Paul Clifton is a well-known broadcaster and writer on transport issues, and has been the BBC's Transport Correspondent for southern England for 20 years. He has appeared on a wide range of BBC television and radio programmes, including the Today programme, Six and Ten O'Clock News, Newsnight and most frequently on South Today and other regional programmes.

Paul's credits include 16 BBC2 documentaries on transport. He is the only person to be CILT Transport Journalist of the Year twice running (2004, 2005), and is a previous Royal Television Society Regional Journalist of the Year. Paul is a columnist for Rail Professional and is a judge of the Rail Business Awards. Paul is 46 and lives in Wiltshire.


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Louise Ellman was born in Manchester and has a BA Hons from Hull University and an MPhil from York University. She worked in further education and at the Open University before her full-time political involvement.

Louise was the Leader of Lancashire Council from 1981 to 1997 and has been the Labour and Co-operative MP for Liverpool Riverside since 1997. She has been Chair of the House of Commons Transport Select Committee since 2008. The Committee has investigated a wide variety of transport issues including motor insurance, high-speed rail, dealing with bad weather, the coastguard service and buses.

Her political interests include transport, local government, the Middle East and human trafficking.

Presentation: Modernising rail: getting Britain on track

The government is renewing, rebuilding and reforming our railways. The latest £9.4bn investment programme aims to uplift rail capacity, improve rail connections and deliver value for money to the passenger and taxpayer alike.

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Tom Smith is ATOC's independent chairman and has been a member of the ATOC Management Board since 2006.

Previous to holding this role, he was Managing Director – Rail Development for Go-Ahead. His first success for the group was to secure the Southern franchise in 2003, simultaneously closing a deal to secure £125m of external finance to upgrade all Southern's maintenance depots. Since then, he has led the group's successful bids for Southeastern, London Midland and, most recently in June 2009, retention of the Southern franchise.

Prior to joining Go-Ahead, he was Managing Director of Midland Expressway Limited (MEL) from 1997 to 2001. MEL designed, financed, built and now operates M6 Toll, the UK's first toll motorway. He has also worked in a variety of senior positions for Trafalgar House plc. His initial career on graduating in 1979 was as a member of HM Diplomatic Service, for which he served in London, Hong Kong and Beijing.

Presentation: The future of rail

A modern, better connected railway can help to support growth, create jobs and spread prosperity. What lessons can be learned from other international rail projects and can elements be adapted to help meet the challenges facing the British rail industry? How can new technical innovations around smart ticketing, rolling stock and transport management help to make the rail system more efficient and environmentally sustainable?

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Maggie Simpson is Executive Director at the Rail Freight Group, the representative body for rail freight in the UK. Since joining in 2005, she has been leading work to ensure that government and rail industry policy is supportive to a growth of rail freight and that member companies of the group have the opportunity to participate fully in the sector.

Previously, Maggie worked in a range of passenger and freight roles at the Strategic Rail Authority and OPRAF, including freight strategy development and franchise management. She has also worked in consultancy.

Presentation: Progress on current and planned railway projects

£18bn will have been invested in railways during this Spending Review period, what impact have the improvements to Britain's rolling stock, infrastructure and stations had so far? There are forecasted to be capacity challenges for both freight and passenger transport, where should funding and investment be targeted in order to meet demand?

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Anthony Smith is the Chief Executive of Passenger Focus. Having qualified as a solicitor, Anthony worked for five years as Principal Consumer Lawyer for the Consumers' Association, publishers of Which? This was followed by a year as the Legal Consultant for Consumers International, a worldwide federation of consumer groups.

Prior to joining Passenger Focus, Anthony was Deputy and Acting Director of ICSTIS, the regulator of premium rate telephone services.


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Graham Smith has worked in operational, freight and strategic management roles in the rail industry. He is Secretary of the industry's Rail Delivery Group, comprising the chief executives of the major passenger and freight owning groups and Network Rail.

The Rail Delivery Group was set up in May 2011 in response to the independent Rail Value for Money Study, chaired by Sir Roy McNulty. The group provides leadership to the UK rail industry and conducts its work through working and cross-industry groups that are identifying opportunities to improve the efficiency of the rail industry. Areas being examined include asset, programme and supply chain management, technology, innovation and working practices, franchising, contractual and regulatory reform, industry planning, technical strategy and performance.

In 2010/11, Graham worked on the Rail Value for Money Study sponsored by the Department for Transport and the Office of Rail Regulation. Prior to this, Graham worked in the rail freight industry as Planning Director of DB Schenker Rail (UK) Ltd and before that Planning Director of English, Welsh & Scottish Railway Limited.

He joined the railway industry as a management trainee in 1978. During his 34 years in the industry he has spent much of his time arguing the case for rail with politicians, funders and stakeholders. In recognition of his work Graham was appointed a Member of the Order of the British Empire (MBE) in the 2008 New Year's Honours list for services to the rail freight industry.

Graham is the managing partner of Albany Smith Rail LLP, which has advised a number of companies on rail and rail freight issues.

Graham is a Life Governor of the Royal National Lifeboat Institution. He was educated at the University of Hull and lives in Cromer, Norfolk.


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Edward Welsh joined ATOC as Director of Corporate Affairs in August 2009. For the previous four years, he had been Programme Director, Media and Campaigns, at the Local Government Association where he set up the national press office for local government and led the local government reputation campaign. He won PR Week's Public Sector Department of the Year award in 2008. From 2002 to 2005, Edward worked for the Greater London Authority as Head of Media Relations for the London Assembly.

Edward trained as a journalist on the Grimsby Evening Telegraph in the mid-eighties and worked in national newspapers for 15 years, including The Sunday Times, the Daily Telegraph and The Times.


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