How can we ensure that transport decisions are informed by the right evidence and a clear understanding of the problems we are trying to solve?
In this blog, ITEN member Marcus Jones reflects on his experience at Mobility Camp 2026 in Sheffield, where discussions explored public transport use, traffic data and governance. Drawing on the themes raised throughout the event, Marcus considers the importance of understanding the context behind data, defining clear objectives and strengthening the relationship between transport scheme appraisal and evaluation.
I recently attended the annual Mobility Camp meeting in Sheffield. Branded as an ‘unconference’, it has far more delegate involvement than is usually the case for mainstream transport conferences. The day began with delegates suggesting and prioritising themes that would help focus the day’s discussions, under the overall theme of ‘agents of change’. This was followed by three structured discussion sessions with a choice of parallel streams dealing with practical issues faced by those trying to deliver change.
“Tackling declining in public transport use in South Yorkshire”, led by Steve McAdam, considered the decline in bus (46%) and tram (39%) use since 2011: what caused it; and what can be done about it.
“The Data Game”, led by Tim Gent, considered the challenges of collecting and interpreting traffic data to identify the most appropriate solution to transport problems, using a fictional scenario of a town where a bypass is perceived to be the solution to town centre congestion.
“Making governance fit for purpose”, led by Michael Dnes, with a particular focus on funding decisions. Dnes began with a brief overview of the history of cost-benefit analysis and its role in decision making, as well as other approaches that have been used.
A common thread that I took away was the importance of recognising the limitations and context of any given dataset when using data to inform decisions. Without an understanding of how travel patterns may have changed, for example because of changes in the location of employment, improvements to public transport could be poorly targeted. Without the right data on traffic movements a decision could be made to fund a bypass in a situation where through-traffic makes only a small contribution to the observed congestion. Prioritising infrastructure schemes by ranking their cost-benefit ratios doesn’t take account of a whole range of differences in outcomes, scale and policy areas affected. In each case, before we start to look at quantitative data we need to understand, qualitatively, what are the problems we are trying to solve, and to define what are we trying to achieve.
This reminded me of similar challenges that arise when evaluating the impacts of a trial or demonstration project; the sort of project that can provide evidence to inform the kind of problems discussed in the workshops. Evaluation guidance, such as the government’s Magenta Book, recommends that evaluation design begins with clear definition of the context and objectives, using ‘logic mapping’ to define the causal relationship between Inputs, Outputs, Outcomes and Impacts, so that the right performance indicators are identified and the required data are collected from the start. In the Governance workshop it was pointed out that there is still very limited post-opening assessment of how closely a new scheme delivers its originally forecast benefits. Maybe we need a more formal alignment between our current scheme appraisal and evaluation methods?
Mobility Camp LinkedIn account.
Mobility Camp website.
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