Shaping connected communities: Erin Jackson’s impact on mobility

Career paths are rarely linear, and Erin Jackson’s journey into transport and mobility shows the value of staying open to opportunity. Today, Erin serves as GHD’s Transport & Movement Service Line Leader, helping shape how communities across Australia and the Asia-Pacific move. Engineering was not part of her original plan.

At school, Erin enjoyed maths and science and expressed an interest in engineering. She pursued this at university, graduating successfully before beginning her career in road construction at Downer EDI, gaining valuable experience but realising it wasn’t her long-term pathway. Planning to travel, she took a short-term role with GHD while preparing for her trip. A casual coffee meeting led to a full-time offer soon turned into a full-time opportunity, and nearly twenty years later, she is still here, building a career shaped by curiosity, leadership and a commitment to people-centred mobility.

From the start, Erin gravitated toward the aspects of engineering that focused on people, lived experience and community outcomes. Early in her career, traffic engineering was car centric. Parking ratios and intersection performance dominated decision-making, and mobility was a term not widely used.

“There’s been a lot of rewiring,” Erin reflects. “To shift from thinking about cars to thinking about people.”

Today, mobility sits at the intersection of accessibility, land use, behaviour and multi-modal transport. It encompasses walking, cycling, rolling, buses, shared mobility and all the ways people connect with employment, services, education and their local communities.

“What it really comes down to is access,” Erin explains. “Making sure people can reach the places and opportunities that matter.”

One of Erin’s significant contributions is the development and modernisation of Strategy to Street – a data-driven, vision-based methodology for master planning transport networks.

Originally inspired by an Austroads framework and refined through practices observed in New Zealand, Strategy to Street addresses a key gap in Australian planning: the ability to test future scenarios, align transport with land-use aspirations and reduce bias in early-stage decision-making.

Traditional planning often relies on who is present in workshops. Strategy to Street changes this.

“We knew there was so much data available,” Erin says. “We wanted a way to remove some of the biases that naturally come from small groups making big decisions.”

By grounding planning in data, Strategy to Street enables our clients to see the transport networks required to achieve their goals, whether increasing walking to school, supporting density in growth areas or prioritising public and active transport.

The methodology has already informed major projects, including corridor planning in Western Sydney, helping validate movement and place classifications and integrate emerging transport modes.

“It’s agile, accessible and visual,” Erin explains. “That makes it powerful for stakeholders and communities.”

Her vision for future mobility includes: 

• Integrated, multi-modal networks

Not just buses or rail, but walking, rolling, cycling, on-demand services and shared mobility all planned as one connected system. 

• A shift toward everyday travel needs

Post-COVID, the biggest journeys are no longer work commutes. Public transport must reflect school trips, medical appointments, grocery trips and multi-purpose days.

• Flexible, people-first solutions

There is no single fix. Instead, networks must be adaptable, localised and tailored to different communities. 

• Better use of data

From predictive analytics to digital twins, technology plays a growing role, but Erin believes the biggest innovation is still understanding people’s needs.

• Rebuilding trust in buses

Reliability, frequency and comfort are key. Prioritising buses through road-space allocation is essential in both cities and regions. 

Equity is central to Erin’s philosophy. Whether it is shift workers travelling before dawn, regional communities without frequent services, or people with disabilities navigating complex journeys, Erin believes planners need to listen more and design with purpose.

“Fundamentally, we often don’t know what people really need from transport,” she says. “And when we do ask, the information can be biased. We need better data around people’s mobility needs.”

Her people-centred approach informs everything she does, from major network strategies to conversations about improving bus “lovability”.

Asked what she hopes her biggest contribution will be over the next decade; Erin does not hesitate.

“I’d love to see something like Strategy to Street embedded nationally, linked to how we identify gaps, plan for outcomes and invest with intention.”

By combining data-driven planning with human-centred principles, Erin believes we can transform how we design transport systems, creating networks that are equitable, efficient and ready for the future.

Outside of mobility, Erin’s life is busy and full. She has three children whose sporting pursuits keep her on the go. Living in Hobart, she enjoys walking on the beach near her home, taking her dog out and spending time with friends over food.

She is also influenced by thinkers such as Marco te Brömmelstroet, whose writing changed how she views transport and the challenges embedded in traditional planning.