In this public seminar, the Global Centre on Healthcare and Urbanisation (GCHU) ask how can cars, public transport, and active transport work together? Do current transport policies reduce, or increase inequalities in cities? We expect a lively debate from a range of perspectives about the options facing cities today, including transport poverty, healthy urbanism, and climate change.
Speakers:
Sarah Leeming – South of England Regional Director, Sustrans
Luke Marion – Managing Director, Oxford Bus Company
Dr Anna Plyushteva – Departmental Research Lecturer, Transport Studies Unit, University of Oxford
Pete Brunskill – Principal Rail Development Planner, Oxfordshire County Council
Chaired by Dr Juliet Carpenter, Director of Research at the GCHU
welcome to Kell College um welcome to Center on Healthcare and urbanization public seminar series it’s great to see so many of you here this evening my name is Juliet Carpenter I’m director of research at gchu um and we’re delighted to welcome you to this our fourth in our year of public seminar it’s a it’s a seminar series that runs every year um in term in twice a term in in weeks one and week eight um and the format of the seminars is that we try and take a topical issue um we ask four speakers to come and give their presentation of a pitch um to the to the topical question and we open it up to the floor so we’ll have five minutes of of speeches from uh the speakers and then we’ll have Q&A um and very much open to a discussion with the audience either to particular panelists or or more generally um and the seminar topic this evening is going to be transport inequalities um and transport lies really at the very heart of everyday experiences in the city but it brings many challenges and so today what we’re asking is how can cars public transport and active travel work together um how do current approaches to trans sport how can they reduce um or do they increase inequalities and so I’m delighted to um present the four speakers today who are going to give their pitch on these questions to help us to critically interrogate these issues around transport inequalities so first up I’d like to introduce um Sarah Leeming who is regional director for the south of England at sustrans which is a national charity that spoke in on walking wheeling and cycling um next we’ll have Luke Maran who is managing director of the Oxo bus company um and you may know that um the oxob bus company’s currently rolling out one of the biggest fleets of electric buses outside London um in Oxford so no doubt we’ll hear a little bit more about that um we have annaa um who is a researcher at Oxford University at the transport studies unit based at school geography and her particular interests are Urban Mobility um um infrastructures and economies in the city um and then we have Pete grunin who is principal rail development planner um at Oxfordshire County Council and so he’s bringing the County’s perspective on rail on buses on public transport in general and active travel from the county perspective so we’ve got this range of different approaches different perspectives on the question of transport inequalities um which we’re going to hear from now and then open up to the floor so thank you very much um thank you to the speakers and um Sarah if I could hand over to you please great thank you um hi everyone so five minutes okay I’ll try I’ll try my best um so thank you very much for the opportunity to present and thanks for the um introduction so yes I work for srand we’re a National Organization uh we’re uh making it easier for people to walk wheel and cycle so I’m going to give my perspective more from an active travel um Viewpoint um I’m going to respond to the questions posed through the lens of young people in particular because we recently s’s recently published a report called transport to thrive so I’m going to talk about that and I’ll address the first question more directly and suggest some solutions to the second uh question towards the end so to thrive um the report is the first of its kind for for an age group between 16 and 24 so there’s been little research to identify and understand the transport issues and barriers experienced by young people so that’s what the research set out to do the project worked with a panel of young visors to ensure lived experience informed its research design and recommendations and we also obviously looked at National travel data as well to see what that was telling us so in the UK many disadvantaged groups lack transport choices including young people this can be impact so this can impact on their ability to access education work life opportunities and also you know leading to effects on their health and well-being so let’s have a look at their findings um so the key overarching finding is that we need to improve transport for young people uh transport policy is leaving young people behind as they enter adulthood between the ages of 16 and 24 young people go through life defining experiences and changes we have many people in in young people in the room today so most of all most of you are aim to move through education into employment leave a family home and become more independent so our re research found that young people make fewer trips than any other age group in 2019 16 to 24 year olds made 21% fewer trips compared to working age adults of 25 to 64 years this Gap has widened over the past 20 years and is most likely to affect young people from disadvantaged groups including people of color people from low-income households and disabled people so we found the likelihood of a young person having a low level of Mobility depends on their employment status household income and car access so lower levels of Mobility are connected to difficulties in accessing and using transport this has become more widely studied in other groups for example disabled people and you probably heard this referred to as transport access accessibility Gap the national transport investment and policy decisions have prioritized private Motor Vehicles however only 40% of young people have full driving license in comparison to 74% of adults age 16 or over and only 28% of the main driving of a car in comparison to 47% of adults this means that many young people rely on buses walking and cycling bus services however have been cut uh over many years and networks for safe cycling um where people are protected from Motor Vehicles do not exist for the most parts of the UK this can limit the ability of many young people to access Services education and work opportunities young people are more likely to travel using a range of transport options including public transport walking cycling and shared Mobility like E Scooters so young people can do the most to enable the government to meet its Net Zero targets they are the age group who recognize the need to reduce car use and use more sustainable modes so what do I recommend um we need to ensure that the needs of young people are recognized in transport plan planning young people are often ignored in transport planning alongside other disadvantaged groups local and National governments should act to ensure that young people and their lived experience informs transport policy and practice we need to support more research with young people to understand the factors that influence their transport decisions and the potential for reduced car use through car delay or avoidance and new modes of car you new models of car use like car sharing we need to provide long-term dedicated investment for walking cycling public transport most transport investment in the UK is spent as we know on longdistance roads or rail improvements we need to change this to invest more in local transport polic policy options and local investment in local transport so free or lowcost bus fairs and subsidized rail travel for young people obviously the 2 rail fairs is having a profound impact on on usage of our of our bus Network I’m sure we’ll hear more about that soon we need to create safe and accessible walking wheeling and cycling infrastructure which young people are more likely to use we need to Pro provide financial support to young people who are unable to access a cycle to work work scheme or to be able to purchase a cycle for themselves we need to help young people to walk cycle use public transport and use shared Mobility support must be provided to young people through improvements transport policy and programs to give them genuine transport choices to access the things they need to well UK governments and devolved governments should devolve powers to local transport authorities to take greater control of buses setting Roots minimum service levels including for frequency and reliability provide local transport authorities with powers to introduce single ticketing systems multimodal Journeys including trains transs buses and micr Mobility options we need to offer cycle training to every UK child to ensure young people have skills and confidence to cycle we need to introduce legislation and guidance for E Scooters to ensure safety inclusive access and support reduced car use take action to ensure car car share schemes better meet the needs of young people as well so in summary young people need to be given genuine transport choices to ensure transport no longer holds them back changes will also benefit other especially other disadvantaged groups at the heart of this is improving active travel and public transport in parallel to support multimodal low car Lifestyles if we can get it right then there are multiple benefits for young people wide society and the economy be more than five minutes sorry lots of um things to think about for the questions I’m sure we’ll have some echoes in the other presentations as well Luke I wonder if you could come to the P hello everyone I’m luk Mar My Confession is that I am a bus operator in fact a long-term bus operator so not really sure what that say about me but but yes I I have I a bus operator um so public transport good public transport is a Force for good um it’s good for physical health bus Journeys are active travel Journeys every bus Journey starts with a walk often finishes with a walk it may start with a cycle or we may finish with a cycle so research has found people who commute by Will train accumulate 20 to 28 minutes of active exercise they more than people don’t uh and that’s getting towards that goal of Public Health England’s 30 minutes of moderate activity day five times a week and third of adults don’t manage that so public transports can be a really really good thing to be physical health uh it can also be good for mental health um more than 13% of people in the UK feel lonely every day um research has found that social isolation loneliness increases mortality uh and third people in the UK have chosen to take the bus just to have some physical contact with people um 37% of people who’ve taken the bus uh say they’ve done that and expl people you know just met for the first time and t3s bus users say they think that buses create strong Community tires so buses can be a real Force Community uh and removing isolation and whole mental health in the city um it’s good for the planet um so even with diesel buses increment of CO2 produced an expedition Journey very very small um embedded carbon is a massive thing within cars because your cars be produced be disposed of even an electric car that’s very very high Rel relative to the point caruse point of use uh and the new electric flet got in the picture there in Oxford is charged Holy by renewable sources no by Mission so buses buses are for good for the environment as well and andly they’re good for the city uh buses are the most efficient users of Road space um we remove unnecessary congestion free up more R in the city for all the good things we want to see and like pag cafes and uh and you know events and all that kind of good stuff and also free up room for for active travel and cycling and and walking uh KPMG founding researched that areas of good bus services empirically uh suffer from less deprivation than areas that don’t have such good bus services um so having a good bus service is something that that helps bring a neighborhood out of deoration um in terms of what what what do we need to deliver good public transport and you know what are the ingredients to make it work uh the first thing is obviously Finance um we need Capital funds uh to by by depos by Vehicles ticket machines other equipment uh the electric bus projects in Ox we invested 31 million uh our own funds in that um so capital is required um operating funds are also required ‘ got employ the workforce and good quality jobs we’ve got to clean the vehicles maintain the vehicles to power them either diesel or electric make sure we’re insured and crucially we got to make sure we can afford the brain’s trust to work with with local partners and stakeholders to make sure we keep growing keep improving keep learning from things around us and making changes um we’ve also got to have uh targeted third party support because in in no matter what kind of structure you have in terms of funding bus services running bus services there going to be Journeys that ar ar well used uh but they need to be there but maybe social reasons they might need to be there through economic reasons they might not be commercially viable on their own so we need some funding for those targeted bits of the network either from cils from housing developers from large employers we got three of that in Oxford share and it helps us deliver the sort of The Wider Network that we’re able to deliver and make whole things stack up and then finally at the moment there’s fourth box of funding which um which would refer to presentation keeping the pairs down um we got more cap to 2 p at the moment 2 bar the city isn’t particularly massively attractive it’s quite attractive if you’re going all way to red um but what is the right level of fairs um on bus services price elasticity varies between between age groups but really it’s it’s 0.7 .8 something like that um so is it the right thing to be throwing load of money into pairs or should we be putting money into into more into coverage frequency and some of the other things that that was spoken about um as well as Finance we need stable and supported policy um we the Texon plates of policy have been moving around quite a lot since the pandemic um and and we’ve been we’ve been hopping from one to the other and kind of making sure that the the Network’s there for people who need it we’re growing back and give everything the best chance to recover the c um you know we there are things like concessionary fairs there’s fuel Duty rebate um there’s also been Co recovery funding um the national bus struy kind of overarches all this it’s quite positive in this intent um a lot of good stuff in there and some funding has been released from that but it’s been quite uneven there’s been some areas of the country got nothing some areas of the country got massive amounts and they struggling to spend it um and maybe some of the allocations between Capital Revenue aren’t really where they need to be either um as well as Central policy we need local planning policy to work for us we need to direct development towards existing public transport corridors we need to feed routes that are already viable uh to get that virtual Circle going increase frequency more patronage etc etc uh and we also need to to have that planning to provide the housing to the people who going to run the bus Network you know we employ 900 people in our business and housing and O which is never been never been tougher really than it is at the moment and you know we are we are struggling with that uh you know be with bus with our staff uh and finally local highways polic is really important as well we need the buses to run efficiently um you know there’s only so many buses we can operate we haven’t gotten limed depos got lied vehicles um the buses need to run need to move without necessary delays and we and to do that there can be a viable option for people to take them where they want to go in the journey time budget that they’ve got and if we don’t do that um you know many bus to like it won’t use them um so that that’s really important and then finally um partnership working really really important as a bus operator my my main name is to listen to the local community whether that be customers whether that be employees local businesses local government stakeholders and understand what’s going on what the demand drivers are what the pressures are that exist in the area and try and make sure we provide the right services to deliver that and quite often I can I can be a conduit to kind of connect two different bits of demand together to make the whole thing better than it could be if anyone was doing it on their own that’s that’s something that I really I really take a lot of time uh responding to change demand doesn’t stand still change is constant we bu is operating a dynamic world and it’s important to understand what’s going on the real world we don’t see so much from the office uh we’ve got to get out there understand what’s happening on our services in respond to make adjustments before it’s too uh focusing on outcomes is really important it’s really good to have electric buses but to don’t make the service better to make the service worse because more expensive um that’s not a good thing we’ve got to have a wider plan to to make the bus of this better for everyone and uh buses apart that that’s great um but you know I’m more more interested in making sure that we’ve got a plan we know where we’re going and we’re building up towards something and then finally I think there’s a lot of chat about um how services are organized in the country we spend ages in this country talking about public transport should it be publicly owned privately owned what should the private sector do what should the public sector do personally I don’t really care I just think each part needs to do what they’re good at that’s the key thing and you know councils generally they’re really good at planning they’re good setting policies they’re good at balancing needs groups they’re good at making sure not no one’s Left Behind they’re not so good you know managing costs they’re not so good in innovating they’re not so good at growing commercial Revenue private sector is generally better at that uh you the private sector can bring extra Capital as well we can invest in things if we think there’s a business case there so I think working in Partnership and everyone doing what they’re good at is really really important um and you know there’s a lot you know we need to kind of move move the debate on from from kind of high level stuff of who plans and organizes buses into you know who are the best people to do this job and let’s get the best people on the best you know on the right tasks so that’s uh that’s everything for me thanks very [Applause] much great thanks so much real interesting fascinating insight into um the buses in in Oxford and and the challenges being faced Anna would you like to come please thank you for the invitation um this picture is also about public transport arguably from a slightly different angle um my Point of Departure today is an ongoing collaboration um with Sharon Francis my co investigator who is based of Jacobs um uh a transport consultancy and lanha County Council and in this project we’re looking to understand whether and how a particular public transport scheme the uh pain reach rapid bus link between Blackburn Dow and aington has affected an area that experiences profound social inequality and many forms of deprivation as well but our aim is not only to evaluate this specific project but more broadly to develop new approaches for understanding how new public transport schemes affect inequalities the tools that are currently used for this purpose within transport appraisal are extremely limited this is because of on one hand the complexity of understanding something like inequalities but on the other hand also um due to the way inequalities have not been a policy priority and a priority in appraisal the way um for example economic growth St so there are two key points in how we approach this challenge as part with the first we understand transport disadvantage is produced of the intersection of different aspects of one’s social identity so gender age disability sexuality race and ethnicity income class and so on for the most part research has examined kind of simplified very uh very much singular aspects of people social identities do lowincome people cycle in this town can women access employment opportunities um this is not always helpful when it comes to evaluation the public transport experiences of an older person with high income will be very different to the experiences of an older person with a low income the barriers faced by a British Pakistani young man who also has caring responsibilities will be distinctive to those faced by a white polish young man who lives with chronic pain so if we can’t assume that all women and all older people or all ethnic minorities uh disadvantaged uh transport disadvantaged in the same way we should evaluate the impact of Transport schemes on different forms of disadvantage and arguably start with those cases where multiple forms of disadvantage or less the second point is that unlike most research on inequality we don’t limit ourselves to a focus on disadvantage as all research inspired by intersectional feminist perspectives we don’t see disadvantage as a occurring in a vacuum we think it only makes sense in relation to something else and that something else is not the absence of disadvantage it is privilege um for us the distinction rides on whether someone relies on a single option for their trips or whether they have access to Alternatives if the bus doesn’t turn up can you still make it to your Hospital appointment by ordering a taxi on your smartphone app without dipping into your food budget for example um if your car breaks down is there proper pavement along the road so you can push the BR safely all the way to the nursery for people who have a backup option or multiple backup options we consider them to be relatively transport privileged here privileged does not mean being part of an elite or having access to some kind of exclusive privilege no it is about being in the relatively advantageous position of knowing that when you need to make a journey there will be a range of ways to make it even if one option is temporarily unavailable and in terms of evaluation we want to understand the impact of a scheme on these groups too and why is that I come to the first question set by the organizers how can cars public transport and active transport work together the truth is that in practice at the scale of an individual Street or a neighborhood they rely do and they rarely can we are dealing with finite Road space finite budgets not to mention the finite planetary resources that transport Gobles up so when Investments made we need to be able to understand whether these Investments serve the people who have no or few options or whether they’re for those who already have many which brings me to the second question of today and this is my final point do transport policies reduce or increase inequalities in cities the reason why we are undertaking this project in blackb is because actually we need better tools to be able to answer that question for very many transport policies and transport schemes we still can’t provide a very good answer to that question um and we should be able to thank you very much [Applause] thanks and thanks for the insights into your research obviously filling gaps in our understanding of Transport inquality so thanks very much for that Pete would you like to right I’ve got three slides should take about six minutes so uh P run County Council I’m the rail officer at the moment work with Le quite a bit the last couple of years and the electric buses and my professional background many years ago was originally a city plan design so I’m basically inuring people and places in environment so here’s one of Luke’s lovely new buses electric so the toal investment was £84 Million we’ve got this new blue and green Livery which is said to be more of a standard for the city and he’s not really sold enough for the benefits of them because they have two full wheelchair spaces which is the first time ever in the county they have induction Loops they have lots of features for people who know be have more challenges so and this is our tagline which we use which our members ask use which is a Greener fairer healthier County and let’s hope we can do that so we do live in a diverse County of around 725,000 residents obviously buildings like this we’ve got key centers of International Learning massive Health Care Facilities manufacturing BW mini for instance so there are nine overarching Council policies priorities and I think the top three are tackling the climate emergency addressing inequalities and focusing on improving health and wellbeing however around 19% of that population our population have any disability of some sort the most common impairment types are social behavioral for children and Mobility FRS significant pockets of deprivation do exist in East Oxford some Villages across the county and parts of b um I mean this is obviously something we’ve discussed at these seminars before yeah BC gend environments poor air quality lower levels of public transport provision and liit accessibility are unfortunately concentrated in our most Sally D branches communities we’ve got the local transport and connectivity plan which is our overarching um sort of document really on transport and we’ve got very ambitious Targets on m shape sustainable transport and improving air qu say headline ones are that um by 2030 which doesn’t seem far away we’ll have one in four less car is about 231 in3 less and that’s as the population the county grows we’ve got targets ambition Ser making sure we don’t have um um sort of Road fatality so it’s all very ambitious so bus wise we’ve worked with luk and partners on the zebra electric bus initiative we did quite well in securing money from the government from The Bu safes Improvement plan um and we’ve got an enhanced partnership so that means the substantial investment in the bus Network countywide so I am the rail off o is plan for Rail and this basically just shows that oord where we tonight is at the heart of the national rail network so it’s critical for Britain um we need the railways to carry more passengers and freight and that comes back to some of those targets I told you about getting people to drive less so public transport has to take a massive shift on that we’re currently working on a new document called Ox rail 240 which is an ambitious plan for delivery and we’re looking at a whole range of issues like electrification of the Railway providing additional capacity making other improvements you’ve all seen the Work underwe O of rail station2 200 million brand new Bri Bridge with lots of tracks and a new platform five and new um and new yeah other new connections uh very substantial active travel improvements cly and I was asked mention Car Plus so we we’re working with the city council and network rail to try and open two passenger Rail stations on the freight only BMW line u i mean I’ve traveled back from that eastern part of the city um and it can take an on the bus sorry to luk here but the reality is with the new Railway it would be 9 and S minutes from C little Moore to take you in central o but the trains won’t stop there they will go into Lon Mar they will go black Val the new West Main Line so a massive boost in terms of giving people in one of the more disadvantage of the city the opportunity to access work leure social relationships uh East West rail Services we’re talking to the company it’s looking like some 2025 maybe September when these will start so brand new connectivity two trains PR to get to mil um I know having been for a meeting recently it’s not an easy place to get to unless you drive so that will be great and obviously will eventually B to Cambridge and the budget this afternoon and that’s funding to the link to Bedford North cord line partnership quite key we have trains uh running from London to Worster through some L moral communities but stations like hver are very important and I’ve just mentioned a number of stations here we’re working with the industry to make more improvements at dof bound col and we’re doing a business case study for a new uh station at growth to support growth there I’ve put this inv Bol um the reality is um as we said people people maybe in more changing backgrounds do suffer disproportion for issues around you know air quality noise pollution obviously the electric bus is Sol that in op but decarbonization in and climate resistance a key challenges that must be tackled and sorry I’ve just focused on this I see handers in the audience so this is the bit that really excites me away from the technical side so yes we’re doing a lot of work on integration and we’re developing a network of Mobility hubs and active travel links and buses a key sporting rails in that FL want you to focus in the end there on the o Community rail partnership which was launched in this last year and we’ve been working very closely with them it’s funded by the rail industry by the companies and by ourselves they’re a Force for good they’re really are sort of Outreach so we do active travel Mar that PR maps with local communities in deop and briest North they do a lot of work around Public Health which is why I mention it in tourism support station adoption groups volunteering the two I wanted to mention and here’s an artist’s impression the coll c corner so we’re working uh with Hannah and the O Community well partnership team in the industry to try and introduce this facility at Oxford station either in the current Eastern entrance or in the new Western entrance and this is essentially if if you were a person who um had issues around neuro divergency or other such things you got to the station you suddenly felt a bit overwhelmed you would have this facility to go and sit in and be supported so we’re very keen on this I know it’s not the technical sort of your County Council side but we are very keen on this and getaways I do want to mention so they’ve been running this year most recently in the last half term um um La who’s one of the community of our people took 36 young people from Blackbird Le out in three different groups over a number of days um and these are sort of you know 11 16 year olds who you know and I I’ve read the feedback and I got quite emotional I mean you know they’ve never they’ve never been to o r station um they’ve never been on a train before theyve never been to the up with Countryside before and I’ve been sent all the sort of feedback and had to get some of my younger colleagues to help me with it because apparently the the journeys were well set which apparently very good yeah and you you to read this and you think yeah this really is a challenge that most of us haven’t faced you know all or you can charge your phone on the train well obviously the younger people wouldn’t have known that because they’ve never been on a train before so I think it just shows how transport can have a human face and hopefully does tackle the topic tonight around inequality very much p and great to see all the initiatives that are coming out of the commity um related to all various aspects of Transport polities right I wonder if I could open it up now to the floor um for comments questions either to an individual speaker or to the panel as a whole if you’d like to um say your name and any affiliation you have um that would be great hello I’m John Sanders um I’m uh was chair of op dep counsil and uh I was uh opposition spokesman on uh um transport um my question what many questions I’ve got from excellent speakers but one that struck me was the something I hadn’t considered before was uh the effect of transporting young people which your first speaker sented on and uh I’m really interested to know if what people’s experience is of uh the um the the difference between young people’s attitude to the the new Innovations ltns bus Gates uh that sort of thing and older people my suspicion is that all the people who object are going the old people and the young people are are dead set in favor and the only people who uh if you probably best companies well um over to the panel there’s a microphone here like to I I think it’s probably probably something for Le to say about this yeah I mean I mean from our perspective and uh I’m now moving into the later age range so the were so understand some of those issues although I don’t have a car and I walk use the bus and the train I mean yeah yeah I mean younger people and that’s why I focus it on my last side I mean you know because obviously it’s a bit of a you know obious St we are the future and I think what we’ve tended to find with the the work we do across the aid range is is you can’t you can’t generalize yeah we have a lot of um we have a lot of older people resident in in Oxford for instance who we’ve we’ve met and space at many events and they’re very Progressive they’ve cycled all their lives they’re very concerned um and yet you’re right I mean the younger people certainly most of the ones I’ve met in recent years do seem to have a you know a greater understanding of some of the environmental and Social Challenges we face and I don’t know if it’s you what happens in the school setting nowadays obviously the County Council is quite heavily involved in that certainly a lot of um a lot of younger people I’ve spoken to recent times than Hy would probably back from Community ra perspective are very concerned and interested and consequently are interested in taking different choices and that’s where I guess um we need support them as much as possible whether it’s recycle training or making investment in infrastructure Rail and bus I mean we’ve all got mixed views I’m probably a bit closer personally to luk on ownership models and and funding and things but the reality is I told you about those very challenging targets at the beginning I mean yeah we’re told to say they’re ambitious my boss is actually in the audience heroic they’re heroic targets to be honest so you know if we don’t bring younger people with us and to be honest older members of society we won’t get anywhere challenging no I’d like to take a couple of points on that I think what the first one I’d say is um before the pandemic the council had a panel called voxy which was which was made out of um young people teenagers and below and uh and they a lot of focus groups and research with them and it was quite interesting we we used it a lot when we were doing pikme up service we found that that service performed really really well with the the younger age group they they really took to that um you much more so in some of the older groups and they saw that something they really value so there was definitely an age differential between people’s propensity to try Innovative different things um in terms of the bus companies and new on ltns and bus G I probably do half a day on that but but but I’ll give you the the edited highlights I mean really ltms and then bus GES go handing glove you can’t have one without the other and obviously we we’re very supportive of the project as a whole because we’ve invested 30 mid and new vehicles and de infrastructure so we’re very supportive the project the issue is time the timelines really um what’s happened in Oxford because because of things outside the Count’s control you know we have to put put the ltms in by a certain dat because of government funding deadlines We’ve Ended up with a situation where we’ve made things better for people who can cycle and have a lot worse people who can’t cycle um you during you know probably a two-year period and and that’s that’s not great when you’re trying to improve the bus service it’s really not great when you’re trying to bring it back from a pandemic um you know certainly all the elements need to be there in the in the mix in the future and uh and ltms are definitely something we want to be doing you really the Bus St needs be enabler for the better public realm of many types and better active travel of many types as well but um but yeah it’s all about timing and uh and you get quite often we can get unintended out outcomes and consequences from from well-intentioned policies and that’s that’s an example of that very large really I just have one small thing but I suspect your your suspicions are correct I mean I don’t have the data in front of me but srand um we’ve done now for four years not consecutive years but we’ve done four lots of what we call the walking and cycling index across 22 cities um across the UK and we now have a tool where you can actually interrogate the data so for example um you can interrogate data to understand which demographic or which age category is supportive of measures in their local city and time and time again we see young people supportive of um uh traffic free routes for example supportive of traffic restriction measures you know supportive of things like ltn um so as a yeah as a general rule the evidence stack so that young people are supporting these measures so give it 50 years you all be good um thank you for this question I also don’t have data in front of me but a few years ago I was involved in a a report for the department for transport on young people’s travel and what we found that what we found was that on one hand yes concerns for the environment and the climate crisis and so on are more likely to um shape the travel behavior of younger people but there is a very strong component of affordability in that as well young people are often less likely to drive because they cannot afford to drive a car and to have a to get a driver’s license and of course if you take a lifefor itive on that um then you have to ask the question whether their ability to afford a car will change as they get older and therefore also their take on some of these things for pessimistic Ang on this more questions yeah yeah um sorry just a quick question so I’m Nicha I’m a student here at Oxford I stud social policy and I have two short questions um one of them is about how so and OB what strikes me is a such an all city um which makes it just too difficult to increase the capacity for bus rides for instance so I’m just wondering how do you work with that and what is like the potential to increase the bus capacities to make and also to make sure that the bus rides don’t take so long uh sometimes you just mentioned sometimes you’re taking an hour to get from actually not so far away to different place and my second question is about kind of the connectivity between the villag is around Oxford and Oxford so my my cousins live outside of Oxford but work here um but they they can’t live here because they can’t afford it because they work quite low income jobs um so they’re spending like two hours a day on the buses uh which leads to you know they they didn’t have the money to live in Oxford and now they’re also losing time every single day so I’m just wondering if you look also look at those kind of inequalities as well thank that sound like a bus one so yeah I guess yeah 100% in terms of the The Village’s Point um and that’s that’s a really interesting one in terms of um when when you went the answer I gave to the previous question about the sort of ltns versus bus Gates and that time mag um you know there has been generally you’re right that the people who live outside of Oxford and commu in um are the ones who who can’t afford to live there it’s not it’s not it’s not a an exact science but certainly um you Oxford has a very very high house price to average income ratio and a lot of housing stocks owned by by University and people like that so there is a is a huge import of Labor daily and I’m one of those people personally um and uh and yeah those are the ones whove everyone’s got a journey time budget haven’t they to make their life work um you know generally once you commute starts extending Beyond an hour um you know it’s really difficult to make that that day stuck up and and and do all the other things you need to get done um and and we’ve seen that with a number of things um I’ll give an example of um col of of private schools in Oxford there’s a school called modeling College school um headington school they they fund a network of 12 coaches uh a great expense to themselves actually to bring people in from from Villages and H LS into their school um and they spend about million pounds a year running that Network um but the network isn’t as attracted as it needs to be because uh you know it takes 70 minutes 80 minutes 90 minutes for some of these kids to to get to school so guess what a lot of them don’t use it because because it doesn’t work within the journey time budget they’ve got they instead Drive the kids in and drop them off which obviously becomes a self-defeating situation and makes makes the thing worse so so that that’s that’s the sort of challenge we have in Oxford with that kind of stuff and and and that’s why things like the traffic filters uh our project is essential really because you know bus can take the strain bus can carry a lot more people than it does at the moment um if a bus isn’t moving it’s it’s not it’s not benefiting the city it’s not doing all those good things that I that I said on on the first slide so buses do need to move uh there’s a farm number of buses that we’re ever going to be able to operate in Oxford because otherwise we’d need half the city to be a Depo um so so we do need to make sure the buses we’ve got generate the most good for the city that we can uh and if they if they are able to move them more effectively at the moment with with the electric bus project as a 10% Improvement Target and that you know that isn’t as herculan as targets that Pete talked about in his plan it’s really just returning the running times back to what they were in 2015 um you know we’ve seen we’ve seen a more than 10% worsening just since 2015 in the running times in the city so you know in my time running the buses the buses have been 50 % plus faster than they are today um and when they’re 15% plus faster they can they can carry a lot more people um you know even if the buses were full m which obious they’re not so so there is a there is a lot of potential for bus to take strength and do more but bus does need to be able to to to to move and do the things it needs to do to achieve that and obviously that that involves some tradeoffs and and having less of of other types of traffic that answer your question I mean I could expand as well that you know talking about um uh taking the pressure then active travel does stand a potential to take the pressure from the public transport Network as well I think there are opportunities for people to cycle from outline Villages I’ve cycled from just near abon today um so I’ve come across come along the Glorious national cyer network runs along the river temps um it’s quite a lovely green Corridor I don’t want to speak on behalf of the County Council but I know they have a plan or they’re trying to formulate plan to build green cycling corridors into the city um of course the challenge is we need the levels of investment from national government to then be able to build uh these wonderful green corridors that people will use um so I think yeah it it’s about levels of investment and I think that’s where we need the the big shift to happen was my part there uh one of the the key problems is that government uh are and the media are always obsessed with r uh and if we part politicians and journalists help to travel from London on on the rail network and yet surely in terms of social inclusion the bus must always be the answer there’s a a statistic that’s been around for about 30 40 years that says 70% uh of bus Jes are made by the lowest it’s not working yeah uh 70% of bus Journeys are made by the lowest 30% incomewise and 70% of rail journeys made by the top 30% income wise so bus buses are the answer I’m chair of the West hawkfire community Transport that actually runs little mini buus services in Whitney and carterton uh and what they do is go into aate uh and bring people absolutely primarily the elderly into the center of which Central of gon and the reason those people use the service often referred to as a Lifeline is because they don’t have a car they can’t afford to be a car to have a car and they’re on very very low incomes so we are the only we’re called the lifeline by many of them uh and I my question I suppose to the panel is that if we are really going to do with social inclusion what is their solution what single thing would they do in the first 100 days of government to improve the situation yeah very good question Mike I mean I think um the first point I’d want to emphasize is we we’re mly agnostic so whether it’s cycling and walking or buses or a it’s it’s all got its part to play and yeah they’ve all got different sort of solutions to offer so I mean I I use the bus on a daily basis to travel so I’m certainly very clean on that equals and the rail I mean so at the end of the day yeah I don’t think we should be pitting these moves against each other I mean what we’re trying to do is reduce the S occupancy private car use that causes so much conjection and issue so I mean I’ll step slightly away from being a County Council officer and say that I had a quick look at the budget before I came down this afternoon and there was yet another freeze on fuel Duty um so that’s now 100 billion in the last 13 and a half years so that 240 million that massive rail Improvement sounds great doesn’t it watchs that less than their 20th of it so I think you know the first thing I would like to see in the 100 days of any future government is just a sort of a bit more honesty about what we’re trying to do because yeah know I think when I was born which you right it was a while ago but think the population was 50 million apparently it’s going to head towards 76 80 million and fairly soon yeah we live in a small damp Island we can’t all drive around whenever we want to in our own car if we have access to one so the reality is you know cycling walking bus rail they’ve all got a key role to play and I suppose the final points i’ makers whether it’s bus or rail most people don’t use them you know we work in the industry so we just assume it’s great but the reality is most people in Ox Chef do not use buses or Railways yeah Luke’s just giv the example there the excellent service that laid on for the private schools but because of the time issue most of the parents end up driving them so I guess in the first 100 days I’d like to see a bit more honesty about how we’re going to tackle these challenges because it affects all of us um thank you for the question I do have many many things to say on this in relation to um Devolution of governance and decision making in relation to um funding models which re reely on local authorities competing with each other for small pots of money to make ad hoc changes to something that needs to be planned and organized in a much more systemic and long-term way um but I guess if I had to pick one thing because of the way I think about transport Motors actually competing for finite resources and not um kind of systemic change around environmental pressures and inequality qu not being around improving everything and kind of hoping that people will make changes to to their car dependent Lifestyles I guess a default 20 M hour um speed limit would be my choice much wouldn’t surprise you to say it wouldn’t be my choice but we’re obviously on that that particular point my my um my thoughts on this would be um I mean I mean funding’s funding’s the answer really with with your question Mike I mean we the railways consume huge amounts of money as as as the major roads as I think was said in in one of the presentations um you know all the councils coming out did did quite detailed work on a bus service improvement plan um under the national bus strategy the national bus strategy actually sets out a lot of really sensible good stuff um that would radically improved the bus offering in many parts of the country that was implemented and and it’s been costed because uh know the councils did that in their ini ground of bus service improvement plans they put those asks in but what came out was a fraction of the the funding that was requested to be honest the funding requested was was a fraction of what’s spent on the railways and and the railways don’t operate all that often at the moment so um so yeah for me I think I think you could quite easily um you know provide some funding from things like fuel Duty rebate things like National Insurance and and uh you know kind of gimmicky stuff like that to to deliver a lot of that stuff in the bus strategy the frustrating thing government is we’ve got the strategies the strategies actually makes a lot sense of for services because haven’t actually given any funding tactical stuff to deliver that so so that would be that be where I would focus yeah it’s great it’s a great question so many answers um I think what we’ve seen in Oxfordshire or in Oxford especially over the last kind of couple of years is some Brave Really Brave local politicians and my hats off to them indeed because you it’s been really challenging time um but I think we’ve got to think harder about traffic restriction we have to be brave around traffic restriction and implementing those tough measures um I think that’s self that kind of entitlement of being able to take your motor vehicle wherever you want uh we’ve got to change that um I agree with 20 M hour I think um some sort of investment around pavement improving Pavements as well um would go a long way um so yeah it all comes down to levels of investment and how we can um yeah re prioritize active travel public transport away from Road building I think I think this one repete um I’m very interested in interconnectivity between the various Services um of a certain age I cycle I don’t have a car and I’ve come to see as I spend a lot of time on the streets that waiting for buses and connecting with under transport so I see a lot of people who are quite frail um and of all ages and also those that have to carry around equipment such as buies and and so on as well so I think there’s a there’s a big part of the public transport Network that could improve the accessibility and perhaps protect from weather things like that which um you might put off potential users of public transport there’s one particular one which um I don’t know anybody’s heard about the uh upgrades of the train station the main train station at ansor where they decided that they decided that it was very necessary as in as you probably all know that in the Netherlands everybody uses bikes they needed to have a really sophisticated form of parking the bike because they were going to be many hundreds maybe thousands of them so they when they did the upgrade of their railway station Central Railway Station they made sure that there was underground parking everybody had an app and there they could see where the next space was available they could get their car their bike in there get up to their train and off they went and coming back the same thing it would remind them where they where the bicycle was located are there any plans to upgrade the cyc parking at a station because that puts me off taking my back the station I don’t believe I’ll ever find a space and I’ll definitely never find my bag again there isn’t enough space anyway so over to you yeah I mean I think there’s a few questions then and I’ll try and address them briefly I mean I guess there’s obviously yeah the you I even as the Strategic transport and high R Authority we obviously have to operate with laws and you but outside London were deregulated when I was in the first year at University and rail Services were privatized in year 1996 97 so one of our roles is to work very closely with colleagues and both those industry and others to sort of try and join some of those dots together and act as the clue um I’ve been doing this for quite a while I think we’re actually in a better situation and we’re very fortunate in ox and oxy I think who was alluded to in terms of the U the politicians are quite Brave so integration is key the reality is as I say I mean you we’re all committed to what we do whether it’s cycling encing walking yeah buses rail but the reality is most people don’t do that and I think about what prevents them from doing that um accessibility information reliability it’s a whole say the basic issues that we need to work together to address and I mean yeah we probably need to discuss this in the section afterwards because we could go all night specifically with the station because obviously it’s a project I worked on those days I mean um the new Western entrance which will obviously a very very big Improvement in terms of providing that facility we’re in very extensive discussion with network Rail and the train operators and the city council and we’re just about to finalized parking for that said I see my colleague Rob from the council City council’s in the audience said when it was considered by the planning committee the suggestion was for 50 Sheffield SS which doesn’t sound very much do it we’ve actually been having discussions recently about many hundreds of cycle parking spaces on the western side the longer term plan for the redev of the station which had involve demolishing the the the Eastern building we’ve been talking about witing 3,000 secure spaces and in the in we’ve started working the last week or two uh with Great Western Railway Network rail to actually try and make more of the space that’s available there and also basic management issues you people’s bikes are rotting away and left their please remove them if there’s locks left I remove them because most of the issues around transport are issues that we all consider their issues subception why won’t you use the bus so I speak to my neighbors why don’t they use the bus because you know I love going on the electric buses and all was going on about them but the shelter environment isn’t great the information provided isn’t great There’s real Basics so again this is where we try and work with everyone so the city council will be doing a new commercial bus shelter contract for the whole of the city we’ve supported that we’ve asked that it includes the railway station and the hospitals because we’re talking about health today the biggest trip generator and oxyer is the hospitals in Oxford so if we can’t do more in relation to buses cycling providing rail access there we de but happy to have a more detailed discussion an ox station but it is getting better yeah I’ve got a bit inut the new Eastern side plans as well and it’s been shown some stuff by Network rail I think it’s it’s an interesting point you’ve raised um because Pete like Pete says that plans to really increase cyle parking which totally agree with it I think that’s you know we need to cater the the policies that we’re putting in so absolutely if we’re saying Morey we must need to be providing more cycle parking and better cycle Parks so totally agree with that the big question on the station Redevelopment that I encourage all of you who’ve got chance to lead into any consultations to to get involved in will be how much car parking is is needed at the the new station um at the moment uh the modeling is to retain the parking that’s there at the moment on Becket Street my view is that’s to to acceptable absolutely wrong um and and as a result of doing that there’s a lot of compromises to the station Frontage um you know how the bus is going approach the station um the active travel by walking routes into the station a lot of compromises caused by car parking so totally agree more more cycle parking the station needed absolutely better cycle parking but what we also need to be sent at the same time is less car parking at the station there’s no there’s no justification for that being retained in in the size that it is at the moment and uh we must must push that forward any other if there aren’t any other comments from the the panel I think think we’re sort of wrapping up now and I think perhaps we’ll take up Pete’s suggestion of moving to have drinks and continue the conversation over a drink um just to say we have been recording um this presentation this this evening um you’ll find it on our website from next week um along with the whole back catalog of the seminars that we’ve run over the last years so do take a look if any of those would be interesting to you um I’d just like to thank the speakers very much um Sarah Luke Anna and Pete um for a fascinating discussion if you’re interested to come back to another one um we run these twice a term um the next one is on Wednesday 17th of April that’s Wednesday of week one for those at the University um and the subject is going to be the creation of social value in the built environment so that’s really about creating so well-being and and that might be environmental economic social well-being through placemaking through the built environment so it’s going to be really fascinating um discussion a panel um bringing different perspectives with discussion as well so do join us if you’re free on Wednesday 17th of April um and just before we go for drinks if you’d like to join me in thanking the three the four speakers very much for their [Applause]