New technologies, travel modes and passenger needs: understanding and predicting the future of rail travel

Rail is an environmentally sustainable mode that can be instrumental in addressing the climate emergency if appropriately tailored to the needs of a wide range of travellers. Understanding such needs and how they might be changing as new technologies emerge will allow infrastructure providers like Network Rail and rail operating companies to be proactive in seeking to maximise rail's potential. Increasingly customised travel solutions such as AVs and AAM pose important questions of fairness and impact on cities'
liveability; what is their impact on congestion?; are they a good use of space (e.g. parking, landing pads); does their cost exclude some parts of society? Answers to these questions will be needed to ensure the future provision of affordable, accessible, and demand-responsive transport.

The core tools used within this project will be from the areas of Economics and Sociology. The latter will inform the qualitative data collection, that the student will design, and that will inform the qualitative data collection. Economics models will be applied in the data analysis phase, as well as Data Science techniques that will enable the student to manage large databases. There is an important geographical aspect to the project, concerning the understanding of differences between urban/rural areas and use of space in different context, which will likely require techniques from Geography.