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This housing estate in Bicester illustrates the problem: it's called the Bicester Eco-Town so you'd be forgiven for thinking that it has a low environmental impact

A picture can tell a thousand words but it still can be deceptive: we need a more objective view of things

ActDev Project

Actionable Evidence Supporting Active Travel (and Decarbonisation) in the Planning System

Robin Lovelace, Joey Talbot

Leeds’ Institute for Transport Studies and partners

ActDev Workshop, 2021-12-07 (updated: 2021-12-07) Reproducible source code: github.com/cyipt/actdev

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The problem (source: Garden Villages and Garden Towns report, TfNH)

Photo: Bicester Eco Town

Bicester 3

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This housing estate in Bicester illustrates the problem: it's called the Bicester Eco-Town so you'd be forgiven for thinking that it has a low environmental impact

A picture can tell a thousand words but it still can be deceptive: we need a more objective view of things

Marketting vs Reality

Source: Willmott Dixon

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When planning officers are presented with a proposal it is often difficult to evaluate sustainability claims

Guidance and objective measures are scarce, meaning that intuition is often used

What we need is an object evidence base

Data driven evidence (source: https://actdev.cyipt.bike/bicester/)

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Why are housing developments being approved in places like this at a time of climate crises?

Demand for housing

Source: Tackling the under-supply of housing in England, House of Commons Research Briefing Jan 2021

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Policy and research context

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Policy and research context

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Policy and research context

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Policy and research context

  • Tensions between vital policy objectives of housing/levelling up vs decarbonisation/active travel

  • Transport models were designed to support growth in car ownership and reduce journey times (Boyce and Williams, 2015)

  • Few tools for assessing active travel potential or provision in/around new developments (Megan Streb MSc)

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Policy and research context

  • Tensions between vital policy objectives of housing/levelling up vs decarbonisation/active travel

  • Transport models were designed to support growth in car ownership and reduce journey times (Boyce and Williams, 2015)

  • Few tools for assessing active travel potential or provision in/around new developments (Megan Streb MSc)

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Governments must meet multiple competing objectives

The August 2020 planning white paper outlined the need to create beautiful places and provide housing

A House of Commons Research Briefing from January 2021 outlined the challenge of increasing housing supply to meet the aim of building 300k houses per year

The July 2021 Decarbonising transport paper set out dramatic policies for the sector with rapid uptake of walking and cycling: "We will aim to have half of all journeys in towns and cities cycled or walked"

And in the 2021 Gear Change one year on policy paper, the prime minister said in the foreword

"I support councils, of all parties, which are trying to promote cycling and bus use. And if you are going to oppose these schemes, you must tell us what your alternative is, because trying to squeeze more cars and delivery vans on the same roads and hoping for the best is not going to work."

As we've seen the problem is largely political but it has has a substantial technical component

The 'tools of the trade'

  • Climate science, air pollution and health force a shift in focus
  • The concepts of 'participatory democracy' and 'citizen science' mean there is a need for collaborative solutions

Despite substantial academic work on integrated land-use transport models and an entire academic journal dedicated to it

Planning and transport not always joined up

The ActDev tool

4 month UKRI funded project on high impact research in transport/planning

Publicly available tool with maps and data on active travel levels, potential and provision

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Levels of analysis

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The ActDev Team: agile, reproducible, open data science and software development

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The ActDev Team: agile, reproducible, open data science and software development

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Feedback from workshop

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Stakeholder mapping

  • Professional planners: Lynda Addison, Lead on planning and transport integration, Transport Planning Society

  • Active travel planners: Julian Sanchez, Active Travel, Programme Manager, Essex County Council, Kit Allwinter, Active Travel Officer West Yorkshire Combined Authority

  • Consultants, e.g. Lucy Taussig, Consultant, Active Travel

  • Local Authority Planning Officers

  • NGOs, e.g. Megan Streb, Partnership Manager, Sustrans

  • The wider public

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Research findings

  • Median distance to town centre is 3.2 km only three within 2.0 km
  • 14% of trips made by active travel in the areas surrounding the 35 sample site locations
  • Provision of good infrastructure varies considerably

Source: Academic paper under review (Talbot et al. 2022)

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The importance of open data and open tools

  • Transport models have a huge impact on transport planning
  • More people with access to good data -> better outcomes
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  • New paper, Lovelace et al (2020) describes the emergence and possibilities for 'open access models'

Possible next steps

  • Review of stakeholder needs, engagement with relative parties, e.g. DfT, DLUHC, BEIS, CCC, the nascent Active Travel England, local authority planning officers, and more

  • Additional data sources

  • Improve modelling to include more explanatory variables

  • Refine treatment of walking

  • Additional trip purposes

  • Scale up nationally

  • Training, outreach, maintenance

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Extra data sources

N. car parking spaces

Community feedback

Source: the ActDev code repository's issue tracker at github.com/cyipt

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Our open source and agile development process allows anyone to suggest additions

We have already added three more sites following popular demand, there is demand for more

Planning applications nationwide

Location of 100k+ 'large development sites'

Analysis is work in progress

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Modelling change: scenarios

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Site level data

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Core ActDev Layers

See https://actdev.cyipt.bike/manual/

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Contextual layers

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The A/B Street tool

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Live demo of the tool

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References

Boyce, D.E., Williams, H.C.W.L., 2015. Forecasting Urban Travel: Past, Present and Future. Edward Elgar Publishing.

Beimborn, E., Kennedy, R., 1996. Inside the Blackbox: Making Transportation Models Work for Livable Communities. Citizens for a Better Environment.

Lovelace, R., Parkin, J., Cohen, T., 2020. Open access transport models: A leverage point in sustainable transport planning. Transport Policy 97, 47–54. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tranpol.2020.06.015

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Thanks

Thanks to the University of Leeds' LSSI, the Institute for Transport Studies, UKRI and the Department for Transport

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The ActDev Questionnaire

Your feedback will help improve our work

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The problem (source: Garden Villages and Garden Towns report, TfNH)

Photo: Bicester Eco Town

Bicester 3

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This housing estate in Bicester illustrates the problem: it's called the Bicester Eco-Town so you'd be forgiven for thinking that it has a low environmental impact

A picture can tell a thousand words but it still can be deceptive: we need a more objective view of things

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