By Charlotte Elliott-Harvey,
INFUZE has now progressed to its second year. The INFUZE team has grown in size after welcoming six postgraduate researchers, two Research Fellows, and our Trial Officer. We’ve had a few exciting developments. Here’s a little bit about what we’ve done since last summer.
What the INFUZE team has been working on
The Collaborative Design Team, based at the Royal College of Art, has been busy with community engagement and running creative design workshops with citizens. In September, we hosted a stall at the Horsforth Green Festival where we asked visitors what’s important to them when they move around the city. In June, we hosted a community workshop with citizens who shared with us what transport options would work best for them and why. Using a ‘salad bar’ method participants could pick and choose what they would like. We’ll use the insights from this workshop to shape our next experiment.
The Collaborative Design Team at Lancaster has had great success with engaging schools thanks to our partner, Ahead Partnership. This year we hosted a creative design workshop with student leaders at Carr Manor Community School, and participated in a school activity on the theme of ‘peace. Our partnership with Voluntary Action Leeds is still going strong. We’ve worked together on focus groups with Leeds residents of different ages and backgrounds to build a deeper understanding of the variety of people’s needs, values, and travel habits.
The Understanding Change Team started an exciting two-year study using surveys to research household behaviours and transport choices. The first phase is now complete and analysis is well underway – we’ve had 1,255 responses from Leeds, 1,084 from the West Yorkshire region, and 2,465 from the West Midlands (with a total of 4,774 participants). The team will continue to survey the same people to see how their decisions and behaviours might change over time.
The Design Solutions Team has been busy collecting and working on modelling data and, with the recent addition of our newest team member, are making rapid progress. The team is focussing on creating a model of the city that can predict how people might behave if different transport options became available in their area. The team has been working with data from several sources including First Bus and Beryl Bikes to understand service patterns and opportunities for change. A new interactive dashboard (currently in the testing phase) will translate the data into an online visualisation tool.
The Trials & Evaluation Team is getting close to completing a model which will show the emissions impacts of different future scenarios including the emissions involved in building, maintaining and scrapping cars. For example, how important is it to move towards smaller cars and what could be saved if more cars were shared in our communities (see the ‘Overshoot’ report for more info). The team is working to find other solutions beyond privately owned vehicles as we develop our next experiment.
Engaging the community
In November we ran our first experiment called ‘Car When We Need It’. We provided eight households with access to a shared vehicle at pre-planned times during the week, in exchange for giving up the use of their car. Working in partnership with Hiyacar who provided us with hybrid vehicles, we were able to learn a lot about what worked and didn’t work for the individuals and families who signed up to take part. They told us that they really enjoyed being part of something that might help change things for the better, enjoyed talking about their experiences with friends and neighbours, and felt that the planning-ahead element helped them manage their time better.
The data that we got from the experiment gave us insight into what types of trips people who use a shared car might like to use it for, such as commuting, errands, and day trips. It also gave insight into which days of the week might be more popular for people based on their needs. We learned a lot and we are very grateful to everyone who took part.
As we’ve come into the summer, INFUZE has been very busy with community outreach. So far, we’ve hosted stalls at Kirkstall Festival, Gledhow Valley Green Fair, and Hyde Park Unity Day. It’s been great for our team to be able to talk to members of the public about the project and share some giveaways from our partners at First Bus, and LNER Beryl Bikes. We have also been going out into the community to talk to community groups. Our outreach activities have even been featured in the local news!
The INFUZE programme is continuing to gain momentum! We are currently working towards an experiment with 100 households in the early summer of next year. Participants will get to try out new mobility packages designed by fellow citizens. Keep an eye out for announcements about upcoming events and activities, and please join the INFUZE community if you haven’t already!