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Guest post: If we all choose the fastest mode of travel in a city, the whole city gets slower – and more congested

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The more people choose the fastest route by car, the more congested a city becomes. Alexander Popov | Unsplash, FAL

Rafael Prieto Curiel, UCL and Juan Pablo Orjuela, University of Oxford

People in cities often choose how to travel based on how long it will take. In recent years, navigation apps such as Google Maps and CityMapper have enabled people to decide between various modes of transport by seeing which one most quickly gets them where they want to go.

Cities of course have long dedicated a disproportionate amount of space to cars. Although in some parts of the global north – and in certain demographics – car use is declining, elsewhere it has, unsurprisingly, increased.

In a recent study, we modelled what would happen to average travelling times in a city if people were given only one other option – using the car or using another mode of transport – and if they acted only in their own interest (getting to their destination as fast as possible).

We wanted to see what would happen if everyone acted selfishly. How would that compare, we wondered, with a theoretical case in which people chose their mode to minimise travel times for society as a whole and not only for themselves.

City spaces

Using mathematical modelling, we found that if all travellers behave selfishly, and if we have a system that not only makes it relatively inexpensive to use a car, but also allows congestion to affect non-car users (cyclists, public transport users, pedestrians etc), collectively we all end up taking longer to get where we need to go – whether we’re driving a car or not.

City streets are often designed to make travelling by car faster and more efficient. And despite there being, for instance, an increasing amount of cycling infrastructure worldwide and higher satisfaction among people who commute by bike, it is still very common to see narrow, disconnected cycling lanes which result in congestion induced by private cars affecting cycling travel times too.

Mixed-use lanes – those that are used by both private cars and public buses, as opposed to dedicated bus lanes – have the same effect: car congestion affects bus users too. Without proper infrastructure, there are therefore no incentives to use public transport or active transport options, such as cycling and walking.

And even when there is a cycling path network or dedicated bus lanes, if these cross over or otherwise intermittently share space with the general road system, this also slows everybody down. It makes the system as a whole less efficient.

Similarly, free parking for private vehicles also results in longer travelling times for everyone – including non-car users – because they negate the benefits, for individuals, of not using a car if others still do.

We found that selfish behaviour with such inadequate infrastructure results naturally in more cars, more congestion, and longer travel times. If using a car remains the easier and quicker option (on an individual level), people will keep using cars and cities will remain congested. By trying individually to win, we all lose.

Competing priorities

One alternative is to design more collaborative transport networks in which we all accept some personal delay to achieve a distribution that is better for society. We could, for example, include not only personal cost in some of the apps we use, but societal costs also. What if Google Maps told you not only where congestion is in real-time and what would be the quickest transport mode to choose for you as an individual, but which transport mode would offer the best results for your neighbourhood, your family, your colleagues, or your city?

Research has shown how difficult it is, however, to shift commuter behaviour. It also highlights the public opposition there has been to alternative measures such as limiting maximum speeds in order to lower traffic injuries, despite such measures saving lives.

Given this, it could prove difficult to convince some car users to sacrifice personal efficiency for the greater good. But we could start by at least making these trade-offs explicit.

A giant spaghetti junction in Los Angeles.
Our cities are designed with car travel in mind. Denys Nevozhai | Unsplash, FAL

Motorised private transport has a wide variety of impacts that threaten a city’s sustainability, not least the wellbeing and health of its citizens. It contributes to air pollution and climate change through vehicle emissions and results in traffic injuries and nurtures sedentary lifestyles.

To encourage people to use more sustainable alternatives to car transport, cities need strong policies that steer people away from using their cars. So far, these have included low-traffic neighbourhoods and congestion charges that try to make car drivers pay for the congestion they are causing.

Elsewhere, systems have been implemented that attract people to transport modes, such as safe lanes for cycling, that typically have better environmental and social outcomes. These systems emphasise individualistic attitudes but target societal costs to those most responsible for them.

Ideally, we should create policies that help us act in the interest of our community. In the meantime, policies that push people away from their private cars could bring us closer to what would be optimal for the collective – even if we are all acting in our own interests.

Rafael Prieto Curiel, Postdoctoral Research Fellow, the Bartlett Centre for Advanced Spatial Analysis, UCL and Juan Pablo Orjuela, Senior Research Associate and Executive Education Programme Director, University of Oxford

This article is republished from The Conversation under a Creative Commons licence. Read the original article.

Further reading: more from The Knowledge Exchange Blog on urban transportation

“A new journey”: creating a dementia-friendly public transport system

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People diagnosed with dementia can live independently for many years – in fact, 1 in 3 people with dementia are still able to drive safely.  However, as the disease progresses, people with dementia must eventually stop driving.  Public transport can be a good alternative to driving for those in the early stages of dementia, enabling them to stay connected with their families, friends and local communities, and provide access to healthcare.

Indeed, the provision of easily accessible public transport options is a key aspect of dementia-friendly communities.  It is difficult to overstate its importance:

“If I didn’t have coping strategies to remain independent and mobile I’d be very lonely and soon sink into depression. Travel brings normality to an often abnormal life” Wendy Mitchell, recording a Dementia Diary for Upstream

However, the challenges faced by people with dementia mean that travelling by public transport can be daunting.  This is because dementia affects more than just memory.  Environments that are noisy and busy can be extremely disorientating for people with dementia, particularly when there are added time-sensitive elements such as bus or train times.

People with dementia often lose the confidence to travel.  They may experience difficulties purchasing the correct tickets, become confused by different fares or travel options, or feel hurried or pressured.  They may feel anxious or unsafe, for example, when becoming separated from their luggage or they may have a fear of becoming lost, or getting off at the wrong stop/station.

In addition to the cognitive, emotional and sensory challenges faced by people with dementia when travelling, there are a number of additional barriers.  These include:

  • Difficulties with journey planning
  • The use of fast changing technology which can exclude certain groups of people
  • A lack of service integration
  • Staff with limited awareness of the needs of people with dementia
  • Poor, inconsistent or confusing signage – or unclear rules regarding reserved seats/spaces

Policy and practice

The UK has set out the goal of becoming the best country in the world for people with dementia by 2020.  It has made some significant steps forward – currently, there are now over 200 communities working towards becoming ‘dementia friendly’.

In regards to transport improvements specifically, earlier this year, the Bus Services Act gained royal assent in England.  The Act provides powers to ensure that buses make both audible and visual announcements about the route and the next stop.  These reminders can help to reassure people with dementia.  The government has committed to work alongside the bus industry, passengers and disability groups to develop the policy further.

The government is also currently consulting on a draft ‘Accessibility Action Plan’, which addresses the barriers faced by people with disabilities using public transport, including a focus on hidden disabilities, such as dementia.  It also commits to updating existing guidance on ‘inclusive mobility’ to incorporate current knowledge and understanding of the needs of those with hidden disabilities such as dementia.

Involving people with dementia in service design

Involving people with dementia in the design of services can help to ensure that their needs are addressed.  Upstream is a project that does just that.  It helps to give people living with dementia across Scotland a voice in the design of future mobility services.

Projects have involved visiting various groups in the Western Isles to learn about the challenges of island transport, workshops to gather insights about travel with Dementia Friendly East Lothian and the North Berwick Coastal Area Partnership; and developing training programmes in conjunction with transport providers.  They have produced a report of their work so far.

Use of technology

The expansion of real time audio and visual information as set out in the Bus Services Act provides a good example of where technology can be used to make transport more accessible for people with dementia and other disabilities.

Other ways in which technology may help include the expansion of live departure boards at bus stops and increasing the use of journey planners – either online or via the telephone.  Apps may also have the potential to help organise shared modes of transport for groups of people in rural areas, and in the future, driverless cars may offer an additional transport option for people living with dementia.

Improved awareness of dementia among travel staff

Improving awareness of dementia among transport staff, and developing training programmes on how to respond to the needs of passengers with dementia, is another key way in which services can be improved.

For example, East Anglia Trains, has worked with the Dementia Society to deliver a dementia-awareness training pilot for staff at four of its stations, and plans to roll this out to all East Anglia staff. Arriva Rail Northern has also announced funding to develop the Bentham Line from Leeds to Lancaster and Morecambe as a ‘centre of excellence’ for people with dementia.

Transport assistance cards are another example of possible ways to improve transport for people with dementia. These cards record details of an individual’s needs so that the individual can show the card privately to the driver or other travel staff as a means of asking for extra assistance. Many individual transport operators and local authorities across the country already issue such cards.  Standardising these schemes across the UK may be one way to help improve people’s confidence when using public transport.

Future developments

While these initiatives are making a significant impact, there is still much to do.  If the growing number of people living with dementia are to maintain their independence, then it is essential that transport services become more dementia-friendly. Bringing together the shared knowledge and experiences of those living with dementia, and the skills and experience of professionals involved in the design and delivery of transport services will help to create a more inclusive, person-centred public transport system.

Dr Joy Watson, an ambassador for the Alzheimer’s Society who herself has been diagnosed with dementia, sets out an admirable goal:

“A diagnosis of dementia is not the end of the road, but the beginning of a new journey.  Some people need a little more help to take the first steps, and if I can contribute to them living well, then my mission is fulfilled.”

Moving stories: how poetry is carrying the message about mobility challenges facing older people

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All too often, valuable results from research reports receive an initial burst of publicity before being shelved and then largely forgotten.  But one project has been keeping its research in the public eye by taking its findings onto the streets.

A three-year study led by researchers at the University of York’s Centre for Housing Policy has been investigating the links between mobility and well-being among older people. The “Co-motion” project has been working with older people in York, Leeds and Hexham to explore how changes in their lives, such as losing sight, becoming a carer and starting to use a mobility scooter, have affected their mobility.

Poetry in Motion

One innovative strand of the project involved a six-month collaboration between the researchers and the award-winning poet, Anna Woodford. Anna has written a series of poems that reflect on the travel challenges of older and disabled people. In keeping with the spirit of the Co-Motion project, the poems have themselves become mobile. Earlier this year, buses serving passengers in and around the city of York began displaying Anna’s poems.

The Co-Motion project leader, Dr Mark Bevan, from the Centre for Housing Policy, explained that one of the key messages emerging from the research was the need to raise awareness among service providers and the wider public about the diverse travel needs of people later in life.

“The aim of Poetry in Motion is to encourage people to think differently about how they travel and the needs of others.”

The research findings provided inspiration for Anna Woodford: “Many of the things that older and disabled people find difficult are often very simple daily travel actions that most of us don’t even think twice about. Parking your car on the pavement instead of fully on the road or using priority seating on public transport, are just some of the things study participants cited as being a challenge.”

Future plans, future poems

First York, which provides public transport services in York, was happy to showcase Anna’s poetry as part of the project. Rachel Benn, Business Delivery Manager at First York, said: “We are proud to support our local communities, and when we heard about this project, we were keen to help raise awareness of this important research.”

The Co-Motion project is one of seven Design for Well-being projects looking at ageing and mobility in the built environment, funded by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC), the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) and the Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC).

There are now plans for an exhibition of the Co-Motion poems at York Explore library and at Newcastle City library in autumn 2017, and it’s also hoped that the project will expand to look at people living with mental health issues.

Transport and art collaborations

Poetry in Motion is in keeping with a strong tradition of the arts and public transport working hand-in-hand.  For over thirty years, passengers on the London Underground have been able to enjoy a range of poems showcased in Tube train carriages across London. The success of the programme has inspired similar initiatives across the world.

Meanwhile, in China, a London-based artist has taken the art and transport theme even further. Mira Calix created a moving museum on a bus, enabling passengers to take in sonic and visual art installations as part of their journey.

And in New York City, photographs by the American artist Andres Serrano have appeared in subway stations to highlight the existence of homeless people on the streets. Although Andres doesn’t see himself as a crusader, he hopes that his images will make people stop and think.

“I feel like it’s enough for me to just bring it to your attention, and then after that it’s up to you to decide what to do with it.”

Final thoughts

Public art can be appreciated on different levels – for its own sake, and to provoke reflections about its deeper meanings.  The work of Anna Woodford, Andres Serrano and many other artists enables the travelling public to look with new eyes on the challenges facing vulnerable people, such as the elderly, the disabled and the homeless.

A poem or a photograph, a painting or a story might not change the world, or even an individual. But if it causes people to pay attention, and to reflect on how it makes them feel, the artwork will have done its job.

Follow us on Twitter to see what developments in transport, mobility, the arts and wellbeing are interesting our research team.

Reimagining travel: how can data technologies create better journeys?

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Light-streamed highways heading towards the city

By Steven McGinty

From steam trains to electric trains, bicycles to Segways, the transport sector is constantly innovating. Although much of the excitement revolves around high profile developments in self-driving vehicles and private space travel, there are many up-and-coming technologies that could make a great deal of difference to both transport professionals and the average traveller.

The driving force behind these innovations is data.  By gathering, analysing, processing and disseminating travel information, we can make better use of the transport infrastructure we have around us. Developing new technologies and business models that use transport data in innovative ways will be key to improving journeys and creating real benefits.

Managed Service Providers (MSPs)

Many companies – such as Masabi and Whim – currently offer ‘mobility-as-a-service’ apps that allow travellers to compare journeys on different modes of transport. Travel agents purchase tickets in bulk and monitor real time travel data from airports and other transport operators. And travellers can use ‘digital wallet’ services such as Google Wallet to store their tickets in their smartphones. However, these services can be complex to navigate, and don’t always offer travellers the option to update or change their tickets in real time. The MSP concept involves utilising the transport infrastructure that’s currently in place, but also providing travellers with the flexibility to change their planned journey if conditions change e.g. cancellation of a service.

There is also the potential for ‘insured travel’, where MSPs could guarantee that a traveller reaches their destination by a specific time. This, according to professional services firm KPMG, would be more complex, as it would require using big data analytics to estimate the risk of delay and pricing the journey accordingly. In Holland, travellers are already able to purchase insurance along with their railway ticket to Schiphol Airport. If a train is delayed – resulting in a traveller missing their flight – the rail operator will book them onto the next available flight.

Data and traffic management

The development of ‘connected cars’, which transmit real time location data, and greater coordination between smartphone and satnav providers, will mean that transport professionals will increasingly have access to a wide variety of travel information. As a result, a more ‘holistic approach’ can be taken to traffic management. For instance, public sector road managers could group drivers by certain routes, in order to avoid or worsen traffic congestion problems.

Cloud Amber is one of the most innovative companies working in this area. For example, their Icarus passenger information and fleet management solutions enable professionals to view real time locations of all vehicles within their fleet, integrate traffic congestion into predicting vehicle arrival times, and create reports replaying vehicle journeys.

Flexible resourcing at airport security

Gatwick Airport has been involved in trials which monitor data and gather intelligence on the traffic conditions which may affect passenger arrivals. KPMG have suggested that combining data on current travel conditions with historic data could lead to airports becoming better at predicting the demand at the arrival gates. Having this knowledge would support airports in providing appropriate staffing levels at arrival gates, which means fewer queues, and a better experience for travellers.

Public / private collaboration

Sir Nic Cary, head of digital transformation at the Department for Transport (DfT), has highlighted the need for the public sector to embrace new ways of working or ‘risk being led by Californian-based software companies.’

In his keynote speech at a recent infrastructure conference, he explained that the public sector needs to get more involved in digital transformation and to have a greater focus on user needs and working collaboratively.

As a good example of this, Cornwall Council recently engaged Idox’s digital agency Reading Room to look at how digital services could encourage existing car drivers to use public transport in a sustainable way. There was a particular interest in engaging with 18-25 year olds.

Cornwall is a county where over 78% of all journeys are taken by car – with only 1% of journeys taken by bus and 3% by train. Following Government Digital Services (GDS) guidelines, Reading Room embarked on a series of activities to understand how public transport is perceived by Cornish citizens.

The user research explored barriers discouraging them from using public transport; online/digital tools they may use already to plan journeys; and their experience of public transport. Reading Room also reviewed and made recommendations to the council around the brand proposition for public transport. The user insights are now being taken forward by the council.

Security implications

There is, however, a risk in integrating data technologies into transport systems. For instance, smart ticketing, traffic lights, signage, and automated bus stops, are just some of the technologies which present potential opportunities for malicious hackers, or those looking to commit acts of terrorism.

Last year, San Francisco transport systems suffered a cyber-attack, where hackers demanded the city’s transportation agency pay 100 Bitcoin (about $70,000). The incident had no impact on the transport system, but over 2,000 machines were hacked. As a precaution, the agency shut down the city’s ticketing machines, which led to customers being able to travel for free.

Final thoughts

Improving how people get from A to B is one of the key challenges for cities. If data technologies can play even a small role in creating better experiences for travellers – by providing more reliable and flexible journeys – then the transport sector and the public sector should look to invest and create partnerships which encourage innovation.

Follow us on Twitter to see what developments in public and social policy are interesting our research team. If you found this article interesting, you may also like to read our other smart city articles. 

Hitting the ground walking: how planners can create more walkable cities, one step at a time

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chaotic-people-on-charles-bridge-in-prague-picjumbo-com

In recent times, walking has been enlisted as one of the key weapons in the war on inactivity. Planners and policymakers have taken note of evidence highlighting the benefits of walking for health and wellbeing. Meanwhile, local and national governments have taken up the challenge of embedding walking into policy, strategy and guidance. There are now national walking strategies for England, Wales and Scotland, and from Belfast to Bristol local councils have published their own plans to get more people walking.

Travel trends and their costs

During the twentieth century, there was a shift from work involving physical labour to jobs of a more sedentary nature. In addition, the growth of suburbs and rising car ownership has contributed to a decline in people travelling on foot. At the same time, the attractions of television and home computers mean fewer people are spending their leisure time playing sports or taking part in outdoor activities.

The World Health Organisation (WHO) has put the consequences of these trends into stark perspective:

“Sedentary lifestyles increase all causes of mortality, double the risk of cardiovascular diseases, diabetes, and obesity, and increase the risks of colon cancer, high blood pressure, osteoporosis, lipid disorders, depression and anxiety.”

  • Worldwide, around two million deaths a year are attributed to physical inactivity.
  • In the UK, physical activity contributes to one in six deaths, and costs £7.4 billion a year to business and wider society. It is the fourth largest cause of disease and disability in the UK.
  • In Scotland, inactivity contributes to over 2,500 deaths each year, costing the NHS £94.1m annually.

The benefits of walking

Efforts encouraging people to become more active have had mixed results, and there is now a recognition that turning the tide of physical activity may take decades to achieve. But there’s also a growing understanding that physical activity that can be built in to everyday life can be as effective as supervised exercise programmes. And, as we reported last week, the health benefits of walking can be demonstrated in unexpected ways, such as the emergence of the Pokémon Go game as an incentive to exercise.

A recent report from the Arup design and engineering firm highlights that walking is good for cities as well as for people. It details more than 50 ways in which the world can benefit from walkable cities, including:

  • Social benefits – health and wellbeing, safety, placemaking, social cohesion and equality.
  • Economic benefits – city attractiveness, urban regeneration, cost savings.
  • Environmental benefits – addressing air and noise pollution, improving liveability and transport efficiency.
  • Political benefits – leadership, urban governance, sustainable development and planning opportunities.

Making walkable places

Another key theme of the Arup report was the importance of planning for pedestrians:

“If we want cities to be more walkable, the way we design cities has to change. Walkable places are more compact, dense with mixed uses. Streets have to be well connected with more shade from sun and rain, green spaces, trees and public spaces. And, we must pay more attention to the quality of public spaces, not just providing quantity of walkable space.” Joanna Rowelle, Director at Arup

The report lists 40 actions that city leaders can consider to inform walking policy, strategy and design. Among the ideas:

  • Temporarily removing cars from a city can transform roads into public spaces, raise awareness around car dependency, reduce air pollution, and reveal the potential opportunities created by having more – and safer – spaces for people.
  • Financial incentives and disincentives, including subsidies and taxes like congestion charges, can be used to encourage behaviour change.
  • Use of shared spaces to create a pedestrian-oriented environment where people are aware of fellow road users.
  • Unused infrastructure – such as New York City’s High Line – offers major opportunities for facilitating safe and attractive pedestrian routes and activity spaces.
  • Urban regeneration creates the opportunity to redevelop small pieces of land into pocket parks or public spaces with a green character.
  • Rivers and waterways can be transformed from barriers into walking and cycling routes by creating green and accommodating waterfronts.

Best foot forward?

Many of the suggestions in the Arup report are not hard to implement, and needn’t be costly. But even when schemes have been enacted, they may face opposition.

Each weekend, for the past seven years, a busy thoroughfare in Bucharest has been cleared to create Via Sport – a safe space for leisure and sport. This summer, the city’s new mayor claimed Via Sport has been causing traffic problems. The scheme has now been closed for the foreseeable future.

Old instincts die hard. Those rethinking patterns and processes of urban design to stimulate walking (and cycling) will face a few bumps in the road. But the potential rewards will be great. As David Sim of Gehl Architects observes:

“The key strategy is about getting people to actually spend time out on the street. They become a part of the space, familiar with their neighbours, and are in tune with city life.”

Our previous blog posts on urban planning for pedestrians and cyclists include:

 

Is 20 plenty? The evidence for lower speed limits

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20mph

Image from Flickr user Edinburgh Greens via Creative Commons License

By Donna Gardiner

This week (18-25 May) it’s Walk to School Week – where parents and children are encouraged to leave the car at home and experience the benefits of walking to and from school.

The campaign is particularly important given recent evidence which suggests that the number of children who walk to school is falling. The most recent Department for Transport National Travel Survey found that only 42% of children walked to school regularly in 2013, compared to 47% in 1995/97. Indeed, Britain has one of the lowest levels of children walking or cycling to school in Europe.

A recent YouGov survey of 1,000 parents of five- to 11-year olds in Great Britain found that speeding traffic was the main reason that parents no longer let their children walk to school. In particular, 39% felt that school-run traffic was dangerous. Almost two-thirds reported that they would like to see car-free zones outside both primary and secondary schools, as well as 20 mph speed limits in surrounding areas.

20 mph limits and zones

The introduction of 20 mph speed limits and zones has received widespread interest of late, with a number of large schemes, such as the one planned in Edinburgh, capturing the headlines. The Edinburgh scheme is particularly notable for its scale. It covers over 80% of the city’s roads – effectively making 20 mph the default speed for all of its urban areas. Implementation is due to start in late 2015.

At the other end of the UK, the London Borough of Hackney has this week begun the rollout of its own 20 mph scheme, through which more than 99% of the borough’s roads will become subject to 20 mph limits by October 2015.

The Edinburgh and Hackney schemes join a host of others across the UK, including those in inner London, Liverpool, York, Bath, Bristol, Manchester, Newcastle, Brighton, Oxford and Glasgow.

Support for further implementation

Numerous campaign and road safety groups have called for the greater implementation of 20 mph zones and limits across the UK, including the Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents (RoSPA), Sustrans, the Campaign for Better Transport, CTC – the national cycling charity, 20’s Plenty for Us, The Slower Speeds Initiative and the European Transport Safety Council (ETSC).

The UK Government have also shown support for the wider implementation of 20 mph zones and limits. In 2013, they published revised guidance to make it easier for local authorities to implement 20 mph limits and zones in their areas, and earlier this year, new guidance which further supports 20 mph limits was published by Transport Scotland.

There is also clear evidence of the public’s desire for lower speed limits. A recent YouGov survey found that the majority of respondents supported the introduction of 20 mph speed limits in residential streets (65% support or strongly support) and busy shopping areas and busy streets (72%). Improved road safety and children’s safety were the key reasons for this, along with other reasons – such as making our streets more pleasant to live in, encouraging more walking and cycling, reducing noise and improving the quality of life.

The YouGov survey echoes the findings of the British Social Attitudes Survey 2013, which found 68% of people to be in favour of 20 mile per hour speed limits in residential streets.

Talking of the Hackney scheme, Cllr Feryal Demirci, Cabinet Member for Neighbourhoods and Sustainability, Hackney Council neatly summarises the anticipated benefits of 20 mph zones:

“We strongly believe this 20 mph rollout will be better for everyone. It will mean a safer, calmer and more liveable neighbourhoods for all residents, leading to more walking, cycling and playing outside, which in turn will have a positive impact on health and the community.”

Evidence of the benefits

But does the evidence support these anticipated benefits?

One of the most commonly cited benefit of lower speed limits is improved road safety, resulting from a reduction in the number and severity of collisions. There is widespread evidence that this is the case – for example, research published in the BMJ in 2009 concluded that 20 mph zones were effective measures for reducing road injuries and deaths. Specifically, their introduction was associated with a 41.9% reduction in road casualties, with the effect being greatest in younger children and for the category of killed or seriously injured casualties.

Similar findings have been reported elsewhere, for example, in a review of evidence reported to the London Road Safety Unit, in research by the DfT and by the SWOV Institute for Road Safety Research.

There is also evidence that lower speed limits may help to tackle health inequalities. This is because children and young adults are more at risk of road traffic accidents within poorer localities than in richer urban neighbourhoods. Indeed, in January 2014, Danny Dorling, Halford Mackinder Professor of Geography at the University of Oxford, went as far as to claim that implementing 20 mph speed limits was the main way in which local authorities could effectively improve the health of the local population and reduce health inequalities.

Similarly, research published in the Journal of Public Health in 2014 reported that targeting 20 mph zones in deprived areas may be beneficial. It also concluded that “20 mph zones and limits were effective means of improving public health via reduced accidents and injuries”.

Improved public health is another often cited benefit of lower speed limits. Evidence from Bristol and Edinburgh demonstrates that 20 mph zones do indeed encourage increased levels of physical activity, including walking and cycling, and there is also evidence that they improve resident quality of life, through increased opportunities for social interaction and less noise and air pollution.

The reduced levels of pollution also mean that lower speed limits can be better for the environment.

Finally, there is also some evidence that 20 mph zones may result in increased local economic activity – with improved walking environments having many potential benefits for local business. Research conducted by Living Streets in London also found that pedestrians tended to spend more than those arriving by car.

Driver concerns and attitudes

Despite the evidence in their favour, 20 mph zones are not always welcomed with open arms. There remain a number of concerns about the implementation of 20 mph zones, including fears that they may lead to increased levels of congestion, increased carbon emissions, suffer from a lack of enforcement, increase journey times, and increase emergency response times.

Most of these concerns have been countered by research evidence; however, attitudinal barriers remain. In an analysis of a YouGov survey of public attitudes towards 20 mph zones, Professor Alan Tapp of UWE Bristol, reports that a sizable minority of people (31%) claim that ‘If a 20 mph speed limit is introduced, I may not stick to it’. He also points out that 49% felt that ‘It is just too difficult to stay at 20 mph’ and almost a third of people (30%) thought that 20 mph is an example of a nanny state.

The way forward

So despite the progress that has been made, there is clearly still some way to go before 20 mph limits and zones become a fully accepted part of UK towns and cities. Implementing more 20 mph limits is only the start – it seems that there is also a need for local authorities to tackle the negative perceptions of 20 mph zones held by many drivers in order to ensure that 20 mph limits are adhered to in practice.

Sharing evidence of the positive benefits of 20 mph zones and demonstrating that many of the main concerns associated with them are ill-founded is likely to play an important part in encouraging more positive attitudes, changing driver behaviour, and in turn, make streets safer and more enjoyable for children and adults alike.

 

The Idox Information Service can give you access to further information on improving road safety. To find out more on how to become a member, contact us.

Further reading:

Addressing health inequalities: five practical approaches for local authorities (Perspectives in Public Health, 2014)

Reducing unintentional injuries on the roads among children and young people under 25 years (Public Health England, 2014)

Road safety and public health (The Royal Society for the Prevention of Accidents, 2014)

Achieving safety, sustainability and health goals in transport (Parliamentary Advisory Committee for Transport Safety (PACTS), 2014)

Unlimited aspiration for a calmer city (speed limits) (Local Transport Today, 2011)

Sign of the times (20 mph speed limits in Portsmouth) (Parking Review, 2010)

Review of 20 mph zone and limit implementation in England (Department for Transport, 2009)

Smart Cities: recent literature

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data-stream-shutterstock_croppedby Laura Dobie

Recently, smart cities have emerged as a hot research topic, with cities, national governments and businesses exploring ways to exploit the potential of ICT to improve quality of life and achieve greater efficiency in service delivery.

Our new research briefing explores recent commentary and research in this area. It considers the definition of smart cities and highlights the characteristics of smart cities, and comments on issues which are being addressed in the built environment, such as the provision of appropriate digital infrastructure, decentralised energy and district heating schemes and energy efficiency measures.

The briefing takes a closer look at the deployment of smart technologies in the key area of transport and travel and discusses the commercial opportunities that smart cities present for businesses. It also considers issues with digital inclusion in smart cities, and the application of digital technologies in the co-production of internet-enabled services within emerging smart cities.

Our briefing, Smart Cities: recent literature, can be accessed here.

For more information on our products and services, and to access research briefings across a broad range of areas of public and social policy, visit the Knowledge Exchange website.

Travel planning for greener, cleaner journeys

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Parking for bicyclesOur latest “In Focus” briefing looks at travel planning. You can download the briefing for free from The Knowledge Exchange website. 

by James Carson

A travel plan is a package of measures aimed at promoting greener, cleaner travel choices and reducing reliance on the car. The measures can include incentives to encourage walking and cycling, promotion of public transport and the development of car-sharing clubs. Continue reading →

Google’s driverless car may succeed where Sinclair failed

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by James Carson

Readers old enough to remember the Sinclair C5 might have experienced a déjà vu moment at the news that Google is developing a driverless car. As with the C5 scepticism seemed to surround the story, with followers of the Financial Times Twitterfeed giving full vent to their doubts:

Continue reading →

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