Connecting communities and the future of urban mobility

"The writer Erol Ozan is quoted as saying “You can't understand a city without using its public transportation system.”. The city’s transport system is the element that makes everything else possible – leisure, employment, healthcare, education. All of these activities things depend on people’s ability to get around. At the same time, meeting the demand for mobility generates negative effects which must be managed. Transport requires huge levels of financial investment and contributes to environmental damage through noise pollution, air pollution, loss of natural habitats and the severance of communities. Where should the balance be struck between the need to keep cities moving, and the drive to reduce the reliance on fossil fuels and improve the environment? What role should public transport play in helping to strike this balance? Delivered in conjunction with Transport for West Midlands, this interactive workshop takes a multi-disciplinary approach to urban transport problems. The importance of projects like New St redevelopment, Metro extension and HS2 to the people and economy of the West Midlands is discussed, in the context of the alternative uses to which such large sums of money could have been put."

To book your place visit http://www.aston.ac.uk/masterclasses