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There has been widespread interest in the potential for the significant behavioural and policy adaptations rendered necessary by Coronavirus to act as a catalyst for radical longer term policy change in transport. However, this body of work to date has been limited in its consideration of how such policy change might be brought about. Translating the lessons from the Coronavirus response to other ongoing strategic challenges such as decarbonisation requires analysis of what the pandemic has revealed about processes of policy formulation and how institutions responsible for policy implementation actually work. This paper explores the extent to which rapid policy change has actually been possible in the transport sector in England and Scotland during the pandemic, and key examples of how such change has been both achieved and blocked. Two rounds of interviews with senior stakeholders from across the transport sector were undertaken in June and November 2020 to inform the analysis. We find that the pandemic has accelerated some policy commitments that were already planned, but at a time of huge stress on the whole of government and its partner delivery organisations, the potential to deliver radical policy adaptation was limited. However, Coronavirus is recognised as being a potentially path-changing disruption to existing trajectories in terms of the adaptations to business practices, industry structures, ways of working and the public finances. Paradoxically, whilst recognising these uncertainties, decision-makers are yet to deviate from pre-pandemic planning assumptions and policy plans and this risks missing the opportunities to steer how those changes unfold. • Addresses research gap in the study of governance responses during disruptions. • Identifies transport as a distant policy sub-sector in a crisis that affected all parts of government. • Finds that the response to the pandemic has accelerated already planned policies but generated few new policies. • Long-term impacts on the future structure of cities, use of public transport and uptake of active travel could still emerge. • The leading strategic thinkers on transport policy are still unsure what kinds of future demand to plan for. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

There is an active contemporary debate about how emerging technologies such as automated vehicles, peer-to-peer sharing applications and the ‘internet of things’ will revolutionise individual and collective mobility. Indeed, it is argued that the so-called ‘Smart Mobility’ transition, in which these technologies combine to transform how the mobility system is organised and operates, has already begun. As with any socio-technical transition there are critical questions to be posed in terms of how the transition is managed, and how both the benefits and any negative externalities of change will be governed. This paper deploys the notion of ensuring and enhancing public value as a key governance aim for the transition. It sets out modes and methods of governance that could be deployed to steer the transition and, through four thematic cases explores how current mobility governance challenges will change. In particular, changing networks of actors, resources and power, new logics of consumption, and shifts in how mobility is regulated, priced and taxed – will require to be successfully negotiated if public value is to be captured from the transition. This is a critical time for such questions to be raised because technological change is clearly outpacing the capacity of systems and structures of governance to respond to the challenges already apparent. A failure to address both the short and longer-term governance issues risks locking the mobility system into transition paths which exacerbate rather than ameliorate the wider social and environmental problems that have challenged planners throughout the automobility transition. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

This paper highlights the extent to which a future mobility system dominated by Connected and Autonomous Vehicles (CAVs) poses profound challenges to the 'publicness' of the transport and mobility systems of many cities. This is evident at different policy levels: the regulatory posture of governments, changing notions of the contributions of mobility to wider 'public value', and the underpinning shared experiences of urban life and citizenship or civitas. There is relatively little discussion of how widespread automation might reduce the 'publicness' of transport systems in terms of the range of mobility opportunities they offer, how changing patterns of mobility across neighbourhoods and social groups will contribute to urban restructuring, and the implications of this for public value and the character or civitas of cities. In particular, we note how the huge expansion in mobility choices made possible by CAVs might lead to circumstances in which the outcome of individuals exercising that choice is to change the nature of urban mobility profoundly. We identify a number of key challenges that policy makers will need to address in managing the introduction of CAVs in their cities, and how using the lens of 'publicness' might help them do so. • We explore how the notion of 'publicness' can contribute to debates on how best to manage and govern the impacts of autonomous mobility • Shared and automated mobility could extend or diminish opportunities for citizens, with multiple ramifications for public interests • Policy makers are under intense pressure from varied interests over how best to regulate and govern automated mobility • We conceptualise publicness as existing at three levels of debate: ownership and regulation, public value, and civitas • Effective policy interventions will be required to achieve 'public' goals at each of these levels [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Highlights: [•] Travel behaviour is far more variable than policy makers allow for. [•] Factors external and internal to the transport system engender change in behaviour. [•] Accepting rather than problematising change could unlock more radical policies. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

For over 30years the context for transport policy in much of the developed world has been framed by neo-liberal economic values, which seek to maximise the role of market mechanisms in public policy and service provision. Although the pace of deregulation, privatisation and other reforms has varied between countries, neo-liberal ideas and practices have become increasingly important in the planning and delivery of transport across all modes. In recent years, however, there has been something of a retreat from this position as governments have sought to re-engage in the delivery of many areas of policy, including transportation, in response to a range of economic, social and political trends. This paper reviews the reasons for this re-engagement, applying inter alia the conceptualisations and theoretical approaches of the ‘new economic geography’ to explore the changing role of the state in 21st century transport. As such, the paper also serves to establish a background for the six following contributions to this special issue of the Journal of Transport Geography. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

The continued failure to put transport on a robust low carbon transition pathway calls for new approaches in policy and research. In studies of transport systems and patterns of mobility, established approaches to data collection, analysis and subsequent policy design have focused on capturing 'typical' conditions rather than identifying the potential for substantive change. This focus on the apparent aggregate stability of the transport regime has reproduced a belief in policy circles that our current travel patterns are largely fixed and therefore very difficult to alter, which in turn has resulted in an over reliance on implausible assumptions about the carbon reductions that can be achieved through technological improvements such as low emission vehicles. This paper argues that there is potentially much greater adaptive capacity in the mobility system than currently allowed for. It illustrates this potential through the investigation of actual adaptations made during a set of specific 'disruptive' events. The paper concludes by suggesting that we can go further in reducing the demand for travel if we broaden the scope of intervention to take a wider view of when and how mobility matters to participation in activities across the population. This could enable an acceleration of existing trends which suggest the potential for less mobility and therefore less carbon intensive lives. • Data collected during episodes of transport 'disruption' offer novel insights on behavioural adaptations. • The learnings from responses to 'disruptions' are important for understanding the potential for policy change. • Transport patterns are not as difficult to change as is commonly understood. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]