Disruption and the mobility system concepts, empirics and issues

Disruption and the mobility system: concepts, empirics and issues Professor Greg Marsden... Looking for change • “when seeking to identify nascent transport tendencies there is little v

Disruption and the mobility system:

concepts, empirics and issues

Professor Greg Marsden

Infrastructures are Stable - How

they are used is not – non

1 Change is prevalent and has not been fully recognised

2 Scale of changes dwarfs most of our transport interventions

Looking for change

• “when seeking to identify nascent transport tendencies there is little value in focusing on global or national averages” (p380)… Whilst millions of people might be locked in to car dependent lifestyles, “from a socio-technical transitions perspective these people are

largely irrelevant” (Cohen, 2012: 380)

Disruption as a source of learning

• when things break down, new solutions may

be invented Indeed, there is some evidence

to suggest that this kind of piece-by-piece

adaptation is a leading cause of innovation,

acting as a continuous feedback loop of

experimentation which, through many small increments in practical knowledge, can

produce large changes

Graham and Thrift, 2007

Disruption – Definitional Issues

Source: Network Rail

What has been disrupted?

• Infrastructure

• Services Running on Infrastructure

• (Some of) the activities which go on via the infrastructure

• The expectations of performance

• Nothing at all

Disruption as a relative concept

• Level of service

• Expected journey times

• Use versus non-use

• This time versus last time

• Consequences (and insurance actions )

Scale, Frequency etc… and the Tautology of ‘Normal Disruptions’

• Vollmer (2013: 1) …because disruptions are a part of everyday life “many disruptions

happen and attract little further notice

beyond the situation in which people confront them” he also suggests that others come to be regarded as “more drastic and consequential”

– Scale

– Frequency

– Familiarity

Coordination of Activities – Snow and

Ice

Activity Delayed

Start

Delayed Finish

Postponed Cancel New

Leisure 5% 3% 28% 59% 2% 1% 7% 151 Family/

Friends

Other 12% 8% 15% 24% 1% 1% 11% 95

York floods 2012

Coordination of Activities

• “The amount of time it would take me to travel both back to

Stillingfleet – I left the office early, my office in town hall, to make sure I could get back to Stillingfleet to meet my son And then I was worried about my mum, who comes to look after my son when I go out to work in the evenings because I’m a single parent

• “So did you think about “Can I trade favours with childcare?” “Yeah

I did have to do that on the Thursday actually I had a friend’s little boy for most of the afternoon so that he could go there early

Expectations

• “People just don’t go to work now if it floods We were never off, we never missed a day, and

my husband was in local government and worked at Malton and he got there every day

• “I for one will try and get in however it happens And like you say, I’d expect my team to

do the same But I’m not going

to get upset if they ring up and say I can’t get in because of bad weather.”

Expectations – Snow and Ice

Regression Model

• If the respondent is not physically expected to be in work then there is high probability that they will not make the journey, suggesting they will work from

home

• If the employer is not accommodating then there is a

stronger possibility that the employee will make the journey into work

Examples of Planned Disruption (1)

Olympics

• Significant amount of change to commute journeys

– 54% of the sample made at least one change to their commute – 25% made more than one change

– Reducing (31%) and Retiming (25%) most common response

• More changes for those with a greater preparedness to change

Examples of Planned Disruption (2) City of York Office Consolidation

Mobility System

Conclusions

• Definitional issues we haven’t paid attention to

• Disruption as an on-going ‘every day’ process

• ‘Breakdown’ as a source of learning and innovation

• Disruption to patterns of coordination and expectations

• Implications are that we need to tie in the transport system with the activities we take part in – mobility system – to

effect change

• So for evaluation…

• So for infrastructure management…

• So for valuing assets…

• So for understanding travel behaviour this means…

EPSRC Grant EP/J00460X/1

References

• Graham, S and Thrift, N., 2007, "Out of order"

Theory, Culture & Society 24 1-25

• Cohen, M.J., 2012, The future of automobile society: a socio-technical transitions

perspective, Technology Analysis & Strategic

Management, 24(4) 377-390

• Vollmar, H (2013) The Sociology of Disruption,

Disaster and Social Change Punctuated

Cooperation, Cambridge University Press