Small Towns and Agriculture: Understanding the Spatial Pattern of Farm Linkages

Agricultural policy and farm lobby groups often stress the role of farm production in sustaining local economies. This paper considers the spatial pattern of upstream and downstream agricultural transactions of farms in North East Scotland and, in particular, the extent to which they take place within the locality of the farm holding. Three alternative definitions of “local” are considered: a distance-based measure; a measure which takes into account the location of the farm in relation to the nearest town; and a measure which takes into account the location of agribusinesses, defining a transaction as local if the farmer buys from (sells to) the nearest available input supplier (output purchaser). The results highlight the importance of allowing for context when explaining farmer purchasing and sales decisions. They also reveal a highly complex pattern of production-related linkages in the region, with many farmers choosing to bypass their most proximate agribusinesses. Certain towns are found to dominate agriculture-related transactions in the region, reflecting the spatial concentration of upstream and downstream agribusinesses. The findings provide new insights into theoretical debates on the role of small towns in the urban system and the changing importance of geographical distance in determining business transactions

Persuasion Profiles to Promote Pedestrianism: Effective Targeting of Active Travel Messages

This study recommends novel strategies for tailoring messages to encourage walking, for use in travel planning, Mobility as a Service platforms and other apps which promote sustainable transport behaviour. We suggest strategies based on individual demographic and psychosocial factors derived from the findings of a study of the persuasiveness of different arguments to encourage walking. 402 participants from across the UK were recruited to evaluate 16 pro-walking arguments systematically varied by type of argumentation used, and the values to which they appealed. We explored interactions between these argument features and participants’ personality, travel attitude, age and recent transport mode usage. We report several interesting findings, including that the types of argumentation used, participants’ travel attitude, and their previous transport uses all had no effect on the perceived persuasiveness of messages. Factors which did have an effect on the perceived persuasiveness of messages included the age and personality of the participants and the value to which the message appealed. We also found several complex interactions between these factors, such as that those higher in agreeableness tended to rate arguments emphasising environmental benefits as more persuasive, and that younger participants tended to rate arguments appealing to the health benefits and convenience of walking as less persuasive

VITALISE - Visualising actIve TrAveL wIth pakiStani familiEs in Bradford

Millions more journeys need to be walked or cycled (active travel) to meet the UK's Net Zero emissions target by 2050. However, across the UK, we do not yet walk and cycle enough short trips to make a difference. There are several reasons including many people find it difficult to get out of the habit of using a car for every journey, there are not enough safe routes for people to use for walking or cycling and lower participation within some communities. This document reports on a Photovoice (PV) based Participatory Action Research study designed to investigate barriers to active travel in Bradford’s Pakistani heritage community. It also aimed to investigate the use of PV to encourage critical consciousness of active travel (AT)

Visualising active travel with Pakistani heritage families in Bradford, UK – Photovoice as a tool for change

In this paper we report insights on barriers to active travel among the Pakistani heritage community in Bradford UK, generated using the participatory Photovoice method. This is the largest minoritized ethnic group in Bradford, and though most segments of the UK population need to be more physically active, those of non-white ethnicities, and South Asian heritage in particular, are generally significantly less active than average. Insufficient physical activity (including active travel) contributes to a significant health burden for minoritized communities as well limiting progress with increasing active travel among these communities. Increasing active travel is known to contribute to both positive health outcomes and to key transport decarbonisation aims. To meet public health goals and Net Zero emissions targets by 2050, increasing walking and cycling for short journeys will be essential but it remains difficult to achieve. There is a lack of knowledge relating to how specific cultural groups perceive active travel as an option within their local areas. We sought to explore the use of Photovoice to understand whether this method has potential to enable minoritized communities to actively consider active travel, and to provide connections between these communities and their local authorities. We recruited eight Pakistani heritage families living in Bradford to do this. Their photos were used in semi-structured interviews, and the data collectively analysed. The analysis suggested key barriers to walking and cycling could be grouped into four main categories: personal factors, social factors and those related to the local and wider environment. We also found that people's travel choices in this study are influenced by cognitive biases and social norms that are quite connected to their cultural heritage and societal position as minoritized. There were also both generational and gendered effects that need to be accounted for in intervention design. Based on participants' reflection and feedback, this report concludes participatory techniques like Photovoice offer an opportunity to break the status quo for those who are struggling to make a change by raising their social consciousness and helping them to gather evidence of their concerns

Steering Smart Mobility Services: Lessons from Seattle, Greater Manchester and Stockholm

This paper explores how three cities (Seattle, Greater Manchester and Stockholm) have approached the governance of smart mobility services in the early stages of their introduction. The research finds that cities have limited steering capacity, and when they do steer services this is done on the assumption that smart mobility will deliver wider social, environmental and economic good. While broad-ranging benefits are yet to materialise to any identifiable degree, the potential for smart mobility to tackle some of the challenges of automobility undoubtedly remains, and the new services are acting to change mobility patterns in cities, at least for some people. We focus on the need to develop clear accountability arrangements between the public and the private sector, which we see as a necessary element of a collaborative governance approach that allows both sides to identify shared goals and maximise their achievement. However, we stress that developing a collaborative approach requires cities to govern with intent, which means that services need to be deployed or permitted with clear objectives and an understanding of their anticipated impacts

Lessons from highway management reforms in a less developed province in China

This article describes how national imaginaries of market reforms designed to accommodate fast-growing Chinese regions, collide with embedded formal and informal governance practices in less developed provinces. Whilst much of the literature examines the implications of new infrastructure on regional economics, the management of existing networks dominates decision-making in these more stagnant economies. Using interviews with key stakeholders involved in highway management in Heilongjiang across the provincial and local levels, this paper explores institutional change and persistence using path dependence and junctures as an organising lens. We find that the manner and timing of institutional changes are shaped by the need for political elites in the territorial governing body to reinforce their authority over the vertical functional systems within the jurisdiction. Institutional persistence beneath the changes demonstrates path dependence, related to (a) the vested interests due to power trading and interpersonal relationships and (b) the defence of personnel-related benefits derived from long-standing public institutions. Political and administrative factors rather than economic and technical factors are paramount in influencing transport management and institutional processes in China's less developed provinces

Questioning mobility as a service: Unanticipated implications for society and governance

In this paper we focus on the development of a new service model for accessing transport, namely Mobility as a Service (MaaS) and present one of the first critical analyses of the rhetoric surrounding the concept. One central assumption of one prevalent MaaS conceptualization is that transport services are bundled into service packages for monthly payment, as in the telecommunication or media service sectors. Various other forms of MaaS are being developed but all tend to offer door-to-door multi-modal mobility services, brokered via digital platforms connecting users and service operators. By drawing on literature concerned with socio-technical transitions, we address two multi-layered questions. First, to what extent can the MaaS promises (to citizens and cities) be delivered, and what are the unanticipated societal implications that could arise from a wholesale adoption of MaaS in relation to key issues such as wellbeing, emissions and social inclusion? Second, what are de facto challenges for urban governance if the packaged services model of MaaS is widely adopted, and what are the recommended responses? To address these questions, we begin by considering the evolution of intelligent transport systems that underpin the current vision of MaaS and highlight how the new business model could provide a mechanism to make MaaS truly disruptive. We then identify a set of plausible unanticipated societal effects that have implications for urban planning and transport governance. This is followed by a critical assessment of the persuasive rhetoric around MaaS that makes grand promises about efficiency, choice and freedom. Our conclusion is that the range of possible unanticipated consequences carries risks that require public intervention (i.e. steering) for reasons of both efficiency and equity

Data for: Persuasion Profiles to Promote Pedestrianism: Effective targeting of active travel messages

Results from a survey to determine relative persuasive power of different elements of messages to encourage walking, and the effect of individual psychosocial, demographic and other features of the participants on the perceived persuasiveness of those messages. File contains cleaned data - raw data available on request

A preliminary assessment of regulatory efforts to steer smart mobility in London and Seattle

Smart mobility services, such as carsharing or ridesharing, are often promoted by their providers as the key to a sustainable transport future. However, they are also associated with risks such as increased congestion and inequality. This paper argues that state intervention is essential in order to mitigate such risks, and steer smart mobility in a way that contributes to the delivery of sustainable transport. We use London and Seattle as case studies to explore whether the regulation they have introduced can hold smart mobility providers accountable for their impacts on the urban environment, and if the accountability arrangements that are in place in each city can help local governments achieve their strategic goals for smart mobility. Our original finding is that there are three key features of regulations that are essential for shaping and steering smart mobility: regulations should be directed to specific types of smart mobility; should clearly set out providers' responsibilities and what happens if they fail to fulfill them; and should seek to clearly align the smart mobility offer with the cities' long-term strategies. We conclude that Seattle's regulatory approach is more likely to help the city achieve its ambitions for smart mobility, but we also highlight that regulation is only one element of smart mobility governance and careful consideration needs to be given to the role, if any, smart mobility will play in delivering a sustainable transport future