Article written by Selwyn Blackmore – Business Leader and Sector Lead – Transport
Meet Rowan Schwynn, our new Senior Principal – Transport Planner who joined Vitruvius’s Wellington office in June 2024. Rowan’s career spans over 20 years, and nowadays he specialises in public transport planning.
From an early age, Rowan had a passion for the environment which prompted him to study Resource and Environmental Science at Waikato. Soon after graduating, like many of his contemporaries, he had ‘itchy feet’ and his sense of adventure took him abroad, living and working in the UK, America, and Australia. It was in the UK where he first found his calling in transport, where public transport became the perfect synergy between his passion for sustainability and his growing expertise in transport planning.
Whilst overseas he was involved in many innovative and high-profile transport projects, including England’s national traffic control centre and the new Sydney Metro rail network. More recently he has worked on bus stop planning and stop design for the new Golden Mile project in Wellington that is about to get underway. Rowan is equally adept working on smaller optimisation opportunities in order to come up with fit-for-purpose solutions that make a small but important difference for public transport users. For example, he advises on bus network planning, intelligent transport systems and bus hub improvements. Rowan is more than happy to share his experience, including his learnings on how to make a true difference in a constrained budget environment.
With Rowan now on board with Vitruvius, we are proud to be able to offer a full suite of public transport advisory services that can help projects of all sizes, including:
- Strategic transport planning (including business cases)
- Public transport network design and optimisation
- Scheduling and timetabling
- Public transport infrastructure design
Rowan’s skills add to the core transport capability in the business, including transport planning and strategy, design and delivery. Team members have experience in all of the components of the transport lifecycle, including business cases, performance frameworks, procurement design, traffic engineering (civil and digital design), project management, Engineer to Contract and lessons learned reviews. We even have road pricing and tolling experience, which is highly relevant in the current financially constrained market.
Transport planning is the science of understanding how people and goods move through spaces and how these movements shape—and are shaped by—the environments in which they occur. In essence, transport planning forms a critical link in how we interact and access the world around us. Whether you’re driving on a road, catching a train, taking a bus or boarding a plane, you’ve benefited from the work of a transport planner.
At the core of Rowan’s approach are three key strengths: critical thinking, adaptability, and a commitment to continual learning. Good transport planning, as Rowan puts it, is the foundation of successful transport projects – projects that enable cities to grow, economies to thrive, and enabling meaningful connections between people and their surroundings.. As a passionate advocate and frequent user of public transport, Rowan’s deep commitment to this field is both professional and personal.
Rowan Schwynn, Senior Principal -Transport Planner