The heavy snowfalls of the past couple of winters cost the UK economy £280 million per day, according to the Transport Secretary in 2011, Philip Hammond. Royal Sun Alliance in 2010 put the figure closer to £1.2 billion per day. The Federation for Small Business (FSB) estimated that 20 per cent, or 6.4 million staff, were unable to get to work - time they may not have been entitled to be paid for.
Dr Roby works on the Disruption Project which involves seven universities including the Open University and is funded by the RCUK Energy Programme. The project looks at how travel practices are formed and directed by underlying societal factors. We argue that people’s travel behaviour is less fixed and routine than it is often considered to be. The project looks at the way people’s lives are frequently disrupted by a whole range of possible events, from family illnesses to volcanic ash clouds or snow. The insights that these disruptions provide can help reveal the kinds of changes, to transport and other policy sectors such as health, education and business that are needed to inspire and facilitate a shift to lower carbon travel.
Picture credit: Jon Curnow via Flickr under Creative Commons Licence
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HI kav i like your self am new to the O.U and starting the same course soi hope we can help eachother i bet your feeling nervous and excited at the same time that is me as well i can not wait to get in to the course as some of the things that come in the course is intresting and i hope that when it is all over i can start a new carrer for my self are you like me getting your self used to all the O.U has to offer?i thought i would get overloaded but i am ok well all i can say is happy new year and good luck and i lookforward to us doing some studying together as i hope to make a good network of fellow students old and new to lean on or to lean on me so just so you and all new students like my self we are not on our own...