Jonathan Tyler


Jonathan Tyler is a Green Party activist and academic.
Tyler was an early parliamentary candidate for the Ecology Party, in the 1976 Walsall North by-election, at a time when he was a transport lecturer at the University of Birmingham. He was the Ecology Party's Chairman for some years from 1976.
Tyler would later go on to stand as a candidate in local elections. During the 1980s he was associated with attempts by the 'Maingreen' group to streamline the Green Party's internal workings. He subsequently left the Green Party, but rejoined some years later.
Tyler joined British Rail as a Traffic Apprentice in 1962. He became a British Rail-sponsored university lecturer and since 2000 has run a consultancy called Passenger Transport Networks. He has specialised in making the case for the importance of integrated strategic timetabling, drawing in particular on the Swiss Taktfahrplan methodology. The Taktfahrplan is based on repeating hourly cycles where trains meet at hubs around symmetry minutes to optimise connections in all directions. To create an optimal 'Taktfahrplan' system, infrastructure must be designed with the network timetable in mind. The 'Taktfahrplan' aims to create notions of convenience and accessibility to encourage people to use public transport. Tyler has argued for a National Timetabling Authority to plan an integrated strategic timetable. Tyler has critiqued High Speed 2 from a "green" perspective, and has written about the implications a "green" agenda should have for railway timetabling.
He chaired the York Environment Forum until 2010. He is now a member of York Green Party and was the party's Parliamentary Candidate for York Central in 2015, winning 10% of the vote.