This is a presentation given by James Gleave of Mobility Lab to the Smart Transport Conference in Birmingham on Wednesday 18th September 2019. Public participation is something all transport planners do. But we often do it poorly. This presentation builds on current research to identify the current challenges facing public engagement in transport, and what planners can do about it.

1. Engaging Citizens in the
Future of Mobility
James Gleave
Smart Transport Conference, 18th September 2019
@jamesgleave1 | @lab_mobility

2. Two dominant paradigms
The User
• Consumer of services
• Provide services to gain profit
• Individualistic approach
• Involved in definition
The Public
• Limited profit motive
• Provide a base level of access
• Delivery at scale
• ”We trust this is ok with you?”

3. What this means for transport strategies
Transport Strategy

4. A Citizen Paradigm?
The Citizen
• Owns the vision for transport in their
area;
• Develops service concepts and ideas in
collaboration with public and private
partners;
• Transport planning is a partnership,
just a profession;
• Public bodies advise and empower.

5. Do citizens actually care about
transport?

6. Yes, kind of…
• People would like more of a
say on policy areas that
affect them
• People do have concerns
about the future of
transport, but they are not
as high a priority as other
areas
Over
50%
of people want to have a greater say over
major policy decisions that affect their
lives.
Source: Institute of Government (2015)
71%
of Americans are afraid to ride in a self-
driving car.
Source: AAA (2018)
2%
of British people consider transport to be
the most important priority for the
country.
Source:YouGov (2019)

7. How we engage with people is not how
they engage in issues
69% Signed a petition
36% Boycotted a product
31% Donated to a cause
Source: British Social Attitudes Survey (2019)
How we do it now

8. It’s simple really
Citizens have the right to know
what is happening in their
world around them. It is their
right to have a meaningful say
on matters that will inevitably
affect their lives, and to be
more involved and engaged in
the processes that make these
decisions.

9. So what do we do about it?

10. There is no end of best practice

11. Give up your decision
making authority
where you can
• Creating capacity to empower people
and to ensure that their decisions have
impact
• Invest in techniques such as participatory
budgeting
• Establish citizens juries
• Laz Paz (Bolivia) established local
management committees to directly
oversee infrastructure works through the
Neighbourhoods and Communities of
Truth Programme

12. Make your citizens
transport experts
• Open data should be the standard, if it is
not already
• Invest time in developing their
knowledge and skills
• Make your insight accessible and easy for
others to do their own research.
• We are very good at this already!
• MappingGM
• Real JourneyTimes Project in theWest
Midlands
• Needs to be done more systemically

13. Co-create everything
• We do this well already!
• DIY Streets
• Playing Out
• Great for solutions
• Challenge is scaling this to strategies and
visions that apply to everyone
• CIPTEC demonstrated that this can be
simplified into a meaningful workshop
process
• Define the objectives
• Develop innovative ideas
• Assess against needs

14. Break open your
process of thinking of
the future
• Shift away from expert-led visions of the
future
• Process of identifying trends of relevance
locally, and creating consensus among
citizens about different futures
• Workshops
• Citizens Juries
• Open Foresight Platforms and publishing
• Making the future engaging
• Future Mobility Scenario Game

15. Moving to Citizen-Centred Mobility
Open,
usable Data
Accessible
services
Meeting
user need
Operational
delivery
Mobility data open as standard
Open source tools
Building skills to use them
Building sustainability
Defining Universal Accessibility
Financing and delivering
Tools and service empowering
people
Transparent delivery
New operating models
Meeting customer wants
Community and public sector
collaboration
Attitudinal and observational
research
Open and inclusive in
identifying needs
Defining responsibilities

16. We know there are many barriers to
making this happen
• We know how do to do this
already!
• We need to make good practice
standard practice
• Mobility Lab is looking to make
this easier
https://www.mobilitylab.org.uk/o
ur-strategy.html
“We’ve not got the
time.”
“We’ve not got the
staff.”
“We’ve not got the
money.”

17. Thank You
James Gleave
Director, Mobility Policy Lab
E: james@mobilitylab.org.uk | M: 07958 350159