Alison Chisholm achisholm@brookes.ac.uk

Overview

• Background: why interest in walking and cycling?

• Contribution and aims of this study• Methods • Assessment of built environment• Qualitative methods• Strengths of multi-methods approach• The challenge of influencing policy

Impact of Constructing Non-motorised Networks and Evaluating Changes in Travel

Walking and Cycling for Healthy and Sustainable Communities

Part of £4M programme to

develop ‘cross-disciplinary

research consortia in the area of walking

and cycling’

Why the interest in walking and cycling?Walking and cycling for short journeys in urban areas could significantly:

Reduce traffic congestion

Contribute to a reduction in carbon emissions

Improve the quality of the urban environment

Promote improved personal health

• Distance travelled on foot and by cycle continues to decline.

• Nearly two thirds of trips are under 8 km in length and two fifths under 3 km.

• One quarter of car trips are under 1.6 km where car efficiency is at its lowest

Comparison of proportion of trips

Transport sector’s contribution to climate change

Road Transport contributes 23% of UK GHG emissions

An increase of 11% since 1990

Transport one of the few exceptions to downward trends in other sectors

the role of walking and cycling in tackling obesity & associated diseases

DoH (2004) At least five a week: Evidence on the impact of physical activity and its relationship to health

Obesogenic* environments

*defn: ‘Tending to make people fat’

“Countries that rely heavily on walking and cycling have lower rates of obesity.”

What will this study contribute?

Bias towards quantitative modelling of travel behaviour which typically:

• includes only generalised personal characteristics (for instance, age, gender, household size etc)

• focuses at the level of the individual neglecting effects of situational household interactions set within a specific geographical context.

Walker, J. (2006) Opening up the black box: Enriching behavioralmodels of spatial and travel choices. Journal of Transport Geography 14, pp.396–398

“While there is elegance in simplicity, we are regularly faced with complex underlying processes that are driving reality resulting in failures of our parsimonious models to explain highly heterogeneous behavior at the micro scale …”

To develop better understanding of the

complex ways in which households and individuals make everyday travel decisions about short trips in urban areas

To provide new evidence of how different individuals and households make decisions about walking and cycling and how they respond to different interventions by focusing on neglected areas of micro-scale household decision making , within the context of the built environment

Key aims of this study

initial questions to guide the researchHow are walking and cycling incorporated into everyday routines of families, households and individuals?

How do walking and cycling as everyday means of transport interact with other modes?

How are decisions about specific walking and cycling routes made? Do most individuals construct an identity of

themselves and others as cyclists or walkers?

How do specific interventions to promote cycling and walking affect everyday decision making about short-distance travel?

How is the particular complexity and contingency of travel decision making best conveyed to planners and policy makers?

1. Focus on actual trips rather than asking respondents to respond to hypothetical situations relating to modal change.

2. Situate cycling within the complex and contingent circumstances of household decision making and the

geographical context where journeys take place.

The UWAC research will…

Survey of population

Questionnaire survey (c15,000) across four case study sites

Purpose is to gather background data on travel behaviour, attitudes and intentions and to identify households to participate in qualitative study

Analysis of urban structure

Moudon, AV and Lee, C (2003) Walking and bicycling: An evaluation of environmental audit instruments. American Journal of Health Promotion 18(1): p. 21-37

Measures of urban structure (land use and transport system characteristics).

Use of Multiple Centrality Assessment to investigate street patterns.

Assessing the built environment

Relationship between the built environment and walking and cyclingKey environmental correlates of walking and cycling• Land use mix• Population density• Connectivity (directness of travel between two points

directly related to characteristics of street design)• ProximityLess clear associations with walking and cycling • Design characteristics (e.g. cycling/walking

infrastructure, aesthetics, traffic calming measures)• Transport system characteristics

UWAC assessment of the environmentWhat? How?

Connectivity

Multiple Centrality Assessment (MCA)

Land-use mix and residential density

GIS and 2001 census

Transport system characteristics

Primary data and local authority data

Non-built environment Secondary data from police, Met office, MCA and local authority

multiple centrality assessment (MCA)

An approach to spatial network analysis: a set of theories and techniques for the objective analysis of spatial configuration

Based on the premise that the configuration of the urban street network is a key determinant of movement

A street segment is “central” if it is traversed by many of the shortest paths connecting all the pairs of nodes

MCA image of Leicester city centreUDSU - Urban Design Studies Unit at University of Strathclyde

Land-use mix and residential density

What?• Degree to which different land uses are contained within a

geographical area• Implies provision of local facilities which enable day-to-day

activities on foot/bicycle• Number of households per square km• Evidence of relationship with walking and cyclingHow?• Measure presence/absence within buffer of 1st and 2nd order

services and calculate composite for each• Count occurrences of specific land uses within buffer• Record average distance to work (from 2001 census)

Transport system characteristics

What?• Motor traffic speed, volume and composition• Public transport availability• Walkability• Cycle-friendlinessHow? • Local authority data,• Primary data drawing selectively on elements of established

assessment instruments

Non-built environment

What?• Crime• Precipitation• Slope• Road ‘safety’How?• Police records• Met office• MCA• Traffic collision rate

Mixing methods, integrating data and influencing policy…?

Sit-down household interviews

Qualitative Methods employed across 100 households

Total of 10 households in each location.

Household members interviewed twice with period of 6 months between interviews.

Current travel and change over time.

Total of 5 households in each location.

3 month study period in each location & up to 5 study visits.

Five investigative tools1. Sit-down interviews2. Observation3. Mapping exercises4. Mobility inventories5. ‘Go-alongs’

Potentially activity diaries/blogging.

Focus on household decision making

Total of 10 households in each location focusing on one regular cycle journey.

Route choice & experience whilst mobile and before & after the journey.

Ethnography ‘Go-along interviews’

“This route is the quickest, straight on the main road. It’s horrible, but to take a different route I’d be adding extra time to my journey.”

“I borrowed someone’s bike for a time and I was also pulling Margaret and Thomas in the back, in a trailer, which was fine on the way to school, but cycling home it’s uphill a bit.”

(Anna: mum, 38)

Cathy: got a bike last year for her birthday, lived on the Quay at that time, and on that day cycled on the path to Glasson Dock: she loved it, she was FREE, seeing the scenery, cycling along, like at home – [I mention how I almost felt at home cycling there: flat] (she agrees, yes, flat) and no cars, just cycling, looking around.

Once she went on bike to the shop, and the traffic was so fast, she stopped and called her husband ‘you have to come and pick me up, I am too afraid, I can’t cycle on….’

Cathy (mother, 28)

Jane has two kids aged 1 and 3, and walking daughter 3 to nursery in morning is fine (1 year old in pram) but when picking her up in evening, daughter is too tired, can’t walk, and so she picks her up in the car, with the baby, for what is a 800 m journey. She says it is ridiculous, but on her own with two kids, that’s the only way she can do it. She has a double buggy which was fine when both were smaller, but now the two of them in it are too heavy for her to push the buggy up the hill.

“I use the car because it gives me a sense of power. I play my music and I know how to drive and negotiate the streets.”

(Petra: 45, single, no kids)

Petra (45) single, no kids:: “I use the car because it gives me a sense of power. I play my music and I know how to drive and negotiate the streets.”

Strengths of multi-method approach

Rich dataset of thick descriptions allows us to embrace complexities, understand meanings, identities, embodied experiences

Acknowledges importance of context and complexityAddress problems that matter to communities, bring

together a community of participants to share and refine findings

Triangulation between methods through iterative data generation/analysis process – seek confirmation? Corroboration? Incongruence

Influencing policy

A key aim of the project is to influence policy – but ‘high-level’ policy is often based on ‘hard’ quantitative data and “monetisation”.

Advisory group allows dialogue with range of policy-makers, including DfT, local authorities and pressure groups – opportunity to persuade them of value of qualitative data

Broad conceptualisation of policy process and policy makers, including the community

THANK YOUAlison Chisholm

achisholm@brookes.ac.uk

& on behalf of the UWAC study teamHelen Harwatt (Institute for Transport Studies, University of Leeds)Dave Horton (Lancaster Environment Centre, Lancaster University)

Tim Jones (Department of Planning, Oxford Brookes University) Ann Jopson (Institute for Transport Studies, University of Leeds)

Colin Pooley (Lancaster Environment Centre, Lancaster University)Griet Scheldeman (Lancaster Environment Centre, Lancaster University)

Miles Tight (Institute for Transport Studies, University of Leeds)

lec.lancs.ac.uk/research/society_and_environment/walking_and_cycling.php

Some suggested readingBrownson, R.C., et al. Measuring the Built Environment for Physical Activity State of

the Science. American Journal of Preventive Medicine 36 (4): p S99-123 Cavill, N. and A. Davis, Cycling and health: What's the evidence? 2007, Cycling England:

LondonJohnson, R.B., A.J. Onwuegbuzie, and L.A. Turner, Toward a Definition of Mixed

Methods Research. Journal of Mixed Methods Research, 2007. 1(2): p. 112-133.Lo, R.H., Walkability: what is it? Journal of Urbanism, 2009. 2(2): p. 145-166.Millington, C., et al., Development of the Scottish Walkability Assessment Tool (SWAT).

Health & Place, 2009. 15(2): p. 474-481.Ogilvie, D., et al., Interventions to promote walking: systematic review. BMJ, 2007.

334(7605): p. 1204-.Pucher, J. and R. Buehler, Cycling for Everyone Lessons from Europe. Transportation

Research Record, 2008(2074): p. 58-65.Saelens, B.E. and S. Handy, Built Environment Correlates of Walking: A Review.

Medicine & Science in Sports & Exercise, 2008. 40(7 (Supplement 1)): p. S550-S566.Sallis, J.F., Measuring Physical Activity Environments: A Brief History. American Journal

of Preventive Medicine, 2009. 36(4, Supplement 1): p. S86-S92.