Summary
Alex Barron is an Associate Director of the Transport Strategy Centre (TSC) at the Centre for Transport Studies within the Department of Civil and Environmental Engineering at Imperial College London. He is the Head of Metro and Light Rail Benchmarking, overseeing the Community of Metros, consisting of the CoMET and Nova groups with 42 metro systems in 39 cities across the world, and the Benchmarking Group of North American Light Rail Systems (GOAL), consisting of 14 light rail systems across the United States and Canada.
In his time at Imperial College, Alex has co-founded the International Suburban Rail Benchmarking Group (ISBeRG) in 2010, the American Bus Benchmarking Group (ABBG) in 2011, and the Benchmarking Group of North American Light Rail Systems (GOAL) in 2016. He previously served as project manager for ISBeRG in 2012 and ABBG from its inception in 2011 until 2016. His key areas of research include public transport planning, operations, and management.
Alex's background is in transportation planning, with a Master of City and Regional Planning concentrating in Transportation Planning and a Graduate Certificate in Transportation Studies from the Bloustein School of Planning and Public Policy at Rutgers, The State University of New Jersey (USA). There he received the Outstanding Student Academic Achievement Award. He subsequently lectured in "Planning and Budget Development for Transit Managers" at John Jay College of the City University of New York.
Alex also has real-world public transport experience and a strong knowledge of the industry after spending more than three years working at MTA New York City Transit, the metro and bus operator in New York, with a focus on strategic operations planning and service planning.
Publications
Journals
Ait Bihi Ouali L, Graham D, Trompet M, et al., 2020, Gender differences in the perception of safety in public transport, Journal of the Royal Statistical Society Series A: Statistics in Society, Vol:183, ISSN:0964-1998, Pages:737-769
Morse L, Trompet M, Barron A, et al., 2020, A benchmarking framework for understanding bus performance in the U.S., Benchmarking: an International Journal, Vol:27, ISSN:1463-5771, Pages:1533-1550
Canavan S, Barron A, Cohen J, et al., 2019, Best Practices in Operating High Frequency Metro Services, Transportation Research Record, ISSN:0361-1981
Barron A, Canavan S, Cohen J, et al., 2018, Operational impacts of platform doors in metros, Transportation Research Record, Vol:2672, ISSN:0361-1981, Pages:266-274
Canavan S, Graham D, Anderson R, et al., 2018, Urban metro rail demand: evidence from dynamic generalised method of moments (GMM) estimates using panel data, Transportation Research Record, Vol:2672, ISSN:0361-1981, Pages:288-296