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Research on sustainable transport conducted by Hickman et al at UCL has contributed significantly to a major shift in UK and international transport policy during the last decade. Whereas such policy previously included little, if any, consideration of climate change, the desire to reduce transport CO2 emissions is now often its primary objective. Findings from and methods developed through the research have been used at city, regional, national and international to support and implement revised strategies and investment programmes promoting sustainable transport. As such, they contributed to increased use of public transport, walking and cycling, and reduced dependence on car usage. The methods have also been widely used by international consultancies and other researchers.
Research undertaken by the LRC on `low carbon logistics' has informed UK government policy on the environmental impact of freight transport, altered the official method used in the UK to carbon audit road freight transport operations, provided guidance to industry on the measurement and management of freight-related CO2 emissions and resulted in the establishment of the first industry and government-endorsed target for cutting the carbon intensity of road freight transport.
Research at Heriot-Watt University led to the development of a Knowledge Transfer Project (CALM) between the University and Caledonian Aerotech, known as Caledonian Alloys (CA). The KTP enabled CA to deliver material on-time and provide real-time information on the progress of shipments which led to existing customers purchasing greater proportion of their material requirements from CA over competitors. Customers Rolls Royce in the UK and Allvac in US awarded new long term processing contracts in 2009 worth $4m annually in which the CALM capability had a major influence. The company increased from 119 employees in 2004 to 309 in 2009 and currently employs 280 worldwide, reflecting the impact of the research on the company's performance.
The case study captures and describes the outputs and impacts arising from cumulative research on the theme of accessibility in transport and urban design. Impacts are evidenced both through the research process in terms of end-user engagement, collaborative research and real world test bed research (local communities and neighbourhoods); and through intermediary and professional/ practitioner body validation, policy-making and take up of research findings and guidance/toolkits arising. Impacts have also occurred through wider dissemination, follow-up research and collaboration both nationally and internationally.
A new form of personal rapid transit has been developed from research which began at the University of Bristol in 1995 and has since been commercialised by a University spin-out company. The ULTra system is now in operation at Heathrow Airport Terminal 5 and constitutes a world first for the UK. Since opening in 2011, passengers have benefited from a personal, fast, reliable and low cost driverless transport system, that has removed the queuing and inefficiencies associated with bus transfers to the terminal. The Heathrow pods completed a million miles of fully driverless operation within two years of the system opening and have the highest satisfaction rating of any passenger service at Terminal 5, which itself is rated as the best in the world. The success of the system has led to a plan to extend it to Terminals 2 and 3.
Research within Sheffield University Management School (SUMS) into supply chain management and carbon reduction has delivered economic and environmental impacts by helping businesses reduce their carbon footprint through lower-cost resource efficiencies. The supply chain management tool, SCEnAT, developed from SUMS research, has helped businesses change their operations to reduce CO2 emissions, make cost savings of up to £250k per company and improve their business performance through, in one case, winning additional contracts worth £1.75m. The research has also been used by regional business organisations in developing and implementing growth strategies to support low carbon businesses in Yorkshire and Humber.
Key insights from LSE Cities' interdisciplinary research on the `compact and well-connected' city have been incorporated by central government in national planning policy and by the Mayor of London in the London Plan. This has led to urban land being developed more intensively, ensuring more sustainable and efficient use of space in English towns and cities. Research on green city policies has been adopted by the United Nations Environment Programme (2011) and is determining policy formulation in Stockholm, Copenhagen and Portland. Urban Age conferences and research have created an international network of urban policy-makers and scholars, and LSE Cities staff have had impact on the design of the Olympic Park in London and development plans for cities outside the UK.
Research on urban planning has influenced planning decisions and assisted the Scottish Government and Local Authorities to maximise economic, physical and social factors in city visioning, planning and design. The private sector has received advisory and design training in master-planning though advanced spatial modelling principles and user engagement techniques; local authority planners have also been trained. The research has contributed to a paradigm shift in city planning towards place-making and community design, not just in Scotland but internationally. This agenda is now established as mainstream in city planning, and Scotland is regarded as a reference to best practice as witnessed by the wide adoption of planning documents such as Designing Places, Designing Streets, and in recent large scale developments such as Tornagrain (around 4,000 new homes), Knockroon (around 750 new homes) and Chapelton (around 8,000 new homes), which have used Strathclyde's master-planning techniques.
DPU's research by Davila, Allen et al into urban infrastructure has generated analytical tools used by policy-makers, practitioners and aid organisations to examine the distribution of and access to urban services. It has supported the development of training curricula used altogether by over 4,000 urban planners in cities of the Global South, and through partners in The Netherlands, India and Colombia. At the policy level, the research has informed local government actors in Colombia, and international bodies (e.g. UN-Habitat and the International Resource Panel) in planning, financing, monitoring and equitable delivery of infrastructure services. At the NGO level, new analytical approaches have been adopted by WaterAid in Mozambique, Nigeria, Zambia, and the Democratic Republic of the Congo as a result of DPU research.
Research by Prof Jillian Anable and colleagues in the Centre for Transport Research (CTR) at the University of Aberdeen has made a leading international contribution to a specific approach to sustainable transport planning known as `Smarter Choices' or `soft measures'. These have been used to develop non-coercive transport policies that inform people of their travel choices, and seek to improve services to make these choices feasible.
These measures rely on understanding the processes and mechanisms for people to change their travel behaviour voluntarily in response to locally tailored initiatives using a combination of social marketing, travel planning, information provision and investment in alternative transport infrastructure. The research at Aberdeen has used a combination of methods to assess the potential of Smarter Choices, and has also been used to calculate the expected carbon emissions reductions that would result from different combinations of policy measures. This research has also developed a specific quantitative methodology involving segmenting the population to give a flexible interpretation of behaviour, allowing different policies and messages to be targeted to different groups.
The research has directly influenced English and Scottish transport and climate change agendas, being taken up in policy guidance, evaluation frameworks, new funding mechanisms and the inclusion of Smarter Choices in carbon reduction targets. The research has also been used by several local transport authorities in the UK and mainland Europe and as underpinning evidence by many transport and environment NGO's and community groups.