I met Prof. Lee Schipper for the first time when I attended the WCTR Conference held in UC Berkeley in 2007. I was presenting a paper on traffic schemes in Metro Manila at the time while a student was presenting our paper on bus operations. We had a sizable delegation from the Philippines at the conference considering Filipino students who were studying in Japan, Australia and Canada were also participating in the conference. Prior to the conference, my student was already communicating with Prof. Schipper who was reviewing our paper and he was very helpful with his comments to improve the material during the refereeing process.

I had the pleasure of meeting him a few more times in Manila at one ADB Transport Forum and at meetings organized by Cornie Huizenga’s Partnership for Sustainable Low Carbon Transport (SLoCaT). He always had a unique opinion on transport and I found his ideas quite useful for as an alternative take on a lot of things about transport that we often take for granted and orthodox.

As a tribute, here is an article by Lee Schipper published online by World Streets:

Car Crazy: Lee Schipper on the Perils of Asia’s Hyper-Motorization

Prof. Schipper was quite passionate about transport in Asia as he probably realized that motorization in Asia would have tremendous impacts on the environment (mainly on air quality and energy)  and not just on the local or national levels. Perhaps the battle has been on the losing side in many industrialized countries and the huge Asian market is where efforts should be exerted in order to prevent or mitigate experiences similar to those in the US and other countries.

Prof. Schipper will be missed.