First articles from journal special issue published online

It’s been a long time coming, but we’re almost there. The two-day international workshop of the (t)ERES project  of May 2015 (see the presentations here) led to a call for papers for a Special Issue of Transport Policy on “Household transport costs“.

As usual with these things, the process is a bit lengthy, but we have now reached a first milestone. The first two papers of the Special Issue are now published online.

 

Joachim Scheiner – ‘Transport costs seen through the lens of residential self-selection and mobility biographies‘

In his paper, Joachim Scheiner of TU Dortmund University provides a fresh perspective on the issue of transport costs. Scheiner looks at the issue of transport costs through the lens of mobility biography and residential self-selection research. His theoretical paper highlights that high transport costs in the present time can be the result of travel and residential decisions that individuals have taken earlier in the life course. Over time, these patterns can become entrenched as a result of path dependencies and self-reinforcing dynamics.

 

Nathalie Ortar – ‘Dealing with energy crises: Working and living arrangements in peri-urban France‘

Nathalie Ortar of the University of Lyon provides an interesting investigation of how households deal with increasing transport and domestic energy prices in periurban areas in France. The qualitative study provides much needed evidence of how households adapt (or not) their travel and domestic practices. An important conclusion of this research is that businesses and employers play an important (but often neglected) role in influencing households’ energy needs, notably for commuting.

 

More articles will be published online in the next few months. We expect to publish the complete special issue sometime in 2017.

Summary of research findings published

A short ‘Research Insight’ note for the (t)ERES project has been published on the DEMAND Research Centre website – it can be viewed here.

Among the main findings:

• in 2014, 9% of British households had low income and spent ‘too much’ on running motor vehicles
• large areas of the country experience high levels of ‘car-related economic stress’ and are vulnerable to motor fuel price increases (see map below)

 

 

Is there a transport equivalent of fuel poverty?

A slideshow presenting the intermediate findings of the (t)ERES project.

Call for papers Transport Policy Special Issue on “Household transport costs, economic stress and vulnerability, at the interface between mobility, domestic energy and residential location”

Further to the success of the (t)ERES workshop, we are co-editing a Special Issue of Transport Policy titled “Household transport costs, economic stress and vulnerability, at the interface between mobility, domestic energy and residential location”. The call for paper is available at http://www.journals.elsevier.com/transport-policy/call-for-papers/special-issue-household-transport-costs-economic-stress/.

While we aim to include all contributions from the workshop, we are also encouraging further submissions. The deadline for abstract submission is October 1, 2015.

 

Call for papers DEMAND Centre Conference 2016 – Workshop on ‘Energy and Money’

The DEMAND Centre invites abstract submissions for its international conference to take place on April 13- 15 2016 in Lancaster, UK. The core of the conference programme will consist of 13 workshops organised into parallel streams.

More information on the conference (including the detailed call for papers) is available on DEMAND website.

Workshop 6: Energy and money

Convenors: Giulio Mattioli, Caroline Mullen and Greg Marsden (University of Leeds)

To understand energy demand, many researchers maintain that we need to investigate the specific ways in which energy is used in everyday life. This contrasts with the assumption that we can understand energy primarily a single commodity, which like other goods, can be translated as – ‘the grand equalizer’ – money. It is this economic approach to analysing energy demand which has been dominant in the transport and domestic energy sectors. Perhaps surprisingly, but in contrast, current accounts of energy-consuming practices often say little about how monetary resources can shape and constrain ‘what people do’, and the energy demand that results from it.

This workshop theme aims to gather theoretical, empirical and methodological approaches that cover the vacant middle ground between these approaches. It will bring into conversation research from within and beyond DEMAND and from a range of disciplines, to develop original insights into how monetary resources are involved, alongside other factors, in making and transforming energy demand. Possible topics include, for example:

– the relationships between poverty and energy use (e.g. fuel-, transport- and energy-poverty);
– the distinctive energy consumption practices of the wealthiest sectors of society;
– the distributional impacts and justice implications of energy policies such as taxes, subsidies and pricing;
– the impacts of changes in how public money is spent (e.g. austerity) on energy-consumption;
– the role of private household debt/credit in sustaining and making possible a variety of (often unsustainable) energy-consuming practices;
– methodological approaches to using expenditure data as a trace of energy consuming practices

This workshop will be based around a set of pre-written papers and associated presentations, with other activities such as panel discussions potentially to be included.

Abstract submissions

Abstracts of around 400 words should be submitted by the deadline of 28th September 2015 using the online submission system, which will be available at the latest by 24th August. Decisions on accepted papers will be made by workshop convenors, whom you may contact before the submission deadline to advise on relevance and fit.

All accepted participants will be required to prepare a written version of their paper (normally between 3000 and 4000 words in length) by the deadline of 1st March 2016. We plan to make all papers available as online proceedings. However, authors may decline to have their papers published in this form

Please contact Giulio Mattioli (G.Mattioli@leeds.ac.uk) if you have any questions about this workshop

Transport Poverty workshop: view all the presentations

The two-day international workshop “Energy-related economic stress at the interface between transport poverty, fuel poverty and residential location” was held at the University of Leeds on May 20th-21st. It was organised as part of the EPSRC-funded (t)ERES research project, which is linked to the DEMAND Research Centre. 41 participants from four countries took part in the workshop over the two days, including 13 non-academic participants from DfT, DECC, DCLG, Welsh Government, Leeds City Council, RAC Foundation, EDF R&D, CPT, ACE and the Centre for Cities.

The aim of the workshop was to make connections between issues of affordability in different areas (transport, housing and domestic energy) and how these have been conceptualised (or not) in three different EU countries (UK, France and Germany), while at the same time bringing together academic and policy perspectives. Over two intensive days we have discussed topics such as: transport-related economic stress among motorised lower-middle classes; the poor resilience and oil vulnerability of suburban and remote areas; urban households who cannot afford car ownership; the coping strategies of households and policy makers in the face of rising fuel and housing costs; how to develop a comprehensive approach to (transport and domestic) energy poverty; the definition and measurement of ‘transport poverty’.

The workshop programme can be downloaded here, a short paper setting the background to the workshop can be downloaded here, and all presentations can be viewed after the break.