Review 2018-19How we’ve moved forwards, in pictures, words, facts and figures

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“By advancing understandings of the systems, processes and practices that shape the way people and goods move, the TSU hopes to inspire and inform change towards a more sustainable, just and accessible transport system.”

TSU Mission, 2019

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Photos:

(Front cover) Kalamata, Greece

(This page) Busy Bogotá, Columbia

(both, Juan Pablo Orjuela, 2019)

This, our new Annual Review, lets us take stock of a busy 2018–19, recognise progress and celebrate our achievements.

Over the course of the last year we have welcomed ten new researchers and DPhils to the team (featured on our timeline of the year, p25-30). Three of those researchers commenced work in the PEAK Urban programme, in which the TSU considers the growing urban transport challenges in the global South (p10-13).

It is always satisfying to see the impacts of TSU research in shaping transport policy and 2019 saw Christian Brand’s research with UK Energy Research Centre used as evidence in an ambitious Government report on meeting the UK’s carbon emissions reduction targets (p9). Climate change continues to be a key global challenge for transport. This year Oxford City Council voted to declare a ‘Climate Emergency’. We have worked closely with local authorities, collaborating on research into sustainable transport innovations (see p14) and I was also proud to be a panellist at Oxford’s inaugural Citizens Assembly on Climate Change this year.

Of course, the TSU’s research is not just focused on climate change and technological innovation. You can read about our work to understand how transport is experienced - from women working in freight, to people with visual impairments navigating London’s public transport (p17). Videos from the latter project, run by Jennie Middleton, have since been used by TfL to train their staff. Sharing what we learn is key to the TSU’s mission. In 2019 Ersilia Verlinghieri researched how effective Scholarship places for our Global Challenges in Transport courses were at ‘decolonialising knowledge’ (p20).

These are just a few examples of how TSU researchers are delivering on the mission to inspire and inform a more sustainable, just and accessible transport system. I would like to take this opportunity to thank each and every one of you - TSU researchers, DPhil students, visiting academics, colleagues and partner organisations - who have been a part of our important work in 2018-19. I for one am looking forward to seeing where 2020 will take us.

Professor Tim Schwanen, TSU Director

Message from the Director

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20 525

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The Year in NumbersBetween October 2018 and September 2019...

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There were 13 research staff ...

Who worked on 26 research projects ... ... With a total income of:

£528,580

... and 9 DPhil students ...

Our research has included the following countries:

Participants from 32 different

countries and more

than 60 different

organisations joined the

Global Challenges in Transport

Oxford Leadership

Programme.

• Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire• Bangalore, India• Gothenburg, Sweden• Lisbon, Portugal• Paris, France• Oslo, Norway• Quito, Ecuador• Trondheim, Norway • Oxford and London, UK• São Paulo, Brazil• Manila, Philippines• Cape Town, South Africa

“Current appraisal of transport planning projects often don’t cost the benefits of improved health and reduced carbon emissions. So, by using the HEAT tool and measuring and valuing these things, planning decisions that have a positive impact on public and planetary health might be made more often.”8 9

“I am glad to see our work informing the policy debate around emissions and clean growth. With this latest report from the Committee of Science and Technology it is clear that there is a growing consensus among policy makers that change needs to be faster and go further than existing targets set out”

Christian BrandPutting a price on cycling and walking

In September 2019, research from the TSU’s Christian Brand was cited in an ambitious new Net Zero report from the House of Commons Select Committee of Science and Technology. The report on ‘Clean Growth: Technologies for meeting the UK’s emissions reduction targets’ explicitly recommended that the government bring forward its proposed ban on conventional cars and vans to 2035.

Christian Brand led the detailed analysis undertaken to support this statement. The analysis, published by the UK Energy Research Centre in 2018 and 2019, projected that a 2040 ban “may neither hit the [original 2050 emissions reductions] target nor make the early gains needed for a 1.5°C trajectory”. Instead, it suggested that a 2040 ban would have to include hybrid as well as conventional cars in order to meet the UK’s existing targets, and that this ban would have to be brought forward.

Read more about this story: www.tsu.ox.ac.uk/netzerogov

Over 2018-19, outputs from Christian’s work on the World Health Organisation funded HEAT tool have also continued to impact urban planning decisions.

Across Europe 1 million premature deaths are due to physical inactivity. The HEAT tool, a health impact assessment model which Christian helped develop, quantifies the health benefits of walking and cycling. The tool is used by local and national governments across the globe to evaluate the health benefits of their transport infrastructure plans. Infrastructure that encourages walking and cycling can help reduce vehicle use and carbon emissions as well as increase physical activity, which improves individual health and wellbeing.

As health benefits have economic benefits too – reducing healthcare bills - these measurements are important to record and communicate to the public. Christian believes that this tool will put the subject of healthy transport decisions on the agenda for policy makers and the public, where previously it wasn’t a consideration:

Inspiring ambitious government policy

The science behind the scenes of policy and planning decisions

Lucy BakerBig Data transportation planning and governing in the post-colonial smart city of Bengaluru (Bangalore)

What is your favourite way of getting around Bengaluru? By auto rickshaw. It’s quick and convenient to flag passing rickshaws on any busy street. I do enjoy walking to explore areas but it is tiresome due to all the noise and air pollution. A lack of pedestrian facilities makes walking incredibly unsafe. I remember first seeing the way the traffic oscillates across the roads that have no lanes. I am still uncomfortable crossing the road into moving traffic but it is the only way to cross the city’s busy streets.

Who have you interviewed so far?A large proportion of my research has involved interviewing self-employed auto rickshaw drivers, working in pre-determined central and peripheral areas of the city. I have interviewed digital taxi aggregators, digital wallet companies and government departments. My second visit has involved interviewing rickshaw financers and informal money

lenders. Auto rickshaw drivers are marginalised from bank institutions forcing them to purchase vehicles through middlemen, hiring rickshaws until their debts are paid. High interest rates and cycles of debt reproduce poverty for India’s rickshaw drivers.

Can you tell us about a memorable interview? I had many encounters with precarity, dependency and poverty, but one interview with a disabled driver stays at the fore of my mind. He could not sit the test for the government’s driving licence because a vehicle must first be converted to accommodate a disability and shown to government officials. Drivers cannot get a permit for their vehicle without using middlemen. Marginalised from formal procedures this driver was hiding from traffic police day to day and kept a low profile, always charging passengers by the meter to avoid attention. I am encouraging the city government to adjust their policy for disabled drivers, and working with a social enterprise group and driver unions to see if they can incorporate support facilities for disabled drivers into their programmes.

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Reports from the PEAK Urban jungleThree TSU researchers joined the PEAK Urban programme in 2018 and 2019. Their work is on transformations in urban mobility, and transport solutions in the global South. Lucy Baker and Jacob Doherty report back on their field research to date.

“In local regional policy making in India, decisions are not based on research. Instead, I am constantly told “if there is a suitcase it will happen”, meaning bribes influence policy making. Under these conditions achieving positive change is extremely challenging, but there are encouraging examples of pedestrian planning occurring in Chennai and now Mumbai, which give hope for Bengaluru.”

Lucy Baker

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Jacob DohertyEveryday Mobilities in African Urban Transport Systems in Abidjan, Côte d’Ivoire

What is your favourite way of getting around Abidjan? Bateau Bus, a passenger ferry across the city’s lagoon with a nice breeze, a great view, and no traffic.

Can you tell us one thing that you’ve learned about Abidjan that you didn’t know before you arrived?Talking to an array of residents, I’ve learned how much the city’s development has been impacted by conflicts in the country, starting in 2002, that forced residents to abandon certain neighbourhoods to create new ones, caused many business and livelihoods to collapse forcing people to begin anew, and changed the way that urban space is governed.

Can you tell us about a memorable interview? Early on in the research, I had a day-long conversation riding along with a shared taxi driver and talking about his work, his life, and his ambitions. I was amazed by his mastery of all the landmarks of the commune, his ability to construct routes on the fly in response to passengers’ demands, and the non-verbal signals that drivers and passengers exchange to signal where they are going.

Can you describe your research?Abidjan is a rapidly growing city on the cusp of massive investments and new urban transport mega-infrastructure. Given this context, I am interested in how existing informal transport systems are positioned to respond to the city’s present and future needs. I have interviewed shared taxi and minibus drivers, leaders of drivers’ organisations, entrepreneurs exploring new forms of public transport, and passengers - focusing on mothers of young children.

What have you learned so far? Informal transport systems are the backbone of mobility for the majority of the urban population of Abidjan and transport work is a vital livelihood for a huge number of men in the city. A key challenge is how these systems can be supported and integrated into new mass transit infrastructures (a metro line and a BRT) in ways that lead to better working conditions, that maintain the route flexibility that passengers rely on, that improve the safety and provide an alternative to private transport for the city’s growing middle class. Through my interviews with Abidjanais mothers I have learned that affordable and high quality school lunches can impact their mobility as much, if not more, than the multiple public transport options available to them. To really understand sustainable mobility, we need to think concretely about how everyday caring duties are distributed and where they are located.

The Case of Dockless Bicycle HireWith Geoffrey Dudley, Tim Schwanen and David BanisterThe disruptive innovation of dockless bicycle hire is spreading with great speed and intensity, across the world and now the UK. This triggers various questions about the need for regulation of this new mobility service. In this three-year comparative study, the social and political implications of dockless bicycles have been studied in Manchester, the West Midlands and Oxfordshire. Outputs from the project so far includes a paper on ‘the dynamics of public participation in new technology transitions’. Using Manchester as a case study, the researchers have explored how the Mobike came to fail in the city, citing the innovator’s inability to engage with users and respond through “participatory exchange” in the early crucial stages of their bike scheme’s launch.

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The TSU’s researchers have been working to understand how governance can safely manage and best capitalise on new sustainable transport technologies. Here are just three examples of some of the cutting-edge research projects we’ve been leading this year.

Thinking quick, thinking sustainable, thinking local

V2GOWith Tim Schwanen, Brendan Doody and Toon MeelenVehicle to Grid (V2G) technology uses vehicle batteries to store cheaper, more renewable electricity, selling energy back to the grid at periods of high demand. The V2GO project explores the potential benefit of this technology to vehicle fleet management, energy companies and the environment in Oxford. Over 2018-19 TSU researchers interviewed vehicle fleet managers and experts and delivered a literature review. Whilst certain trends – such as an increase in electric vehicles and low-emission zones – suggests fertile ground for adoption of V2G tech, changes to business and labour models have meant that the number of self-employed drivers and connected car platforms have risen. As researchers get ready for the next stage of the project - installing GPS data loggers into existing fleet vehicles to assess their suitability for EV and V2G usage and future business models – it looks like V2G technologies will need to be mindful of highly disaggregated fleets.

GULOWith Tim Schwanen, Brendan Doody and Sam HamptonThree years ago, Oxford City Council received funding to trial five different electric vehicle on-street charging technologies in residential neighbourhoods. Monitoring this pilot project the TSU’s researchers repeatedly interviewed 16 private householders and 5 car club members particpating in the trial, as well as GULO (Go Ultra Low Oxford) project partners, to assess each of these designs. In November, the TSU published their report of the trial, in which they found lamppost-chargers performed best. The report gave a number of recommendations – namely collaboration, improved signage and communication, contactless payments, tactical geographical spacing of future chargers and consideration of maintenance costs. Tim Schwanen commented, “we expect the insights to be very helpful to local authorities around the UK as they roll-out on-street charging infrastructure.”

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Mobility and social justice for allIt is not unusual for people to assume that the Transport Studies Unit is full of engineers advancing technologies for the ‘future of transport’ - autonomous vehicles, drones and car super batteries. However, contrary to this preconception, 2018-19 saw a diverse range of human-focused mobility research at the TSU, exploring the theme of everyday life and social justice.

At the intersection of new technology and social science, Debbie Hopkins led a research project on ‘Gender, Freight and Automation’ funded by the Chartered Institute of Logistics and Transport. In 2017 less than 1% of UK ‘truckers’ were female. However, within the context of fundamental changes in freight systems and technologies – including the development of various automated freight vehicles for use along the supply chain – Debbie explored how prevailing gendered discourses and practices in the freight industry might change. In 2018 TSU researcher Jennie Middleton led the innovative VI (Visually Impaired) Mobilities project, funded by the University of Oxford’s John Fell Fund, charting the everyday journeys of visually impaired young people across London. She worked with young people aged 18 – 26 to film their experiences of moving around the capital, navigating overground and underground trains, crossings and busy streets, in an attempt to understand accessibility challenges and barriers to independence. The ensuing archive of videos, which were premiered in London in October 2018, have been used by Transport for London to help train their staff. The Oxford New Parents Project – also led by Jennie and supported by the Wellcome Trust – used ethnographic approaches to understand the everyday experiences of new parents in Oxford and how urban austerity was affecting the ways in which they were accessing and practicing care. This approach provided important insights into how the entangled nature of parental care is deeply at odds with the fragmentary culture of care under austerity, producing widespread exclusion and inequality as a result.

To discover more of our Everyday Life and Justice research go to www.tsu.ox.ac.uk/research

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The BBC news website, with its global monthly traffic of more than 16 million, helped the TSU reach its widest audience to date. The appetite for topical transport-related news and expert insight is clear, with Tim’s news piece being tweeted and retweeted more than 200 times and engaged with on Facebook in the thousands (3.3k to be precise).

Another big headline coming from TSU research was that “nearly half the flights we take aren’t important”. This revelation came from a research collaboration between Debbie Hopkins and colleagues published in the Journal of Air Transport Management this year.

Also receiving significant media coverage were Geoffrey Dudley – contributing to a Thompson Reuters piece on Dockless bikes “Green revolution or public ‘parasite’?” – and the TSU’s resident “expert on air pollution” Christian Brand, who gave comment on Oxford City Council’s plans for a Zero Emission Zone. This ZEZ he said was “perhaps not ambitious enough,” suggesting complementary measures, like workplace charging and a levy for taxis and buses to support funding electric vehicles.

Brilliant books

The TSU has added some new books to its shelves over the last year too. Johannes Kester published his first book ‘The Politics of Energy Security: Critical Security Studies, New Materialism and Governmentality’ – a short historical and methodological analysis of the proliferation of energy security. In 2018 David Banister shared his stark research findings on transport inequality in the UK, revealing how big transport infrastructure investments like Heathrow’s third runway and HS2 often disproportionally benefit the richest in society.

At the other end of the scale, focusing on the more sustainable theme of urban public transport, this year Fiona Ferbrache published her collection on how bus rapid transit investment has and can be valuable to society. Other collections edited by TSU authors include Tim Schwanen’s Handbook of Urban Geography (2019), and Debbie Hopkins’ Transitions in Energy Efficiency and Demand (2018). 19

Sharing sustainable transport wisdomOn top of publishing 80 journal articles, chapters and books throughout 2018-19, the TSU’s academics have been sharing their research insights with the wider public too. TSU Director Tim Schwanen explained the (not so) straight road ahead for electric vehicles this September in a specially commissioned expert comment piece for the BBC.

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Decolonialising knowledge, one scholarship at a timeThe TSU is proud of its executive education courses, helping professionals tackle Global Challenges in Transport (GCT). However, the associated costs of education can have a prohibitive and divisive effect, with women and participants from the Global South under-represented.

In an attempt to redress these concerns, the TSU has worked hard to implement highly reflective and reflexive teaching practices. In addition, GCT course coordinator Ersilia Verlinghieri conducted a research project in which she interviewed former course attendees, to investigate the challenges and possible strategies to “Decolonise knowledge within the neoliberal university”.

Thanks to the support of the School of Geography and the Environment’s Inspiration Fund, as part of this research project the TSU offered Inspiration Fund Scholarship places for women practitioners from low-income countries in 2018. The scholarship received over 40 applications and fully-funded four exceptional candidates from Nigeria, Pakistan, Ecuador and India last year.

“These women have been a great addition to our courses,” Ersilia explains. “They bring unique views and experiences to the group interactions, which are core to the educational experience.” A few months after the courses, Ersilia went back to interview the scholarship recipients to learn from their experiences. She is now in the process of publishing a paper based on the project.

Read more about how to apply to the Global Challenges in Transport 2020 Diversity Scholarship (open to any national or resident of a country receiving official DAC assistance) at: www.tsu.ox.ac.uk/diversity-scholarship

Seeking: Doctor of PhilosophyIn the autumn of 2019 TSU advertised one fully funded, three-year Doctor of Philosophy (DPhil/PhD) scholarship available for a citizen from a country in Africa, South and South-East Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean or small island states in the Pacific or Indian Ocean.

The successful applicant is expected to start their DPhil research in October 2020. The intention is to offer another scholarship next academic year, for a start in October 2021.

“Thanks to the scholarship our September 2018 course was the most diverse, engaged and inspiring meeting of minds to date.”Ersilia Verlinghieri

From a TSU course a global think tank growsCITIES FORUM think tank was born from the vision of a group of participants at the September 2018 Global Challenges in Transport Course on

‘Infrastructures’. Inspired by the course, they decided to create an organisation where they harness their skills, experience and common background to make cities more efficient, resilient and sustainable.

“During its 1st year of operation, CITIES FORUM has been a knowledge partner in +30 international events related to Smart Cities and sustainable urban development worldwide. The team has been working on different proposals for the EU Horizon 2020 work program and has won a 16M€ project called USER CHI as part of a consortium of 24 partners from across Europe. CITIES FORUM. In addition, our think tank has been part of several public-private partnership proposals in Middle east, Asia and Africa for projects related to the smart city.”

Zeina, former GCT course participant and CITIES FORUM think tank member

2222Photo: Rocinha, slum area in Rio de Janeiro (Donatas Dabravolskas / AdobeStock_72819868 23

Michaelmas Term 2018

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Learning together

• The TSU hosted its “Health, Wellbeing and Transport” Global Challenges in Transport course.

• Denver Nixon and Tim Schwanen held the final stakeholder workshop of the DePICT project at the Royal Geographical Society headquarters in London. Representatives from London’s grassroots organisations and larger transport charities were in attendance.• Brendan Doody and Tim Schwanen ran an interactive and interdisciplinary workshop at the Royal Geographical Society, to examine how a transition towards widespread car sharing can be realised in London, as part of the TEMPEST project.• Jennie Middleton and Farhan Samanani brought together scholars working on care, austerity and parenting with students and front-line practitioners in the Oxford early-years sector, for The Oxford New Parents Project.

DPhil News

• Rafael Pereira successfully defended his DPhil thesis on the subject of “Justice issues in transport policies”.

• Helen Morrissey (top) and Simona Sulikova (below) joined the TSU as first year DPhil students. • Helen holds master’s degrees in social anthropology from the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven (Belgium) and in computational mechanics from the University of Cape Town (South Africa). Her doctoral research focuses on the use of technology in the informal transport sector in South Africa.

• Simona completed her MPhil in Environmental Change and Management at Oxford. This focused on the health and environmental benefits of active transport in Finland. Her DPhil expands on this research by looking at empirical evidence from the EU PASTA survey.

Premiering VI mobilities research

• The first public screening of a series of participatory films made by a group of young Londoners

with visual impairments (VI) took place at the Rio Cinema in London on 3rd October. The films are part of a collaborative research project funded by the John Fell Fund led by Jennie Middleton (TSU) and the Royal Society for Blind Children (RSBC).

• Lucy Baker (top) joined the TSU as a researcher in the PEAK Urban project. Lucy’s key areas of interest are mobility and transportation, particularly in the context of the Global South. • Toon Meelen (below) began his research associate position at TSU, working on the Vehicle to Grid Oxford (V2GO) project.

• Professor Erling Holden and Professor Kristin Linnerud visited from Western Norway University of Applied Sciences to complete their research collaboration with David Banister.

• Sam Hampton (top) joined TSU to continue research on the Go Ultra Low Oxford (GULO) project.• Johannes Kester (below) joined TSU as a Senior Research Associate focusing on mobility transitions. He previously worked as a postdoctoral researcher at the university of Aarhus, Denmark.• Madan Regmi began his TSU visit, working with Tim on sustainable transport in Asia.

The TSU took to the stage at the AAG

• The TSU was well represented at the American Association of Geographers (AAG) conference in Washington in April. Tim Schwanen gave the Fleming lecture on “Geographies of Transport in the new climatic regime” which is part of the award that recognises a transport geographer’s lifetime contribution to the field. Jennie Middleton took part in two sessions, one on “social infrastructure” and the second as a discussant in Gillian Rose’s session. Debbie Hopkins presented a paper on “Knowing and Governing through Urban Experimentation.”

PEAK Urban picks up pace

• Lucy Baker and Jacob Doherty joined 70 other urban scholars for a week-long retreat at the Indian Institute for Human Settlements in Bangalore for the initial project-wide gathering of the international PEAK Urban research team (with partners from universities in South Africa, China, Colombia, and India). • Jacob Doherty conducted fieldwork in Abidjan, as part of the PEAK Urban project, to better understand how small-scale transport operators can contribute to sustainable and equitable urban mobilities.

Hilary Term 2019

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Learning together

• The TSU’s Seminar Series 2019 saw some great talks from David Banister (TSU),

Matteo Rizzo (University of London), Monika Büscher (Lancaster University) and Lesley Murray (University of Brighton). • The TSU hosted its Global Challenges in Transport course on “Smart Technologies and Changing Behaviours”.

• Brendan Doody was awarded a highly prestigious three-year British Academy Postdoctoral Fellowship to work on his project entitled

“Changing drivers: Knowing, imagining and shaping autonomous car users”. He started the project in January 2019.

• Tim Schwanen, Director of the TSU, had the title of Professor of Transport Studies and Geography conferred on him by the Univesity, in recognition of his academic distinction.

TSU on YouTube

• The TSU launched a new promotional video for the Oxford Leadership

Programme: Global Challenges in Transport, which you can now watch on the TSU’s new YouTube channels.• Lectures from Hilary Term’s TSU Seminar Series were also made available online at: www.tsu.ox.ac.uk/ht19

PEAK Urban develops further

• The PEAK Urban website (peak-urban.org) and YouTube channel were launched, featuring videos of TSU researchers

• Lucy Baker began her fieldwork trip in Bangalore in April for two months which was also part of the PEAK Urban project. Lucy’s research looks at big data, digital technologies and concepts of the ‘smart city’, and their applicability to mobility governance.

• TSU were successful in their proposal to be part of the Oxford Martin School’s (OMS) “Innovating for a Sustainable Future” programme which falls within the OMS Programme on Informal Cities. This brings together the PEAK Urban programme’s Oxford institutes to study various forms of informal provision in the city.

Trinity Term 2019

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• At the end of Trinity Term the TSU hosted its Global Challenges in Transport course on “Governing Transitions in Urban Transport”.

• Juan Pablo Orjuela joined the TSU in May as a Research Associate for the PEAK Urban project.

• Adam Millard-Ball began his two-month visit in April. Adam is an Associate Professor from the Environmental Studies Department University of California and is working with the TSU around long-term mobility, emissions scenarios and policy.

Michaelmas Term 2019

Be part of TSU’s futureJoin us www.tsu.ox.ac.uk/jobs

Collaborate www.tsu.ox.ac.uk/research

Study www.tsu.ox.ac.uk/course

2020

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• Gaurav Dubey (left) joined TSU as a new DPhil student. He is researching neoliberalism and low carbon mobility transition in emerging economies and evaluating electric mobility in India. • Anna Plyushteva (middle) began her role as Departmental Research Lecturer.• Hannah Budnitz (right) joined TSU to work on the Park and Charge project.• Professor Marianne Ryghaug, Norwegian University of Science and Technology (NTNU) visited TSU. She leads the centre for Energy Climate and Environment.• Professor Bi Yu Chen visited TSU. He is a Full

Professor at State Key Laboratory of Information Engineering in Surveying, Wuhan University, China. • Won Do Lee (left) started as a Research Associate in Urban Mobility.

Creating opportunities

• The TSU’s DPhil Scholarship was launched. One fully funded, three-year Doctor of Philosophy (DPhil/PhD) scholarship will be given to a citizen from Africa, South and South-East Asia, Latin America and the Caribbean, or small island states in the Pacific or Indian Ocean.

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