Operational Research within the Northern Powerhouse

The NWORG is your regional society – our aim is to provide a focus for operational researchers and to reach out to anyone interested in finding out about operational research here in the North West. The NWORG is run by OR Society members, encompassing both OR practitioners and academics alike, who share a passion for the practice and application of OR. We take our inspiration from the OR community in the region and put on a selection of events throughout the year to support OR activities: Our meetings provide opportunities to expand your network and engage with organisations utilising OR with impact.

NWORG meetings have covered a range of topical areas including pro bono OR, emergency planning, logistics, OR in government and a special joint meeting with the Simulation Special Interest Group (SIG). We have had site visits to Amazon's Manchester Facility and to Hartree at Daresbury Science Park.

Invited speakers to our meetings include OR experts from IBM, HMRC, The OR Society, Lancaster University, Manchester University, Liverpool University, Manchester Metropolitan University, Amazon Plc, Hartree, Sellafield Ltd and United Utilities. 

Our events are held across the North West to create more opportunities for people to get involved, with meetings held in Manchester, Liverpool and Warrington.

The NWORG is looking to expand the type of meetings held in the future, in addition to our topical meetings we are looking to include networking events, socials and company visits.

If you would like to be part of a vibrant organising team get in touch or speak to one of our NWORG Committee when you attend our meetings.

Committee Details

Past Events: 

REPORT OF NWORG MEETING IN SALFORD 30^th MAY 2024

Venue: HMRC Salford, Three New Bailey, New Bailey Street, Salford, M3 5AX

The smoked stacked chimneys, the gas works, and the smells recounted in that ubiquitous folk song of the industrial age ‘Dirty Old Town’ are no longer to be seen or sensed on a sunny warm end of May day in Salford for our very topical meeting examining the data, tools and models that help plan transport for the north of England and beyond. The canal of course remains. The 4^th July General Election was announced just days before the meeting which caused some moderate panic amongst the organisers as the speakers had to seek permission to speak without biasing the election outcomes. Fortunately, all was resolved and the meeting went ahead.

It was our second meeting this year ‘face to face.’ This time we were hosted at HMRC Offices in Salford. There was a good turnout for this event which is in easy reach of all public transport stops and accessible by rail, tram, bus, and car  to encourage participation from members in the North West Region. One of the benefits of these meetings is the networking opportunities for members. It was great to see some old friends returning to support OR in the North West. Our next meetings will be in October and December and details will be circulated once speakers have confirmed.

Tony Hines, NWORG Chair introduced Rebecca Davies and Ben Taylor from TfN’s Transport Appraisal Modelling & Evaluation team (TAME). Rebecca and Ben presented the work that they were doing to build evidence to support the strategic transport objectives of the North of England. Rebecca and Ben explained how they had developed a collection of tools, protocols and guidance, known as the Analytical Framework.

You can find out more about the work being done to improve transport systems by visiting TfN’s website https://transportforthenorth.com/

The shared tools referred to in the talk are available at: https://github.com/Transport-for-the-North   

Prof. Tony Hines, Chair, NWORG

The Common Analytical Framework (CAF) is an evolution of the Analytical Framework to share and collaborate with England’s other Strategic Transport Bodies (STBs) to: 

• Roll out TfN’s experience and innovation to strengthen the analytical offer across the whole of the country. 
• Find areas of common interest and collaborate around them. 
• Continue to innovate and, together, add value to the Analytical Framework. 

The CAF has been designed not only to enable collaboration across STBs in the UK, but to support Local Transport Authorities (LTAs) too; this is achieved through sharing of data and models. Where possible, CAF models are released under an open-source license for all to use. This is a great strength of this approach. It means that those who use the models can benefit from the work that others have done in the past. It also means that the continuous development of the models generates robust outcomes. Sharing open-source models facilitates and enables collaboration. As a result of the way CAF has developed the tools and models, they can be utilized by almost anyone. This reduces overall costs, and resources required to deploy new models, saving taxpayer money. Furthermore, innovations in transport analysis and appraisal can easily be shared across UK authorities.