Why do demand responsive transport systems fail?

In developed countries, Demand Responsive Transport (DRT) (loosely termed 'paratransit' in US parlance) emerged in the 1970s to serve the specialist niche market of people with mobility difficulties. DRT systems are starting become a mainstream public transport mode and this paper examines mainstream public transport DRT schemes from around the world that have failed, in order to identify the reasons for failure, and draw lessons to help prevent similar outcomes occurring. Research for the Intermode study developed detailed cases of 72 DRT projects. A number of key failed cases are reported together with a note of the lessons that each provides. This is followed by a generic analysis of failure factors based on a marketing approach. It is concluded that DRT projects are often not realistically costed or designed with a full understanding of the market they are to serve. There is a very dangerous temptation to offer too flexible a service and to include costly technological systems, when they may not be needed. An incremental approach, if possible, appears sensible. DRT also requires more marketing effort and skills than is traditional in conventional bus operations, but above all, it requires new skills in working in partnership. It is concluded that the latter area is where the root of DRT failure is often to be found

New creative careers: the problems of progression and uncertainty

This chapter presents findings from research which we conducted with participants who were current and former art college students, practitioners in different areas of creative arts and design, and therefore workers in a relatively newly named part of the economy, the ‘creative industries’. Originally identified by New Labour as a significantly successful new sector, they have subsequently received considerable attention from policy-makers and also academic commentators, in the UK and elsewhere. The list of creative industries cited by New Labour (DCMS 2001) also corresponds closely to the subject areas and activities of many art college courses, indicating how these institutions function as a vocational training ground and entry point for the creative industries. In this chapter, we discuss special issues which our research raised in relation to creative working; the implications of our research findings for vocational learners themselves and for course providers, teachers and institutions; sources of advantage and disadvantage for learners, as indicated by our research, and some further implications for those aiming to assist and expand lifelong learning opportunities

Future bathroom: A study of user-centred design principles affecting usability, safety and satisfaction in bathrooms for people living with disabilities

Research and development work relating to assistive technology 2010-11 (Department of Health) Presented to Parliament pursuant to Section 22 of the Chronically Sick and Disabled Persons Act 197

Pattern Reification as the Basis for Description-Driven Systems

One of the main factors driving object-oriented software development for information systems is the requirement for systems to be tolerant to change. To address this issue in designing systems, this paper proposes a pattern-based, object-oriented, description-driven system (DDS) architecture as an extension to the standard UML four-layer meta-model. A DDS architecture is proposed in which aspects of both static and dynamic systems behavior can be captured via descriptive models and meta-models. The proposed architecture embodies four main elements - firstly, the adoption of a multi-layered meta-modeling architecture and reflective meta-level architecture, secondly the identification of four data modeling relationships that can be made explicit such that they can be modified dynamically, thirdly the identification of five design patterns which have emerged from practice and have proved essential in providing reusable building blocks for data management, and fourthly the encoding of the structural properties of the five design patterns by means of one fundamental pattern, the Graph pattern. A practical example of this philosophy, the CRISTAL project, is used to demonstrate the use of description-driven data objects to handle system evolution.Comment: 20 pages, 10 figure

Unravelling the relative contributions of climate change and ground disturbance to subsurface temperature perturbations: Case studies from Tyneside, UK

When assessing subsurface urban heat islands (UHIs) it is important to distinguish between localized effects of land-use change and the impacts of global climate change. However, few investigations have successfully unraveled the two influences. We have investigated borehole temperature records from the urban centres of Gateshead and Newcastle upon Tyne in northeast England, to ascertain the effects on subsurface temperatures of climate change and changes in ground conditions due to historic coal mining and more recent urban development. The latter effects are shown to be substantial, albeit with significant variations on a very local scale. Significant subsurface UHIs are indeed evident in both urban centres, estimated as 2.0 °C in Newcastle and 4.5 °C in Gateshead, the former value being comparable to the 1.9 °C atmospheric UHI previously measured for the Tyneside conurbation as a whole. We interpret these substantial subsurface UHIs as a consequence of the region’s long history of urban and industrial development and associated surface energy use, possibly supplemented in Gateshead by the thermal effect of trains braking in an adjacent shallow railway tunnel. We also show that a large proportion of the expected conductive heat flux from the Earth’s interior beneath both Gateshead and Newcastle becomes entrained by groundwater flow and transported elsewhere, through former mineworkings in which the rocks have become ‘permeabilised’ during the region’s long history of coal mining. Discharge of groundwater at a nearby minewater pumping station, Kibblesworth, has a heat flux that we estimate as ∼7.5 MW; it thus ‘captures’ the equivalent of roughly two thirds of the geothermal heat flux through a >100 km2 surrounding region. Modelling of the associated groundwater flow regime provides first-order estimates of the hydraulic transport properties of ‘permeabilised’ Carboniferous Coal Measures rocks, comprising permeability ∼3 × 10−11 m2 or ∼30 darcies, hydraulic conductivity ∼2 × 10−4 m s−1, and transmissivity ∼2 × 10−3 m2 s−1 or ∼200 m2 day−1; these are very high values, comparable to what one might expect for karstified Carboniferous limestone. Furthermore, the large-magnitude subsurface UHIs create significant downward components of conductive heat flow in the shallow subsurface, which are supplemented by downward heat transport by groundwater movement towards the flow network through the former mineworkings. The warm water in these workings has thus been heated, in part, by heat drawn from the shallow subsurface, as well as by heat flowing from the Earth’s interior. Similar conductive heat flow and groundwater flow responses are expected in other urban former coalfield regions of Britain; knowledge of the processes involved may facilitate their use as heat stores and may also contribute to UHI mitigation