TALES from Dunedin

Day one of The Active Living and the Environment Symposium, held at the University of Otago, Dunedin 13^th to 15^th February 2019 www.otago.ac.nz/active-living-2019

This was the second such symposium organised by Assoc Prof Sandra Mandic (my host in Dunedin), who runs the BEATS Study (Built Environment and Active Transport to School) in Otago, New Zealand. The 55 participants came from across New Zealand (plus Canada, Germany, Ireland and the UK, as well as a range of disciplines and professional backgrounds: local government politicians (from across New Zealand); practitioners from the public sector and private consultancies; government advisers; NGOs; academics; and students.

After a formal welcome from the Mayor of Dunedin, Mr Dave Cull, including a traditional Māori welcome, Dr Hilary Phipps, Head of Sustainability at the University of Otago outlined the many actions the university is undertaking to improve environmental sustainability (https://www.otago.ac.nz/sustainability/). University of Otago 2014 Travel Survey (to be repeated soon) found that the weather, the hills, and safety concerns were cited as the main barriers to active travel. Having now been in Dunedin for a few weeks, I understand these concerns only too well! After a welcome from the university’s Pro-Vice Chancellor, Prof Richard Barker, the audience were re- (or de-?) energised by joining in with two dances led by local schoolchildren Sophie and Feidhlim, and assisted by Sophie’s mum, Kim (one of Sandy’s research assistants).

They were a hard act to follow – and my Keynote Lecture was the very next item! I spoke about community severance – the barrier effects of busy roads for local people and our work at UCL to develop a toolkit to measure severance (www.ucl.ac.uk/street-mobility). All the toolkits I had taken with me were grabbed quickly, including by a couple of the local government politicians and some practitioners. I look forward to hearing from them if they actually used any of the toolkit, what they found, and whether any actions resulted – useful for our ResearchFish submission in March 2020 on the impact of our EPSRC/ESRC/AHRC funded research.

It was great for many of the attendees that some of the presentations were updated results from studies that had initially been presented at the symposium two years previously. One example was the TALES organiser, Sandy Mandic, providing updates on results from the BEATS Study (Built Environment and Active Transport to School www.otago.ac.nz/beats) in Otago – but that will be a separate blog entry in a few weeks’ time.

Assoc Prof Melody Smith, from the University of Auckland, spoke about the Neighbourhoods for Active Kids study https://kidsinthecity.ac.nz/?page_id=219. This study has examined how children use neighbourhoods, and have related measurement of children’s obesity and physical activity to aspects of the built environment. Distance to school is an important factor when choosing travel mode, so promoting connectivity (or pedestrian permeability), could be crucial in promoting active travel. 50% of the Auckland parents who were interviewed believed that transport safety was the main issue. The researchers noted that two-thirds of schools had clustering of advertising of or outlets for unhealthy products (mostly calorie-dense, nutrient-poor food and drink, I imagine). The researchers had observed that children tend to go to places where there is unhealthy advertising; I suspect that canny advertisers tend to buy marketing space they know susceptible groups frequent.

The final plenary talk was from Dr Enrique García Bengoechea, from the University of Limerick, Ireland. Enrique spoke about the benefits of including participatory research at every stage of a research project. Based on Cargo and Mercer’s principles and recommendations for participatory research, he described five elements: Reach, Effectiveness, Adoption, Implementation, and Maintenance (RE-AIM) for an intervention to be scalable.

Two parallel sessions followed, after a networking afternoon tea break. In the session on Policy and Workplaces, Anna-Lena van der Vlugt, from Dortmund, Germany, reported on her work with Angela Curl and Dirk Wittowsky on perceived accessibility. Their surveys in Hamburg, Germany, and Nottingham, UK, found that safety after dark and satisfaction with public transport were the two most important factors that affected perceptions of accessibility. She discussed the influence of ‘fear points’ on how accessible places actually are, taking into account people’s perceptions, and how this can differ considerably to practitioners’ assessment of accessibility. And congratulations to Angela Curl, a co-investigator of this work, on her new job, as she leaves her lectureship post at the University of Canterbury and takes up a senior lecturer post in public health at the University of Otago in Christchurch in April 2019.

Selena (Mingyue) Sheng from the University of Auckland’s Business School discussed policy instruments for an environmentally-sustainable road transport network. She differentiated three types of sustainability – environmental, economic, and social – and the importance of internalising the externalities of congestion climate change, and injuries.

Lisa Malde (Hawke’s Bay District Health Board) and Louise Baker (WSP Opus) spoke about the ‘Go well’ travel plan to increase active commuting among staff and reduce non-attendance for hospital appointments. More on-site facilities for cyclists, encouragement for active travel, expanded free public transport for patients and subsidised fares for staff ($0.99), a staff carpooling scheme, introducing a staff car parking charge ($1/d), and provision of travel information have increased bus use, cycling and walking and reduced both driving and single-occupancy cars. All patients have to do to avoid paying the bus fare is show their appointment card to the bus driver; this also allows one accompanying person to travel for free.

The final presentation was from Christchurch City Council staff about encouraging active commuting through its Central City Travel Programme, as part of its post-earthquake redevelopment. Their Travel Demand Management programme has been very effective, using a range of approaches to complement each other. The built environment needs to facilitate active travel, rather than causing barriers, but this is insufficient. Affecting cultural and social norms; behaviour change approaches; provision of information; advocacy; and political commitment and funding are all required.

Travel Demand Management was also the subject of John Lieswyn’s talk on school travel planning. He pointed out that the actual process of developing a school travel plan can be the stimulus not only for travel behaviour change but also for closer engagement and collaboration between local government, school administrators, boards, and parents. It is also an opportunity to improve road safety and funding for improved infrastructure.

Jessica Calverley, a Masters student in the Active Living Laboratory at the University of Otago in Dunedin, reported some findings from the rural Otago arm of the BEATS Study. Of the adolescents living within 4.8km from their school, 57% used only active modes for their commute and 31% only motorised modes. Overall, they perceived that walking to school was safer, had better social support, had fewer disadvantages, and also better infrastructure than cycling to school, although almost all believed that both walking and cycling to school were great ways to be physically active. Cycling was perceived as having advantages over walking where distances were longer, the student felt tired, or in cold/wet weather. A fellow student, Brittany White, compared adolescents’ perceptions in rural settlements with small-to-medium urban areas. Interestingly, the rural youth were less concerned about unsafe road crossings. High traffic volumes and too many vehicles stopping or parking near schools were more of a concern in the small-to-medium urban areas.

The final presentation was from Dr Aimee Ward from the University of Otago, Dunedin. With her co-authors, she reported on skateboarding as a form of active travel that is underrepresented in studies and reports. She found that the 14 adolescents in the study who used skateboards for travel were more physically active overall and had better wellbeing than those using any other travel mode. However, their screen time was greater. She emphasised that it is important to consider skateboarding when planning travel infrastructure and policies.

In the second plenary session, Martin Dutton, from the Ministry of Health, reported on New Zealand’s draft response to the World Health Organization’s 2018 Global Action Plan on Physical Activity. The main message will be to make the healthier choice the easier choice. Currently, physical inactivity costs New Zealand $1.3bn annually.  A government objective is to improve the wellbeing of New Zealanders. A government priority is to increase social wellbeing and connectedness. Which brought us nicely full circle at the end of Day 1 of the TALES Symposium, as we had heard all day about the importance of active travel in promoting wellbeing, social connections, and, of course, physical activity. I wrote about the relevance of active travel to WHO goals in my editorial to volume 11 of the Journal of Transport and Health, December 2018.