Supervisory Team: Professor John Preston, Dr Laila Ait Bihi Ouali
Project description
The Transportation Research Group at the University of Southampton has been involved in the monitoring and evaluation of local transport polices over a long period, which resulted in the creation of the Centre for Sustainable Travel Choices in conjunction with Southampton City Council and the charity Sustrans in 2012. This has included the collation of time-series data on traffic levels and other transport system indicators and a data bank of a range of ad-hoc surveys. This studentship would build on the links developed with local stakeholders and the data sets that have been collated.
It would examine the long-term impacts of a raft of policy initiatives on the city of Southampton, and its immediate surrounds, that originated with the Local Sustainable Transport Fund in 2011, and continued with the Access Fund (2017), the Transforming Cities Fund and the Future Transport Zone (both 2020). For passenger travel, these initiatives have included infrastructure investment (particularly in cycling), public transport improvements, the development of shared micro-mobility, marketing initiatives and the development of smart cards and a Mobility-as-a-Service app. For freight, they have involved the development of micro- and macro-consolidation centres and smart logistics.
The studentship would develop and apply an evaluation framework that would deal with the counterfactual by determining what might have happened to the local transport system in the absence of these interventions and would be able to attribute effects to different interventions. It would investigate the use of new forms of data, models and aggregations to assess the most recent interventions in terms of economic, social and environmental impacts.
The studentship will be linked to the Solent Future Transport Zone programme and you will collaborate with Solent Transport, a partnership between Hampshire County Council, Isle of Wight Council, Portsmouth City Council and Southampton City Council.
If you wish to discuss any details of the project informally, please contact Professor John Preston, Transportation Research Group, jpreston@soton.ac.uk
Entry Requirements
You will have a first or upper second-class degree in a relevant discipline such as Computer Science, Economics, Engineering, Human Geography or Mathematics. You will have a proven track record of conducting quantitative research and have interests in inter-disciplinary data science and in transport as an application domain.
Closing date: Applications should be received no later than 31st May 2022.
Funding: For UK students, tuition fees and a stipend of £15,609 tax-free per annum for up to 3.5 years
How To Apply
Applications should be made online. Select programme type (Research), 2022/23, Faculty of Physical Sciences and Engineering, next page select “PhD Engineering and the Environment”. In Section 2 of the application form you should insert the name of the supervisor, Professor John Preston
Applications should include:
Research Application, indicating the relevance of your first degree and your research interests.
Curriculum Vitae
Two reference letters
Degree Transcripts to date