Triple Access Planning for Uncertain Futures, 2021-2024

Lyons, Glenn (2024). Triple Access Planning for Uncertain Futures, 2021-2024. [Data Collection]. Colchester, Essex: UK Data Service.

Conventional approaches to mobility planning, based on the forecast-led paradigm, have led to unrealised expectations concerning alleviating problems such as congestion and delivering economic, social and environmental outcomes. Evidence shows plans become rapidly obsolete and lack resilience with regard to future developments. This project aims to improve Sustainable Urban Mobility Plans (SUMPs), addressing both the movement of people and goods, through two significant new considerations:

(1) Triple Access Planning (TAP) - future sustainable urban accessibility can be achieved through the transport system (physical mobility), the land-use system (spatial proximity) and the telecommunications system (digital connectivity); together constituting a Triple Access System (TAS).

(2) Accommodating uncertainty - unpredictable change dynamics such as demographics, economic developments, locational choices, regulatory context, technological breakthroughs, travel demand, and stakeholder behaviour can be explicitly taken into account in the plan, in terms of development and implementation.

This research project is highly collaborative and involves seven case study cities in five countries. Through a methodological approach that sequentially addresses theory, practice, design and application, TAP for uncertain futures guidance will be developed and evolved that complements existing SUMP guidelines. The project will strengthen resilience and adaptiveness in SUMPs by advancing theory and translating it into accessible, state-of-the-art, practical guidance.

Data description (abstract)

This project was funded under the JPI Urban Europe ENUAC call focused on urban accessibility and connectivity. The project was centred upon the concept of 'Triple Access Planning' - a vision-led, access-focused approach to planning that accommodates uncertainty and which is seen to be an onward evolution of so-called 'Sustainable Urban Mobility Planning'. The project sought through a partnership of academics and practitioners to ultimately develop 'Triple Access Planning for Uncertain Futures - A Handbook for Practitioners' which was published in March 2024 and made freely available in the public domain. Through the course of the project, transport planning practice and knowledge, views and practices concerning digital connectivity, accessibility, access for goods and uncertainty were explored as part of building up a more developed understanding of the concept and practice of Triple Access Planning. The project involved exclusively qualitative research. It revealed the appeal of Triple Access Planning (TAP) among practitioners alongside frustrations with traditional transport planning and also brought to light the challenges of TAP - as an innovation - diffusing into mainstream practice. Several papers have been published from the project involving researchers at UWE supported by the ESRC grant. Due to ethical constraints a data deposit waiver has been put in place by the UK Data Service.

Data creators:

Creator Name	Affiliation	ORCID (as URL)
Lyons Glenn

Sponsors:

ESRC

Grant reference:

ES/W000520/1

Topic classification:

Transport and travel

Keywords:

TRANSPORT PLANNING, FREIGHT TRANSPORT, URBAN PLANNING, URBAN TRANSPORT

Project title:

Using Triple Access Planning to Enhance Urban Accessibility and Connectivity in the Face of Deep Uncertainty (TAP for uncertain futures)

Grant holders:

Glenn Lyons, Parkhurst Graham Peter, Chatterjee Kiron, Melia Steven, Ludlow David

Project dates:

From	To
30 April 2021	29 April 2024

Date published:

01 Aug 2024 15:39

Last modified:

01 Aug 2024 15:39

Coverage and Methodology

Collection period:

Date from:	Date to:
30 April 2021	29 April 2024

Geographical area:

UK primarily

Country:

United Kingdom

Data collection method:

• Running a complex ten-step systems thinking process involving the development of causal loop diagrams and in turn future explorative scenarios. Six online workshops were involved at different points of the process and each workshop had break-out sessions with the digital whiteboard tool Miro used to capture notes. This research has been fully written up and published in the journal Futures.
• Notes from desk reviews of local transport plans, supplemented in a small number of cases by explorative semi-structured interviews. This information fed into a wider pan-European piece of project work that has been written up and published to reflect a wider review of local transport plans (and Sustainable Urban Mobility Plans in Europe).
• Game play data from running a serious card game at various venues where participants were able to explore the merits of triple access planning. The principal purpose of the game plays was not to collect research data but to use the game itself to socialise TAP amongst practitioners. This has been written up and published as part of a special issue on serious games.
• Data from running a proprietary Mott MacDonald-UWE strategic planning approach called FUTURES in a simplified form online. The principal purpose was again to offer transport planning stakeholders an exposure to TAP rather than being a method to collect data from. One instance of this involved members of the public where consent was sought beforehand but data was entirely context-specific to the ‘FUTURES Relay’ proprietary approach used. This work has been submitted for possible publication.
• Data (transcripts) from a set of 23 semi-structured interviews with transport professionals from partner oganisations in the project. We had a small group of (identifiable) partner organisation representatives who we asked for candid views on the state of transport planning. We foresaw there being sensitive data (such as criticisms of organisations) and that individuals could be identified from the experience they described making data anonymisation impossible. We took the considered view that the ethical solution was instead to achieve a good quality analysis and write-up of the data (valid, trustworthy and rigorous). An academic journal paper based upon these interviews has been published.

Observation unit:

Individual

Kind of data:

Text

Type of data:

Qualitative and mixed methods data

Resource language:

English

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