Thomas J. Potter is a Senior Transportation Engineer with Norconsult AS and is based in their offices in Bergen, Norway. He is a railway and public transport engineer with a focus on electric buses, light rail systems and vehicles with over 35 years of experience in the field. He is and has been involved in many international projects sharing his experiences with other cities concerning the planning, design and introduction of new light rail systems and acting as a trainer at several UITP transport management courses.

He received his B.Sc. in Civil Engineering from MIT and his M.Sc. in Systems Engineering, Transportation from the University of Pennsylvania where he studied under Professor Vukan R. Vuchic. From 2001 until 2012, he was the Chief Engineer of Bybanen, the new light rail system in Bergen, Norway, which opened in June 2010. The project was recognized as Worldwide Project of the Year at the 2011 Light Rail Awards. In addition, he was Project Manager for the procurement, delivery, testing, modification and maintenance of the vehicles for the system, the Variobahn, supplied by Stadler Pankow GmbH which was awarded the Red Dot Award for Design in 2011.

He worked for Sporveien developing technical specifications for the next generation of light-rail vehicles for Oslo. He is also providing technical advice to Hordaland, Rogaland and Buskerud concerning the introduction of electric buses and the introduction and expansion of trolleybus services using in-motion charging.

Thomas is an American who has lived in Norway since 1987. He has spent most of that time promoting, analyzing, defending and designing the technical aspects of the light rail project, first as a consultant to the City of Bergen and later as the Chief Engineer for the project.

He has also been a consultant to other cities considering or planning the implementation of light rail systems in Denmark, Sweden, Finland, Germany and Canada. He has been a member of both the TRB and UITP Light Rail Committees, as well as a member of the American Society of Civil Engineers, the Institute of Transportation Engineers and the Norwegian Society of Graduate Technical and Scientific Professionals (TEKNA). He is a founding member of the Nordic Light Rail Association (NLRA) and was awarded the NLRA Light Rail Prize in 2017.

Rail Operations and Maintenance

Trainers