Travel Behaviour Response to Major Transport System Disruptions: Implications for Smarter Resilience Planning

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Transport strategy in Scotland since devolution

This article critically reviews how the Scottish Executive's approach to transport has developed since devolution. Although there is much to commend, a number of concerns can be identified, including the possibility that a number of strategic infrastructure schemes appear to have been approved on political rather than on technical grounds. It is difficult to know whether the current set of transport infrastructure investment plans represents good value for public money

Transport Works: The Case for Investing in the City Regions

This document outlines the case for continued investment in urban local transport through the recession and beyond. Investing in better transport has been an important part of the stimulus package implemented by government in order to support key sectors of the economy through the recession. Continuing and sustaining this investment for the long term will be an equally important part of the recovery phase, since improving local transport is one of the most effective means of supporting jobs and businesse

Governance of UK Transport Infrastructures

First paragraph: Transport plays a vital role in every day life. The efficient movement of people and goods is an essential part of a productive economy as well as being important for social cohesion, health and well-being. Investment or policy intervention in the transport system is, therefore, in support of these other wider objectives or to tackle externalities such as climate change or congestion. The institutional structures underpinning transport have, however, developed around modes and networks and around the industries of transport. The arrangements vary significantly between modes and, increasingly, across areas. There is a multitude of governance networks rather than a single overarching ‘governance of the transport system’. This makes it difficult to achieve integrated outcomes

COVID-19 will have a profound long-term impact on transport policy and travel patterns, but rapid change is less likely

Greg Marsden and Iain Docherty find that the pandemic has accelerated some transport policy commitments that were already planned, but at a time of huge stress on the government, the potential to deliver radical policy adaptation was limited. However, COVID-19 is still recognised as being a potentially path-changing disruption to existing trajectories in terms of the adaptations to business practices, industry structures, ways of working and the public finances

On surprises, strategy, the economy, and what comes next for Scottish independence

Nicola Sturgeon’s resignation as First Minister and leader of the SNP has thrown Scottish politics into flux. But beneath the superficial media coverage and frenetic party politics that followed her resignation, the fundamentals of the constitutional debate remain unaltered. One of these fundamentals, the extent to which Scotland is better or worse off being part of the UK political economy, is rarely debated in the depth it deserves. The parlous state of the UK economy, and in particular the deeply entrenched territorial inequality that results from its extreme core-periphery structure that safeguards the economic dominance of London and the South East, holds the potential for a surprise shift in the debate over independence to emerge

Reducing Car Use Amongst Older Drivers

Our work comprised a pilot study exploring potential means to support older people to reduce their car use. This group is under-represented in behaviour change research in transport, which often focuses on delaying the take up of driving or other critical stages in the life course such as having children. Indeed, research on older drivers is largely dominated by work exploring the potential negative impacts on their physical and mental health of driving cessation. Nonetheless, given the demands of the climate emergency and the scale of the requirement to reduce car use implied in any credible decarbonisation pathway, all sections of society will have to change their travel behaviour, at least to some extent. It is our contention that research into how this can be achieved for older drivers is not only a necessary component of informing wider car use reduction behaviour change strategies, but also that older age groups have a crucial role to play in signalling the need for change to others. Given the scale of the project, the research was wholly qualitative in nature. It comprised the following principal elements: Contextualisation interviews with four transport sector professionals exploring the extent to which older drivers as a group had been considered in policy development for decarbonisation; An online survey (fourteen respondents) exploring opinions from long-established drivers in the North of England who have experience of reducing the number of cars in their household, reducing their levels of car use, stopping driving, or switching to electric or hybrid vehicles, and; A virtual focus group with three participants drawn from the online survey to explore their responses to the questionnaire in more depth. Our pilot study reported here highlights what is likely to be necessary to support decarbonisation effectively. Policies need to consider socio-economic and demographic factors as well as the level of urbanisation, accessibility and environmental quality. Our 3 participants demonstrated a broad range of different decarbonisation behaviours; however, their activities are not necessarily associated with a particular/self-declared interest in the environmental impact of driving, suggesting that there may be greater societal readiness for change than might generally be assumed. The results offer insight into the extent of change still required to make lower carbon choices more convenient and realistic, even for people with committed environmental interests. Our interviews with older adults explored how mobility needs change over the life course, including continuing, complex obligations to others and shifting contexts for travel more generally in later life. The relationship between planning and land use is identified as a central issue, but the quality of public transport and active travel options also come under scrutiny. Primarily, participants stressed the need for infrastructure improvements, including effective enforcement of safer behaviour on the roads. The value of emphasising economic and health benefits in lower carbon options is also advocated, as is simplifying and reducing the time and cost of using public transport

Development networks and urban growth in small cities

Real estate development is an intensely social process dependent on rich networks of relations between public and private sector actors. Previous work has explored how far such relations are formalised in large cities through shared coalitions of interest intended to promote urban growth. Relatively little attention has been given to networks in smaller cities, which is the concern of this paper. Drawing on detailed research in a small Scottish city, the paper explores how its local network was characterised by strong reliance on network construction and reproduction through trust and reputation. Significantly, within such local networks, competition and collaboration can exist side by side, without subsuming normal tensions into consistent agendas or formally defined ‘partnerships’. Controlling land for urban expansion provides a particular focus for these tensions, since it can allow certain interests to gain network dominance. These findings raise important concerns around whether small cities should rely on informal networks to promote growth instead of constructing formal coalitions that may attract more externally based actors. Such choices have profound implications for the capacity and transparency of development networks, and thus for the accountability of the urban development process

Reducing Car Use Amongst Older Drivers

Our work comprised a pilot study exploring potential means to support older people to reduce their car use. This group is under-represented in behaviour change research in transport, which often focuses on delaying the take up of driving or other critical stages in the life course such as having children. Indeed, research on older drivers is largely dominated by work exploring the potential negative impacts on their physical and mental health of driving cessation. Nonetheless, given the demands of the climate emergency and the scale of the requirement to reduce car use implied in any credible decarbonisation pathway, all sections of society will have to change their travel behaviour, at least to some extent. It is our contention that research into how this can be achieved for older drivers is not only a necessary component of informing wider car use reduction behaviour change strategies, but also that older age groups have a crucial role to play in signalling the need for change to others

Making tracks: the politics of local rail transport in Merseyside and Strathclyde, 1986-96

This thesis explores the impacts of geographical structures of local governance upon the development of passenger rail transport policies in the Merseyside and Strathclyde urban regions. Rather than evaluate policy outcomes, it describes and analyses the systems and processes through which strategic rail transport policy-making is shaped and constrained. The impacts upon urban local rail transport policy-making of the statutory Passenger Transport Authorities and Executives, other local authorities, public and private sector bodies and individuals, which together comprise the prevailing structure of local governance in each area, are traced. The theory of the urban policy regime is applied to explain the development of particular policies from their basis in local political and popular concern, through to their implementation or rejection in order to illustrate the influences of each member of the policy community in practice. The two study areas and 1986-1996 timescale are chosen to represent the period when two differing territorial structures of Passenger Transport Authority (PTA) co-existed in the UK. Strathclyde Regional Council, which acted as PTA for the Clydeside conurbation and surrounding area in the west of Scotland, was the last remaining example in the UK of a strategic urban local government with jurisdiction over an entire city-region. In contrast, Merseytravel, the PTA responsible for local rail transport development in Merseyside, an urban region of similar economic, social and rail transport structure to Strathclyde, was jointly administered by five smaller local authorities acting under the quasi-market principles of public choice theory. Through a detailed exposition of the development of urban rail transport policies in each area, the ways in which both types of institutional arrangement influenced the structure and operation of the local policy regime, and its pattern of policy discourse, are analysed. The opportunities arising for the effective expression of public accountability under each system are highlighted, since this is a central aspiration of the abolition of strategic city-region wide local authorities inspired by public choice theory