News Archive
Inside the Control Room: IHE Mercia Branch AGM at TfWM’s RTCC
- Friday April 24, 2026
The IHE Mercia Branch hosted it’s AGM on Tuesday 14th April at the Transport for West Midland Regional Transport Coordination Centre (RTCC) in Birmingham. The AGM was preceded by a tour of the Control Room, which was hosted by Antony Sloan, Head of RTCC. This was a rare opportunity for the delegates to see the RTCC in action, with a snapshot of the Midlands transport network being monitored and managed in real time.
Richard Harman, Chair for the IHE Mercia Branch gave the following feedback: “It was amazing to see how the monitoring and coordination of road, rail, and metro all fit together, and the power of influence to the customer journey experience via various media channels. Plus the ability to coordinate network routing when things go wrong. This place feels as close as it could be to the control centres we often see in the spy movies!!.. A big thanks to Antony and Claire at TfWM for being so accommodating. It’s great that we can offer our members events like this in person, as it wouldn’t have been possible to experience this as an online event. The branch would love to hear from any organisations who are able to offer similar venues and topics of interest for future events.”
Following the CPD event the Mercia Branch Committee met for their 2026 AGM. The committee sadly said farewell to Mark Fleming who has been involved with the branch for over 10 years. Mark has been an active committee member throughout this time and he will be missed, but we wish him all the best. But we welcomed Richard Fenwick and Shamala Gadgil to the committee, who are both long standing Fellows of the IHE and bring fresh enthusiasm and new ideas to the branch.
Harriet Memery continues as Secretary, Hayden Taylor as Treasurer, Ellie King as Vice Chair, with Richard Harman as Chair.
Richard Harman said: “I’m honoured to accept my third consecutive term of chair for the Mercia Branch committee. After a few ups and downs over the past couple of years, the branch feels stronger than ever. We’ve sadly said farewell to one longstanding member, but we have welcomed two new (very experienced!) members to the table who bring fresh ideas and enthusiasm. Over the next year I’m sure we can serve up more excellent events for our members within the Mercia area. A special thanks to all our committed officers who do an excellent job of keeping the branch moving forwards.”