W. Clayton

An ideal journey: making bus travel desirable

Abstract This paper explores the ways in which people use their travel-time on local buses, and explains how this knowledge can assist with efforts in many ‘auto-centric’ societies to make bus travel more attractive and encourage a shift away from excessive private car use. Framing the discussion around the concept of an ‘ideal bus journey’, this paper examines whether travel-time activities on-board the bus give subjective value to the journey experience. Particular attention is given to emergent mobile Information and Communications Technologies, which are rapidly reconfiguring the ways in which we can inhabit and use mobile spaces such as the bus. This paper reports a novel mixed-methodology, creating a synthesised analysis of online discussions, focus groups, and a large-scale questionnaire survey of 840 bus users in Bristol, UK. The findings demonstrate that the bus is a very active space, with high levels of travel-time activity. The most popular activities on the bus are those related to relaxation and personal benefit, such as reading, listening to music, and browsing the internet. It is the passengers themselves that are largely in control of their in-vehicle experience, being able to craft a range of different positive journey experiences through travel-time activity. However, negative experiences are very common, and there is a need to challenge unfavourable public perception and media representations of bus travel to create a more positive cultural construction of the bus which would allow for the concept of an ‘ideal journey’ to be more easily realised. Passengers are the main creators of their travel-time experience, however there is much that can be done by bus operators to facilitate different types of activity and encourage a desirable public space. The overarching message is that there is a distinct opportunity to unlock travel-time activity as a ‘Unique Selling Point’ of the bus. Creating a perception of the bus journey as a desirable piece of time will allow local bus services to compete with the car on their own terms, and assist with international efforts to encourage people out of their cars and onto public transport for some trips.

The ‘digital glimpse’ as imagining home

Abstract This paper proposes the concept of the ‘digital glimpse’, which develops the existing framing of imaginative travel. Here it articulates the experiences of mobile workers digitally connecting into family life and everyday rituals when physically absent with work. The recent embedding of digital communication technologies into personal relationships and family life is reconfiguring how absence is experienced and practiced by workers on the move, and through this, new digital paradigms for life on-the-move are emerging. This paper explores how such social relationships are maintained at-a-distance through digital technology – using evidence from qualitative interviews with mobile workers and their families. Digital technology now enables expressive forms of ‘virtual travel’, including video calling, picture sharing, and instant messaging. This has implications for the ways in which families can manage the social and relational pressures of being apart. Experiences of imaginative travel created through novel media can enrich the experience and give a greater sense of connection for both those who are at home and those who are away. While technology is limited in its ability to replicate a sense of co-presence, ‘digital glimpses’ are an emergent set of sociotechnical practices that can reduce the negative impact of absence on family relationships.

Young People’s Role in Creating Sustainable Cities

This chapter considers the role of young people in developing and sustaining resilient sustainable infrastructure in cities. Discussions can often focus upon physical infrastructure, with less focus on human infrastructure, and when the latter is considered it is often in terms of families and geographical networks. Young people’s networks are often more mobile, less geographically specific, but provide strong, innovative communities in which norms and preferences are being tested and set. Engagement with young adults offers a productive opportunity for learning and for transformations in relation to the resilience of the wider community and the individual’s resilience. This chapter draws upon the award-winning Bristol Green Capital: Student Capital research data, the Bristol Learning City project and wellbeing and relational thinking literature to explore the relationships between SDG 4 learning, engaged activity and wellbeing, the significance of partnerships (SDG17) as an outcome in its own right and argues that the capacity of young people to play a change agent role in developing city sustainability (SDG11) is undervalued.

Bridging the gap: a case study of a partnership approach to skills development through student engagement in Bristol’s Green Capital year

ABSTRACT HEIs are well placed to engage with local communities, and can connect students with organisations through several pathways, such as volunteering opportunities, placements, internships, or projects. The University of the West of England, Bristol (UWE), the University of Bristol and their respective Students’ Unions have been working in partnership with the city and local communities, using HEFCE Catalyst funding to promote student involvement in sustainability activity during Bristol’s year as European Green Capital. The Green Capital Student Capital project has created a broad programme of citywide impact through mobilising the enthusiasm of the city’s student body. It delivered a wide-ranging programme of engagement in city sustainability and in so doing developed skills, knowledge and attributes in the student body that support the development of graduate attributes and a more sustainable lifestyle. The project demonstrates how institutions can collaborate across cities and communities to have internal and external impacts for sustainability. Abbreviations: ASHE: Annual Survey of Hours and Earnings; BGCP: Bristol Green Capital Partnership; CBI: Confederation of British Industry; HEFCE: Higher Education Funding Council for England; HEIs: Higher Education Institutions; NUS: National Union of Students; ONS: Office for National Statistics; SME: Small and Medium sized Enterprises; UK: United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland; UoB: University of Bristol; UWE: The University of the West of England, Bristol.

Barriers to a better Bristol: Diagnosing city strategic sustainability challenges using systems, co-production and interdisciplinary approaches

As European Green Capital 2015 and one of the Rockefeller 100 Resilient Cities, Bristol can legitimately claim to be on the “frontline” of urban sustainability, continually challenging itself to transform into a place where citizens and organisations work together to create wellbeing. Yet the development pathway to achieving this transformation, remains characterised by continuing inequalities in social inclusion, health outcomes and access to transport, despite aspirational goals envisioned by the city’s leaders. The Urban ID (Integrated Diagnostic) project aims to address this, with the intention that the approach will be replicable in different contexts to assist in developing policy strategies at all levels. The project partnership of local authorities, partnerships, businesses, citizens, and universities is creating a “diagnostic approach” to identify and address the challenges and barriers faced in achieving a strategic sustainability vision. The diagnostic approach is being developed through participatory research using systems, co-creation and learning approaches between a diverse range of stakeholders, in combination with the examination of relevant information including city data, expert opinion, and policy documents. A common shortcoming of projects addressing sustainability in a holistic way is that individual issues are investigated without consideration of the interdependencies between them and with a ‘business-as-usual’ mindset. To address these shortcomings, Urban ID focusses on several local case studies as well as a city-wide sustainability community case study. These are examined through the ‘lenses’ of mobility and accessibility, carbon neutrality, health and happiness, and equality and inclusion. As a result, all issues in a case study area are examined, to better understand the links between them. This paper provides an overview of the Urban ID concept and development of the diagnostic approach, and reports the initial findings and outcomes from a first-round of engagement activities in the Bristol Green Capital Partnership (BGCP) sustainability community case study, co-produced with BGCP CIC