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Cambridge Transport Seminar |
Links relevant to this article:
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Thursday
31st January 2002 - 3rd February 2002 |
Lucy Cavendish College.The reason for the trip to Cambridge was twofold:
1) To attend a Seminar on the Friday which was organised by the ESRC funded Mobile Network Transport Seminar Series.
2) To look
at the transport system in the area where we were staying.
The Seminar we attended was the second seminar in the ESRC funded Mobile
Network Series and was on Information Communications Technology and Transport
Systems. It was held at Lucy Cavendish College, Cambridge, on the
1st February, convened by Professor Margaret Grieco, Professor
of Transport and Society at Napier University and Visiting Fellow Lucy
Cavendish College, University of Cambridge.
We stayed for three of the presentations and found them very interesting,
In the first presentation Dr Julien Hine, Napier University spoke
of the role modern technology could take in helping visually impaired
people move around more easily, he further went on to described how, in
the future a mobile WAP phone could send information to the user. One
example we found interesting was that it could inform the user that there
was a bus stop in front of them.
The second peresentation was by David Laird, Head of Projects for
Translink in Ireland who explained that Transport in Ireland was
still a Public Service, he went on to explain the difficulties that arose
with their fare System across borders which used different currencies.
With the introduction of the Euro this no longer applied, he also explained
that the bus operators in Ireland have to ask the Governments permission
before they can remove a bus from service. We thought their Web Site worth
a look so we added it to our links.
The third presentation was by Kay Axhausen, Professor of Transport
in Zurich, on the changing relationship between social networks and transport.
This helped us focus on the changing industrial structure of our own area,
North Tyneside, and the ways in which its transport patterns and social
network patterns were changing. The transport planners do not seem to
have taken this into consideration at all.
Each of these presentations and the subsequent presentations at the Cambridge
Seminar can be found on the ESRC
Mobile Network Seminar site.
We did take part in the question time that followed each presentation,
One question we asked Julian would it also be able to inform the user:
(a) If a bus was comming, and (b) What number it was. We also asked David
if he would come to the North East and explain to our operators how they
operate as we felt our operators could learn something. As all the reports
on all the presentations are now linked into the Web Site, we look forward
to discussing them at future meetings and conferences. We were certainly
glad we were invited to the Seminar.
The Lucy Cavendish College where the meeting was held has a fascinating
history, the idea for the College came out of talks over several weekly
lunch meetings held in 1951 in the Regent House members combination room.
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On the first
night Margaret introduced us to the other academic members who were giving
the presentations at the meeting, we all had our own things to do during
the day, but we met up socially at night. Everyone was so casual and friendly
we never felt out of place or excluded from conversation, We also found
that they had a great sense of humour.
We invite local discussions of the materials presented at the Cambridge
seminar. What we can say as of now is it was a very interesting meeting
with very good presentations given by all the people involved. We did
take part in the question time that followed each presentation and were
delighted we had been asked to attend. This is a model that policy agencies
such as the Social Exclusion Unit of the Cabinet Office could usefully
follow.
The Lucy Cavendish College where the meeting was held has a fascinating
history, the idea for the College came out of talks over several weekly
lunch meetings held in 1951 in the Regent House members combination room.
To give a sense of the meeting we have provided links to Lucy Cavendish
College which promotes the education of mature women - you too can have
a wander around the college.
We thought we could explain how we spent our time outside the meeting
and the different forms of transport we came across.
Before we left Sharon and I discussed the trip and what we wanted to get
out of it. We checked the Internet and found a lot of information on places
of interest, college's churches, and Cambridge City Council, we also found
a very detailed map of Cambridge. We wanted to cover as many forms of
transport as possible looking at it from both the able bodied person and
a disabled persons perspectives.
Sharon is an extremely fit outdoor activities person while I suffer from
cervical spondalosis and osteoarthritis in all joints, two weeks before
we left this flared up badly and I was using a walking stick. I felt qualified
to look at the journey from a disabled persons point of view.
We looked at all the travel options available for two people to get from
Moor Park to Cambridge:
By Train:
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£ |
| 1) |
Bus to North Shields and a Metro to Central Station. |
5.60 |
| 2) |
A Bus from Moor Park to Haymarket and Metro to Central Station. |
4.52 |
| 3) |
A Taxi from Moor Park to Central Station. |
9.00 |
| 4) |
A train from Central Station to Cambridge changing at Peterborough. |
144.60 |
| 5) |
A Taxi from Cambridge station to hotel. |
5.00 |
Although it was the most expensive transport to get to Central Station
the taxi would have been by far the easiest way for anyone with a disability
to travel with luggage.
By Air:
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£ |
| 1) |
A Bus to Shiremoor Metro and Metro to the Airport changing at Regent Centre. |
3.00 |
| 2) |
A Taxi to Newcastle Airport. |
11.00 |
| 3) |
Flight by Go Fly to Stansted Airport. |
129.60 |
| 4) |
A Train to Cambridge and a Taxi to the Hotel. |
39.00 |
| 5) |
A Taxi from Standstead to Hotel |
44.00 |
The route by train would have taken somewhere between 5-6 hours from Moor Park to the hotel in Cambridge.
The final decision was to take a taxi direct to the Airport then an hour flight by Go Fly and a half hour Taxi ride straight to the hotel. This eliminated the problems with the rail strikes that were in progress at the time. Total travel time 2 hours excluding the one hour checking in time at the Airport.
Newcastle Airport:
Newcastle Airport is big, easy to get around and well sign posted. My problems arose when we set off for the departure lounge. We were leaving from gate 8 which was a fair walk but not as far as the walk we had to gate 17 when we went on holiday. The staff from the Go Fly company were very helpful and caring. Passengers with children and disabled passengers were allowed to board first. This was very helpful to me but managed to upset two able bodied passengers waiting to board.
Stansted Airport:
To me the journey from the plane on arrival felt long but easier to cope with as it was on a downwards slope. This Airport has lots of shops and food outlets inside which makes it very overcrowded and difficult to get around. On the way back we found it difficult to find direction signs indicating where we were supposed to board the plane there was also an obvious lack of staff to help. We struggled for some time before we found someone to help. All the rushing around and then standing in the queue to get through caused me great problems. After we got through the gate we had to face the long walk up to the departure area only this time it was an upward slope all the way.
Taxi's:
Going from Moor Park to the Airport, North Tyneside Taxi rates are less expensive than Newcastle although most of the North Tyneside taxi's are just ordinary four door saloon cars while Newcastle taxi's are more updated black cabs therefore more comfortable to travel in. At Standstead Airport there is an office within the airport for taxi bookings. Journeys that are being paid for by cheque or credit card are paid at the counter however, for cash payments customers are given the car number at the counter and payment is given direct to the driver when reaching destination, a receipt automatically given. The Airport taxi's were all high quality cars the one we were allocated was a top of the range Rover and we drove in style to the hotel. Taxi fares within Cambridge were more expensive than North Tyneside for example we paid twice the fare we would have paid at home to travel the same distance.
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Walking:
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The Bar Owners had considered wheelchair users as the bar was in two parts. The entrance we went in leads into where the actual bar was, there were two steps up to the dining area. We did notice however there was another entrance which lead straight into this end from the street, this end had a disabled toilet.
The staff were very pleasant, the meal was lovely and inexpensive and you did not feel you had to rush to leave. Reading the weekly menu of events we noticed that customers could have unlimited tea and coffee if they wanted to and spend very little money.
It would be fair to say that the pavements are not good for someone with a disability to walk on as they are slate and cobble in a lot of places, some of the side streets would be difficult for a wheelchair user to manoeuvre, we watched a lady with a buggy and she was struggling to keep on the pavement.
There are lots of pedestrian crossing points with lights on the main roads, but we also found cars stopped within the area the pedestrian would cross the road, the pedestrian lights had no warning sounds. If a visually impaired person tried to cross the road they could walk straight into the side of a car.
Cyclists were inclined to ignore light signals which could cause serious problems also. Cars were inclined to go to fast in narrow streets and I shuddered to think how a wheelchair user would feel if they were going down a narrow street and suddenly came face to face with a fast car coming towards them. The taxi driver we spoke to thought there was a strong possibility that in order to retain its historical nature Cambridge would become a car free zone in the near future. We did think however that the historic buildings and the feel of the place were worth the visit alone.
We walked up and down the narrow side streets and main roads a fair bit that first night but it was not until we got back to the hotel and were talking we realised we had never once felt threatened despite some of the back streets being very dimly lit.
Punts:
We cannot leave Cambridge transport without mentioning one other form of transport. Our hotel was on the banks of the River Cam and just along the road was a yard that stored and hired punts. Sharon is a qualified canoeist and was dying to have a go punting down the river, while I am a qualified coward and refused point blank to even attempt to get into one. Fortune shone down in my favour as the yard was closed for the season. We decided that if she really wanted to do it we could come back in the summer time.
Conclusion:
As visitors to the city we thought there were lots of buses going all over the place yet, on talking to local shop assistants they felt the buses only cover limited areas and that out lying areas had a poor service, getting to work without a car was a problem for them.
Comparing taxi prices in comparison to North Tyneside we thought Cambridge the more expensive. Flying to Standstead was far quicker and certainly more comfortable than going by train. Anyone going on a business trip would find this way to travel beneficial.
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We
had been told that King's College had a wonderful choir and a
Rubens painting behind the altar which was worth seeing. On Friday
evening we attended The Eucharist of Candlemass service,the chapel
is very hard to describe but definately worth visiting. |
King's College 
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