently?
“The point isn’t to suggest that we simply replicate what another country has done, it is about developing transport professionals who can critically examine international best practice.
“They return to UK understanding what works, why it works and consider whether elements of it could be adapted to the communities they serve.”
The next intake start date is 19th October 2026 – If you’re an employer and you’re interested in developing their transport planning workforce please email secarter@lcb.ac.uk
Want to be a part of programmes like this one? Then come find an LCB course that works for you right here
