2015 MODEshift Convention

On 6th November ,the project team will be running a workshop on the ‘Fleximobility’ concept at the 2015 MODEshift convention in Birmingham.

Further details can be found here:
http://www.modeshift.org.uk/convention

Modeshift is a not for profit membership organisation funded by the public, private and community sectors in the United Kingdom. They aim to secure increased levels of safe, active and sustainable travel in educational establishments, businesses and communities thereby engendering widespread travel behaviour change in the long term.

Annual Transport Practitioners Meeting

The Disruption project will be arriving en masse at the Annual Transport Practitioners Meeting in London on 1st and 2nd July 2015.

The project will be giving four presentations covering different aspects of the project as well as running a workshop covering the overall ‘Fleximobility’ concept that we have generated from the project.

The presentations will be:

Responses and adaptability to disrupted travel patterns – a questionnaire study (Jillian Anable, Thomas Budd and Tim Chatterton)

Spatial, temporal and social factors in everyday mobility and modal choice – 3 years of ethnographic studies (Noel Cass and James Faulconbridge)

Disruption as it happens – a selection of responsive case studies (Greg Marsden and Jeremy Shires)

Defining and delivering sustainable transport: who has the power to change the way we travel? (David Williams)

Disruption and Fleximobility at the ECEEE Summer Study

In the first week of June, Jillian and Tim took the Disruption project to the European Council for and Energy Efficient Economy (ECEEE) Summer Study in France.

Jillian gave a presentation on “Rethinking habitual travel patterns – what might ‘flexi-mobility’ mean for sustainable transport policies?”, prior to a well attended workshop session exploring the fleximobility concept in an international context with the mixed academic and practitioner paticipants.

Moving Behaviours Events

We will be working with the Travel Behaviours Network (http://www.travelbehaviours.net) to organise two end of project engagement events with the Future Cities Catapult and the Transport Systems Catapult.

The events will be held at the Future Cities Catapult in London on Monday 15th June, and at the Transport Systems Catapult in Milton Keynes on the Tuesday 23rd June.

Further infomration can be found here:
http://www.travelbehaviours.net/travel-behaviours-network/moving-behaviours-events/

Scales of Disruption: Methods, Experiences and Insights for Change

On Tuesday 10th February, the Disruption Project held a joint workshop with the AHRC “Material Cultures of Energy” project at Birkbeck College in London.

The aim of the workshop was to take stock of current approaches to disruption, to reflect on methodologies and to think about insights for attempts to change how we live. The various scales of disruption (temporal, spatial, planned/unplanned; novel/repetitive) were used as a way into this multi-faceted subject.

Questions were asked about what disruptions can reveal about the workings of infrastructures and the importance of particular habits or practices in people’s lives. Individuals’ and institutions’ experiences of disruption as a practical, emotional and moral event, were discussed and what these can tell us about the degree of flexibility and expectations of a “normal life”. The overall aim was to gather insights from the research for practitioners thinking about managing disruption in the future, and how and when disruption is seen as a threat to established systems and daily routines, and when as a catalyst for change and innovation.

In the course of the day, the discussion of these different scales and dimensions was linked to the perspectives of practitioners (from DECC, Defra, TfL and Climate UK) who are confronting disruption with a final session bringing together the insights from disruption for our understanding of “normal” life and the potential for change.

AHRC/EPSRC Disruption Workshop

Scottish Workshop on Flexi-mobility

On 12th February,  Caroline, Tim, Jillian and Iain held a workshop in Glasgow to test and develop the ‘Flexi-mobility’ concept.  The afternoon was attended by a range of transport practitioners, including representatives from Transport Scotland, Glasgow City Council Living Streets and Abelio.

Again, the reaction of practitioners was that the concept of flexi-mobility helped to think about the problems of implementing sustainable transport in a new and helpful manner.

York City Council Workshop on Flexi-mobility

On 30th January, Greg, Caroline and Tim spent the afternoon with York City Council, holding a workshop for members of the transport team to test and develop the ‘Flexi-mobility’ concept.

The workshop generated a lot of useful and productive discussion around the concept, and it was generally thought of to be a useful and constructive contribution towards the sustainable transport debate.

Making Mixed-Methods Work in Transport Research: Workshop, 20th June 2013, Leeds

The Disruption project is linking with the Travel Behaviours Network (http://www.travelbehaviours.net/ ) to run a workshop on ‘Making Mixed Methods Work’ in relation to transport research.

The event is free and will be held in Leeds on 20th June 10-4pm.

Making Mixed-Methods Work
Travel Behaviours Workshop, 20th June 2013, Leeds

Call for Papers

It is well accepted that understanding our mobility decisions requires an active consideration of the interfaces between factors such as land-use patterns, work and leisure practices, family structures, and technologies. Such understandings can only be brought about through the application of different theoretical framings of the problem, different methodological responses to the problem, and the exploration of the problem and its contexts using different toolkits of methods. It is contended that unlocking critical policy understandings requires multi-pronged approaches. However, interlinking different theories, methodologies and methods creates real practical and intellectual challenges.

This workshop will seek to understand the variety of research methods that researchers are using to engage with communities and make sense of the processes that inform our travel practices. We would like to encourage submissions from project teams that both wish to give a presentation but also develop a paper for a Special Issue of a journal.

Submissions are invited that address questions related to interdisciplinary methodological practices and may address a variety of issues such as: novel methods, new methodological considerations; mixing of methods, the role of new technologies, crowd sourcing, when things go wrong and of course when things go right.

While the session seeks contributions in the traditional paper format, it also seeks to encourage other forms of audience engagement such as demos, audience participation activities and discussion.

See the attached PDF for more information. Please submit a title and abstract of up to 250 words to Jane Macdonald jane.macdonald@ed.ac.uk  by 31st March 2013.

Priority will be given to attendees involved in the papers but anyone is welcome to register an interest to attend with jane.macdonald@ed.ac.uk

This workshop is being organised by the Travel Behaviours Network (www.travelbehaviours.net). The network is funded by the RCUK Energy Programme and aims to bring together a series of interdisciplinary, cross council research projects exploring how to reduce energy use from transport.

Further information can be downloaded here.