Project Summary
The Department for Transport aims to reduce carbon emissions in urban transport, but decarbonising transport outside cities remains a challenge due to car dependence, poor public transport, and limited active travel options. To address this, the University of Hertfordshire’s Smart Mobility Unit (SMU) is exploring sustainable transport solutions outside cities while considering equality and inclusion impacts. The project focuses on reducing single occupancy car use, co-creating zero-emission transport solutions, and providing inclusive “mobility as a service” and EV charging options on the University’s peri-urban campuses. The project serves as a test bed for sustainable transport options outside of cities.
Project Achievements
T m o t l e s T o s Our project investigated existing travel options and found that the University is already providing a number of mobility services. It runs its own bus company, Uno, providing bus services across West Hertfordshire (Uno have been a partner in this project); it charges for and limits onsite car parking and runs a park and ride service; it also offers or has offered other mobility services including a basic bike hire service and previously an e-car club. This project ran a programme of structured interviews with mobility providers, including Enterprise, Mobilityways, Zeelo and Transport Initiatives (bike hire specialists), with key people in the University and in surrounding areas. It also interviewed staff and students on their attitudes to travel and what their responses might be to new mobility services. Key highlights were: Identifying a range of opportunities for new mobility services in addition to existing provision, also good practice elsewhere that could be adopted by the University and by similar travel generators outside cities. We also found real enthusiasm for new mobility options from those we interviewed and gained valuable insights on barriers and possible solutions to individual mobility options and to a mobility hub as a whole.
Conclusions
The project has shown that it is possible to provide good zero carbon mobility options in places outside cities and that these can apply in a range of places and circumstances. It also identified ways to overcome barriers to these options plus potential roles for the private sector, travel generators, landowners and local authorities in implementing these options, supporting electric vehicles and charging for them and also providing alternatives to single-occupancy car use. The project made or revived useful links between the university and other organisations which will benefit ongoing dialogue between university students, staff and the wider Hatfield community.
Next Steps
This project has led to fruitful discussions both w ithin the university and betw een the university and outside bodies. There is significant interest in taking forw ard many of these discussions and to arrange meetings betw een the private sector companies w e interview ed and key people at the University and surrounding area. We envisage existing initiatives and proposals – for example Vehicle to Grid charging and public EV charging at the University – can be developed as part of these discussions. In addition, the project has helped create a vision of ”The Connected Campus”, to w hich Uno can contribute moves to electrify its bus fleet, develop new partnerships and promote integration of buses w ith other transport and mobility offers. The TRIG project findings are a valuable contribution as an important part of the Smart Mobility Unit’s w ider programme of w ork on developing options for low carbon transport outside cities. It w ill feature in w ork w ith the sub-national transport bodies, especially England’s Economic Heartland and Transport East (TE) – indeed w e w ill be running a Roundtable w ith TE on mobility hubs to build on the TRIG research. In this it w ill contribute to the Government objectives of supporting low -carbon economic grow th and Just Transitions.
