Determinants for intention to change travel mode choice behaviour of NHS hospital staff

The UK’s NHS is the largest employer in Europe with approximately 1.3 million staff. Around 83% of the journeys associated with the NHS are made by private car. In this context, every healthcare authority was required to produce a travel plan by December 2010, including an emphasis on promoting walking and cycling as a means of accessing hospitals. Evidence shows that although the take–up of travel plans is increasing across the NHS, the impact of travel plans in promoting walking as a travel option is relatively low among hospital staff. A scoping study has been conducted aiming to bridge the gap between research and practice by capturing the views of the NHS representatives on hospital travel plans by a nationwide survey and review of hospital travel plans. The survey findings show that despite having a high potential to promote walking as a key travel option among the hospital staff, the measures to promote walking were cited as the least effective. A Spearman’s ⇢ correlation coefficient test was performed to evaluate the correlation between travel plan measures to promote walking and restrictive measures to reduce the use of cars. The results show that the effectiveness of measures to reduce the use of cars is positively correlated with the effectiveness of measures to promote walking. The effectiveness of travel plan measures to secure the targeted outcome is attributed to the methods used to address the determinants for changing travel behaviour whilst designing travel plan measures and the successful adoption of innovative strategies in the given context. A theoretical framework has been developed based on the Theory of Planned Behaviour and five key research hypotheses have been proposed to demonstrate the key determinants for changing travel behaviour. The analysis was based on a nationwide survey among the NHS hospital staff in England in 2013. There were 863 completed responses, out of which 459 responses were from hospital staff, who solely relied on car journeys for commuting purposes. Structural equation modelling was performed to investigate the effects of socio–economic, psychological and situational factors in determining intention to change travel behaviour among the car users only. The model estimation results show that the effects of cognitive attitude towards walking and objective mobility were significant on determining intention to change travel behaviour. The respondents exhibited a habitual nature of travel behaviour, which is characterised by longer commuting distance and journey time than the national UK average. The practical implications of the study were addressed by providing recommendations that need to be considered whilst designing travel plan measures. The recommendations were based on the concept of Model for Planned Promotion. This study provides a basis for further conceptualisation of travel behaviour change and identifies several areas that need further investigation in relation to designing interventions to promote walking in the context of healthcare

Urban design and social capital: lessons from a case study in Braunstone, Leicester, UK

A valuable asset in sustainable regeneration is the ‘community’ with their developed networks, bonds and ties or in other words its social capital which is a useful resource. Braunstone in Leicester is typical of many disadvantaged areas in the UK, with persistent socio-economic problems exacerbated by a poor physical setting. With a large regeneration programme funded by the New Deal for Communities coming to a close, we conducted a case study to explore the impact of improved local facilities and the effect of walkability on social capital. The lessons learnt suggests that responding to needs at a finer grain is vital in developing neighbourhoods for social capital such as responding to the needs of different user groups, responding to local patterns of use and needs of micro localities, and improving the perceptions of neighbourhoods. Local facilities and neighbourhood walkablity provides incentives for longer term residency, and facilitates interaction which helps social capital to grow. Accessing services by walking and using public transport proves vital to engage in social activities, while a poor physical environment, lack of accessible services and public transport negatively affects participation in social and leisure activities. Facilities and buildings provide a mediating role in developing social capital in a community, providing opportunity for social interaction which encourages people to reside in an area for longer. Improving connections beyond the neighbourhood is important to help retain people for longer term residency to develop social capital

Social capital in urban environments: intersection of theory, research and practice literature

This paper attempts to stretch the understanding of the relationship between social capital and attributes of the physical environment through an exploration of the intersection of social capital theory, urban design practitioner guidance and empirical research on social capital that considers the built environment as a variable. Viewing such knowledge through the lens of social capital, the links, overlaps, and extensions were extrapolated thereby attempting to operationalise the theoretical notion of social capital, within sustainability assessment

Briefing: holistic assessment of sustainable urban development

Introducing the SUE-MoT (metrics, models and toolkits for whole-life sustainable urban development) series, this paper highlights some of the barriers that need to be addressed if the vision for holistic assessment is to be realised. The complexities of sustainability assessment raised in this paper will be further discussed in detail in the SUE-MoT series of papers that will be published in forthcoming issues of this journal. This paper highlights the priorities to address when assessment tools are presented to decision makers of urban development projects. This discussion is limited to the issues, values and solutions in the UK context

Healthcare representatives’ perspectives on hospital travel plans in England

The take-up of travel plans is increasing across the National Health Service (NHS) in the UK, yet their impact on reducing car use is relatively low. Previous studies have investigated the determinants of generic travel plans but lacked an appreciation of the unique context of healthcare settings. This study investigated NHS travel plan co-ordinators' views on hospital travel plans to identify the factors affecting the success of travel plans in changing travel mode choice behaviour. A nationwide survey was conducted among NHS travel plan co-ordinators in England, with a response rate of 51% (n = 47). Findings suggest that despite having the potential for promoting walking as a key travel option among the hospital staff, measures to promote walking were reported as the least effective. Spearman correlation tests show that the effectiveness of measures to promote walking and reduce car use was positively associated with each other - highlighting the significance of designing effective travel measures to promote walking to attain the overall success in changing travel mode choice behaviour. Shift working patterns, personal circumstances, high car use, and staff attitude towards car use were reported as the key barriers to change travel mode choice behaviour among the NHS hospital staff. The use of robust methods, and evidence-base to develop, and monitor travel plan measures were found to be the key determinants of the success of travel plans. The provision of off-site car parks around 10-15. min walking distance away from the hospital site will not only encourage the car users to walk but also provide a realistic solution to the transport issues experienced by the hospitals. This study contributes to the knowledge gap by providing a valuable insight into the factors that may have affected the success of hospital travel plans, and form a basis for future research

SMART: A process-oriented methodology for resilient smart cities

Cities are engines of economic prosperity and social development. Rapid urbanization and the impacts of climate change have resulted in increased vulnerabilities in cities. On the other hand, the increasing proliferation of connected devices and distributed monitoring of the environment around us has opened up an opportunity to transform the way we create and manage cities. Contextual evidence of performance, outcome and efficiency can now be readily collected at a higher resolution to aid multidisciplinary and multi-objective decision-making, enabling optimal evolution of cities against the backdrop of constrained resources and intensified vulnerabilities. This paper first argues that distributed and ubiquitous monitoring is at the heart of smart cities. Insights can be inferred from the gathered data with potential for evidence-based decisions at the required spatial and temporal scales. The paper then discusses the development of a comprehensive but concise frameworks called DICES (data, insights, citizen, evidence and standards) for conceptualizing smart cities. The dimensions of DICES are then translated into a process oriented methodology called SMART (specify, monitor, analyze, resolve and transform) by formalizing key aspects of the smart city process. Generality and scalability of DICES and SMART are demonstrated through the development of REPRO, a risk-and evidence-based platform for resilient and optimal design of buildings and infrastructure in a smart city

Barriers to the adoption of sustainability assessment tools in strategic decision making

The ubiquitous drive towards a more sustainable future has resulted in major changes in the planning and design of urban environments. Government strategies on sustainable development, published in 1999 and 2005, are thought to be driving the development of new legislations that are aimed at delivering a sustainable future for the UK. As a result, conventional stand-alone approaches to decision making in strategic planning are being replaced by more participatory and evidence-based approaches. These focus on achieving sustainability by taking into account the dynamic interactions between social, economic and environmental aspects of urban environments. The sheer volume of complex urban issues, the multiplicity of stakeholders and their varying values and diversity of viewpoints - all contribute towards making urban sustainability and its assessment an intellectually challenging task. Many tools have been developed to aid the decision making process by assessing the impacts of urban projects throughout their lifecycle. Sustainability assessment (SA) tools range from the assessment of a single indicator within a given context to the integrated assessment of a wide range of indicators covering many facets of sustainable development. However, the adoption of SA tools in decision making for strategic planning remains low. is paper reports on the findings of the research aimed at the identification and classification of the factors that had the potential to hinder or encourage the adoption of SA tools during the preparation of a local strategic plan. Based on the findings of a review of relevant literature, questionnaire survey, follow up interviews and a case study, the application context of SA tools was identified. To better understand the barriers to the adoption of SA tools, concepts from information sciences were taken into account. The findings reveal that in the complex platform of decision making, the adoption of tools is often constrained by the chain effects of interconnected barriers relating to technology, people and resources. The lack of appropriate tools to serve the demands of the sustainability assessment process and the lack of relevant expertise are the major barriers to the adoption of SA tools. Emerging policy context calls for robust and integrated tools that will perform efficiently to guide the decision making process. Joined-up efforts are required from academia and industry to develop the SA tools and to enhance professionals’ skills in the application of SA tools to meet the challenges of sustainability decision making in an emerging policy context

Urban design and social capital: lessons from a case study in Braunstone, Leicester

A valuable asset in sustainable regeneration is the ‘community’ with their developed networks, bonds and ties or in other words its social capital which is a useful resource. Braunstone in Leicester is typical of many disadvantaged areas in the UK, with persistent socio-economic problems exacerbated by a poor physical setting. With a large regeneration programme funded by the New Deal for Communities coming to a close, we conducted a case study to explore the impact of improved local facilities and the effect of walkability on social capital. The lessons learnt suggests that responding to needs at a finer grain is vital in developing neighbourhoods for social capital such as responding to the needs of different user groups, responding to local patterns of use and needs of micro localities, and improving the perceptions of neighbourhoods. Local facilities and neighbourhood walkablity provides incentives for longer term residency, and facilitates interaction which helps social capital to grow. Accessing services by walking and using public transport proves vital to engage in social activities, while a poor physical environment, lack of accessible services and public transport negatively affects participation in social and leisure activities. Facilities and buildings provide a mediating role in developing social capital in a community, providing opportunity for social interaction which encourages people to reside in an area for longer. Improving connections beyond the neighbourhood is important to help retain people for longer term residency to develop social capital

Collective adaptation through concurrent planning: the case of sustainable urban mobility

In this paper we address the challenges that impede collective adaptation in smart mobility systems by proposing a notion of ensembles. Ensembles enable systems with collective adaptability to be built as emergent aggregations of autonomous and self-adaptive agents. Adaptation in these systems is triggered by a run-time occurrence, which is known as an issue. The novel aspect of our approach is, it allows agents affected by an issue in the context of a smart mobility scenario to adapt collaboratively with minimal impact on their own preferences through an issue resolution process based on concurrent planning algorithms

Urban design and social capital: a case study on Braunstone New Deal for Communities area

The New Deal for Communities (NDC) regeneration programme aims to provide resources to tackle five key themes: poor job prospects; crime; educational under achievement; poor health; and problems with housing and the physical environment in the most deprived areas in the UK. In Braunstone NDC (BNDC), many initiatives have been underway to improve the area, together with substantial investment in buildings to provide a library, civic centre, health centre, leisure facilities and several others, with the ultimate aim of improving the quality of life of the residents of Braunstone. Our work revealed a significant void in tools to address social sustainability across all scales and at different stages of urban development. The ‘social capital’ work package addressed this by exploring the connection between urban development and social capital; one aspect of social sustainability. This work package identified the urban design attributes that encourage social capital to inform visions for sustainable urban development. As these ‘softer’ attributes are not easily quantified, the study specifically looked at forms of proxies that could be made use of in assessment such as ‘walkability’ and improvement to facilities that helps build social capital. The purpose of this report is to inform the findings of this case study to Braunstone Community Association and the residents of Braunstone