Roundtable research
These report documents reflect the roundtable discussions organised by the Smart Mobility Unit at the University of Hertfordshire. Stephen Joseph led the roundtables on the future of transport outside cities. They were sponsored by DfT, England's Economic Heartland, Hertfordshire County Council, the Connected Places Catapult and Gascoyne Estates.
The starting point was that while there’s a lot of research and policy work on transport and mobility in cities, there is much less work on what the future of transport might look like in more rural areas, especially places like English counties with a mix of market towns, edge lands of cities and small villages.
The roundtables aimed to help fill this gap. Following lockdown, they migrated online.
A programme of small online meetings was developed on key topics on transport outside cities, also reflecting the impact of COVID-19.
Participants were drawn from the following sectors: national, sub-regional and local government, transport consultancy, property development, academic research, non-governmental organisations. Stephen Joseph facilitated the discussion.
The idea was to have papers/slides circulated in advance and then have a small group of invitees to discuss and comment on them. The meetings were minuted but unattributed. The events were kept short, again reflecting experience with online events.
Research reports are contained in the drop down list below.
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Research series - The future of mobility in counties
These sessions have been kindly sponsored by:
- Department for Transport
- England’s Economic Heartland
- Hertfordshire County Council
- Gascoyne Estates Ltd
- and supported by the Connected Places Catapult.
A total of 10 round table sessions were held. These were facilitated by Professor Dr Stephen Joseph, transport policy consultant, and the resulting reports may be accessed by using the links below.
Reports
The final Herts report which brings all the above reports together
Read 'The future of transport outside cities: a report on roundtables' report
(PDF - 0.35 Mb)
State of the nations update
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Roundtable Reports 2022
This report documents a series of roundtable discussions on the future of transport outside cities in July 2022 organised by the Smart Mobility Unit (SMU) at the University of Hertfordshire to inform the Government’s Future of Transport Rural Strategy and capture information on some of the key issues and innovative schemes underway in areas outside of cities. The format for the roundtables was 120-minute virtual meetings via Zoom. The meetings were sponsored by the Department for Transport, Hertfordshire County Council and England’s Economic Heartland Sub National Transport Body.
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Roundtable Reports 2023
The Harpenden Society has commissioned the University of Hertfordshire Smart Mobility Unit to review the transport and traffic issues facing the town and to suggest some ways forward. The unit is bringing to bear its experience from research on transport outside cities, which has included two sets of policy roundtables reviewing transport outside cities.
