The full-time course lasts for one year comprising a nine month taught period followed by a three month period in which the students must produce a dissertation on a short research project. The part-time two and three year options for the course are an attractive alternative for students in full-time employment with consultants, local authorities and others. A typical mix of students includes UK, EU and overseas students and represents a broad range of experience and expertise. It can often be the case that overseas students are unfamiliar with transport policies, practices and technologies exercised in the UK.
Students have the opportunity to give feedback on the course at the end of each year. The absence of the use of transportation planning software from the course in recent years has been seen as regrettable. Attempts in earlier years to include coursework exercises using such software had been constrained and compromised by the short time available within the course for students to become familiar with software that did not have a user friendly interface. As part of the course review in 1996 it was decided that this matter should be addressed in view of improvements in software ease of use. TRIPS was seen as an attractive option as a leading transportation planning software tool with a Windows interface for data entry and a graphical interface for easy and effective visualisation of network models and results.
ESTABLISHING A SPECTRE
An approach to MVA Systematica to discuss the introduction of TRIPS into the MSc course coincided with the initiative to develop what are now termed TRIPS SPECTREs. The initiative stems from MVA's belief that "there is greater mutual benefit to be gained from a stronger link betwe
