Dr. Brian Caulfield

Summary

Much attention has been focused on the transport sector and how to reduce emissions and energy consumption in this field. Traditionally much of the focus has been on building new infrastructure and investment in public transport, walking and cycling. Little attention has been paid to changing underlying transport behaviours and trying to understand why we travel in the ways we do. The DiSTRaCT project aims to examine this under researched are in Ireland and cast a wide net to look for low cost behavioural change projects that have been successful internationally and determine if they could be successful in Ireland. A key element of the DiSTRaCT project will be to produce new methods to evaluate the potential success of behavioural change projects and supplement the work being conducted on the economic evaluation of transport projects. The final deliverable of the project will be a list of potential pilot projects that could be launched in Ireland and how to leverage the greatest return on any potential pilot projects.

Funding Agency

SEAI - Department of Transport, Tourism & Sport

Person Months

12

Summary

The research proposes to evaluate the safety of cycling in Dublin city, and is based upon findings from research previously undertaken using RSA historical cyclist collision data for years 2006 to 2012. Cyclist collisions hot spot areas in Dublin city were identified using kernel density estimation, a spatial statistical tool available in ArcGIS 10.3 that enabled the spatial pattern of collision points to be visualised as clustered hot spots areas. The resultant maps revealed cyclist collisions occurred more frequently at cross roads and T junctions where there were discontinuations in the road network requiring cyclist to stop or reduce speed. Areas with a high concentration of collisions were located in the centre of the city along the quays of the river Liffey, Temple bar area and Dame Street. This was followed by the Grand Canal to the south side of the city, in particular, Rathmines Bridge, Ranelagh Bridge and also Harold's Cross Bridge. Another key finding showed that circa 58% of collisions occurred on roads with on street cycle lanes and that circa 80% of cyclist collisions were with a small motorised vehicle (i.e. car, taxi or van). Focus was therefore further placed on collisions between small motorised vehicle and pedal cyclist in relation to the safety of roads with on street cycle lanes as preliminary results had identified these to be major contributors for all cycle collisions during the study period. The overall aim of this research is to develop a new methodology to reduce numbers of cyclist collisions in cities and improve safety for cyclist by identifying and evaluating areas with a high incidence of cyclist collisions from which preventative measures as adopted internationally will be recommended in order to reduce the risk of collisions for cyclists and consequently improve road safety for cyclist. For the purpose of this research Dublin City will be used to develop this methodology. Secondary to this is to examine how and why cyclist collisions are reported and examine alternative ways of reporting in a way that they can be easily integrated into a GIS and used for subsequent analysis.

Funding Agency

Road Safety Authority

Programme

Road Safety Authority Bursary Awards

Summary

Eco labels are a widely used method of communicating environmental information to consumers in the hopes that they will be encouraged to pick the most sustainable option available. Eco labels are used in a wide range of industries, and are even required by legislation in some, however, little research exists regarding their effectiveness in terms of promoting sustainable consumption. This research aims to use a number methods to examine the role of eco labels in the Irish market and provide recommendations for future designs and implementations. Specifically this will comprise of an assessment of current eco labels and an econometric examination of the role that eco labels can play in purchases. The most novel aspect of this research will utilize emerging eyetracker technology to gain an understanding of how eco labels compete with other types of product information for consumers' attention. This will also examine the relative effectiveness of existing methods of communicating environmental information.

Funding Agency

EPA

Programme

EPA Research Programme 2014-2020

Summary

The main vision of the Greening Transport project is to merge the technical evaluation of the emissions from transport, and the improvements in their calculation, with the behavioural changes needed to realise these reductions in emissions. Past attempts to measure the "low hanging fruit" in terms of emissions reductions from transport have failed to fully merge these two disciplines. The project team believe that in order for the EPA to have a holistic picture of the potential emission reductions that are possible in Ireland by 2030 (and beyond), it is vital not to ignore the behavioural constraints in which transport analysis is framed. While it is possible to predict targets for take up using assumptions, to ignore human behaviour is to not fully grasp the problem at hand. With this in mind the work packages for this project have been designed to tackle the technical emissions and transportation modelling, as well as the application of behavioural constraints to these models to provide the EPA with details of what emission reductions are possible based upon the current research.

Funding Agency

EPA

Summary

In recent years, a variety of extreme weather events, including droughts, rain induced landslides, river floods, winter storms, wildfire, and hurricanes, have threatened and damaged many different regions across Europe and worldwide. These events can have a devastating impact on critical infrastructure systems. The RAIN vision is to develop a systematic risk management framework that explicitly considers the impacts of extreme weather events on critical infrastructure and develops a series of mitigation tools to enhance the security of the pan-European infrastructure network. This project will quantify the complex interactions between weather events and land based infrastructure systems. The output of RAIN will aid decision making in the long term, securing new robust infrastructure development and protection of existing infrastructure against changing climates and increasingly more unpredictable weather patterns. Transport, energy and telecommunications infrastructure will all be considered and risk mitigation strategies will be developed. This will be achieved through developing an operational analysis framework that considers the impact of individual hazards on specific infrastructure systems and the coupled interdependencies of critical infrastructure through robust risk and uncertainty modelling. The framework will consider cascading hazards, cascading effects and time dependent vulnerability with the ultimate objective to develop practical software tools and guidelines that provide support to European infrastructure managers in the event of an extreme weather event occurring and to minimise the impact of extreme events by developing mitigation and response strategies. RAIN will facilitate a cross-European collaborative platform, supported by the necessary tools and methodologies, where relevant stakeholders can share data, results of model simulations, and operational strategies in a seamless, efficient, and effective way. Technical and Logistic solutions will be developed to minimise the impact of these extreme events, which will include novel early warning systems, decision support tools and engineering solutions to ensure rapid reinstatement of the infrastructure network. These tools will be implemented within a novel Europe-wide operational and response strategy that will emerge from this research. The ability of this response plan to cut across borders will be guaranteed by the pan - European multi-disciplinary consortium. This project is being led by Trinity College Dublin. The project partners include: European Sever Storms Laboratory, Zilinska Univerzita V Ziline, Technische Universiteit Delft, Gavin and Doherty Geosolutions Ltd., Dragados SA, Freie Universitaet Berlin, Roughan & O' Donovan Ltd., Hellenberg International OY, Istituto di Sociologia Internazionale di Gorizia I.S.I.G, PSJ, Ilmatieteen Laitos, Youris.com, Union Fenosa Distribucion SA and Aplicaciones En Informatica Avanzada SL. http://rain-project.eu/

Funding Agency

EU

Programme

FP7

Person Months

36