I.T. Transport (ITT) started out its life in 1979 as “Intermediate Technology Transport”, a highly appropriate name given that we were incorporated by our parent organisation, Intermediate Technology Development Group (ITDG), which itself had been established by our Great Grandfather, Dr. E.F. Schumacher, in 1966.  The concept of Intermediate Technology can be best described as technology that has been developed to be appropriate to the location and circumstances to which it is being deployed.  This terminology was created in recognition that simply applying technology and capacity building solutions that are replicated from more developed countries and applied to developing countries verbatim, is likely to lead to failure. Some typical (and still current) examples of this are:

(1) the purchasing of road construction heavy plant equipment in locations where spare parts are not available, or where there is no budget to purchase or maintain them.

(2) the application of a Road Management System (RMS) designed for more developed countries in less developed countries, which do not have the quantity or quality of data to enter into the system, leading to failure.

(3) the development of road condition and road safety survey methodologies using equipment that is too expensive to purchase and import, is too fragile to be of any long term use, or requires periodic calibration in the country of manufacture, when there is no long-term committed budget to pay for it.

The above are all examples of where Intermediate Technology is a more appropriate solution, and this is the niche that Intermediate Technology Transport was created to fill, which it still does to this day.

In 1990, although we continued to work in Intermediate Technology application, we formally changed our name to I.T. Transport Limited (ITT), in recognition of our growth into Management Consulting, in addition to our traditional technological offering.  By changing the name to I.T. Transport, it changed the perception that Intermediate Technology was our only area of specialisation.  At this time, we also developed our current logo and strapline “Reducing Poverty by Enabling Access”.  The strapline itself represented that much of our work at that time was focused on reducing rural poverty, and funded through the traditional aid route, with a range of bilateral and multilateral development partners.  A huge amount of great work was done during this period, and firmly cemented ITT’s reputation as a high-quality provider of services.

In 2014, ITT’s logo changed as we became Cardno IT Transport, following the purchase of I.T. Transport by Australian multi-national Cardno.  At the beginning of 2021, ITT was purchased back from Cardno by its Senior Management Team, and has been independent again ever since.  Now, a little over a year since the buyout, we felt the time was right to redevelop the ITT brand to reflect the work we do, and the way the world has changed since our previous strapline was developed more than 30 years ago.

Although the changes we are making mean ITT’s logo is as recognisable as ever, we have updated the strapline to become “Sustainable Transport Infrastructure Solutions”, and changed the logo colour to a dark shade of green.

The reasons we have made these changes are:

• There has been a huge amount of development progress over the last 30 years, including the mindset around the work we do. We no longer see poverty as a problem to be resolved in isolation, but rather as a side effect of failed governance and weak-economic activity.  This change may sound minor, but in reality, the shift in attitude towards seeing poverty as a side effect of other factors, allows a better focus on those specific factors which if improved, will reduce poverty as a natural outcome.  Or in other words, we are shifting our focus to be on the upstream causes of poverty, not the downstream effect.
• Continued references to “poverty” generate an incorrect image of the countries we work in. There has been a huge amount of progress over the last 30 years in economic and social terms particularly, thus focusing on out-of-date perceptions does not do the countries we work in justice.  Two thirds of all economic growth in the world now happens in developing countries, and this will not decrease in the future.  They are places with significant business opportunities with serious dollar values, and we encourage other companies from the U.K. and elsewhere to export more goods and services into these markets for their own benefit.  Perception plays a huge part in choices for companies where to work, and we wish to make it clear that we back the markets in the countries we work in.
• Ensuring good project outcomes has always been at the heart of what ITT does. However, as language has evolved over the last 30 years, we wanted to make it clearer that what we stand for are “sustainable” solutions.  Fundamentally, this means solutions that stand the test of time by being financially, socially, and environmentally sustainable.
• We have changed our logo colour to match that of the logos for the Intermediate Technology Transport products we have been developing over the last year or so. These will be launched later this year, and both products tick all the boxes needed to fit with ITT’s values.  We also moved away from black on white for the reason of being more aesthetically pleasing.  Back when the current logo was developed, almost everything was printed out, and so having a logo which was black and white meant significantly reduced printing costs due to lower price of black ink as compared to colour. These days, almost nothing is printed, so a bit of colour doesn’t hurt anyone.

In summary, although ITT is moving with the times and will continue to evolve just as the world and it’s needs do, the one thing that will never change is our passion for development, and the quality of services we offer.