Corinne Mulley

Professor Emerita Corinne Mulley was the inaugural Chair of Public Transport at the Institute of Transport and Logistics Studies at the University of Sydney. Corinne is a transport economist and was active in transport research at the interface of transport policy and economics.

During her career Corinne concentrated on specific issues relating to public transport. She led a high profile European and UK consortia undertaking benchmarking in urban public transport and has provided both practical and strategic advice to local and national governments on transport evaluation, including economic impact analysis, benchmarking, rural transport issues, and public transport management. Professor Mulley's research is motivated by a need to provide evidence for policy initiatives and she has been involved in such research at local, regional, national and European levels.

Whilst in Sydney, Corinne created links with the federal government, serving as an expert on the Public Transport Committee and National Infrastructure Audit for Infrastructure Australia and with the NSW state and local governments where she has offered advice as an expert on, for example, the Long Term Master Plan for NSW.

Despite retirement, Corinne will continue to be engaged in research at ITLS in particular with the Centre of Excellence work, funded by the Volvo Educational Trust, which is looking widely at Bus Rapid Transit issues, an ARC grant examining value capture as a funding mechanism for transport infrastructure, work with Transport for NSW evaluating regional transport flexible transport services and studies involving Mobility as a Service (MaaS) in different contexts.

Professor Mulley achieved her PhD in Economics at the LSE (London University) having graduated in 1976 from London University (LSE) with a Masters in Economics as the holder of the Rees Jeffrey's Scholarship and in 1975, from Nottingham University with a BA Honours in Economics.

Research interests

Corinne was the inaugural Chair in Public Transport at the Institute of Transport and Logistics Studies (ITLS). She has now retired and is Professor Emerita at ITLS.

Corinne had many interactions with State government on the development of transport plans and other studies, the independent regulators and local government as well as media contributions on transport management and planning issues. Research to provide an evidence base for transport policy will continue into retirement building on her experience as a Principle Investigator and manager of collaborative projects involving many actors.

Professor Mulley has directed numerous research projects in the field of public transport. Projects fall into the five main areas of evaluation of public transport investment; network planning and public transport management; flexible transport in urban and areas of low density; organisational frameworks / institutional structures; the connections between health and public transport and how evidence on how the built environment affects travel behaviour. and benchmarking quality and efficiency in public transport. Her research has been multi-disciplinary with the connections to health (Charles Perkins Centre of the University where she is involved with nodes researching physical activity and workplaces, wellbeing and dog ownership) and planning (connections with the School of Architecture including the Henry Halloran Trust, and academics in the Architecture School in relation to parking, electric vehicles, urban form and built environment work). Professor Mulley has also collaborated with Archaeology in looking at how cities grow and decline and the impact of this for megacities. Beyond the University Professor Mulley has worked with colleagues globally and she has just completed her three year term as the Chair of the World Society of Transport and Land Use Research.