TransportXtra: an essential tool for consultants

Xtra content

Anan Allos

Anan Allos

Since its launch only a few weeks ago, use of TransportXtra has grown rapidly as more and more consultants, universities and many other public and private sector organisations sign up for access. Over 6,000 professionals are now registered, with bulk subscribers including DfT, First Group, Sustrans, University of Leeds and most major transportation consultants.

TransportXtra is proving especially popular with serious supporters of the paperless office, such as Anan Allos, Director, Transport Planning & Management at Atkins. “Over the past few years, I have taught myself to stop using paper completely and do all the filing, document reading and reviewing electronically on my laptop. At first reading large documents proved difficult, but soon one finds the immense benefits of this for many reasons. Obviously this was helped recently in that we have all gone into e-filing our documents, many client organisations have gratefully switched to e-procurement and e-bidding. So for me subscribing to TransportXtra is a no brainer. Ifind it much more effective than paper copy because you can:

• Search for keywords, instead of anxiously flipping and scanning pages

• Make colleagues aware of relevant articles

• Send access to pages via email to others

• Explore ‘related topics’ from previous issues of LTT, when you’re reading an article

• Explore archives on a particular matter, most useful

• Download reports directly linked to article you are reading

• Switch view from LTT to Transit magazines

• Accessibility is not a major issue, all you need is internet access, which we now have using laptops with either Wi-Fi, GPRS or via our PDA.

By not using paper, I’m not trying to save the environment single-handed, but every little helps and I find it much more convenient to take my laptop anywhere I go, and that contains all the information I want; instead of carrying tons of reports to meetings and the like.

Finally, Atkins as many of you are aware, has been leading the carbon critical design and sustainability agenda, and what I’m doing fits into that general framework.”

See subscriptions tab for our introductory offers. Contact Michelle Forde now on 0845 270 7857 michelle.forde@landor.co.uk to find out how little it will cost to have access to TransportXtra for your whole office.