Prof Margaret O’Mahony to set up and head new Dublin Transport Authority

Posted on: 07 November 2005

Minister for Transport, Martin Cullen T.D., has announced the appointment of a team charged with establishing the new transport authority for the Greater Dublin Area.  The team will finalise the structures of the new authority and identify the people to deliver Transport 21.  The new authority, on establishment, will be a powerful, executive-driven body with a wide remit. 

The establishment team will be led by Professor Margaret O’Mahony, Head of the Department of Civil, Structural & Environmental Engineering and Director of the Centre for Transport Research at Trinity College Dublin who will be appointed non-executive Chairman of Transport 21. The other members of the establishment team will be John Lumsden and Pat Mangan, Assistant Secretaries General at the Department of Transport and Colin Hunt, Minister Cullen’s Special Advisor.

The establishment team is charged with finalising a structure for the new transport authority, detailing its remit and responsibilities as well as identifying the human resources which are critical to the success of the body taking into account best practice and best experience internationally. Underlining the priority attached to the task ahead, the team will report directly to Minister for Transport, Martin Cullen T.D.

Prof Margaret O’Mahony is Head of the Department of Civil, Structural & Environmental Engineering and Director of TCD’s Centre for Transport Research. A graduate of NUIG in Civil Engineering, she also holds a Doctorate in Engineering Science from the University of Oxford.  She is a Chartered Civil Engineer, a Fellow of TCD and is also a Fellow of the following institutions:  Institution of Highway and Transportation Engineers, the Chartered Institute of Logistics and Transport and the Institute of Demolition Engineers. 

She is a former Board member of the Railway Procurement Agency and a member of the Scientific Committee of the European Environment Agency.  She has worked in developing countries on road programmes.  In the US, she is a member of key committees of the Transportation Research Board of the National Academies. 

She has 20 years experience in the areas of network modelling, optimisation of public transport, demand management, transport pricing, quality of service of public transport, urban freight solutions, vehicle instrumentation and innovative road materials.  She is widely published in the highest impact journals in transport operations and is actively involved in the international transport field as a research collaborator and consultant.

Recognised internationally as a leader in her field, she also has strong collaborative links with other key world leaders working on the optimisation of transport infrastructure and networks.