Imagined people, behaviour and future mobility: Insights from visions of electric vehicles and car clubs in the United Kingdom

This study focuses on imagined futures of personal mobility in the United Kingdom in the context of the need to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from transport. Focusing on two innovations, electric vehicles and car clubs, the study investigates how people, behaviour and mobility are imagined in a range of visioning documents about the future up to 2050, a timeline that is critically important for emission reduction targets. We find that people are imagined primarily as consumers in line with the rational actor paradigm, with many visions focusing on low-carbon vehicles as a sustainability solution. This simple technological substitution vision does not play to the strengths of electric vehicles, and diminishes their transformative potential. There are fewer car club visions; these show less car ownership, but retain high mobility and an economic growth perspective. Our findings support the idea that much future mobility visioning is used to support the status quo, rather than to explore a variety of futures with diverse portrayal of people, behaviour and mobility

Urban assets and the financialisation fix: land tenure, renewal and path dependency in the city of Birmingham

Cities are places of incremental decision-making involving complex negotiations that produce accumulations of urban assets and path dependency. The ownership, control and co-ordination of urban land and its transformation into an investment asset is a key link between economic interests and urban activities that come together in site-based “financialisation fixes”. A financialisation fix combines a development solution for a specific site with a financial model creating a locally embedded asset. This article examines how land tenure (freehold versus leasehold rights) influences the transformation of a city and the role a local authority plays in the financial management of land assets. This includes an analysis of the application of financialisation to urban assets and the first tax increment financing scheme of 1875

Competition and substitution between public transport modes

The management and understanding of modal split between public transport (PT) modes is of interest for numerous reasons. It may, for example, be desirable to stimulate passengers to switch from crowded buses and over to higher capacity rail. This requires a good understanding of drivers of transit modal substitution. The evidence put forward in this paper is based on more than 150 empirically estimated cross elasticities between PT modes from over 20 sources collected from Australia, Europe and USA. These sources include scientifically published evidence as well as grey literature. This evidence is coded into a database from which our paper presents and analyses the available cross-PT-modal demand relations. We focus on evidence for how fares, travel time and service intervals on PT ‘mode A’ affect the demand for PT ‘mode B’. Despite generally low levels of substitution between PT modes, passengers are particularly sensitive to in-vehicle, access/egress and waiting time in choosing PT mode and less so for fare variations. In general, rail demand is less sensitive to changes in bus than bus demand is to changes in rail. We also find that peak-hour demand more markedly switches between PT modes than off-peak demand does

Technological frames and the politics of automated electric light rail rapid transit in Poland and the United Kingdom

Light Rapid Transit (LRT) systems are often backed not only because they satisfy basic mobility functions, but because they can revitalize urban centers, affirm the legitimacy of state planners, support innovation and even cultivate an image of a city or region as progressive and modern. In this study, we argue that electrified, automated LRT systems can fulfill private functional frames, private symbolic frames, societal functional frames, and societal symbolic frames. In particular, we argue that light rail can fulfill private functional frames (making passengers feel safe, offering a cheap and efficient mode of transport), private symbolic frames (signifying political identity or exclusionary planning), societal functional frames (environmental stewardship), and societal symbolic frames (such as modernism or innovativeness). Essentially, these frames encompass not only what light rail is and does, but what it means and represents, and even some of its failures and challenges. The article then identifies ten specific frames associated with two case studies of automated light rail systems, the established Docklands Light Rail (DLR) in the United Kingdom, and the emerging Personal Rapid Transit (PRT) in Poland. We find that the DLR is not only a vital part of meeting (functional) demand for mobility, it is innovative and exciting to ride, legitimation of a conservative approach to project development, a social injustice (to some), an environmentally friendly alternative to cars, and a perceived magnet for global investment into the greater Docklands area. Similarly, the PRT is not only a reliable and safe mode of transit, but also a technical marvel, a monopoly breaking symbol, a clean and sustainable form of mobility, and a reflection of progressive Polish innovation and entrepreneurship (or enduring failure)

Dublin Transportation Initiative Technical volume 8 - environmental traffic planning; terms of reference

Available from British Library Document Supply Centre-DSC:OP-IRE/470 / BLDSC - British Library Document Supply CentreSIGLEGBUnited Kingdo

Financing public transport How does Britain compare

SIGLEAvailable from British Library Document Supply Centre- DSC:q92/13708(Financing) / BLDSC - British Library Document Supply CentreGBUnited Kingdo

Review of voluntary transport Summary report

Report for the Dept. of the Environment, Transport and the RegionsAvailable from British Library Document Supply Centre-DSC:f99/3841 / BLDSC - British Library Document Supply CentreSIGLEGBUnited Kingdo