Jun 24

 Mitigating the effects of marine renewable energy infrastructure on marine mammals and fish

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Industry seminars

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The CDT SIS and SIC seminar on Thursday 24 June 2021.

Presentation by Nick Flores Martin from Natural Resources Wales who has just had his iPhD viva.

Mitigating the effects of marine renewable energy infrastructure on marine mammals and fish

About Nick:

“ I work as a marine mammal specialist advisor with Natural Resources Wales. Successfully defended my viva just over a month ago. My PhD thesis focused on using bubbles and sound as a behavioural deterrent for freshwater fish by trapping sound between bubbles (so a bit like a humpback whale bubble feeding net) – although my background’s more oceanography and fisheries related.”

Nick Flores Martin NRW Presentation PDF

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Jun 24

A Virtuous Circle? Increasing Local Benefits from Ports by Adopting Circular Economy Principles

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Publications

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A Virtuous Circle? Increasing Local Benefits from Ports by Adopting Circular Economy Principles

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Toby Roberts Ian Williams 

Infrastructure Group, Faculty of Engineering and Physical Sciences, University of Southampton,

John Preston

Transportation Group, Faculty of Engineering and Physical Sciences, University of Southampton,

Nick Clarke Melinda Odum

Ramboll UK Ltd., Southampton

Stefanie O’Gorman
Ramboll UK Ltd., Edinburgh

Sustainability 2021, 13(13), 7079; https://doi.org/10.3390/su13137079

Published: 24 June 2021

Abstract

As ports seek to maintain support for their operations amidst growing environmental awareness and social pressure, it is important they provide benefits for the local population to offset negative impacts. Ports can add additional economic benefits for the cities they are located in by encouraging maritime clusters, industrial development, a circular economy, and waterfront development. The current level of adoption, interest in future adoption, barriers to implementation, and attitudes towards the views of the local population were assessed via an online questionnaire sent to port authorities in 26 countries. The potential and willingness of ports to be on the frontline of the transition to a circular economy globally has been clearly identified for the first time, seeing a 60% increase between current levels of adoption and future interest in adoption. Barriers to a circular economy are comparable to barriers to widely adopted methods, such as industrial development and a waterfront economy. It is likely that circular economy activities in port cities will add additional local benefits and reduce the negative impacts of a port. A new framework is proposed to help ports and cities collaborate and encourage greater adoption of the circular economy.

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Jun 17

Artistic impression of a port-city of the future

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Current Research

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CDT SIS PhD researcher and amateur artist Toby Roberts won the People’s Choice award at the Doctoral College Festival of Research Awards on 10th June 2021. The Research Awards and Director’s Awards are part of the Festival of Doctoral Research which recognises and celebrates exceptional achievements and contributions of the University’s postgraduate researchers.

Creative Representations of Research Competition challenged postgraduate researchers to have fun exploring all the different ways in which they can represent and share the essence of their research.

Port-Cites of the Future

This painting depicts a port-city of the future, with some potential solutions to reducing the negative impacts of ports whilst increasing the local benefits. Some examples of this in the painting are renewable energy, green architecture, shore-to-ship power and circular economy (in this case a greenhouse to capture waste CO2 and heat for agriculture).

Toby started painting at the start of his PhD study as a way to relax and he enjoys painting landscapes and seascapes.

Toby’s research work includes creating a new system of classification for port-cities that includes cargo and passenger ships. “Port-cities have a key role in international trade and provide essential services to the local, regional and national economies. Port-cities can boost manufacturing and growth of port-related industries, contributing jobs to the local area. They can also be popular start- and end-points and destinations for tourist activities, such as cruises. The presence of the port may bring additional opportunities in areas such as employment, renewable energy, circular economy, culture and identity.

Establishing sustainable cities and communities is one of the 17 United Nations Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) (SDG number 11). Port-cities are vitally important to efforts to encourage sustainability. It is therefore important to gain a greater understanding and critical evaluation of port-cities, what their requirements and challenges are, how they differ and how they can be better utilised to produce more benefits and fewer negative impacts. As a strong focus is placed on understanding the environmental impacts of ports and sustainability, a system to effectively group port-cities by their size and potential impacts is needed.

‘The Southampton System’, combines passenger numbers and cargo tonnage on one axis with urban population on another in a 4 × 4 matrix, creating 16 groupings of port-cities. The Southampton System provides an effective and broader method for port-city classification, enabling more effective future study into, and policy recommendations for, port-cities.”

Research Article

The Southampton System: a new universal standard approach for port-city classification

Toby Roberts , Ian Williams  & John Preston 

Published online for Taylor and Francis: 10 Aug 2020

 

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Jun 14

The Solent Future Transport Zone Research Programme

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Industry seminars

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The CDT Sustainable Infrastructure for Cities seminar on 10.06.2021.

The Solent Future Transport Zone Research Programme.

Presented by Professor John Preston

Transportation Group, University of Southampton

Professor John Preston’s current work at Southampton includes leadership of the Solent Future Transport Zone project and of the University’s contribution to the Centre for Sustainable Travel Choices. He is also providing transport expertise to the EPSRC Achilles,  Decarbonising Transport through Electrification, Track to the Future and MISTRAL projects. He also leads the Faculty’s Centre of Excellence of Re-engineering for Electric Mobility (RE4EM).  He previously led the iConnect consortium that undertook an evaluation of engineering interventions to promote walking and cycling, the OCCASION and DITTO projects on rail operations and contributed to the Track21 and Infrastructure Transitions Research Consortium Programme Grants.

Presentation slides

FTZ100621 

 

 

Can transport be more sustainable?

Solent Transport Mobility as a Service (MaaS)

Overall Aim: to identify Mobility as a Service (MaaS) design requirements that may encourage behaviour change in terms of reduced private car use and increased active travel for the target population of Future Transport Zone users.

Objectives:
• to produce design concepts & product specification inputs;
• to identify and address needs of an inclusive range of user groups;
• to measure usability and acceptance of MaaS App users in order to generate design amendments

  • A partnership between Solent Transport, Universities,
    existing and new transport operators and tech providers
  • Responding to challenges of congestion, car dependence
    and splintered public transport networks across the Solent
  • Creating an integrated and customer-centric travel tool to
    plan, book, pay for and travel across the region
  • Enabling customers to make more journeys sustainably by
    harnessing smart technology and data integration

Voi e-Scooters

The launch is part of a 12-month trial funded by the Department for Transport (DfT), which began on the Isle of Wight in November 2020. The trial is being led by Solent Transport, a partnership body that includes Portsmouth City Council and Southampton City Council, as well as Voi. We are currently collaborating with the councils to confirm parking and riding zones, and we will share further details once we get closer to the launch date. Voi Blog March 2021

 

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Jun 11

Festival of Doctoral Research Awards 2021

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CDT SIS Students, Current Research

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The Festival of Doctoral Research went online this year. In the two-day conference-style event on the 9th and 10th June considering the unique challenges that have faced PGRs this year, celebrating PGRs’ achievements in the face of these, and reflecting upon what PGRs’ experiences during the pandemic mean for their future and that of doctoral research.  ​​​​​​​

The Festival is the key point during the year in which we can come together as a community of PGRs, supervisors and other staff who support doctoral research to recognise the many and varied achievements of postgraduate researchers.

The Doctoral College Awards celebrate the contribution that PGRs make to their research area, school and to wider University community.

This year CDT SIS students found success in several categories:

Research Awards

Research Awards recognise the exceptional contribution of PGRs to a research group, school, faculty or University research strategy

Freya Radford – Awarded for her research into Microplastics – iPhD project title “Microplastics in agricultural soils: Methods, Sources and Fate” in collaboration with Southern Water. This project focuses on the fate and levels of Microplastics in these systems and develop methods to control and reduce the pollution.Freya Radford in lab

Co-author of Validation of a method to quantify microfibres present in aquatic surface microlayers

Joshua Birkenhead, Freya Radford, Jessica Stead, Prof Andy Cundy and Dr Malcom Hudson.

Director’s Awards

Director’s Special Commendation for exceptional contribution

Freya Radford for consistent contribution to public engagement, education & mentorship

Helen Currie for communicating the importance of equality, diversity & inclusion in research

Helen Currie Migratory Fish exhibit

Research Article

Collective behaviour of the European minnow (Phoxinus phoxinus) is influenced by signals of differing acoustic complexity

Doctoral Research posters

Lewis Dolman – runner up STEMM

Creative Representations of Research

People’s Choice winner: Toby Roberts, Faculty of Engineering and Physical Sciences ‘Port-cities of the future’

Research Article

The Southampton System: a new universal standard approach for port-city classification

Toby Roberts , Ian Williams  & John Preston 

Published online for Taylor and Francis: 10 Aug 2020 https://doi.org/10.1080/03088839.2020.1802785

 

Prof. Chris Howls brough the Festival of Doctoral Research to a close:

Thanks to everyone who took the time to enter the competitions and make nominations. This Festival has shown the immense amount of work & success happening at Southampton, it’s truly amazing!

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May 27

Future Towns Innovation Hub – Southampton

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Industry seminars

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CDT SIS and CDT SI Cities hosted a seminar on Thursday 27th May on TEAMS. The seminar was titled “Future Towns Innovation Hub – Southampton” presented by Dr Clint Styles.

A new Future Towns Innovation Hub is being built at the University of Southampton Science Park where leading academics will collaborate with businesses and the region’s towns to develop low-carbon and more sustainable engineering and technology innovations to create happier, healthier, and more prosperous places to live and work.

Enterprise M3 LEP is funding almost £3m from the government’s Local Growth Fund and Research England are adding a further £1.5m to support the £14m project, which will focus on addressing challenges of energy efficient housing, water conservation, sustainable transport, carbon neutral waste management and recycling, and improving health outcomes.

Presentation slides

CDT-SIS Seminar May 2021

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May 23

An alternative approach to track settlement prediction

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Publications

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An alternative approach to track settlement prediction

Ognibene, Giacomo, Le Pen, Louis, Harkness, John, Zervos, Antonios and Powrie, William (2021) An alternative approach to track settlement prediction.

 In 4th International Conference on Transportation Geotechnics (4th ICTG), Illinois, Chicago, United States. 23 – 26 May 2021. 13 pp . (In Press)

Advances in Transportation Geotechnics IV pp 99-112

Record type: Conference or Workshop Item (Paper)

Abstract

Many empirical equations have been formulated in an attempt to model the settlement of ballasted railway track at an individual sleeper. Some equations have been used with vehicle track interaction models (VTI) to predict the development of differential settlement along the track iteratively, and hence maintenance requirements, over potentially millions of cycles of load. For settlement equations to be suitable in such simulations, they require as an input a VTI model output that varies along the track, such as the force on the sleeper or the current resilient deflection range. For computational economy, these VTI simu-lations are usually run in large steps with the settlement predicted forward over many cycles. There is, however, no one generally applicable settlement equation and it remains unclear whether the loss of accuracy that ensues from stepping the VTI analyses is acceptable. A realistic settlement equation needs to incorporate both stress- and load history-dependent behaviour. This paper proposes a new settlement model that allows for stress history and has the potential to be applied at every cycle within an iterative VTI simulation. The ballast layer is modelled by combining a nonlinear viscoelastic element to simulate the resilient response with a plastic hardening element for permanent settlement. This leads to the calculation of permanent settlement without recourse to an explicit empirical equation. The parameters used in the model are determined using data from cyclic laboratory tests on a single sleeper. The effect of different loading histories on the model is considered.

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May 17

Responsible Use of Rivers

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Industry seminars

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Is there such a thing as responsible use of rivers? Neil Edwards of AquaInform Ltd posed this question in his seminar to the CDT postgraduate students on 29th April 2021.

A PDF of the presentation is available below:

Neil Edwards – Responsible use of Rivers- v10final

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