Jonathan Spear RIP – An Appreciation

Earlier this year we heard the very sad news of the sudden and untimely passing of our dear friend and colleague Jonathan Spear. Jonathan was a long standing and very active member of the Association for European Transport (AET) and a regular attendee at the European Transport Conference (ETC) for many years. He contributed strongly and actively to the work of the Association over many years – he was an elected member of the AET Council from 2009 to 2012 as an organisational member representing his employer WS Atkins (now Atkins Realis). However, it was his contribution to the formation and development of what is now the Transport and Mobility Forum or TMF that he will be most remembered for by his friends and colleagues in the AET.

Jonathan was an energetic engaging thoughtful and inspiring member of our organisation for many years contributing his energy and sharing his ideas generously and deploying his quiet and understated charm and skill to guide and navigate his initiatives to successful conclusion. From its very beginning as a seed of an idea during the Covid 19 lockdowns, Jonathan brought great energy ideas inspiration and encouragement to bear on all of us who were struggling to bring some shape and organisation to this new way of connecting members to each other in the new format that became the Covid Conversations webinar series. As we later emerged from that dark period and returned to less restrictive working arrangements, he contributed incisively to mapping out the future direction and path for what is now called the Transport and Mobility Forum or TMF. Jonathan was professionally active in other likeminded organisations, especially PIARC and CIHT, and his skills of communication, networking and cross fertilisation of ideas were to benefit all three organisations.

On a personal level I collaborated with Jonathan for many years and he was especially inspiring and supportive of our Transport and Mobility Forum, which allowed people to do what he liked to do - talk about transport. Jonathan shared generously of his time professionally and personally and he was an endless source of new insights gained from thoughtful reflection on his wide-ranging international experience, his love of travel and adventure, and the delight he got from engaging in discussion with others including not only transport planners but those who thought about transport and its importance in making the world a better place.

As a measure of the esteem in which Jonathan was held within the Association and to mark his contribution to the Transport and Mobility Forum, the TMF plans to hold a special TMF Webinar in February 2027 in memory of our late colleague Jonathan Spear. Celebrating his ability to connect people across many fields, TMF will co-host the webinar with PIARC and CIHT. Further details will be published in the programme for TMF 2026/27 season which will be launched at the European Transport Conference in Porto in September 2026.

On behalf of the AET Board and all members of the Association for European Transport (AET), we offer our sincere condolences to his wife Michelle Woods and his family. We will miss him greatly. May he rest in peace.