Historic Cities Project Task 4 – The Business Surveys: Questionnaire Design, Implementation and Initial Analysis.

The Historic Cities project examined the potential impacts of transport demand management strategies on three case study ‘historic’ cities in England. These cities are York, Cambridge and Norwich, all of which have the following characteristics: - they are cities which pre-date motorised transport, and thus tend to have city centres dominated by narrow streets; - they are all members of the Historic Towns Forum; - they have a high architectural and historic heritage, and attract many tourists each year; - they have severe congestion, and congestion related problems; - the city authorities are faced with the problems of maintaining the environmental quality of the city, while allowing the most efficient use of the transport infrastructure. The focus of the project was how transport demand management policies, particularly parking, pricing and road-space re-allocation, can contribute to the last bullet above. Task 4 in the Historic Cities project examined the predicted effects on the urban economy from a work place parking levy and road user charging. It is thought that a major barrier to the implementation of these instruments is the perception that they will have detrimental impacts on the local economy. This task examines whether this hypothesis is correct by examining the impacts on, and attitudes of, businesses in the case study cities. This working paper describes the survey work that was undertaken and presents the initial analysis of the results. It has the following sections: Section 1: introduces the research; Section 2: describes the policies to be studied; Section 3: describes the development and rationale for the questionnaire; Section 4: describes the sampling process; Section 5: presents the initial analysis of the results; Section 6: gives a summary and conclusions. This is the second Working paper that summaries the Task 4 study. The first working paper (537) outlined the business sector profile for each city. A third working paper (552) will present multi-variate analysis of the dataset

Propositions for information technology: Planning for success

In Canada, the West Vancouver School Board proposed 13 propositions about the selection, management, and effective use of information technology. For each proposition, the senior management included a full outline of the current status, a plan of action, the name of the staff member responsible, and a time line. An external assessment of implementation of each proposition and of the impact on achievement was undertaken. The propositions, clustered in the areas of vision, statement of beliefs, student learning goals, definition, social issues, learning issues, clarification of roles and responsibilities, integration of information delivery systems, community-based information infrastructure, and assessment, are discussed

The Opie Recordings: What’s Left to be Heard?

This chapter presents an analysis of selected recordings from the Opie Collection of Children's Games in the National Sound Archive. It contextualises them with an account of the Opies' research approach, and identifies three themes emerging from the recordings which are not found in published work by the Opies. These are: the strong rleatinoship between children's media cultures and traditional play cultures; more extensive variation of words and music in the singing games; and more extreme examples of obscene and scatological rhymes

Transport and Older People: Integrating Transport Planning Tools with User Needs

This study was funded through a pump-priming grant from the Strategic Promotion of Ageing Research Capacity (SPARC) programme. The purpose of the project was to bring together transport and public health research in order to demonstrate how the involvement of older people can help improve tools for transport planning. The study was unique in that it brought together public health and transport planning and engineering with older people to consider how services can be more responsive to older people’s transport needs. The project had five research objectives: 1. To investigate how accessibility problems impact on older people’s independence 2. To determine the extent to which currently available data sources and modelling tools reflect older people’s stated accessibility needs 3. To understand how the gap between expected and perceived accessibility problems varies across different categories of older people 4. To pilot techniques that could be applied to provide a more robust measure of accessibility for older people. 5. To build new research capacity across disciplines to develop a national focus on the interactions between ageing and transport planning. The methods were determined on the basis of ‘appropriate tools with maximum output’. Focus group interviews were selected as a useful tool for reaching a large number of older people within a limited time span, for providing an arena for discussion and debate about a topical subject and for generating ideas for improving transport planning. Following the interviews accompanied walks were undertaken with older people in a range of road environments and traffic situations. The purpose of these walks was to observe and explore the way older people interact with their environment. Data from the focus group interviews and the observations were compared with the outputs from an accessibility planning tool used by local authorities to plan accessible and acceptable transport routes (Accession™). The purpose of this exercise was to investigate whether or not such tools are able to take into account the varying needs of older people. The study was undertaken over eight months. Eighty one older people living in the Leeds district took part in the focus groups. They covered a broad range of mobility levels and used a variety of transport types, as such a reasonably rounded perspective on the issues concerned was offered. In addition six walks were undertaken with older people in their community

Understanding the older traveller: stop, look and listen!

Getting around would be difficult without roads, rail and pedestrian walkways. Despite what we take for granted, the older traveller is often left feeling frustrated by the current transport infrastructure. Based on their research, Dr Greg Marsden et al explore in this article why this is the case, they look at the barriers that prevent older people getting out and about and the considerations when planning transport for the older traveller

Making the most of industrial wastes: strengthening resource security of valuable metals for clean growth in the UK

Industrial wastes from the mining and manufacturing sectors contain metals such as vanadium, cobalt, lithium and rare-earth elements. Many of these are currently 100% imported and also necessary for clean technologies including wind turbines, solar panels, energy storage and a multitude of electronics. Recovering these resources from industrial wastes has the potential to contribute towards the UK’s ambition for clean growth, resource security and reducing carbon emissions. However, the current regulatory framework for industrial wastes was not designed with the circular economy in mind and policies will need to become more integrated in order to unlock the potential of resource recovery to contribute to clean growth, create social benefits and maintain environmental protection

CORRELATION AMONG CAR DEPENDENCY, SOCIAL STATUS AND CAR USE IN JAKARTA

Aims of this research are to determine the prominent factor behind car dependency, examine the correlation between the factors that indicate car dependency, and the correlation between social status and car use in Jakarta. The primary question of this research is “What are the influence factors behind car dependency in Jakarta? Does prestige influence car use behavior in Jakarta?” By using Jakarta as a case study, the research applies Factor Analysis and Logistic Regression Analysis based on Theory of Planned Behavior. It used to measure individual’s behavior based on attitudes toward behavior, subjective norm, and perceive behavior. The result shows that factors of dependency in term of car users consist of the starting place, habits, and control belief. While factors on car dependency for car users on occasion are intention and control belief. Correlation between prestige and car use is identified based on attitudes and subjective norm. For car users, attitudes are influenced by higher degrees of prestige which is slightly contrary to people who use cars occasionally. Other indicators of prestige are car types which can influence people’s behavior in using the car. The conclusion which can be drawn from the results are no significant correlation found between car dependency and social status, but significant in the case of correlation between car use and social status

Monitoring the Philippine Economy Year-End Report for 2014

Despite doubts over growth prospects and challenges in the external market, the Philippine economy attained a solid 6.1 percent growth in 2014