Visions of the role of walking and cycling in 2030

This research seeks to examine ways in which more people might be encouraged to walk and cycle in the future, what steps are needed to support this potential increase in walking and cycling and how to improve the experience for those who already use these modes. Walking and cycling can make a considerable contribution to sustainable transport goals, building healthier and more sociable communities and contributing to traffic reduction and lower carbon emissions. The amount of walking and cycling in Britain has declined over the long term and research suggests that there are major obstacles to prevent people from using these modes. There have been many national and local initiatives to promote walking and cycling but without a long term vision and consistent strategy it is difficult to see how a significant change may be achieved. The time is now right to examine the means by which such a fundamental change both in the quantity of walking and cycling, and in the quality of the experience can be achieved, which goes well beyond continuation of existing trends. The project will be led by ITS at Leeds University in collaboration with partners from the Universities of Oxford, Salford, East Anglia and Manchester, who between them bring a diverse range of skills to the work. We will also draw extensively on a range of stakeholder groups such as central government departments, walking and cycling organisations, city and local authorities, from whom we have already received a number of letters in support of this application. The work will involve a series of expert workshops to develop visions of alternative futures and also draw in various ways on the experiences of different user groups of the public to ensure that the visions developed are grounded in real experiences. The workshops and other participation events will be used to establish trend breaking views of the future and the key attributes of future conditions which will generate these visions. We will undertake impact assessments to consider the likely costs and benefits of these visions and the potential effects on a persons' lifestyle. The work will develop and use innovative methodologies using visualisation software to help users understand how futures might appear, using modelling techniques which examine narrative and storylines to understand how different futures might be attained, and using a range of social research methods to explore how different futures might affect individual lifestyles and society. We will offer people a range of tools that enable them to construct their own versions of the future, and to weave their own stories in and out of expert visions, thus opening up the possibility of a richer and expanded public engagement with the visioning process. This permits a shift from the narrow focus of people's current day decision-making and behavioural and lifestyle choices to a greater focus on the process through which people make decisions and the contextual factors which inform how people choose to live their everyday lives. The value of this project, and the innovative methodologies it adopts, such as the new approach to modelling, is that in this way it opens up the possibilities of a greater understanding of how walking and cycling could change in the future.We recognise that the project brings substantive research challenges and risk. However, the combination of proposed innovatory research methods and tools, and the expertise of the collaborative project team, including the extensive involvement of experts and the public, will realise new ideas and possibilities which will be of direct use in both national and local strategies within the UK. The tools developed from this research will continue to be of practical use to the user community after the end of the project and we will explore the potential to make these tools web based where they could be used by policy makers and stakeholders as a basis for future planning exercises.