Cycling can contribute to physical and mental health and wellbeing among the older population by providing an active means of independent mobility to connect with the community and engage in social activities. But whilst cycling accounts for 23 per cent of all journeys for people aged 65 and older in the Netherlands, 15 per cent in Denmark and 9 per cent in Germany, it represents only 1 per cent of all journeys in the UK. This research starts from the premise that older people in the UK are often portrayed as citizens who lack the capacity to cycle and that this translates into design guidance that fails to consider how the built environment could be transformed to support cycling amongst an ageing population. As people age, cycling becomes more physically challenging, forcing many to stop. Some people do adapt to changing physical circumstances and continue to cycle in older age. However, many lack the desire to cycle because of risks associated with its practice in an unsupportive environment and fear of personal injury. Projects to improve cycle infrastructure coupled with the growth in availability of assistive technologies such as electric bicycles ('e-bikes') could have a significant role in creating opportunities for older people to return to cycling or prevent them from giving up. The aim of this research is to better understand how built environment and technological design is shaping the willingness and ability of older people to cycle, how they interact and experience the built environment when cycling, and how this affects their wellbeing. Attention will focus on elements of design at different scales from buildings, to neighbourhoods, to wider town networks and also on bicycle technology and equipment. The research will investigate the range of policies and programmes and guidance available across the EU targeted at promoting more inclusive cycling amongst the older population and compare this with activity in the UK. A range of existing UK data sources will be analysed to identify trends in participation in cycling across the in the UK and the extent to which recent projects and programmes are encouraging older people to cycle. A mix of innovative methods to understand the relationship between cycling in the built environment and wellbeing will be used with residents approaching later life (aged 50-59) and in later life (60+) across the Bristol, Oxford, Reading and Southampton areas. First, biographic ('cycling life-history') interviews will be conducted in order to understand the role of past experiences of cycling and the influence of life events such as family and social relationships, employment and wider social, economic, environmental and technological change; Second, mobile interviews and observation will be conducted with participants as they make a regular journey by cycle in order to capture their everyday experience of cycling and to measure how interaction with the built environment affects mental physical and mental wellbeing; Third, new and returning older cycle users will be invited to take part in a unique 8-week experiment to measure how their (re)engagement with both conventional and electric cycling in the built environment affects their physical and mental wellbeing. A rich dataset incorporating qualitative (textual, cartographic, video) and quantitative (numerical measures of wellbeing) data will be used to develop a toolkit for use by policy makers and practitioners. This will advise how the built environment and technology could be designed to support and promote cycling amongst current and future older generations and provide evidence of how this could improve independent cycling mobility and health and wellbeing. The toolkit will include briefing notes linked to design guidance and a documentary video, made with participants of the study, distributed directly to policy makers, practitioners and stakeholder and made available on the Web with the aim of generating maximum impact.

Our robots are too specialised, too impoverished in their sensing, too uncooperative and too unsafe to be productive at scale. To contribute to productivity in strategically important areas such as social care, manufacturing, logistics, service, inspection or agriculture, future generations of robots need to be able to sense, interpret, act, navigate, coordinate and collaborate with an hitherto unprecedented acuity. VISION: The overarching aim of this research programme is to deliver autonomous systems which amplify human capacity and potential. These robots must be capable of performing a broad array of bespoke tasks effectively, and with a minimum of operator intervention. In a sustainable national centre of excellence we will grow the technology and people substrate for robust embodied intelligence, i.e. the science and technology to enable robots to robustly and flexibly act, interact and collaborate in the real world. STRATEGY: Our focus is on engineering, exploring and exploiting the building blocks of integrated embodied intelligence to deliver autonomous systems which, over the course of their life-time, acquire the sensing, perception, manipulation, navigation, collaboration and problem solving abilities required to allow them to operate unaided while significantly enhancing human productivity. We will significantly expand the reach and versatility of robots in domains of strategic and commercial value by exploiting synergies across research disciplines, which only emerge when deploying robot systems. In doing so we are driven by both fundamental science questions and real-world applications. Together with our partners, we have a clear scope in mind: versatile, collaborative robots whose societal and economic footprint is vast. Our work will underpin a national strategic aim with a carefully considered and coherent programme of research: from sensing to collaboration.

The UK transport sector lags behind all other sectors in its achievement of energy diversification and carbon emission reductions to date, with emissions from transport essentially unchanged since the benchmark year of 1990. The Committee on Climate Change have been very critical of this failure and identified electrically-assisted scooters and bikes as part of solutions that need to be urgently accelerated. Indeed, the UK lags behind other countries in the uptake of a range of innovative light vehicles for both passenger and freight applications. Examples include electrically-assisted: bicycles, cargo bicycles, push scooters, skateboards, trikes, quadricycles, hoverboards etc. These involve some electrical assistance, as well as some energy expenditure by the user. Hence, we class these vehicles as light electric vehicles for active travel (LEVATs). They enable people to cycle, scoot, skate or otherwise travel more easily or enjoyably than conventional walking or cycling. Their power source provides the opportunity to link to a variety of digital technologies - from unlocking shared vehicles, to 'track-and-trace' systems for delivery companies, to map systems or health feedback tools for users - what ELEVAVTE refers to as 'digital' travel. Innovation at the interface of e-mobility and digital technologies plays a key role for the uptake of these novel modes, with energy, IT and transport industries as key players. Increased uptake of these vehicles has significant potential for reducing mobility-related energy demand and carbon emissions, especially when users switch from non-active modes such as cars or vans. The aim of this project is to better understand these opportunities - the technological and business options and specifications, where and who they might appeal to, what trips they could be used for, how far they could replace conventional motor vehicle trips - and some of the challenges that accompany them - such as overall energy usage, safety and regulatory issues, digital integration, physical environment design, battery standardisation and behavioural inertia. After developing typologies and technology assessments based on multiple criteria, the empirical end user research will consist of surveys (aiming for 1,200 responses), demonstration days (aiming to engage at least 300 people) and longer trials with at least 60 private individuals in 3 cities in England throughout 2020 and 2021. Quantitative surveys and in-depth interviews will be undertaken with participants before and after usage to understand changes in user perceptions and experience, triangulated with GPS tracking of the trial vehicles and contextual data (e.g. weather, hilliness). As part of the work, we will develop new safety training resources for each mode, drawing on, and adapting, existing UK initiatives and international experience and working towards certified schemes. Freight applications in the logistics industry will be analysed through expert interviews and case studies. A number of technology and demand scenarios will assess the whole lifecycle health and environmental impacts. This will include work with the World Health Organization expert group to extend the HEAT tool (which enables users without expertise in impact assessment to conduct economic assessments of the health impacts of walking or cycling) to include these types of vehicle. This project is supported by a range of partners - including the three local authorities, Sustrans and the World Health Organization - and will be guided by an advisory panel. We will also engage with a range of industry stakeholders, through the Transport Systems Catapult, Clean Growth UK and other means. We also envisage international engagement in the work, given the rapidly evolving and growing nature of the topic, and the lack of a substantial academic literature on the implications of these innovative light vehicles for energy demand, mobility and climate change.

RECLAIM is an innovative network to address complex problems and create sustainable, healthy, and liveable urban systems, resilient to climate-related hazards. RECLAIM will become an inclusive platform for continual exchange, and knowledge translation. Our network will connect and transform the 'forgotten cities' to be at the vanguard for environmental and economic advancement using participatory methods and green-blue-grey infrastructure (GBGI) to address societal and environmental challenges. Our vision for RECLAIM is to create a multidisciplinary and cross-sectoral network, which brings together multiple areas of scientific expertise (engineering, ecology, social science), artists, designers, business, city authorities, policymakers and community groups. RECLAIM will act as a hub to rapidly disseminate best practice on GBGI design which takes account of the social and economic context, and the needs of local residents as well as the latest scientific evidence on designing multi-functional GBGI solutions. The network will develop common language, goals and methodology to ease the communication, spreading, and replicability of GBGI. It will focus on the forgotten cities, especially the smaller and/or economically disadvantaged urban areas and communities which have mostly been ignored in the implementation and assessment of GBGI, and making them part of the solution using a participatory approach. The geographical scope is pan-UK, covering some larger cities where good practice is already established (e.g. Liverpool, Glasgow, Newcastle) with smaller cities and less well-off areas in the northeast of England, north Wales, the Midlands and south-east England to test, co-design, engage and learn with their most disadvantaged communities. Disciplinary scope aims to bridge engineering, modelling, atmospheric chemistry, hydrology including marine, green infrastructure, urban art, urban design, and social sciences including science and technology studies. The network has a central aim of addressing the levelling up agenda by incorporating both social justice issues and ecological quality into the design of multi-functional grey, green and blue space in cities, proposed as the means to ensure liveable cities which are sustainable and resilient to the future challenges. It will tackle this through six key objectives, which are delivered through a series of network actions: 1) Build a new multi-disciplinary network to share best practice and act as research leaders; 2) Undertake horizon scanning and knowledge synthesis to identify key gaps in knowledge and make recommendations to address them; 3) Conduct feasibility studies to comprehensively assess new and existing GBGI, and to address knowledge gaps; 4) Design, engage and learn with the public, fostering improved understanding of the wider benefits of green-blue-grey space, and educating the next generation on making our cities more sustainable and healthier places to live; 5) Train a new cohort of decision-makers and academics to embed multi-disciplinary thinking into future GBGI design, incorporating a mix of place-based approaches and scale-appropriate functional interventions; 6) Accelerate uptake of best practices by dissemination through activities designed to share best practice on urban planning and green and blue space design. Underlying this are four cross-cutting themes which thread through all the network activities: Multifunctionality and systems thinking, Embedding aesthetics and people's needs into GBGI design, Upscaling and outscaling, and Capitalising on existing initiatives.

Mobility as a service (MaaS) concept offers a user a unified service that combines various forms of transport at a single gateway. MaaS carries a promise of reduction of traffic congestion, improvement of customer convenience, reduction of social inequalities and carbon emissions by fostering the use of public transport. Key enablers for MaaS encompass (1) a single application allowing to plan and conduct journeys, (2) software system allowing multiple actors deliver MaaS, and (3) AI-based analytics allowing journey and resource optimisation. All those are susceptible to a wide range of types of cyber-attacks and the complexity of the MaaS ecosystem (customers, transportation providers, data providers, etc.) and its dependence on the data creates a unique challenge from the cyber security perspective. This interdisciplinary proposal leverages leading research expertise and excellence on energy transitions, infrastructure systems modelling, and artificial intelligence from Cranfield University and cybersecurity and human factors from University of Kent. The ambition is to develop the world's first agent-based modelling framework that will explicitly focus on the cyber security aspects of the MaaS ecosystem. This shall be achieved by use of agent-based simulation techniques to define a modelling framework that will encompass cross-sector and cross-organizational agent interactions in the context of mobility, data sharing, and cybersecurity threats. While our ambition is defining a comprehensive view of the MaaS ecosystem, the proposal intends to focus on a MaaS customers' perspective: incentives, behaviours in both terms of transportation needs and cybersecurity behaviours and attitudes - this will be achieved by developing agent-based simulation with complex, adaptive agents who are capable optimise their behaviour. One of key enablers of the MaaS ecosystem is exploitation of data by means of predictive Artificial Intelligence (AI) models. It has been widely accepted that machine learning and AI algorithms can be exploited by malicious actors using sophisticated cyber attacks. One of the proposed work streams will explore how the rapid deployment of new deep learning algorithms by service providers can be adversarially fooled to create unfairness and failures in the individual sectors and in the wider MaaS ecosystem and how this can be effectively mitigated in a wide range of case studies. The practical value of the framework and its ability to capture interdependencies between physical aspects of MaaS and cyber domain will be validated by means of integration of case studies data. The validity of model definition and produced outputs will be reviewed during a series of expert workshops and knowledge dissemination activities. These would be attended by stakeholders and subject matter experts comprising a mix of representatives of academics, government, regulators and industry, including our past/ current collaborators such as Ofgem, National Rail, local authorities, bus operators, Data Communications Company, and commercial providers developing integrated technologies or services (e.g. IBM). The public acceptability of the developed MaaS scenarios and strategies to make them secure will be analysed in focus groups. The final report will discuss insights and lessons learned from development of a cross-sector cyber security framework, the fitness of existing institutional landscape for the development of MaaS and opportunities, barriers and risks for the alignment of policy and regulatory frameworks across communications, transport and energy systems to address potential conflicts and vulnerabilities from the cyber security perspective.