The Sefton Coast Management Scheme: Project and Process

Abstract

The Sefton Coast Management Scheme in northwest England uses an area‐based project to achieve coordinated land management. It is founded on the ‘'Heritage Coast'’ model pioneered by the Countryside Commission where a ‘"Project Officer”; is employed to promote the Scheme and translate the aims into practical achievement. The Sefton Coast is described and a summary of British coastal planning policy precedes a detailed analysis of the Scheme. The Scheme is assessed with reference to practical management work, its success in competition for scarce financial resources, and the involvement of volunteers. It is established that the Project Officer is crucial to the success of the Scheme and that area‐based management can best be achieved through the local government planning process. Coastal planning needs now to be reviewed at national level to develop a policy for the whole coast using the experience of projects such as the Sefton Coast Management Scheme.     

The Development of a Visualization Methodology for Integrated Coastal Management

Coastal management information is frequently communicated to stakeholders and the public through complicated management documents and engineering plans. With the recognition that public involvement in coastal decision-making processes should be widened have come calls to develop new techniques to communicate complicated coastal information. Using Virtual Reality Geographical Information Systems and visualization packages, such information may be presented using formats more suitable for public consultation and information dissemination exercises than those currently employed. Using a site on the north Norfolk coast of England, an integrated Geographical Information Systems based methodology is presented that allows the visualization of proposed coastal management interventions. Visualizations have been produced that can be published in traditional paper-based management documents, or electronically. The different visualizations are compared and the technical issues surrounding their use discussed. It is argued that the methodology has clear advantages over traditional communication methods, although further research is necessary to determine how it may be practically employed by coastal managers.     

Error and uncertainty in travel surveys

Transportation study home interview surveys normally underestimate the amount of trip-making by residents of a study area, and the data has to be adjusted subsequently to compensate for this effect. One important reason for the shortfall appears to be the incomplete recall and reporting of travel information by respondents. The paper examines the influence of the survey instrument on recall by comparing reported travel behaviour in two surveys conducted in the same town, one using a conventional travel diary and the other an activity diary. The latter format appears to encourage a more complete response, giving rise to significantly higher reported trip rates and travel times. The paper discusses some research and policy implications of this finding and concludes with tentative suggestions for improved travel survey instruments.     

Planning for cycling in the dispersed city: establishing a hierarchy of effectiveness of municipal cycling policies

Transportation - Urban utility cycling is being promoted widely due to various health, social, economic and environmental benefits. This study seeks to identify and rank which municipal-level...     

Developing sustainable transport for the next generation: The need for a multi-sector approach

While some countries have made progress in encouraging more sustainable transport and travel patterns, there are limits as to how far this can be taken simply by looking at the decarbonisation of transport systems, since most travel is a derived demand and hence is strongly influenced by decisions taken by public and private sector agencies in different sectors. The paper first identifies some of the major non-transport sector influences on different aspects of travel behaviour. It then looks in more detail at changing patterns of grocery shopping over the last half century, and how these changes have been associated with new non-transport technologies and accompanying developments in business and social practices. Next, a simple visual spreadsheet tool is presented, that has been used by agencies to explore the main cross sector impacts (both positive and negative) of their major location and operating decisions. Finally, the paper proposes three ways in which cross sector synergies can be encouraged: (i) by giving each sector or major organisation responsibility for all CO₂ emissions associated with its activities, including those generated by the travel of its staff, customers, suppliers, etc.; (ii) by making major policy making within government a cross sector activity; and (iii) by developing a common, cross sector appraisal methodology for assessing the full range of impacts of policy proposals.     

Pragmatic Tyre Model for Short Wavelength Side Slip Variations

The first-order relaxation length concept is often used to model transient tyre behaviour. It gives a rather good representation of the lateral force response, also at shorter wavelengths. The self aligning moment appears to behave rather differently and its responses cannot be represented by a relaxation length system only. Based on the analytical frequency response functions of the pneumatic trail of the brush type tyre model, a new pragmatic approach is developed. The model consists of a phase leading system in series with the first-order model for the lateral force. The results are compared to the responses of a discrete brush type simulation model. It appears that the aligning moment can be represented by this new pragmatic model very well.