About TAPAS

Peter Stonham and Arman Farahmand-Razavi are delighted to have launched this new platform for serious discussion of challenging transport issues with expert contributors known for their incisive and original thinking.

The platform, knows as TAPAS (Transport & Accessibility Policy, Alternative Solutions), is designed to provide a quality-controlled and carefully-presented resource for anyone wanting to consider the latest thinking on the really important topics of the day in transport, mobility and accessibility.

Our ambition is to support in-depth serious discussion in this important field, to the benefit of both professionals in the sector and those beyond it. This will be achieved by demonstrating how addressing transport issues relates to key challenges facing society, like climate change/Net Zero, the most efficient and beneficial allocation of investment resources, embracing behavioural change, and meeting the challenges organisations in the public and private sectors face in responding to significant departures from the status quo.


About Peter and Arman

Peter Stonham has spent 30 plus years in the transport information and knowledge dissemination field, having launched publications including Transport Research and Consultancy Briefing, Bus Business, and Local Transport Today and associated events and discussion forums designed to cater for new areas of policy development.

Arman Farahmand-Razavi is a management consultant with over 30 years of international experience in transport planning and policy making. He has worked on a wide range of transport topics and strategic reviews and change management in areas where traditional transport business models are being disrupted.

Peter and Arman worked together in the early days of Local Transport Today magazine back in the 1990s and have resumed a partnership over the past 18 months to address the new information needs of UK transport professionals.

Peter has brought his editorial and presentation skills and Arman his experience of providing specialist advisory services in the transport sector and a capability of digital innovation and development which has produced the TAPAS Platform.

Both Peter and Arman share a business and entrepreneurial vision for the way this project will offer an innovative new way of supporting the exchange and development of ideas amongst transport practitioners and academics.

TAPAS Content

TAPAS welcomes the submission of material that meets its relevance and quality criteria. This may include contributions on both subjects on which authors have undertaken previous work and research, and brand new material addressing topics for the first time.

Some articles on TAPAS will have appeared in other publications though others will be written specially for TAPAS. TAPAS will also facilitate further original discussion of the articles it carries by providing a platform for responses and additional contributions.


TAPAS user access

TAPAS will be accessible at three user levels, TAPAS Taster, TAPAS Select and TAPAS Membership.

TAPAS Taster is a restricted sampling access which requires no registration or payments. Users will be able to browse the platform to discover the range of articles from leading contributors, with a sample selection free to view in their entirety. TAPAS Taster users will not be able to take part in the discussions and will not be able to see comments by other users.

TAPAS Select users will need to sign in to get free credits to view articles. They receive credits immediately upon registration to view 8 articles, followed by additional free credits to view 4 articles every 30 days thereafter. They will have access to all articles and discussions on TAPAS, but will not be able to comment on the articles.

For an introductory period, users registered for TAPAS Select will receive the benefits of TAPAS Membership without charge. It is envisaged that a TAPAS Membership framework may be introduced in due course as a paid for service with enhanced capability and benefits. There will be full notification if any charge is proposed and TAPAS is committed to always having an entry level free to view facility.

TAPAS Membership is the way to fully engage with all the content and discussion and also benefit from being a part of the TAPAS network. Members of the TAPAS Network will have complete access to the articles on the platform and to contribute to the discussion of them. Additional benefits of membership of the TAPAS Network include invitation to participate in all TAPAS online and face-to-face events.

TAPAS founding principles

TAPAS has been established as a not-for-profit enterprise. It is, however, intended to be self-supporting and independent of any commercial influence.

TAPAS does not seek to capture user data beyond that needed to ensure the functionality of the platform and the integrity of the contributors and the content.

All those whose material appears must be “real people” whose identity is disclosed and contact information authenticated.

TAPAS will not allow any personal abuse or offensive comment to be made by contributors about other individuals or organisations beyond observations about the arguments they have put forward and the technical and practical substance of them.