RT 45 – Marcus Enoch – Researching Transport Strategy

Researching Transit · RT 44 – Professor Marcus Enoch – Researching Transport Strategy

Researching Transit – Episode 45

Published: May 2023

Keywords: Public transport, demand responsive transport, DRT, future mobility, MaaS, transport convergence, travel plans

Our guest for this episode of Researching Transit is Professor Marcus Enoch of Loughborough University. Graham and Marcus discuss Marcus’ somewhat sudden commencement of his PhD studies at the Open University, with a research topic agreed to in the taxi from the railway station! They also discuss the 18 months of journalism Marcus undertook for Local Transport Today.

Marcus’ research has included studying transport in Mauritius and Cuba. This work, with James Warren, approaches island transport almost as laboratory for new ideas given that it is easier to understand what is going on when systems are constrained by geography. Marcus also briefly discusses his work about transport in a cultural island, having published a paper in the Journal of Amish and Plain Anabaptist Studies about Transport Practices in Amish Communities (https://doi.org/10.18061/1811/59689).

More recently Marcus has been publishing about transport convergence, which links somewhat to the Mobility as a Service (MaaS) concept. Newer modes such as ride share, Demand Responsive Transport (DRT), micro-mobility modes such as electric scooters and bike share, and car share may be leading towards the convergence of transport services by bridging the gaps between the more established modes. Marcus briefly discusses how this relates to his work in New Zealand on the Public Transport 2045 strategy, which included interviewing experts from across the world and developing four scenarios for how public transport will evolve.

Marcus also tells us about some of his recent projects on predicting station passenger demand using machine learning, and an internet of things systems for seat sensors on buses: the Bus Seating Information Technology (BusSIT) project. BusSIT was reported in a recent paper in the Institution of Engineering and Technology (IET) Intelligent Transport Systems journal (https://doi.org/10.1049/iet-its.2019.0529).

Marcus has also done research on travel plans for the European Commission and Transport for London. Travel plans relate to how employers, especially large organisations such as universities, have a much larger influence on how people travel to and from their site than do transport agencies. Marcus has written a book on sustainable transport and travel plans (Enoch, M. (2016). Sustainable Transport, Mobility Management and Travel Plans. United Kingdom: Taylor & Francis) which has helped to move travel plans away from being something that is done solely because of a local planning requirement. They also discuss Marcus’ review of 100+ Demand Responsive Transport (DRT) schemes (https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tranpol.2013.11.004).

Finally, Marcus and Graham discuss Marcus’ future research, including a project about booking a `slot’ prior to starting a journey by car. Marcus is also looking at how falls on hard surface can lead to injury, and the economic feasibility of rolling out soft surfaces, such as might be found in a children’s playground, to reduce pedestrian trauma. Also in the works is a series of eight science fiction novels on the future of transport, looking at different potential outcomes and technologies.

Find out more about Marcus and his work at: