- Centre for Transport Studies
University College London
Gower Street
London
WC1E 6BT
Roger Mackett
University College London, Centre for Transport Studies, Faculty Member
- The focus of my research is transport policy analysis. I am interested in ways of overcoming the barriers to reducing... moreThe focus of my research is transport policy analysis. I am interested in ways of overcoming the barriers to reducing car use and improving health through increasing walking and cycling. I have researched into the influence of car use on children’s physical activity and their use of the local environment using accelerometers and GPS monitors. I am involved in a project to examine the implications of children’s independent mobility in countries around the world. Currently I am also involved in a project to examine the health impacts of the Cambridgeshire Guided Busway with colleagues in the MRC Epidemiology Unit in Cambridge and at the University of East Anglia. I led the development of the software tool AMELIA (A Methodology for Enhancing Life by Increasing Accessibility) to help make transport policies more socially inclusive.edit
Background Improving transport infrastructure to support active commuting could help to promote physical activity and improve population health. We aimed to assess whether investment of this kind was associated with an increase in active... more
Background Improving transport infrastructure to support active commuting could help to promote physical activity and improve population health. We aimed to assess whether investment of this kind was associated with an increase in active commuting; determinants of the use and uptake of active commuting; wider health impacts of changes in travel behaviour; and how changes in behaviour were distributed in the population and related to social context. Methods The intervention was the Cambridgeshire Guided Busway, a new bus network using 22 km of guideway (segregated track) accompanied by a traffic-free path for pedestrians and cyclists, opened in 2011. This quasi-experimental evaluation comprised a cohort study of 1143 adults working in the city and recruited in 2009, along with both nested and supplementary in-depth quantitative and qualitative studies. The primary outcome was the change in time spent in active commuting from 2009 to 2012, using a self-reported measure validated usin...
Research Interests:
BackgroundImproving transport infrastructure to support walking and cycling on the journey to and from work – active commuting – could help to promote physical activity and improve population health.AimsTo assess whether or not investment... more
BackgroundImproving transport infrastructure to support walking and cycling on the journey to and from work – active commuting – could help to promote physical activity and improve population health.AimsTo assess whether or not investment in new high-quality transport infrastructure was associated with an increase in active commuting; wider health impacts of changes in travel behaviour; determinants of the use and uptake of active commuting; and how changes in travel behaviour were distributed in the population and related to the wider social context.DesignThe Commuting and Health in Cambridge study, comprising a quasi-experimental cohort study combined with both nested and supplementary in-depth quantitative and qualitative studies.SettingCambridgeshire, UK.ParticipantsA cohort of 1143 adults living within 30 km of Cambridge, working in the city and recruited in 2009; and a separate sample of 1710 users intercepted on the Cambridgeshire Guided Busway in 2012.InterventionThe Cambrid...
Research Interests:
The objectives of this study were to understand the travel patterns of older and disabled concessionary pass holders in the Liverpool City Region (LCR) and to assess the social and economic benefits of the schemes as they are now and if... more
The objectives of this study were to understand the travel patterns of older and disabled concessionary pass holders in the Liverpool City Region (LCR) and to assess the social and economic benefits of the schemes as they are now and if they were changed. Here, we focus on Merseyside, which together with the district of Halton makes up the LCR. Merseyside accounts for much more concessionary travel. We interviewed 1,001 older and disabled concessionary pass holders to collect information about all of their travel and how they used their pass in a typical week. We also asked them to imagine how their travel plans would be different if the concessionary scheme was changed, in particular if there was no concessionary travel scheme at all. The data collected in the survey were used to quantify the benefits of the overall scheme. In calculating the benefits of the scheme, we considered benefits to: - Concessionary pass holders themselves, through money saved on fares, greater access to a...
Research Interests:
Hungary is in a period of major political and economic transition. This paper presents a review of the implications of these changes for the transport sector for the country as a whole and for the capital Budapest in particular. After the... more
Hungary is in a period of major political and economic transition. This paper presents a review of the implications of these changes for the transport sector for the country as a whole and for the capital Budapest in particular. After the development of transport in Hungary and ...
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Background Evidence-based public health requires research to support policy. Taking the opportunity of a knowledge exchange forum at the end of the Commuting and Health in Cambridge study, we investigated how stakeholders at the... more
Background Evidence-based public health requires research to support policy. Taking the opportunity of a knowledge exchange forum at the end of the Commuting and Health in Cambridge study, we investigated how stakeholders at the intersection of transport and health assessed and intended to apply evidence. Following the classic theoretical work on the “street level bureaucrat” who has to implement uncertain and often conflicting organisational directives and expectations, we particularly aimed to understand how stakeholders negotiated multisectoral evidence in local government against the backdrop of the integration of public health into local authorities and the dominant politics of austerity. Methods We conducted participant observation during an interactive event with 41 stakeholders from national and local government, the third sector and academia, coupled with semistructured interviews with 17 of these participants. Formal and informal interactions between stakeholders were recorded in field notes. Interviews reflected on the event format and content as well as on knowledge exchange in general. Thematic content analysis of field notes and transcripts was undertaken. Results Three pertinent themes were identified. First, stakeholders expressed uncertainties about finding a common language between research and practice and between sectors, and about who had the capacity to “translate” across these different boundaries. They also expressed differing expectations of evidence. While public health specialists tended to favour a hierarchical view of evidence that privileged trials, transport specialists tended to prefer case studies as precedents for workable solutions. Second, stakeholders encountered uncertainties about their preferred evidence. Population health studies often generated more complex results than those of apparently clear-cut randomised controlled trials; case studies highlighted the context-dependency of evidence and difficulties in transferring insights across settings. Third, stakeholders had to reconcile uncertainties around the idea of “health in all remits”. Despite its premise, public health was not always acknowledged to contribute to the goals of other policy sectors and stakeholders had to negotiate competing priorities, such as between health improvement and economic growth, or between integrated (multisectoral) and designated budgets. Conclusion This comparatively small case study of stakeholders’ experiences indicates that multisectoral research translation requires people who can overcome silo-working, locate complex evidence from a variety of disciplines, and integrate different types of evidence into clear business cases. Practitioners in our study would welcome a clearer mandate that public health can contribute to achieving other policy objectives, as well as help from researchers to translate challenging evidence into practical recommendations.
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Abstract This paper reports on the outcome of a collaborative study whose objective was to produce an up-to-date guidance manual on the factors affecting the demand for public transport for use by public transport operators and planning... more
Abstract This paper reports on the outcome of a collaborative study whose objective was to produce an up-to-date guidance manual on the factors affecting the demand for public transport for use by public transport operators and planning authorities, and for academics ...
Research Interests:
Abstract This chapter describes the development of a new microsimulation model of individual and household changes and choices within a land-use/transport inter-action modelling structure. The major strength of the model is naturally its... more
Abstract This chapter describes the development of a new microsimulation model of individual and household changes and choices within a land-use/transport inter-action modelling structure. The major strength of the model is naturally its disaggregate and dynamic ...
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
The conventional transport-demand model is examined and found to be wanting in several respects, notably in its inability to take into account the effects of the transportation planning policies being tested on the land-use configuration... more
The conventional transport-demand model is examined and found to be wanting in several respects, notably in its inability to take into account the effects of the transportation planning policies being tested on the land-use configuration and the weakness of the trip generation forecasting method. These problems are overcome in the model described in this paper, that allocates population into housing and workers into jobs and finds the resulting journey to work matrix. The location of jobs is found by modelling the various behavioural characteristics of industry; the available housing is found by modelling the location of housing and the pattern of out-migration. The model finds shopping trips generated as a result of the location of retail employment. Some planning variables can be specified exogenously in the model so that the effects in terms of the traffic flows and relocation of activities can be found. /Author/TRRL/
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
ABSTRACT Previous behavioural research involving walking has mainly focused on the personal and social factors that can affect physical activity. More recently, studies have been increasing which argue that the built environment has also... more
ABSTRACT Previous behavioural research involving walking has mainly focused on the personal and social factors that can affect physical activity. More recently, studies have been increasing which argue that the built environment has also strong impacts on personal physical activity level, although there is a poor understanding between urban form and physical activity association in children. Nowadays children enjoy less freedom in the urban setting than previously, and it is becoming clear that less independence and mobility constrain children's development. A decline of children's physical activity level is also apparent, which parallels the increase of overweight / obesity and sedentary activities. Thus, there is an urgent need to understand better children's movement patterns as users of the built environment. In these studies, traditional methodologies (e.g. observation, self-reported, questionnaire and so on) are difficult to use in accurately investigating children's outdoor movement. However state-of-art portable Global Positioning System (GPS) technology has made studies of children's outdoor movement possible. In our study, nearly 160 children from 2 local primary schools in the British town of Cheshunt, Hertfordshire have been monitored over a period of four days from September 2005 to June 2006 by fitting children with portable GPS Units and energy monitors. In this paper, 3D geovisualisation is shown to be a very effective tool to display the local travel that children make on foot, the places children go to, and the places where children are most physically active. Children's daily movement pathways are then characterized using a variety of measures, such as gender, age, energy expense, land use location, turning angles, travelling speed and so on. The results shown in this paper indicate how children interact differently with their local environment when they are with adults and or other children and compare these to activity when they play alone. In this way, the level of energy expended under different circumstances can be visualised.
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
ABSTRACT
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests: Psychology, Applied Psychology, Mental Health, Anxiety, Feeling, and 3 moreMobile phone, ANXIETY, and Phone
Abstract About a quarter of the adults living in England have been diagnosed with a mental health condition (for example, anxiety and depression). The purpose of this paper is to discuss the difficulties faced by these people when they... more
Abstract About a quarter of the adults living in England have been diagnosed with a mental health condition (for example, anxiety and depression). The purpose of this paper is to discuss the difficulties faced by these people when they travel, and ways in which policy interventions could be used to encourage them to travel more. The main evidence in the paper comes from a weighted sample of 363 people with mental health conditions who completed an on-line survey. The paper concentrates on anxiety issues. The anxieties are considered under five headings: interacting with fellow travellers, interacting with staff and purchasing tickets, wayfinding, needing support, and needing to take urgent action. Policy interventions to improve access to infrastructure and services to help address the anxieties are discussed under these headings. The number of respondents who say that they would travel more if some of the interventions were introduced is then considered. The paper concludes that there are ways in which some of the anxieties that people have when travelling can be addressed and that introducing these types of intervention would increase travel by people with mental health conditions.
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
... Contact author: Professor Roger Mackett Centre for Transport Studies University College London Gower Street London WC1E 6BT Great Britain rlm@transport.ucl.ac.uk Page 2. 2 Children's local travel behaviour - how the environment... more
... Contact author: Professor Roger Mackett Centre for Transport Studies University College London Gower Street London WC1E 6BT Great Britain rlm@transport.ucl.ac.uk Page 2. 2 Children's local travel behaviour - how the environment influences, controls and facilitates it. ...
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
Research Interests:
ABSTRACT