Data-Driven Integrated Transport Solutions - Using Personas in Policy-Making

Transport is an enabler for all daily activities in our society and is essential to national economic development. Transport also influences wellbeing directly and indirectly, including enabling access to significant life necessities and activities, promoting physical mobility, and fostering infrastructure development (Delbosc, 2012). Thus, improving the transport system not only enables social and economic development but also enhances wellbeing and equality (Chatterjee et al., 2019). The Government committed to providing public services to all members of society and distributing investment and financial capital to the programmes, places and communities that require it most (Civil Service, 2022; HM Government, 2022). However, expressed sentiments, attitudes, preferences, and behaviour among passengers vary for several reasons (Mooradian & Swan, 2006). To conduct these public engagements, it is necessary to comprehend the behaviour, demands, and preferences of various population groups, to provide the most appropriate intervention, and to identify the most vulnerable groups that should be prioritised.

Persona is a powerful tool for communication and interactive design (Caballero et al., 2014), which could be utilised as a design tool to create user-centric policies and services (Gonzalez de Heredia et al., 2018).

The research aims to examine how data from different sources can be manipulated to comprehend the travel behaviour of distinct demographic groups and support the policy-making process. The two main research questions are:

How can data combined from multiple sources be manipulated to deepen the understanding of travel behaviour of different personas.
How can personas be used to support evidence-based policy making.
The research will be explored and developed in partnership with colleagues from Department for Transport (DfT), focussing on the context of the UK domestic transport system. In investigating the relation between policies on personas,...