As of 1st April, two Surveys have been made available to Southampton students to fill out, aimed at improving the transport facilities on University of Southampton campuses. They are part of undergraduate Civil Engineering dissertation projects, so any feedback would be greatly appreciated.
The first is about students’ present and future travel habits, focusing on what our travel patterns look like during and after the pandemic. You can fill it out here. In 2018, some 5 million journeys were made on Unilink buses, so this is a good opportunity to understand how this might have changed, and what might happen in the future.
The second explores possible options for re-designing Highfield Interchange bus station to reduce emissions from buses. It’s available here.
In 2018, Southampton was named as one of 17 UK towns and cities at the maximum safe limit of air pollution, having exactly 10 micrograms of fine particles per cubic metre of air. A microgram, for reference, is 1 millionth of a gram. However, even in such small amounts, these particles can penetrate deep into the cardiovascular system and lungs, causing strokes, heart disease, lung cancer, and respiratory infections. Coincidentally, Unilink introduced a new fleet of low-emission buses that same year. Southampton City Council has set a target of carbon neutrality by the end of the decade, in spite of an anticipated 30,000 increase in population, and the expected doubling of port traffic volume, over the next 2 decades.