Month: October 2023

We’re happy to have welcomed many wonderful and talented new faces to the Centre for Transport and Society (CTS) team over the past year. Here’s a brief introduction to our newer members of teaching and research staff as well as our postgraduate research students.

Muhammad Adeel, Research Fellow

I joined UWE in August 2022 as a Research Fellow in Transport Analysis. At the CTS, I am working on a diverse set of interesting and cutting-edge research topics, such as, user experiences in automated vehicles, bus service reliability, and improving transport for young people in the UK.

Before joining UWE, I worked as a Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Institute of Transport Studies, University of Leeds (2019-2020) and as a researcher at LSE Cities, London School of Economics (2015-2019). Besides that, I have worked as a professional urban planner for many years in Pakistan. I am a Member of Transport Planning Society (TPS) and Fellow of the Royal Geographical Society, UK.

Evangelia Pantelaki, Acting Senior Lecturer in Transport Studies

I joined UWE in September 2022 and I am currently an acting Senior Lecturer. I am a Transport Economist and hold a PhD in Methods and Models for Economic Decisions from University of Insubria (Italy). Also, I am an Associate Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (AFHEA) and I am teaching in the BA Geography, MSc Engineering, and MSc Transport Engineering and Planning at UWE.

My research interests are business aviation, air transport connectivity, sustainable aviation and air transport economics. I have participated in several applied research projects in Italy and the UK and have worked with local authorities and the UK Department for Transport on topics such as cycling tourism, sustainable transport policies, older peoples’ mobility, e-cycles and demand responsive transport.

Mel Cairns, Postgraduate Researcher

Having thoroughly enjoyed my time studying for my MSc Sustainable Development in Practice at UWE, I was delighted to return to begin studying for my PhD in October 2022.

My PhD research is concerned with nature and cycling in the West of England. In particular, I’m exploring the role of nature, and nature connectedness, in cycling practices and experiences in the area as well as the characteristics of ‘nature cyclists’ and ‘nature cycling’ journeys.

I’m interested in urban and rural active mobilities, nature connectedness and planetary wellbeing and mobility justice perspectives. I have previously worked as a researcher on place-based wellbeing projects, particularly relating to rural wellbeing and social capital.

Xabier Gangoiti, Research Associate

I joined the Centre for Transport and Society at UWE in November 2022 as a research trainee. In April 2023, I was offered a new role as research associate in electric automated mobility.

Even though I have a Bachelor’s degree in Economics from the University of the Basque Country, my main research focus so far has been on cities. In fact, I also have a Master’s degree in Sociology (Urban Studies) from Goldsmiths’ College.

At the Centre for Transport and Society, I am currently working on two projects: one about the problems faced by European countries regarding the mass implementation of electric vehicles, and another one involving the first electric automated bus in the UK.

Eda Beyazit Ince, Research Fellow in Active Travel and Micromobility

I joined UWE in the summer of 2023 as a Research Fellow in Active Travel and Micromobility at the Centre for Transport and Society (CTS). Before joining UWE, I worked as an associate professor of urban planning at Istanbul Technical University, where I also founded IstanbulON Urban Mobility Lab. I also spent most of 2022 at the University of Manchester working on the mobility practices of domestic workers as a USF international fellow.

I have a PhD in transport geography from the School of Geography and the Environment at Oxford University. I have worked as a consultant for the Istanbul Sustainable Urban Mobility Plan, Istanbul Pedestrian Master Plan, and various projects and plans focusing on sustainable mobility.

Amin Reza Omranian, Postgraduate Researcher

I have joined UWE in June 2023 as a PhD student at the Centre for Transport and Society (CTS) and Air Quality Management Resource Centre (AQMRC).

My research, a collaboration between the Welsh Government and UWE, focuses on scenarios for achieving Wales’s transport decarbonisation targets and modal shift. My master’s research assessed electric vehicles’ impact on greenhouse gas (GHG) emissions. I also have experience in developing a GHG emission inventory in Iran.

My primary research interests include sustainable transport, transportation emissions, and GHG emissions.

Asa Thomas, Research Fellow in Active Travel and Micromobility

I have just started at the CTS as a Research Fellow in Active Travel and Micromobility while completing the final stages of my PhD in Transport at the University of Westminster. My research to date has focused on active travel to school, School Street closures, and Low Traffic Neighbourhoods – examining the policy processes and mobility impacts of the rapid introduction of these schemes during Covid-19. I’m looking forward to continuing with some of these strands at CTS, particularly while working on the EPSRC-funded OptiWaSP project which focuses on the potential for implementing walking school busses. Prior to my PhD I studied for a masters in Urban Studies at UCL, and took my undergraduate in Social Anthropology at LSE.

On 2^nd October 2023, the Government published a ‘Plan for Drivers’. The plan has five themes, and some proposed actions will be bad for drivers as well as other road users.

Whose voice has the government listened to?

The title of the second theme ‘Stopping unfair enforcement’, with five actions, contrasts with the title of the fourth theme of ‘Cracking down on inconsiderate driving’. These themes pull in different directions. The latter has four actions about uninsured drivers, middle lane drivers, noise enforcement, and roadside littering. The unfair enforcement theme deals with 20 mph speed limits, 15-minute cities, low traffic neighbourhoods, and levying of fines.

Mark Harper, the Secretary of State for Transport, writes in the foreword that ‘it is not right that some drivers feel under attack’. Government’s should base actions on evidence about impacts of measures and not the feelings of a few drivers.

Why would drivers want chaos?

Managing the highway network is a political issue as well as a technical issue. The road network has been expanded and managed for the benefit of motor traffic and drivers since the 1960s. The United Kingdom and its professional transport engineers and planners have planned, designed and managed that system. The motor car now dominates the urban environment. Other road users make do with space left over.

Individuals driving on the highway are regulated. This is to maintain capacity and enhance safety for everyone. The alternative to regulation on the roads is chaos.

Trade-off between speed and death

The plan claims safety benefits from investments in previous years. Road collision and injury data, published on 28^th September 2023, shows that cars are the vehicle type most often involved in fatal collisions when other road users are killed. Of the 1,711 people killed in collisions in 2022, 685 (40%) were killed in a collision with a car, but were outside the car (See Chart 4).

Lower speed limits save lives, but Action 12 under ‘Stopping unfair enforcement’ suggests updating 20mph zone guidance to prevent ‘blanket’ use. The guidance is more nuanced than the word blanket implies, and local authorities are asked to ‘consider the introduction of more 20 mph limits and zones, over time, in urban areas, to ensure greater safety for pedestrians and cyclists’.

The Welsh approach is that 20 mph is the urban area wide ‘default’ speed limit. Emerging evidence on 20 mph as a default urban speed should be used to strengthen English guidance and save lives, including drivers’ lives.

The mis-reading of ‘planning’ as ‘policing’

Action 13 suggests it will ‘stop local authorities using so-called ‘15-minute cities’ to police people’s lives’. The concept of enhancing access to goods and services for people within a journey time of 15 minutes from home is a planning rather than policing policy. The mis-apprehension implicit is comical. Everyone, including drivers, would benefit from a planning approach that reduces the need to travel.

Impacts in local authority decision making and powers

Action 14 suggests that low traffic neighbourhood implementation may depend on them not attracting public opposition. This reduces the ability for local policy makers to make appropriate decisions in the best interests of the local population.

Actions 15 and 16 are about fines and local authorities’ powers of enforcement. A consultation is proposed on removing local authorities’ access to Driver and Vehicle Licensing Agency (DVLA) data for civil enforcement of offences. This would remove the ability for local authorities to enforce some civil offences.

On the same day as publishing the Plan for Drivers, the network management duty guidance to support active travel was withdrawn.

Local authorities have duties and powers in relation to planning and highways. These proposed actions, and the withdrawal of the guidance, will inappropriately limit local authorities’ abilities and ambitions to plan and manage the highway network.

Overall, the plan for drivers will make travel worse for everyone, including drivers.

CTS conducts research on experience of the travel environment and society and the motor vehicle. This blog was written by John Parkin, Emeritus Professor of Transport Engineering at UWE.