My father, Richard Timberlake, a chartered civil engineer, who has died aged 71, was a transport director with the London-based Lebanese consulting company Dar Al-Handasah and spent a large part of his time in the Middle East and North Africa. One of his first projects in the region involved the engineering design for the rapid expansion of the highway network in Saudi Arabia during the oil boom.
Richard was seconded in the early 1990s to work on transport planning in Dubai, now one of the world's leading tourist destinations.
A personal highlight of his career was being involved in 2004 in the crowd management of pilgrims taking part in the annual Hajj to Mecca. The replacement of the jamarat pillars with walls in the city of Mina, where pilgrims take part in ritual stone-throwing, and the building of the Jamarat bridge have allowed pilgrims to throw stones from either ground or bridge level without causing or sustaining injury.
He was born in Brentwood, Essex, the son of Bert, a former district manager of Midlands Electricity Board, and his wife Elwena (nee Causer). Educated at Ashville college, Harrogate, and University College London, where he studied engineering, Richard began his career as a transport planner with Warwickshire county council. He was responsible for the design of several major new roads, including the Sutton Coldfield bypass, which required the use of some unique design and construction techniques.
In the early years, Richard worked as a bridge engineer and gained chartered engineer status with the design of a bridge for the M6/M42 motorway intersection. He next became a director of a newly formed private research and development body, Planning and Transport Research and Computation. By 1974, PTRC had grown significantly, with one of its main clients being Dar Al-Handasah. In 1975, Dar established a new office in the UK and Richard, with some of his PTRC team, transferred across.
He was the author of several publications on road alignment, optimisation techniques and the sustainable funding of new highways.
Richard is survived by myself, his second wife, Jan, and two granddaughters.