Transport and Society | Centre for Transport and Society blog

If “exercise is medicine” could active travel be the prescription? Reflections on the relationship between active travel and social prescribing

Transport and Society | 26 March 202626 March 2026

With the health benefits of walking and cycling long established, social prescribing offers a promising route into active travel that starts with individuals’ health and wellbeing but can also influence the way they travel locally.

Feet and shadows of people walking on a sunny path. Photo credit: Age Cymru (Unsplash.com)

By Caroline Bartle, Visiting Researcher; Eda Beyazit, Research Fellow; and Asa Thomas, Research Fellow in CTS

In the week that marks National Social Prescribing Day in the UK, we reflect on the findings of an innovative pilot project in Bath & North East Somerset (B&NES) that introduced a range of walking, wheeling and cycling schemes into the portfolio of activities to which residents could be referred through social prescribing. As evaluators of the project, CTS researchers analysed participant surveys and interviewed participants, activity leaders and social prescribers to explore experiences and impacts of the project. Our evaluation found positive impacts in the form of a modest overall increase in walking and improved attitudes to walking, as well as narrative accounts of marked improvements – some of them profound – in many participants’ wellbeing. What can we learn from this about the potential benefits – and challenges – of a closer integration of active travel and public health programmes?

To set the scene we first outline the context and content of the B&NES project, called The Active Way, and the steps that led up to it.

What is social prescribing?

Social prescribing is the process of referring a patient into non-medical activities in their community to help address practical, social and emotional needs that affect their health and wellbeing. It offers an additional route of support alongside, or instead of, traditional pharmaceutical interventions. It can be particularly helpful for people who have one or more long term health conditions, and/or complex social needs which affect their wellbeing, including social isolation [1, 2].

The benefits of physical activity and exercise to physical and mental health are well established; hence, social prescribing referrals to activities that focus on physical activity are popular, alongside arts, culture and nature activities (e.g. ‘Green Prescribing’). Here in the UK, interventions centring on active travel, such as group-based walking, wheeling and cycling activities, are increasingly being added to the options to which an individual may be referred, via bodies such as the Primary Care Networks. 

What constituted ‘active travel’ in this project?

Definitions of active travel differ, but here it comprised walking, cycling and the use of wheeled mobilities such as manual or powered wheelchairs, mobility scooters and rollators. (‘wheeling’).

Two people looking at the referral portal to The Active Way on a computer screen. Photo credit: Tim Rawlings.

Embedding active travel schemes within social prescribing

UK Government support for this move was heralded by the Department for Transport’s 2020 strategy for cycling and walking – ‘Gear Change’ – which made a commitment to fund a national pilot Active Travel Social Prescribing (ATSP) programme. Managed by Active Travel England, the programme was innovative in bringing together the two complementary objectives of increasing active travel and improving health, with ancillary economic and environmental objectives in the form of potential reductions in the use of some NHS services, and the replacement of some car journeys by active travel modes. It thus represents a bold ambition in terms of translating the vision of integrating physical activity, health of individuals, reduced car dependence, and health of the planet, into reality through practical local actions.

The Active Way pilot in Bath & North East Somerset

B&NES was one of 11 local authorities to obtain funding through the 3-year ATSP programme, starting in 2023. The Active Way activities were concentrated in and around the rural Somer Valley area, and aimed to address needs identified by the local community relating to under-represented groups, high levels of deprivation and health inequalities. People could either be referred (for example, by GP practices or social prescribing link workers), or they could sign up directly (self-referral).

The activities offered included: led walks, such as a walking and photography group; led cycle rides; inclusive cycling using adapted cycles; cycle maintenance workshops; and loaning out of e-bikes. Some activities did not focus on walking and cycling directly but instead aimed to improve general health and wellbeing; for example: seated dance classes; and mentoring coupled with a wearable device that allowed participants to track their physical activity. By February 2026, nearly 2000 residents had participated in one or more of some 18 schemes, many run by local community organisations. In addition, over 4,200 people took part in an online game involving walking, cycling, running, scooting and wheeling.

Five people cycling along on a cycle path though trees. Photo credit: Tim Rawlings.

Outcomes of the pilot

Our evaluation focussed on three primary aims of the ATSP programme:

(1) Increased active travel for utility purposes,

(2) Increased physical activity, and

(3) Improved health and wellbeing.

We found evidence of positive impacts among Active Way participants in all three of these areas. The survey analysis found a modest increase in active travel and a statistically significant increase in the frequency and variety of participation in physical activities generally. These were small changes spread broadly across the sample and concentrated on changes to walking rather than cycling.

Qualitative responses were much stronger on the improvements in health and wellbeing. Indeed, some of those who had participated in activities over a period of weeks or months characterised the experience as transformative to their wellbeing, which emanated from both the physical activity and a growing sense of social connectedness.

Many of those interviewed highlighted their increased participation in walking and cycling recreationally, although this had translated only rarely into using active travel modes as a means of transport (for example, walking to local shops instead of driving). There were some examples, however, of people who were already physically active and had needed only a small nudge to start (or re-start) cycling or walking for utility trips. The survey analysis found positive changes in attitudes and confidence that may in time lead to more walking or cycling for transport. However, given the rural nature of the area, this is likely to require considerable improvements to infrastructure; many interviewees spoke of poor-quality pavements and busy roads that made walking, wheeling, and cycling for local journeys difficult.

Three people poised to set off on e-bikes. Photo credit: Tim Rawlings.

Reflections on the social prescribing of active travel

So what can we learn from these findings about the practicalities of integrating public health and active travel goals through policies and local actions?

Mainstreaming the ‘prescription’ of recreational walking, wheeling and cycling

The pilot provided further evidence that recreational walking, wheeling and cycling activities can support health and wellbeing. Social prescribing helps formalise this relationship and widens the reach of walking, wheeling and cycling to people who may struggle to engage for reasons of poor health, social isolation and/or economic deprivation. Participant accounts of wellbeing improvements as a result of the activities appear fully consistent with the goals of social prescribing more broadly. This suggests a strong argument for mainstreaming walking, wheeling and cycling within the portfolio of activities to which people may be referred through social prescribing routes.

Prescribing ‘active travel as transport’ is more problematic

The relationship between walking, wheeling and cycling as means of transport, and the prescribing of these as a form of health intervention, is more complex. This is partly about the availability (or lack) of infrastructure such as good-quality pavements, cycle paths, lighting and crossings. It is difficult to make a strong health and wellbeing case for walking and cycling for utility trips if such trips are fraught with anxiety about negotiating traffic or uneven surfaces. In rural areas such as the Somer Valley this is compounded by the longer distances between local services than is typically found in cities; the distances may create an additional barrier for people with health and mobility challenges.

Aligning behaviour change programmes with transport infrastructure improvements that support active travel

The Active Way is essentially a behaviour change intervention, although small-scale physical infrastructure improvements such as new signage did fall within its remit. It has been successful in improving people’s readiness for active travel by building knowledge, confidence and motivation, by improving physical capabilities to walk and cycle, and changing people’s perceptions of what constitutes a ‘walkable’ or cyclable’ distance – especially if they have been introduced to an e-bike. This provides a solid basis for behaviour change towards walking and cycling, not just for exercise and recreation, but also for travel. However, it really needs to happen in parallel with larger-scale infrastructure improvements to the network, such as those planned through the Somer Valley Links project (works start this year), if typical barriers to travel behaviour change are to be overcome. The challenges of aligning different types of transport intervention, supported by different funding streams, are by no means new, but need to be addressed if the benefits of prescribing walking and cycling are to feed through more smoothly into the substitution of some car trips car by active modes.

The rural planning dimension

Finally, and taking a further step back, it can be argued that rural areas are ‘rural’ in character for many reasons, one being a scarcity of services, which may be appealing to many who want to live in a peaceful environment with access to nature. However, this same spatial characteristic can create isolation when everyday opportunities for encountering other people reduce – for example if local shops, church halls or pubs close. In communities where such shared spaces remain, isolation may be less pronounced. In this context it is unsurprising that so many participants placed value on the social interaction these activities provided. If social prescribing and active travel aim to get people out of their houses and physically active, but do this by asking them to undertake long rural trips by active modes, this cannot be resolved only by fixing the problems in transport infrastructure and increasing travel opportunities. It may also require the reconstruction of social spaces by incorporating new spatial planning and design practices more commonly used in urban settings, for example ‘placemaking’ initiatives such as pop-up markets. Thus, socio-spatial planning also needs to be a part of the wider process.

The rural focus of The Active Way may have given it a distinctive flavour within the national ATSP programme, which incorporates a mix of urban and rural local authorities, but our evaluation suggests nonetheless that there would be clear benefits to rolling out the social prescribing of walking, wheeling and cycling further, or at least maintaining current levels (within the context of limited budgets). We await the results from the other ATSP areas with interest.

Acknowledgement: we are grateful to B&NES Council for reviewing this article and giving permission for us to publish the information on The Active Way contained herein. The reflections presented here remain those of the authors.

[1] NHS England » Social prescribing: Reference guide and technical annex for primary care networks

[2] Polley M. & Sabey A. (2022). An evidence review of social prescribing and physical activity. NASP.

This blog was written by Caroline Bartle, Eda Beyazit, Asa Thomas

Dr Caroline Bartle is a Visiting Fellow at the Centre for Transport & Society, University of the West of England (UWE Bristol UWE). She was formerly a Senior Research Fellow in CTS, where she undertook research and evaluation on sustainable transport and travel behaviour, including heading up the CTS evaluation of The Active Way from 2023 to 2025.

Dr Eda Beyazit is a Research Fellow at the Centre for Transport & Society, University of the West of England, UWE Bristol. Eda completed her DPhil in transport geography at the Transport Studies Unit, University of Oxford. Her research lies in the intersection of transport-related inequalities, transport poverty, urban periphery, gender, and precarity.

Dr Asa Thomas a Research Fellow at the Centre for Transport & Society, University of the West of England, UWE Bristol. His PhD research was conducted at the Active Travel Academy at the University of Westminster and his research centres around active travel in under-represented groups – particularly children and young people, as well as the design of street environments.

Reflections on taking Transit Oriented Development to Ukraine

Transport and Society | 16 February 202616 February 2026

The war in Ukraine continues. How is the UK supporting reconstruction and how can our approach to infrastructure investment and transport planning make a difference to winning the peace?

Traffic Oriented Development (TOD) – world connections. Photo by Mohammed Alim: https://www.pexels.com/photo/bullet-train-at-jakarta-station-with-conductor-29928055/

by Paul Hammond

January 2026 will mark the first anniversary of the UK: Ukraine 100 Year Partnership.

So, 99 years to go!

The Partnership is a masterclass in international diplomacy and is rightly celebrated in both London and Kyiv’s administrative circles of power. Its depth, breadth and longevity signal real commitment to values that have sustained, in the main, in post-1945 Europe as the bedrock for civil society and collaboration between nations. The Partnership references defence cooperation, economic and trade integration, transport, infrastructure, energy, innovation, scientific research, and culture, people-to-people links, education, and institutional reform.

As a professional economist with a mainly UK project CV it’s heartening to witness the Government of Ukraine embracing the UK Treasury’s approach to the appraisal of investment business cases (usually called the five-case model or the Green Book). By embedding the UK’s Five Case Model in its public investment framework, Ukraine benefits from a rigorous, transparent, and internationally-aligned system, positioning it for more effective reconstruction, improved public governance, and stronger climate and economic outcomes. The adoption of an internationally recognised standard notably provides the bedrock for Ukraine to attract investment to its construction projects.

Implementing the Five Case business case approach in Ukraine entails far more than guidelines. It will require a coherent overhaul of institutional capacity, data infrastructure, governance structures, strategic alignment processes, and inclusive engagement. Addressing these identified challenges is essential to realising the model’s potential for transparent, responsive, and high-quality public investment.

In recent months it has been a pleasure to consider investment in transport reconstruction in Ukraine – with a focus on real geography and real issues for project planning and delivery in what remains a war zone. What is clear, however, is that major infrastructure investments as economic capital are in competition with each other and with social capital for the attraction of scarce resources. I recently had the pleasure of hosting a delegation from the Government of Ukraine’s Ministry for Development of Communities and Territories where a programme of expenditure was presented covering the Fourth Rapid Damage and Needs Assessment which estimates a US $ cost of recovery in excess of $500 billion. This includes:

Energy and extractives
Housing
Transport
Social protection & services
Education & science
Healthcare
Water supply & sanitation
Explosive ordnance management
Emergency response and civil protection

Where does transport feature in this reconstruction planning? There is certainly a “hierarchy of need” but this differs depending on whose views are given priority. Peace and future security, energy, food and housing all feature heavily in conversations about the emphasis and timing / priority for investment and infrastructure spending. Transport less so – other than the systems thinkers, transport planners and development economists who recognise transport as a facilitator of all other demands (a derived demand in fact) and a driver of economic efficiencies, social mobility, access to opportunity and logistics (getting stuff delivered – literally).

Bringing transport investment in country to market requires significant local knowledge, technical know-how, masterplanning, transport planning, travel demand expertise, construction and cost knowledge, and robust economic/business case skills. Transit Oriented Development (TOD) is sitting at the heart of many of Ukraine’s current and planned transport investments balancing this derived demand and access around development economics, and the requirement for investors to deliver risk management and return on investment to their investors.

TOD is the multiplier that maximises the value of every pound / euro / dollar invested in transport infrastructure, turning the transport hub locations into engines of mixed-use development, land value uplift, and long-term economic, social and environmental returns. But…local contacts and cultural understanding are equally important to the delivery of the Government of Ukraine’s plans as the investors’ money – it’s in these social aspects that real sustainability can be found.

This blog was written by Paul Hammond, visiting professor at the Centre for Transport & Society (UWE Bristol).

Paul Hammond is a professional economist committed to building team culture and collaboration in infrastructure development to support economic, social and environmental well-being. He inspires, energises, motivates individuals and teams based on 30 + years’ experience in professional services consultancy.

Paul has held senior leadership roles with global infrastructure firms and delivered infrastructure plans, economics, and business development to deliver commercial success and sustainable, inclusive growth. His focus is on transport and future mobility, climate resilience and net zero, city regeneration and social inclusion, investment business case to deliver sustainable solutions. He is an innovator and award winner e.g., New Civil Engineer 100 award for innovation in infrastructure investments 2018. Paul is a visiting professor at University of West of England, Centre for Transport and Society and capabilities lead for economics at Jacobs.

Reflections on ‘Capturing the Social Value of DRT’ webinar

Transport and Society | 12 January 202613 January 2026

This blog reflects on an end-of-project webinar which highlighted why capturing the social value of Demand Responsive Transport is urgent and how evidence can guide fairer transport decisions

Demand Responsive Transport – Connecting People to Opportunities is a UKRI-funded project, led by researchers from UWE Bristol and the University of Leeds

by Eda Beyazit, Kiron Chatterjee and Daniel Johnson

Our recent webinar brought together more than a hundred practitioners, policymakers and researchers. Chaired by our project partners, Richard Dilks (CoMoUK) and Sharon Payne (Transport East), participants got the opportunity to hear our study findings, ask questions, share experiences and listen to a panel discussion involving our three partner local authorities. It was clear that understanding DRT’s wider social impact is both timely and urgently needed. In this post, we share our reflections under four themes (diagnosis, drivers, dialogue, and direction), highlighting what we learned and where this conversation is heading.

Diagnosis – increasing realisation of the importance of capturing social value

Our starting point was the need to look beyond standard performance metrics such as revenues and costs when considering the case for investing in public transport systems such as DRT. The KPMG report ‘The economic impact of local bus services’ highlights the significance of wider social and economic benefits. While DfT’s Transport Appraisal Guidance (TAG) acknowledges these broader impacts, evidence remains limited. Kiron Chatterjee (project lead, UWE Bristol) explained our research set out to address this gap by developing a way to understand and quantify the social value of DRT for both users and communities.

The county councils of Essex, Gloucestershire, and Nottinghamshire are the three local authorities who participated in the study. We looked at three case study DRT schemes in rural areas featuring pockets of deprivation. These were DigiGo in Central Essex and Braintree, the Robin in South Forest of Dean and NottsBus On Demand in South and North Ollerton.

DigiGo is the Demand Responsive Transport service operated by Essex County Council using electric vehicles minibuses. Photo credit: Research team.

Using survey data, we explored not only why people used (or did not) use DRT but the purpose of trips made and the extent to which DRT trips enabled employment, education, healthcare, and social participation. This led to a question during the webinar on whether the same methodology could be applied to conventional bus services. Dan Johnson (project co-lead, Leeds), who led on social value methodology, confirmed this would be possible if similar survey data were collected.

We explained how other work the UWE researchers have been doing for DfT has looked at the overall performance metrics of DRT services funded by the Rural Mobility Fund with an interim report published in 2023 and a final report just published. ECT Charity has developed a methodology for estimating the social value of community transport services which served as an inspiration for our work, but we required a methodology fit for purpose for DRT. Johnson explained our approach focused on the added value of journeys which could not be made without DRT and the value of the activities enabled, whereas user benefits conventionally focus on time and money saved for journeys that would mostly still happen anyway. Much of the value estimated stemmed from enabling employment, facilitating recreational activities and saving resource cost to NHS from avoiding missed appointments.

Audience questions allowed us to further unpack the methodology. Concerns about wage levels, optimism bias, and the valuation of employment led to clarifications around the shadow wage approach, the incorporation of reduced benefit payments and wellbeing gains, and the alignment with existing government valuation frameworks. Similarly, when asked whether a single accepted value per passenger existed, we emphasised that the range of values we presented (£12.60–£17.80 per supported return trip across the three case studies) were specific to our research and the average value will depend on the mix of journey purposes and proportion of trips enabled by a service that would not otherwise have been possible.

Drivers – understanding what is motivating DRT use

Eda Beyazit (co-lead, UWE Bristol) and Asa Thomas (researcher, UWE Bristol) presented results on what motivated people to use DRT and how it made a difference to their lives. This triggered discussion around drivers of DRT use which highlighted the mix of social, practical, and economic factors shaping people’s mobility choices. Convenience and affordability emerged strongly, along with the directness of routes, particularly for trips that would otherwise require multiple interchanges. Some participants noted the importance of safety, especially for women, raising questions about whether DRT is perceived as a safer and more comfortable option. Thanks to our research exploring these issues, through a mixed-methods approach, we not only identified the significance of these factors across different user groups but also demonstrated how DRT provides a more personal touch from drivers of the minibuses that is not matched by other options.

Research team travelling on the Robin: a DRT service run by Gloucestershire County Council. Photo credit: Research team.

Audience members with their own experience of DRT noted that a small group of frequent users may account for a significant share of trips. Others observed unexpectedly high numbers of hospital journeys, raising questions whether DRT was substituting for NHS patient transport services.

There was interest among the audience whether app-based bookings meant some groups were advantaged and others were missing out. The research team noted DRT journeys could also be booked via call centres but acknowledged that app bookings made it easier to make block bookings and that could affect the way in which DRT is used.

Participants also reflected on how patterns of regular use might indicate where fixed-route services could be viable. Examples mentioned included Manchester where DRT services are used for early-morning airport commutes, and East Suffolk where school runs are integrated into DRT schedules.

Dialogue – knowledge exchange between researchers and practitioners

The webinar brought together 121 participants from more than 90 organisations, with nearly half representing local authorities and many others from national authorities (9%), including DfT and Defra, regional authorities (7%), consultancies and private companies (13%), and research institutions (15%). The richness of the discussion in the chat space and during Q&A sessions and during the panel session demonstrated both the timeliness of the topic and the thirst for evidence-based guidance in this area. Our webinar also facilitated interaction between participating local authorities to share their experiences with each other.

Nottsbus On Demand, a DRT service run by Nottinghamshire County Council, provides disability access on its vehicles. Photo credit: Vinita Nawathe.

One theme was how to manage the interaction between DRT and fixed network bus services. Durham raised concerns that DRT was being treated as a ‘cheap taxi’, drawing passengers away from existing bus routes. Leicestershire and TfGM shared measures they were taking to avoid duplication, such as restricting DRT bookings when scheduled services are available or highlighting fixed-route alternatives in the app. Norfolk and others were eager to explore integration through interchange hubs, joint ticketing, and coordinated marketing.

Participants shared how their systems operate in practice. Leicestershire had added a fixed-route service to complement their FoxConnect (DRT service) and take the pressure off it. NHS-related transport emerged as another area of interest with suggestions to look at historical examples such as the Border Courier service started under the RUTEX (RUral Transport Experiments) in the 1970s and reflections on the significant sums the NHS spends on taxis for both patients and medical samples.

Direction – the way forward

A key takeaway from the panel discussion was that the study findings can guide future evaluations and policies. One question was whether the Treasury would accept the social values derived. Johnson pointed out that, while our approach aligns with TAG guidance, particularly in recognising the wider social impacts of transport, it also offers a pragmatic way to understand the value of specific impacts without needing a full appraisal. Importantly, social value should be treated as complementary and not necessarily additional to economic benefits such as time savings.

Our social value calculations are seen as a “real game changer in the assessment of the value of these services”. They could influence the future of these services, particularly in serving relatively more deprived areas where DRT is viewed as providing “social insurance”. It was highlighted that the study findings can enable LAs to engage more confidently in dialogue with organisations such as the NHS based on hard evidence. Some patients already regularly use DRT services and operators also attract bookings from hospital staff.

A screenshot of the webinar during the panel discussion. Photo credit: Research team.

The panel discussion also revealed that social value assessment could help leverage new transport provision in rural developments, helping justify DRT as an initial service model that can later transition to fixed-route bus services as demand grows. Another benefit of DRT services is the travel demand data generated which helped Nottinghamshire identify a high-demand route and implement a fixed-route service that operates alongside DRT.

Essex noted that DRT enables them to serve a broader demographic than possible with fixed-route services and therefore offer a more equitable service. It is not a case of choosing one over the other – both fixed-route and DRT services play a role in supporting communities. Gloucestershire also noted that DRT can complement existing community transport. They wanted to avoid “accidentally hurting the community transport sector” and have found DRT has freed up capacity for community transport to serve its principal purpose of meeting the needs of those that cannot use conventional public transport.

The panel emphasised the importance of presenting a full picture of the benefits that DRT brings to local areas. By consistently framing investment in this broader way, authorities can build a stronger case for the benefits these services deliver to residents. They will be working to embed social value assessment into routine decision-making, ensuring they provide the “right solution for the right people at the right time in the right area”.

What became clear from the high level of engagement during the webinar is that this work is both timely and essential. Local authorities, operators, and policy makers are all trying to understand how to maximise the wider benefits of DRT and identify what this means for service design, investment, and long-term planning.

The insights from this study, along with the contributions made by webinar participants, will influence the next phase of our research as we continue to develop more robust, transparent, and meaningful ways of assessing social value in flexible transport systems. At the end of the webinar, Chatterjee briefly introduced the next project, where we will extend our work to look at the effects on local businesses and community organisations.

If you would like to know more about the project, you can visit these webpages: https://www.uwe.ac.uk/research/centres-and-groups/cts/research-themes/transport-planning-and-placemaking/demand-responsive-transport; project website: https://www.drtconnecting.co.uk/

This blog was written by Eda Beyazit, Kiron Chatterjee, Daniel Johnson.

Eda Beyazit is a Research Fellow at the Centre for Transport & Society, UWE Bristol. She previously worked as an Associate Professor in Urban Planning at Istanbul Technical University and founded the IstanbulON Urban Mobility Lab. Eda was an Urban Studies Foundation international fellow at the University of Manchester between 2022 and 2023. Her research interests include socio-spatial inequalities, gender, precarity, and the urban periphery.

Kiron Chatterjee is Professor of Travel Behaviour in CTS at UWE Bristol. His research looks at how travel behaviour changes over time and how people’s access to transport affects their life opportunities and wellbeing. Kiron is currently responsible for a number of evaluation projects for the Department for Transport, as well as UKRI projects on walking school buses and Demand Responsive Transport.

Daniel Johnson is a Senior Research Fellow at the Institute for Transport Studies, University of Leeds, specialising in transport economics and the wider economic impacts of public transport. He leads research on transport appraisal, demand modelling, and policy evaluation, and has extensive experience in national and EU projects related to demand forecasting for both passenger transport and freight.

Building the evidence base for a step change in shared vehicle use: introducing the DUT SASMAP-15mC project

Transport and Society | 15 December 202515 December 2025

This blogpost introduces the DUT SASMAP-15mC project building the evidence base on car sharing and kerbside strategy in case study cities of Bristol (UK); Graz (Austria) and Helsingborg (Sweden)

Co Wheels shopping (Source: CoMoUK)

by Justin Spinney, Professor of Transport and Mobility Studies

There are well worn arguments against continued use of private cars on the scales we currently see in many towns and cities around the world. Beyond significant contributions to global emissions, negative impacts include a range of emissions harmful to human health; significant contributions to killed and serious injury statistics; a large spatial footprint with significant impacts on everyday liveability; lowering of economic productivity through increased congestion; and a significant resource and energy input in manufacturing.

The car has been around for a while however, and for better or worse has become integral to many people’s accomplishment of what they consider to be a good life; and the benchmark against which other forms of transport are judged. In particular, the contribution of the car to the accomplishment of particular standards of care through qualities of carrying, accompaniment, comfort and convenience mean that any attempts to shift away from it risks reducing citizen’s immediate sense of wellbeing.

Enterprise car club – electric car (Source CoMoUK)

Considering the evident ‘humanity’ of the car (both positive and negative), the car – and particularly the electric car – has a role to play in sustainable transport transitions, but in what form? One way in which the car can play a more central and sustainable role is through a shift to shared electric vehicles: electrification of the fleet reduces global and local emissions; whilst sharing reduces the spatial footprint of cars and the resources and energy required in manufacturing. Yet with limited availability of options, car sharing – commercial or peer to peer – makes up a fraction of journeys and in some places is in retreat: Zipcar recently announced it will cease operations in the UK. Electric car sharing in particular has proven unpopular with many users, a situation which needs to be better understood if operators are to improve their offer.

There is an urgent need to understand the circumstances which can encourage a more rapid and wider use of shared cars to realise the potential benefits for more sustainable lives. We are pleased to announce that UWE Bristol’s Centre for Transport and Society and School of Computing and Creative Technologies alongside Austrian Institute of Technology and Lund University, has secured EU Driving Urban Transitions funding to examine car sharing in the project A Systemic Approach to Shared Mobility, Accessibility and Proximity for the 15 Minute City – SASMAP-15mC. To deliver the project we will be partnering with ARUP; CoMoUK; Prime Mobility; and Trivector Traffic in three case study cites: Bristol (UK); Graz (Austria); and Helsingborg (Sweden).

The two and a half year project kicked off on December 1^st 2025. Through three case study living labs (two streets in each city), SASMAP-15mC will build an evidence-base identifying potential and pathways for a step-change in the provision of car (and related forms of) sharing in the 15mC. The project takes a user-centric approach to accessibility at the household and street level, collecting granular data on travel behaviour that can be scaled and modelled to neighbourhood and city scales. Placing differences between user groups at its centre, SASMAP-15mC will produce systems analysis to inform policy recommendations on shared mobility governance; multi-scalar models and maps of current and projected peak modal demand, and potential reductions in private car demand/ increases in car sharing; co-designed models and visualisations of street layouts resulting from private car reductions; and implement trials and evaluation of measures to increase/ integrate car sharing.

The project team will be delivering regular updates through the project website (under construction) and social media; holding knowledge exchange events and delivering talks at the DUT Knowledge Hub. Please keep an eye on the CTS Linkedin pages for further updates.

Professor Justin Spinney is a human geographer and economic sociologist working in the field of mobilities and transport. He has particular specialisms in cycling, household travel decision making; shared mobility; the political economy of transport, the role of ICTs in shaping mobility; and social inclusion.

UWE profile: https://people.uwe.ac.uk/Person/JustinSpinney

Email: justin.spinney@uwe.ac.uk

Communicating mobility inequalities to diverse groups: notes from the Milano Conference

Transport and Society | 2 December 202513 January 2026

Mobility inequalities are complex and influenced by numerous factors. To address these, we must improve our communication methods and broaden our perspective to encompass policies from around the globe.

Opening session of the Inequalities Conference, Milano Triennale, 30 October 2025 – Credit: Photo by the author.

by Eda Beyazit, Research Fellow in Active Travel and Micromobility

When I was invited to speak at the closing conference of the Milano Triennale 2025, themed Inequalities, as one of the panellists, I found myself facing a familiar question: how do we talk about mobility inequalities in a way that resonates beyond academic circles? As someone who has worked in the field of transport and mobility for nearly two decades, preparing for this event meant reflecting on how to make complex issues accessible to a wider audience, even if these are experienced by the majority on a daily basis.

The one-day conference, organised by Politecnico di Milano, in celebration of World Cities Day, was inspiring, with panels exploring themes ranging from access to clean water to the equity challenges of the digital transition. The final session brought together international voices from local authorities and supranational organisations discussing the role of cities and metropolitan areas in addressing inequalities.

Our panel on Mobility, Migration and Inequalities, organised and chaired by Paola Pucci and Giovanni Lanza, included three panellists and focused on three guiding questions:

How can mobility inequalities affect contemporary society?
What specific issues have you addressed through your research?
Which new perspectives, policies, and projects can help reduce them?

In this post, I would like to share some of my reflections, not through the lens of academic writing, but as a conversation about how mobility, care, and social and spatial inequalities intersect. For transport enthusiasts, though, I’ve included a selection of links to academic sources that might be of interest.

Mobility is power-driven: Stories from the peripheries

To mobility scholars, mobility is never just about getting from one place to another. It’s deeply connected to power dynamics. Our ability to move freely often depends on who we are: our income, gender, age, social class, or race. Can a wheelchair user get to work independently without needing help? Can children walk safely to school on their own? How long is the daily commute of a migrant woman living on the edges of Milan or a woman who crosses borders daily to earn a living in sub-Saharan Africa?

A woman walking across a field and the railway lines to reach a bus stop (Istanbul) – Credit: Photo by the author.

Yet, these aren’t only questions about social norms or justice. They’re also about who decides how we design our cities, towns, and transport systems. Policy and planning still tend to imagine an able-bodied, middle-aged man, likely a driver, as the “typical” transport user. This approach leaves out so many people who face overlapping challenges, caring for others, juggling time, or struggling to afford transport, and adds further burdens on them.

In one of my research projects, I studied women domestic workers living in Istanbul’s peripheries, most of them with migrant backgrounds. During the pandemic, when public transport services were reduced, they created their own system of shared mobility. They organised with drivers of school and factory shuttles, through their social networks, to run informal minibus routes between their neighbourhoods and the gated communities where they worked.

These collective arrangements enabled them to remain employed. In many ways, this was an example of commoning mobilities – practices of cooperation, trust, and solidarity, in this case, when formal systems failed.

Yet I also describe these as precarious mobilities: risky, fragile, and dependent on informal arrangements. The shuttles could be overcrowded or unsafe, the vehicles are unlicensed, and the women may be anxious about police inspections. And, of course, many domestic workers lacked the networks or resources to join such systems at all.

A minibus dropping off female domestic workers heading to one of the gated communities on the outskirts of Istanbul – Credit: Snapshot from the documentary ‘Servis: commoning commutes’ by Erhan Kugu and the author.

Mobility inequalities, in this sense, affect far more than transport choices: the processes that lead to those choices, and even the very ability to be mobile, are shaped by power dynamics within societies. Moreover, such inequalities tend to deepen with intersecting challenges – as seen in this example, being a migrant woman, a domestic worker, and living in the peripheries of a metropolitan city.

Beyond infrastructure

There are growing efforts to make mobility more inclusive, but many focus primarily on infrastructure, including new subways, air-conditioned buses, bus rapid transit systems, and paved rural roads. These are vital, but not everyone benefits equally from them. Some people even bear the negative consequences of these projects, such as displacement, gentrification, unsafe walking conditions, pollution, or reduced access to their livelihoods.

Credit: Photo by De an Sun on Unsplash

We also need to understand mobility as something social and emotional: a means to reduce isolation and loneliness, build confidence, and become part of community life. Transport systems should allow people of all ages, genders, and backgrounds to move with dignity.

Planners have been discussing participation for over fifty years. To me, it still is the most vital step. What really matters is developing participatory methods that give local residents and communities a genuine voice in shaping mobility policies and projects, not in a tokenistic way, but as equal partners. This approach involves methods of listening, caring, and co-creating the city together.

So we need to consider not only the distribution of transport resources, but also the processes that lead to this distribution: whose needs count, and who gets to decide? The call to think through different forms of justice, such as recognition and procedural, shouldn’t be limited to achieving just transitions to low-carbon transport, even though that has rightly become a significant priority in transport research. If we aim to build inclusive transport systems from the start, the transition to greener mobility will follow more naturally. In other words, a fair transition shouldn’t be a by-product of decarbonisation efforts but rather the foundation of them and that justice-led planning can make environmental goals more achievable.

Looking ahead

Drawing on my and others’ work on gender and mobility, I believe we should start treating mobility as part of a city’s care infrastructure, something that supports not only economic life but also social connection and community care. Seeing transport as a caring system changes how we prioritise investments: from big roads to safe pavements, from faster metro lines to more reliable local buses. Istanbul’s free travel card for mothers with children under four, or Bogotá’s “care blocks,” presented by its former Mayor Claudia López at the conference, linking transport with daycare and community facilities, are inspiring examples. Care infrastructure should not only support recognised carers, but also help communities look after one another, an infrastructure of solidarity as much as of movement.

There’s also the question of how we communicate our messages. As researchers, we often rely on reports and journal articles, but these rarely reach the people who make decisions or those who live the inequalities we study. We need more creative and accessible ways to share knowledge and to build stronger collaborations between planners, civil society, and communities. In my own work, I’ve found that storytelling, especially through documentary film (coming soon!) can make invisible inequalities visible. It builds empathy and opens space for dialogue. Similarly, running small-scale street experiments or co-creating public space projects with local communities can generate real, tangible change. Advocacy, when combined with lived experience, can lead to action.

Tram passing next to a protected cycle lane, Amsterdam – Credit: Photo by author

When I worked with domestic workers in Istanbul, I saw how migration plays a crucial role in shaping everyday mobility inequalities. This reminds me that we must reach beyond our disciplinary comfort zones to engage with labour geography, migration studies, and fields like data science, AI, and technology design. Mobility scholars already have rich evidence on how inequalities emerge. If we can engage with these disciplinary areas on the basis of justice thinking, we can translate that knowledge into policies and plans that reduce anticipated mobility inequalities.

This blog was written by Dr Eda Beyazit, Research Fellow in Active Travel and Micromobility at the Centre for Transport and Society, University of the West of England, Bristol.

Dr Eda Beyazit previously worked as an Associate Professor in Urban Planning at the Faculty of Architecture, Istanbul Technical University, and founded the IstanbulON Urban Mobility Lab. Eda was an Urban Studies Foundation international fellow at the University of Manchester between 2022 and 2023. Eda completed her DPhil in transport geography at the Transport Studies Unit, University of Oxford, focusing on transport-related socio-spatial inequalities. Lately, her interests include gender, precarity, and the urban periphery.

Who governs the skies? Shaping the future of drone logistics

Transport and Society | 15 September 202515 September 2025

Drones promise faster, greener deliveries – but without clear governance, they risk creating new problems. Our policy brief calls for collaborative frameworks to balance innovation with safety, equity, and public trust.

Credit: Photo by Diana Măceşanu on Unsplash

by Daniela Paddeu, Associate Professor of Sustainable Freight Futures

Drones have long promised a logistics revolution. From delivering medical supplies to remote areas, to easing congestion in cities, they capture the imagination as a futuristic solution to last-mile delivery. But as our new policy brief Governing the Skies shows, the future of drone deliveries in the UK will be shaped less by technology alone and more by how we choose to govern their integration into everyday life.

Without careful coordination, drones risk creating as many problems as they solve. That is why we call for a clear, collaborative, and forward-looking governance framework that balances innovation with public benefit.

The promise and the problem

Over the past decade, drones have moved rapidly from niche prototypes to viable delivery tools. They offer the potential to:

reach hard-to-access rural or island communities;

reduce delivery times in congested cities; and

provide low-carbon alternatives to vans for certain goods.

The UK Government has already signalled its ambitions. The Future of Flight Action Plan (2024) sets out a roadmap for regular drone deliveries by 2027, and the Civil Aviation Authority (CAA) is trialling Beyond Visual Line of Sight (BVLOS) operations, a key step towards commercial scale-up.

But behind the headlines lie fundamental uncertainties.

How will drones share already crowded airspace?

Who is liable in case of accidents?

How can we protect wildlife, reduce noise pollution, and ensure equity of access?

Without answers, we risk rushing ahead with a technology that outpaces the safeguards needed to deliver genuine public benefit.

What our research found

Through stakeholder engagement and foresight methods, we examined the governance challenges of drone deliveries in the UK. Five areas stand out:

Transport system risks – including cybersecurity, integrity, digital infrastructure, and impacts on general aviation.
Local authority readiness – planning gaps, lack of resources, and the need to align drones with broader environmental goals.
Societal factors – public trust, perceptions of safety, and questions of fairness and accessibility.
Regulation – liability, insurance, privacy, and the lack of integration between national aviation rules and local planning.
Industry readiness – uncertain market demand, fragile business models, and the need for stronger government coordination.

In short: governance has not kept pace with innovation.

Credit: Photo by Phil Hearing on Unsplash

What does this mean for policy?

Our policy brief sets out five key areas for action:

Planning
- Develop national guidance for drone take-off and landing zones.
- Integrate drone infrastructure into local development plans.
- Include environmental assessments, especially near sensitive habitats.
Working with industry
- Support collaborative pilots and demonstration projects.
- Build public-private partnerships to help SMEs innovate.
- Encourage data-sharing to inform future regulation.
Public engagement
- Invest in awareness campaigns to build trust.
- Communicate transparently about safety, privacy, and environmental impacts.
- Co-design local strategies with communities to address concerns like noise or intrusion.
Regulation
- Clarify liability, insurance, and airspace rules for BVLOS operations.
- Align with international best practices while keeping flexibility for trials.
- Embed environmental safeguards in all drone operations.
Central vs. Local Government
- Define roles and responsibilities between the CAA, national regulators, and local authorities.
- Provide funding and capacity-building for local government.
- Foster coordination through cross-government taskforces.

Why this matters now

Drone deliveries are no longer a distant prospect; they are already being trialled across the UK. Decisions made in the next few years will shape whether drones become a trusted, sustainable, and socially beneficial part of our mobility ecosystem or another fragmented technology rollout that deepens inequalities.

Good governance means moving beyond narrow debates about risk or commercial opportunity. It means ensuring drones support broader goals: decarbonisation, equity of access, safety, and public trust.

The skies are opening to new possibilities. But without the right rules, partnerships, and public dialogue, drones risk being grounded before they truly take off. It is time to build a governance framework that ensures drones deliver: not just parcels, but also public value.

Read the policy brief

Our full policy brief, Governing the Skies: Priorities and Policy Pathways for the Future of Drone Deliveries, sets out the detailed findings and recommendations from this research. It was written by Dr Daniela Paddeu and Dr Eda Beyazit at the Centre for Transport and Society (CTS), University of the West of England (UWE Bristol), as part of the Governance and Trust in Emerging Systems (GATES) project, a collaboration between the University of Bath, the University of Birmingham, and UWE Bristol.

Read the full policy brief here: Governing the skies: Priorities and policy pathways for the future of drone deliveries

Further materials: you can also watch the recording of Daniela’s seminar here: Centre for Transport and Society Seminars | Daniela Paddeu “Governing the sky”

If you’d like to learn more about the project and what the policy brief could mean for your work – whether in local government, industry, or community planning – please contact Dr Daniela Paddeu at daniela.paddeu@uwe.ac.uk.

This blog was written by Dr Daniela Paddeu, Associate Professor of Sustainable Freight Futures at the Centre for Transport and Society, University of the West of England, Bristol.

Dr Daniela Paddeu is a leading researcher in sustainable urban freight and transport decarbonisation. Her work focuses on integrating freight into urban mobility planning, stakeholder engagement, and governance challenges in last-mile logistics. She has conducted extensive research on local authorities’ role in freight policy, highlighting governance gaps and the need for co-designed, place-based solutions. Through her projects, including studies on freight decarbonisation in the UK, she advocates for stronger policy alignment between national ambitions and local implementation strategies. You can contact her at: daniela.paddeu@uwe.ac.uk ¦ Linkedin: Daniela Paddeu.

What is the future of car ownership in urban areas?

Transport and Society | 19 August 202519 August 2025

A panel session at the European Urban Research Association 2025 Conference sought to understand why sustainable mobility initiatives have not resulted in significant reductions in the dominance of cars in urban areas.

By Graham Parkhurst, Sarah Toy, Ben Clark and Pete Dyson

In the spring of 2025, the four of us came together around an initiative to run a panel session at the European Urban Research Association’s 2025 conference. We share a concern for how the private car fits into a sustainable mobility future, and in particular, its role in urban areas, where the consequences of car use are most obvious and alternatives to the car tend to be more available.

We identify the ‘turn’ in the transport planning discourse towards sustainable mobility as being, so far, a missed opportunity in practice. New transport options, such as car sharing clubs, escooters, and electric bikes, and enhanced buses and ticketing systems have at most times and places remained marginal, while the private car dominates. The transition to the electric car created a moment in which it was sensible to question what we need and want from cars, particularly in urban areas given the implications of creating an electric vehicle recharging ecosystem in place of current refuelling infrastructures and practices. Instead, the reduced environmental impacts of the electric car have been taken by many as a signal that it is fine just to substitute the current fossil-fuel powered car fleet with new technologies. This is despite the fact that private car ownership uses space very inefficiently: individual cars are parked perhaps 95% of the time, and roads and parking mainly used by cars has been shown to occupy as much as 41% of space in some localities.

Challenging this version of the transition, our panel session questioned whether ‘things have to be like this’. It reflected on what we know about decisions to increase or reduce car ownership and how to influence behaviour. We examined the conditions under which politicians will lead ambitiously on mobility policy, and whether technology-substitution will actually be accepted in practice by the public.

Ben Clark reflected on car ownership across the life course. Car ownership is influenced by the built environment, the transport system, economic factors, attitudes and preferences and individual circumstances such as being old enough to acquire a driving licence or being healthy enough to drive. But Ben emphasised that it is best to consider car ownership levels as something that are explained as decisions made by households, rather than individuals. For example, if people leave or join a household, that is likely to trigger changes in car ownership. A couple living apart may need a car each but can agree to share a single car once living together. This example also emphasises that life events, births, deaths, becoming an adult, and changes in relationship status are key factors often associated with changing household composition. As a result, some individuals’ car ownership status will change several times across the lifecourse, dependent on a flux of influences.

As car ownership does show variability over time and space, targeted initiatives to influence ownership decisions might be particularly effective. Pete Dyson considered the role of social influence on individual choices. Alongside other household members, peers and opinion leaders are important in shifting ‘norms’. Simply the observation of others adopting different behaviours or accepting new technologies can be influential for reassurance, normalisation and social status. The policy of ‘green number plates’ are an example of a social influence measure supporting the transition to electric vehicles, by creating a distinctive colour coding aspect to the number plate on display. He shared results from a large-scale survey of over 2000 UK drivers he conducted in 2024, finding that the distinctive plates provide a way to observe the spread of the electric vehicle within the fleet and provide a reward mechanism to owners who wish to be identified for their innovative and less environmentally damaging choices. A further international study among countries with, and without, the policy is being conducted in 2025. One implication beyond EVs is that social marketing techniques can also be more ambitious in promoting public transport ridership as enabling a lower level of household car ownership. And rather than relying solely on psychological rewards, the approach could be combined with traditional economic benefits, for example in the form of mobility credits for behaviours in the direction desired by policy.

Zero Emission Vehicle Registration Plate with Green Flash used in the United Kingdom — Credit: Department for Transport/Office for Low Emissions Vehicles Open Government Licence v3.0

Urban local authorities would need to be central to promoting lower car ownership levels. Sarah Toy, though, concluded from analysing carbon mitigation data from 791 cities around the world and interviewing 19 city transport officers in ten countries that few cities are actively promoting lower car ownership. In fact, even the best performers (Oslo and London) had ‘no car growth’ strategies, which is a lesser objective than reducing car ownership. Without changing the level of provision for the car, reductions in car ownership are unlikely to occur, but even cities with high levels of active travel and public transport (such as Zurich) faced public opposition to those kinds of proposal. Within the UK, Nottingham is noted for success in introducing a local tax on employee parking for facilities like offices, but this was the outcome of extensive and intensive negotiations combined with clear benefits including development of the tram system. Political leadership would be a key factor in more cities adopting car ownership reduction strategies, and in turn this requires stable government and a clear vision. Until now, those taking leadership have tended to be left-of-centre administrations.

Trams in Nottingham City Centre, Credit: https://pixabay.com/users/reagan_yip-19131272/

For politicians who do decide to rely on technology substitution rather than behaviour change, the transition may prove more challenging and controversial then hoped. Graham Parkhurst observed that the transition is at an early stage. Those who have acquired electric cars to date have tended to be relatively wealthy or have benefitted from tax breaks via their employment and have access to private charging facilities. Particularly at the lower-cost end of the market, real-world range is not just an anxiety, but a practical limitation requiring behavioural compromises. Those without access to attractive charging tariffs are paying much higher rates. It is unclear whether this inequality will be politically sustainable as EVs become mainstream. ‘Cross pavement solutions’ enable some people to run cables from their domestic supply to cars parked immediately outside on the public street. To the extent these solutions are successful they may sharpen the divide. Battery swap systems offer an alternative technical solution in use in China, but this will take multi-level coordination and time. An existing behavioural solution which could ease the political and practical pressures would be an expansion of attractive car hire facilities.

Charging Cable Gulley from Guidance on Cross Pavement Solutions. — Credit: Department for Transport/Office for Zero Emissions Vehicles Open Government Licence v3.0

In short, higher quality-of-life and streetscapes in urban areas require that there are fewer cars per person. This should be possible in urban areas, given the growing range of alternatives. As cars are especially useful for some journeys, more opportunities to hire them short-term should be available. If there are fewer cars, it will be easier and cheaper to arrange sufficient electric recharging infrastructure for them. Without reducing the number, the electric vehicle transition may be undeliverable in urban areas. Academic knowledge about the times in people’s lives when it is easiest for them to reduce car ownership, and the psychological factors which can promote change, can support a transition which is behavioural as well as technological.

This blog was written by Graham Parkhurst, Sarah Toy, Ben Clark, and Pete Dyson

Graham Parkhurst is Professor of Sustainable Mobility and Director at the Centre for Transport and Society, University of the West of England, Bristol. Graham’s research examines the interactions between new technologies and sustainable transport policy. A key focus currently is the electric vehicle transition.

Sarah Toy is a practitioner-researcher based in the Department of Psychology at the University of Bath, funded by the EPSRC AAPS Research Group. Her research and consultancy work, spanning psychology, political science and engineering, aim to advance understanding of policies to reduce urban car dependency.

Ben Clark is Associate Professor of Transport Planning at the Centre for Transport and Society, University of the West of England, Bristol. Ben’s research brings together spatial planning, engineering / urban design and the behavioural sciences to understand how to plan healthy built environments that support safe and efficient mobility.

Pete Dyson is a PhD researcher at the University of Bath, based in the Department of Psychology and funded by the EPSRC AAPS Research Group. Pete investigates the role of social norms in influencing sustainable travel behaviour, focusing on what can be learned and transferred from EV adoption

The Way Ahead: key insights from the 2025 CTS Symposium

Transport and Society | 23 July 202528 July 2025

On the 3rd of July 2025 CTS hosted its annual Symposium to showcase the Centre’s research interests and achievements.

Event Feedback Request: due to a technical issue at the end of the day that stopped the link to the feedback survey being shown, we would be grateful if anyone who didn’t get a chance to feedback on the day could do so via the link here.

We were very pleased to welcome almost 100 participants from across local and central government, consultancies, advocacy and research for our annual symposium. In this blog post we share with you a summary of the key take-aways from the event, as well as links to available recordings and slides of the different sessions.

CTS Director Professor Graham Parkhurst and Professor Enda Hayes, Director of Research and Enterprise for the School of Architecture and Environment welcomed delegates on behalf of the University, and set out our vision for how transport can contribute to a more inclusive and sustainable future.

Keynote speaker: Councillor Sarah Warren (BANES)

Our first of two keynote speakers was Councillor Sarah Warren, Deputy Leader of Bath and NorthEast Somerset Council (BANES) and Liberal Democrat Councillor for Bathavon North ward and representative on the BANES Climate Panel and West of England Combined Authority (WECA) Planning and Transport Board.

Sarah presented two case studies relating to the difficult realities of implementing sustainable transport schemes. Sarah’s talk highlighted some key lessons learned in relation to citizen engagement and participation; the challenges of spending allocated funds when agreement on schemes is limited; navigating social media; the successes of the Bath Clean Air Zone and importance of evidence and evaluation to support future projects.

Click here to access slides from Sarah’s Keynote presentation

CTS’s research showcase – Parallel sessions

Our first Keynote was followed by two parallel sessions in which CTS staff shared insights from our latest research projects.

Session 1 – Transport Futures

It was kicked off by CTS Director Graham Parkhurst examining the challenges in delivering low impact aviation and the potential role of hybrid aircraft. Following this, Dr Evita Papazikou examined the use of technology to detect events in road safety surveillance. Dr Caroline Bartle discussed findings from research examining the lasting effects on public transport ridership due to changes in attitudes to germs. Prof Kiron Chatterjee closed the session by giving an overview of ongoing work on the role of Demand Responsive Transport in connecting rural communities.

Click the relevant link below to access presentation slides:

Graham Parkhurst – Greener Skies Ahead

Evita Papazikou – Detecting events on road safety surveillance

Caroline Bartle – Everything is really germy

Kiron Chatterjee – Transforming rural lives

You can also find a video recording of the Session 1 here.

Session 2 – Shaping Everyday Transport Choices

It was kicked off by Prof Glenn Lyons introducing the Chartered institution of Highways & Transportation (CIHT) CLIMATES report. Dr Arundhathi brought us down to earth discussing her recent work on the complex ways in which gender and women only carriages shape train travel experiences in Mumbai. Doctoral student Mel Cairns gave an overview of her current doctoral work on the role of nature in cycling decision making. Finally, former UWE MSc student Mabel Still presented work on a recent study examining supply and demand side attitudes to cargo bike deliveries in the Bristol area.

Click the relevant link below to access presentation slides:

Glenn Lyons – CIHT Climates

Arundhathi – Commuting Solidarities

Mel Cairns – Nature and cycling

Mabel Still – E-Cargo cycles

You can also find a video recording of the Session 2 here.

Keynote speaker: Dr Daniela Paddeu

After a short coffee break, leading us into the lunch break we had the second of our keynotes by Dr Daniela Paddeu.

Associate professor of Sustainable Freight Futures, Dr Daniela Paddeu used her talk to highlight the dichotomous centrality and impacts of urban freight system to modern life alongside their relative invisibility in planning, policy and the public imagination. In particular she highlighted disjointed governance; and a lack of readiness for new technologies like drones.

Click here to access slides from Daniela’s presentation and a video recording here.

Inclusive transport panel discussion

Following a quick scene change, Professor Justin Spinney chaired a Panel of inclusive transport with a focus on ageing and impairment. The panel included Prof Charles Musselwhite (Aberystwyth University); Florence Grieve (Bristol Climate and Nature partnership/ Sustrans); Rebecca Posner (Research Institute for Disabled Consumers); Dr Luc Pellecuer (Specialist in inclusive infrastructure design, UWE). The panel began by discussing key developments and drivers of inclusive transport in the last 10-15 years, highlighting the lack of change on the ground despite advances in policy and funding. Panellists then discussed some key successes in specific projects and finished with a round-up of their ‘wishlists’ for the near future including much greater representation of different groups in transport projects; greater recognition of different physical and neurological impairments; and faster attitudinal change in government and industry.

You can find a video recording of the panel here (from min 16:38).

NET walk

Even lunch at the CTS Symposium is no time to rest, with Dr Jonathan Flower, Dr Ben Clark, Dr Asa Thomas and Mel Cairns leading not one but two ‘NetWalks’ where participants walked and networked around routes that also showcased either the good and bad of neighbourhood planning and design or tour the Frenchay Campus, including a visit to and informal Q&A session about the new mobility hub near the bus interchange. During the walk, participants got a chance to meet other attendees in an informal setting, expanding their networks beyond the familiar faces one might gravitate towards on the conference floor. At designated stops there was a chance to switch walking partners and make another connection.

If the Netwalk was too pedestrian for your tastes, representatives of Dott were on campus showcasing their shared E-scooters and Electric bikes for participants to try.

Afternoon Workshops

This year’s symposium had three workshops running in parallel, with around 20-30 participants in each.

Workshop 1 – Planning New Neighbourhoods for Active Travel – was facilitated by Dr Jonathan Flower, Dr Ben Clark, and Alex Painting (Phil Jones Associates). Building upon ongoing work with Active Travel England, the workshop delved into the challenges of developing new planning guidance on cycle parking, planning new schools, and using the street adoption process to deliver better places for active travel.

You can find the presentation of Workshop 1 here.

Workshop 2 on The Future of Rural Transport was facilitated by Prof Kiron Chatterjee, Dr Eda Beyazit, Dr Asa Thomas, Dr Muhammad Adeel and Tom Main (Gloucestershire County Council). After the research team’s presentation on rural transport and inequalities, Tom Main from Gloucestershire County Council discussed the challenges they encounter in rural areas and the strategies GCC has implemented. The workshop drew upon experiences from the recently completed Demand Responsive Transport (DRT) project and asked participants to think about the key principles and options to address the transport challenges currently faced by rural communities.

You can find the presentation of Workshop 2 here and here.

The final workshop 3 – Why Are E-scooters Getting Sidelined? – was facilitated by Leire Elejalde, Prof Graham Parkhurst, Dr Daniela Paddeu. The workshop began with a presentation exploring international e-scooter regulations, legal grey areas, the everyday realities of sharing public space, and examples of regulatory changes — including complete bans in some locations. Participants then took part in an engaging role-play, critically examining three policy challenges related to e-scooter deployment across different urban contexts. Each participant assumed a specific stakeholder perspective, and groups worked together to select from a range of regulatory options—or propose their own—to resolve these real-life challenges. Mark Atkins, a representative from Dott, offered valuable insights from the operator’s perspective, further informing the discussions.

You can find the presentation of Workshop 3 here.

Closing

Dr Ben Clark (MSc Transport Engineering and Planning Programme Leader) alongside Chartered Institute of Highways and Transportation presented a prize for the best dissertation submitted by Alex Painting, an outstanding student on the programme in the previous academic year (2023-24).

Following this, Prof Graham Parkhurst brought the symposium to a close, thanking participants, speakers and organisers for their contributions, and inviting those who could stay on for a well-earned drink before departure!

We very much hope that many of you can join us again next year at our 2026 CTS Symposium!

Keep an eye on the CTS LinkedIn Group for updates.

Vision led planning: how to plan development and transport infrastructure more sustainably

Transport and Society | 6 May 2025

A new guide to Vision led planning is available, but what is vision led planning and why do we need a new guide?

Credit: Integrated Transport Planning (ITP) Consulting

by Professor John Parkin, Emeritus Professor of Transport Engineering

The nature of a vision led approach

A vision led approach considers how to make places attractive, prosperous, safe, healthy, and easy to get around. It approaches the planning and development of transport infrastructure in ways that will influence travel choices that, in turn, will help create these better places.

Rather than a linear ‘inputs’ and ‘outputs’ modelling approach to transport planning, the vision led approach is iterative and holistic, embracing flexibility, learning from past mistakes and adapting to uncertainty. It is important to note that it does not advocate for spending less on transport infrastructure. Instead, investment is directed to accommodating alternatives and unlocking latent demand for modes of travel such as walking, cycling and public transport.

While ‘vision led’ is an emerging term, it represents the art of the possible and a step change in attitudes towards transport planning and design. The approach is summarised in ITP’s figure above.

Rather than focussing on cars and roads – and predicting future demand and providing for that demand – the vision led approach starts with a collective ambition for how a place should look and feel. When communities are asked how they would like their local area to function, rarely do people directly ask for bigger junctions or wider roads.

A new guide

The approach is easy to understand, but perhaps more difficult to implement. To assist planners and designers, a new guide has been drafted and is available from the University of the West of England, Bristol (UWE), repository and from the Transport for Quality of Life (TfQL) website. The guide was prepared by Transport for Quality of Life, the Centre for Transport and Society at UWE, the ITP consultancy, Jon Parker Consultancy, and other partners.

The guide is intended to help plan development and transport infrastructure by using an approach that helps grow prosperity; meets decarbonisation objectives; and delivers more sustainable, accessible, equitable and healthy communities. This can help achieve the Government’s five missions of securing prosperity, reaching net zero, and improving safety, opportunities and health. It is in line with Welsh Government’s Well-being of Future Generations Act and its subsequent strategies for transport.

The guide considers how goals and priorities should be defined and how roads policy should be defined. There are now many emerging examples of well-defined and executed developments that follow these principles including large scale master planning, housing developments, and alternatives to building roads.

The guide is intended to assist everyone who is in any way connected with development and transport infrastructure planning.

The report can be downloaded from the UWE repository here: https://uwe-repository.worktribe.com/output/14331734/vision-led-planning-how-to-plan-development-and-transport-infrastructure-more-sustainably or from Transport for Quality of Life’s website here: https://www.transportforqualityoflife.com/reports/vision-led-planning-how-to-plan-development-and-transport-infrastructure-more-sustainably/.

The guide was not externally funded. It has been endorsed by the Chartered Institution of Highways and Transportation (CIHT) and the Transport Planning Society.

This blog was written by Prof John Parkin, Emeritus Professor of Transport Engineering at the Centre for Transport and Society, University of the West of England, Bristol.

Professor John Parkin is Emeritus Professor of Transport Engineering and was Deputy Director of its Centre for Transport and Society. He has been involved in all stages of the promotion of transport schemes including policy formulation, modelling and forecasting, operational analysis, economic appraisal, design, construction, and evaluation. He has worked across all modes of transport and researches the links between infrastructure design and user behaviour. He was a member of the Welsh Roads Review Panel. He has a specialism in cycling infrastructure design and authored Designing for Cycle Traffic. You can contact him at: John.parkin@uwe.ac.uk.

Mind the Gap: Bridging Street Works and Vulnerable User Accessibility

Transport and Society | 17 April 202517 April 2025

Street works standards must meet the needs of every user. Our project is shaping guidance based on real experiences, ensuring accessibility and efficiency for all. Join us and help make a difference!

Source: Derek Harper (cc-by-sa/2.0)

By Luc Pellecuer, Senior Lecturer in Civil Engineering

Unexpected street works forcing you to navigate unmarked diversions without safe crossings can be frustrating. Now imagine facing this scenario while using a wheelchair, pushing a pushchair, or guiding a visually impaired person. What might be merely inconvenient for some becomes a genuine hazard and an accessibility barrier for many.

The Daily Challenge of Street Works

Street works are a necessary part of keeping our cities and towns functional and safe. However, these works often pose significant challenges for vulnerable street users—pedestrians, cyclists, individuals with disabilities, older people, children, and others who rely on safe and accessible pathways. While traffic management practices are guided by UK industry standards and regulations, there is a growing acknowledgement for the need to ensure that these practices are inclusive and prioritise the needs of all street users.

Beyond Inconvenience: The Real Price of Poor Access

Street works can be a source of inconvenience and, more critically, a safety hazard for vulnerable street users. Temporary Traffic Management (TTM) solutions often prioritise vehicular traffic, sometimes leaving pedestrians and cyclists to navigate:

Poorly marked diversions
Uneven surfaces and temporary footways
Inadequate lighting during autumn and winter months
Narrow passages that don’t meet minimum width requirements
Routes that force pedestrians into traffic or require crossing busy carriageways

For individuals with disabilities, such as those who are visually impaired or use wheelchairs, these challenges can be even more daunting. Older people and children also face unique challenges when navigating street works, which increases the risk of trips and falls or makes them less visible to other street users.

The consequences of neglecting vulnerable street users are far-reaching. When walking or cycling becomes inconvenient or unsafe, people may opt for private cars instead – or abandon their daily activities altogether. This shift not only undermines government efforts to promote active travel but also has detrimental effects on public health, community wellbeing, and environmental sustainability.

Current Standards and Guidance: A Glimpse of Hope

Despite the abundance of literature and industry guidance on traffic management, there is limited focus on creating inclusive solutions that cater to all street users. The “Red Book,” officially known as Safety at Street Works and Road Works: A Code of Practice, serves as a key reference for traffic management practices in the UK. However, the latest edition, dating back to 2013, does not offer guidance on how to include vulnerable users’ needs in the design of TTM. Hopefully, its much-anticipated revision will help address this important gap.

Similarly, the Highway Authorities and Utilities Committee (HAUC UK) provides essential resources and operational guidance for street works. I attended the HAUC UK convention in Manchester on 2^nd April, where the importance of accommodating the needs of vulnerable street users was emphasized. On this occasion, HAUC UK launched a new app that offers valuable practical guidance on accommodating vulnerable street users, specifically addressing the needs of various disabled user groups.

Bridging the Gap: Our Research Project for Inclusive Streets

To help address these gaps, I am leading a research project aimed at investigating the priorities of TTM design and how decisions are made and implemented within the UK context. Our focus is on understanding how current practices incorporate the needs of vulnerable street users and how they can be improved to meet the requirements of the Equality Act 2010 and Public Sector Equality Duty.

The project has the following key objectives:

Safety First: Determine how TTM practices can ensure that vulnerable street users can safely use the highway during construction periods
Service Quality: Evaluate whether these users are provided with acceptable levels of service to use the highway as they choose
Practical Solutions: Develop actionable guidance for practitioners on adapting traffic engineering practices to create safe and sustainable transport infrastructure

By achieving these objectives, the research will enhance active travel, improve community health and well-being, and align with UK transport policy on sustainable infrastructure.

Gathering Insights: Help Shape Better Streets

As part of our project, I will soon be conducting focus groups and short interviews to gather the perspectives of various vulnerable street users. These sessions will provide invaluable insights into the real-world challenges faced by pedestrians, cyclists, individuals with disabilities, older people, and children during street works. This input will help us advise contractors, utility companies, and local highway authorities on the best ways to accommodate your needs.

I invite anyone who identifies as a vulnerable street user or has relevant experiences to participate in our project. If you are interested, please do not hesitate to contact me. Together, we can work towards creating safer and more inclusive streets for everyone. Because when streets work for the most vulnerable among us, they work better for all of us.

This blog was written by Dr Luc Pellecuer, Senior Lecturer in Civil Engineering, University of the West of England, Bristol.

Dr Luc Pellecuer is and member of the Centre for Transport and Society and a Senior lecturer at the School of Engineering where he teaches Transport Engineering. He has always had a keen interest in the sustainable design and management of transport infrastructure. He is particularly passionate about his most recent projects, which focus on developing inclusive transport engineering solutions that serve the most vulnerable member of society. You can contact him at luc.pellecuer@uwe.ac.uk or on LinkedIn: Luc Pellecuer.

Author: Transport and Society