Transport, Information Communication Technology and Public Service Failure: Community Monitoring and Demand Responsive Transport
Margaret Grieco, Professor of Transport and Society, Napier University, Edinburgh and Visiting Fellow, Lucy Cavendish College, Cambridge University
and
Julian Hine, Translink Professor of Transport, School of the Built Environment, University of Ulster
Position statement.
The purpose of this position statement is to identify and explore the contribution that community monitoring under an ICT regime can make to the mapping of public service failure and to the development of dedicated community anchored demand responsive 'public transport' provisions.
The argument as presented is focused primarily on the United Kingdom and has emerged out of a concentrated program of action research undertaken with low income, non car owning, public transport deprived communities.
Institutional arrangements affect the adoption and operation of ICT - top down initiatives have ignored the appropriate design and development of ICT and ICT aligned to transport from the bottom end.
High quality public transport corridors have lower information requirements than low income enclaves serviced by irregular and unreliable transport fleets. Information on travel has a major market at the bottom end which is not well met within the context of British institutional life; similarly, flexible routing and demand responsive transport are also appropriate technology responses to the health and transport interface of low income community needs.
The viability of community monitoring is a direct result of the distributed character of the new information communication technologies and this distributed character permits changes in governance and forms of public service management. A more open form of public sector transport management is now possible: software for fleet scheduling and passenger reservations can now be operated by communities and neighbourhoods themselves and linked with the hiring of a vehicle from an external agency such as Budget car could operate as a form of extended car-pooling or vehicle club.
Community mobility clubs could provide low income communities with the levels of connection necessary to bargaining and persuasion for the better resourcing of their environments. Our argument here is that the over-dominance of modal shift transport policy away from motorisation has neglected major equity issues in respect of low income transport services with negative consequences for health, wealth, welfare, education and social esteem.
Today we want to open up the vista of hybrid public/community transport systems: the primary network continues to be served by the commercial interests and the secondary network which is poorly served and has seen the major withdrawal of services (a withdrawal which has gone unmapped by transport experts and the planning profession) would benefit from the development of demand responsive community services operated by the community and in the community interest.
The failure to explore these community forms is the outcome of the historical neglect of the views and needs of low income users: community monitoring of public service failure maps local needs, can globallly display that mapping and can contribute to the development of the social capital necessary for the emergence of ICT community transport systems which connect with high quality primary networks and serve internal local needs. 'Transparency of need' impacts on governance which results in the rebalancing of communities.
Over the next month, the discussions which take place at the NSF around these ideas will be recorded and extended upon this page with pointers to examples.
Wed 16th Jan 2002
On line papers and presentations on Community Monitoring, Public Service Failure and Demand Responsive Transport
Last updated: 6.02.2002