Disruption Project: Is the public’s willingness to change underestimated by policy makers?

Institute for Transport StudiesFACULTY OF EARTH AND ENVIRONMENT

Is the public’s willingness to change underestimated by policy makers?

Professor Greg Marsden

Director, Institute for Transport Studies

The Government Overestimates Demand

Source: Phil Goodwin

And lots of change is beyond Government

And lots of change is beyond government

Worked 0 Days 1 Day 2 Days 3 Days 4 Days 5 Days 6+ days

Before 2% 2.5% 2% 8% 16% 70% 0.5%

After 1.5% 2.5% 4.5% 16.5% 27.5% 48% 0.5%

Impacts of an office consolidation on number of days in the office

“Although the stimulus for change varied, in each case drivers needed to decide what to do when their normal travel patterns were disrupted, and there were useful insights from all the examples as to how they reacted.”Cairns, S., Atkins, S. and Goodwin, P.G. (2002) Disappearing Traffic? The story so far, Proceedings of the Institution of Civil Engineers: Municipal Engineer 151 (1), 13-22

And lots of change is beyond Government

Preparedness and Actual change - Olympics

80% of those making no change are in pre-contemplation

Numbers in pre-contemplation decrease as number of changes made increases

With thanks to Transport for London and Stephen Parkes

Pre Olympics Variation

With thanks to Transport for London and Stephen Parkes

Range of potential to change

Least flexibility =16.4%

Highest flexibility =6.4%

With thanks to Jillian Anable and Tom Budd – Disruption Project

Question

So – if there is a lot of change going on – is the government underestimating the willingness of the public to change?

Shovel ready logic

“In our local transport plan we’ve three main objectives; one is promoting economic growth, the second is reducing carbon and transport emissions and the third is improving people’s quality of live..... Erm politicians in the, for the first three years of this plan… they decided that because of the financial constraints that we were under this year, and beyond during this comprehensive spending review period, that they wanted to focus primarily on promoting growth and the economy”

(Local Government Official)

Lack of Imperative for Change

Interviewer – ‘You seem to be suggesting that the lines of accountability and responsibility across the various levels of government and to a degree organisations and agencies such as yourself are not particularly good’.

Response – ‘Well, they’re non-existent, I think, at the moment.’

Findings Launched today: www.its.leeds.ac.uk/transport-carbon/publications

Climate Change Policy

A world of inconsistency

Source: Transport Statistics Great Britain 2013

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Runway Capacity

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Vehicle Scrappage InitiativeSupported bus services???

Conclusion

• There is not a great untapped willingness to change

• There is an untapped ability to change

• But this requires a serious effort to be legitimate

• Participate www.disruptionproject.net

• @disruptionproj and @drgregmarsden

• E-mail: g.r.marsden@its.leeds.ac.uk