Deirdre O’Reilly – Head of Customer Insights & Behaviour Change, Highways England

Deirdre O’Reilly joined Highways England 4 years ago, from the Department for Transport (DfT), to set up a new team of specialists to understand customers better. She currently leads the Customer Insight and Behaviour Change Group; a team of market researchers and social and behavioural scientists. They deliver actionable insights from a range of sources to help shape and improve services, delivery and investment decisions to meet the needs of users and communities. Deirdre is a social scientists and started her career in transport research at TRL after which she worked for many years in DfT  – leading teams in road user safety and social research, evaluation and behaviour change. She is also a Visiting Professor in Transport Studies at UCL.