Themes

UCL Transport Institute defines three contexts within which we convene research activity around transport questions. Our contexts include Policy and Practice, Technology and Innovation, and Quality of Life, as shown in the diagram below.

At the heart of this context wheel is quality of life and this is central to the Transport Institute's ethos: we are particularly interested in policy- and industry-relevant research that has a positive impact on people's quality of life through dimensions such as health, accessibility, culture, the environment, safety and security and prosperity.

Also at the heart is equity which reflects the presence of fairness and equality amongst UCL's values. We are very interested in the distributional aspects of transport policies/interventions and will prioritise research that meaningfully informs the policy debate on this topic.

Surrounding the core context are two additional contexts: technology and innovation and  policy and practice, in recognition of their roles as drivers of much of what happens in transport. It also reminds us of the huge importance of governance to the success or failure of transport initiatives.

We explore each of 'quality of life' themes broadly below.

Saftey and Security

Negotiating a balance between the scope to move and the many associated risks.

The complex relationship between how we travel and the risks of injury when travelling remains an area of active research and debate. In addition to trying to establish the facts - what are the actual safety impacts of wearing a cycle helmet, say - there are important ethical questions relating to the very uneven socio-economic distribution of injury in road "accidents".

Complementing the topic of safety is that of security. We lock our doors as we drive around town; we choose one street to walk down and not another. In addition to these personal security issues, transport is also of interest because it can be a target for attack (lots of people in one place) as well as providing a means to launch an attack. With the rise of autonomous systems and smart cities, the issue of cyber security is increasingly central to transportation questions. There is a need to find a suitable compromise between making transport secure and at the same time preserving individual autonomy and privacy: for example, how extensive and intrusive should airport scanning be?

Interested in transport safety and security? Click here to find out about UCL's Crime, Safety & Transport Group.

Health

Explaining how transport systems and our use of them influence our physical and mental well-being.

It is increasingly accepted that transport and health are very closely linked. To be healthy, we need to take sufficient physical exercise and some or all of this can take the form of physically-active travel, but only if travelling that way is both possible and attractive.

Transport also affects general health through factors such as air quality. There is therefore great interest in seeking ways of reducing the negative effect of transport on local environments. And how can the socio-economic imbalance in the negative health impacts of transport be addressed?

Accessibility

Exploring both how transport systems provide access to opportunities and the barriers faced by so many users

Deliberately taking a broad view of the term accessibility, we are interested in it at all levels, from the individual to the global. What motivates people to move in the first place and what benefit do they derive from moving? What makes a place or a system accessible and what can be done to address hidden, as well as visible, barriers? And how should we tackle inequalities of access at each level?

Our definition of accessibility encompasses not just propensity to travel and the relative ease of movement but the practical business of doing it - network resilience, user effort, the role of information and new technology in enabling transport systems to be more accessible and responsive.

Prosperity

Understanding the relationship between transport and the economic circumstances of people, organisations and countries

Major transport investment is often argued for on the grounds of economic impact - a given scheme will reduce unemployment, promote investment, increase competitiveness.  And so on.  The reality is almost always more complex: certain schemes do appear to have a positive economic effect; others make little difference or even appear to worsen things.

The prosperity theme describes the process of improving our understanding of the relationship between transport and the economy at all levels.

Environment

Addressing the effects of transport systems on our natural resources and on our urban and rural areas

Transport interacts with the environment globally (think climate change) and locally (think noise and air quality) but it is easy to adopt too narrow an interpretation of the word in a transport context. If environment means "the world around us", then transport's influence is wider and deeper: it shapes our places in ways that are endlessly debated - the Ribblehead Viaduct is arguably now an accepted, perhaps essential element of the North Yorkshire landscape. Will the Viaduc de Millau in France be one day similarly absorbed? This fuller interpretation of the word means that we can move on from the typically adversarial relationship (transport development equals environmental harm) to a more nuanced understanding of the interaction, where the way in which people and things travel may in fact enhance the world around us.

Culture

Understanding how transport defines us by shaping our behaviour, beliefs and perceptions

Transport infuses our culture in a myriad ways: our interaction with transport influences our behaviour (think of how we act on the Underground), our beliefs, our expectations and desires ("Oh Lord, won't you buy me a Mercedes Benz?"). It has been absorbed into our language: people run on empty and burn rubber.

Transport also helps to define our world: in obvious ways, such as through the presence of infrastructure, and in subtler ways - it is often possible to identify a place through the typography of its street signs.

And transport is everywhere in the arts - from the train as agent of death in Anna Karenina to the extensive representation of the car in film as a source of freedom, means of escape, symbol of power…

Equity

Understanding the relationship between transport and equity among diverse people in cities and rural areas of different countries. 

Despite the sometimes passionate assertions of the supporters and opponents that transport interventions will lead to economic development, evaluations show that impacts rarely fall as predicted and there are often unexpected and unwelcome effects. Transport policy and planning are implicated in re-production of inequality in cities, on the basis of class, gender, age, ethnicity, disability and other social identities. Moreover, beneath an aggregate effect at the national, regional and urban level, there will almost always be subtle and important variations. Understanding who gains, who are disadvantaged and why, is the main priority under this theme.

This theme also throws up important differences between the so-called global north and global south: formal transport provision can prove revolutionary for the economy if it is affordable, safe and convenient; where it is not in many countries of the global south, informal transport provision proliferates to provide the access that is essential if poor women and men are to meet their daily needs.