Go Ahead for £100,000 Leeds transport research project

[buffaloskinner]

And what seems to be yet another complete waste of local money

The transport system today is a joke, high fares on the bus and no one travelling on them. And yet:-



Transport chiefs have a struck a deal with Leeds University to start a three-year research project.

Experts from the university’s Institute of Transport Studies has been given £100,000 to research into how to best invest in transport and future demand for services.

The funding for the project was agreed by West Yorkshire Combined Authority’s (WYCA) Transport Committee.

WYCA Transport Committee chairman Coun Keith Wakefield said that the research would help develop “a world class approach” for planning.

He said: “Developing a transport network for the Leeds City Region that supports strong economic growth, the creation of new jobs and widespread house building means us making decisions based on robust information.”

“Working with the excellent Institute of Transport Studies through this programme will help us to develop a world class approach to planning for the future.”

The deal with run for an initial three years and researchers will look at how society and technology changes.

Dr Karen Lucas, director of research at the university Institute for Transport Studies, said: “This is an important and exciting opportunity to translate the best evidence from our extensive scientific research into successful practical delivery on the ground.”

The project will be jointly directed and managed by WYCA and the university.

WYCA has worked with the university on past projects including carbon emissions and sustainable travel.

It said it hoped the new deal would lead to more collaboration with other institutions. WYCA Chairman Coun Peter Box said: “This agreement is in line with our policy of working closely with West Yorkshire’s wide range of academic institutions and will help us develop a knowledge economy that helps maximise the impact and value of our initiatives and policies.”

[liits]

".....develop a knowledge economy...." you couldn't make it up, could you?
The problem with such studies is that they are commissioned and executed by two types of people [both of them wrong];
1.the Alan Sugar "let them eat cake" type of b'stard rolling around in a limo.
or
2. the over educated lunatic who's never combed their hair and rides a bike because because the internal combustion engine is the work of the devil.

[raveydavey]

Good to see Keith Wakefield is still on the publicly funded gravy train after stepping aside from running the council into the ground.
No money for basic public services (so they'd have you believe...) yet Keith and chums can fund £100k for a three year study to tell us the public want cheap, frequent and reliable buses and trains and an end to the deliberate engineering of congestion into the roads - which they'll then ignore as it doesn't give them the answer they want (which is a trolley bus...)