This is my lecture to Engineering Students at the University of Birmingham, for Engineers Without Borders UK. It talks about transport engineering in general terms and how engineers can use appropriate transport technologies to improve lives and their local environment.

1. Transport for development
Robin Lovelace
EWB-UK, University of Leeds
1st Nov. 2013

2. What I'm going to talk about
1.What is development?
2.Transport interventions
– Infrastructure
– Vehicles
– Policies
– Project design
3.Engineering in context and the design
challenge

3. A bit about me
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Interested science-policy interface
Geography in Bristol & Salamanca
Dissertation in Honduras
MSc in Environmental Science at York
Focus on energy -> PhD in Sheffield
4 years on EWB Sheffield committee
EWB UK work
Now researching transport, Uni. Leeds

4. 1. What is developent?
• Choose the transport-related image that
best fits with your idea of development

5. 1 - Young women with bikes in an urban area.
Source: BEN Namibia

6. 2 - Local participation in road building, rural Africa
Source: Peter Bentall

7. 3 - 'Megaproject' construction scheme: upgrading of the Panama Canal
Source: CNN

8. Discussion
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"Development" is contested
Community or national scale?
Bottom-up or top down?
Social, environmental or economic?
Who and where benefits?
Intra-national inequalities
Are we overdeveloped? (Illich, 1974)

9. Development usually includes:
• Poverty alleviation
• 'Sustainability'
– Environment
– Society
– Economy
• Long-term benefit
• Fairness
• Economic growth?
• Integration in global economy?

10. How can transport -> development
• Economic
– transport of goods and services
– finding employment, commuting
– direct impacts: tourism, construction,
mechanics
• Social
– transport system impacts health
– community cohesion
– connectedness of nation
• Environmental

11. 2. Transport interventions
• This is where engineers come in!
• Two main pathways of change
– Infrastructure
– Vehicles
• Engineers have many additional impacts
– Project design, longevity, lifecycle
– Feedback into policy making process
– Placing engineered solutions in context

12. 2.1 Infrastructure
• Cars, buses,
motorbikes and trucks
are increasingly
ubiquitous
• But they can only
work well on good
roads
• Infrastructure also
influences transport
modes and society

13. What is transport infrastructure?
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Roads (often earth or gravel)
Railways
Bridges
Air and boat ports
'Active travel' pathways
'Ancillary assets' such as pavements, road
signs and drainage
• Parking spaces

14. Infrastructure considerations
• Usually operate on a BIG scale involvement of central government
• But some community and NGO projects
• Maintenance is critical
• Strategic thinking in where to place roads
needed - now easier with better data
• Long time-scales - can 'lock in' certain
types of transport - e.g. UK roads policy.

15. Impact of infrastructure
• Implications for user safety: should separate
motorised/non-motorised traffic
• Road deaths: 2nd cause of death of 5-29 yr olds
worldwide.
• Disproportionate impact on the poorest

16. Simple, tested solutions often best
• Good design can save lives
• Often best practice is not regulated for engineer's responsibility

17. EWB experience in infrastructure
• Limited due to the scale of projects
• Typically involve road maintenance and
rehabilitation in rural areas
• Many interrelated skill needed
– Surveying
– Land clearance
– Earthworks
– Project management
– Communication!

18. Bridges get kids to school
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Existing bridge was damaged by flooding
EWB placement - 10 weeks coodination
New foundations and anchorage blocks
Standard, robust bridge design used
Main impact: increased school attendance

19. Footbridge: lessons learned
• "Engineers are most effective when acting
as a broker of technical advice rather than
a provider of solutions" (Daniel Gallagher,
EWB volunteer, 2013)
• Safety regulations
• Engineers must be humble and recognise
the limits of their knowledge and skills
• Career opportunities: Dan now works for
World Bank

20. 2.2 Vehicles - Introduction
• Bicycles, walking, buses and motorbikes
are common modes for world's poor
• Not cars: status symbol, drives inequality
(Illich, 1974)
• Higher turnover due to smaller size and
lower cost: shorter-term impacts
• Easier to make substantial impact quickly

21. Vehicles: considerations relative to
infrastructure projects
1. Higher turnover due to smaller size and
lower cost: shorter-term impacts
2. Usually faster to implement, more room
for experimentation
3. Vehicles are mobile, so impact can
spread rapidly from place to place
4. Ownership: private - incentive to fix

22. Pros and cons of different modes:
"Horses for courses"
Source: Starkey (2001) - freely available here

23. The boda-boda

24. Energy use
• Energy: critical in
era of fossil fuel
depletion and
climate change
(Lovelace et al. 2011)
• Should favour
low-energy
modes
• Health benefits

25. Example 2: Bicycle Ambulance Michael Linke, Namibia
• Developed using trial and error, designed
based on intuitive understanding
• Medium-scale production (100 units)
• Use: transporting HIV patients and others
Source: Bicycle Empowerment Namibia

26. Example 3:
Bamboo rickshaw
• Final year Mech.
Eng. project
• Tackled issues of weight and sustainability
• But is there really a need for this?
– Not tested properly
– Motivation from student, not local community
– Steel is not an unsustainable resource
• Take-away message: don't re-invent
wheel

27. Example 4: Bicycle trailers - UK
• Sustainable development needed
worldwide - issues in rich nations too
• Asked community groups for input
• Project manager:
– Design
– Materials
– Build
• Lessons to learn
• "Eco-technology"

28. Bicycle trailers - technical aspects
• After long discussion, L-section aluminium
chosen as basic material: light, adaptable
and widely available
• Solidworks used for design
• Hitch was major challenge (redesign)
• M6 bolts + nylocks
• Testing before use

29. Bicycle trailers - images

31. Bread trailer

32. 3. Engineering in contex
• Engineering for development requires
understanding of 'Big Picture'
• Built on social and economic foundations:

33. Engineering as problem solving
• But who sets the problems?
• Set your own problems
• Listen to others (local community)
• My top 3:
– How can technology encourage good health?
– How to we live without fossil fuels?
– How can technology reduce inequalities
• Think and research into these topics for
yourself

34. Appropriate technology
• Has the following
features (Greer
2009):
• Simple and resilient
• Modular
• Open source
• Scalable
What are
these
technologies
. Are they
appropriate?

35. Example 5: mobiles in Africa
• Common: "If you have a phone it is
nothing. In the olden days it meant you
were the richest man in the meeting" [boy
16y, Ghana, owns smart phone]
• Used to make travel more intelligently
• Provides lifeline of accessibility to older
generation
• Used in combination with boda-boda
drivers
• Source: Dr Gina Porter (talk)

36. Engineering as magic
• Imagine you are an
apprentice magician
• Your skills can
change the world
• But be warned: can
be used for good or ill
• How do you decide
where to direct your
magic?
• Sustainability begins
at home

37. The design challenge
• Housekeeping - important pre-requisites
– Teamwork + peer evaluation
– Task A (concepts) -> report (2,500 w max)
– Task B (design) -> report (2 + solutions)
• Things to think about
– do solutions address the real problem?
– timescale of solution
– local context + feasibility
• Constraints
– financial/economic
– cultural/political
– technological/environmental
Pecha Kucha talk
6th December

38. East Timor: Transport system
• "about 2,600 km of the network is bitumen
paved, 500 km is gravel, and almost 3,000 km is
earth-formed" (World Bank)
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"While the road network is extensive, road standards are generally
poor. Pavements are generally narrow (3.5 to 5.5 meters) and
require vehicles to move off the pavement to pass other vehicles.
Vertical and horizontal alignments are poor, limiting travel speeds
and sight distance. Inadequate drainage exacerbates road
damage."
• Car ownership is low - 60 per 1000 people in
Indonesia

39. Possible transport projects for
Timor Leste:
• Identified by community organisations
– Cheap alternatives to petrol for fuel supplies
– Cheap form of transport for students to take to
get to school
– Training program for mechanics to fix cars
• Other possibilities
– More intelligent bus/taxi services
– Mapping for development
– Training of bicycle mechanics and usage

40. Thanks for listening
You are all in an amazingly privileged position with the world at your feet. Don't forget
that YOU control your own destiny. Follow you best instincts and you can have a real
impact on people around you. Slides available from www.robinlovelace.net.

41. Recommended reading
Starkey, P. (2001) Local Transport Solutions People,
Paradoxes and Progress Lessons Arising from the
Spread of Intermediate Means of Transport. The
World bank. http://tinyurl.com/m3mqh5h
Petts, R. (2012) Handbook of Intermediate Equipment for
Road Works in Emerging Economies. Intech Associates
McLoughlin, A. and Lovelace, R. Transport in
Development, Chapter (in progress) in EWB's
Engineering in Development book. See here.

42. Resources on Timor Leste
• Timor Leste Road Climate Resilience
Project (World Bank)
• ROADS FOR DEVELOPMENT (R4D),
Timor Leste road project (Ausaid)
• Timor-Leste: When a short road makes a
huge difference (International Labour
Org.)
• Boosting Cycling in Timor Leste
(SportImpact)
• Timor Leste Strategic plan (gov.tl)

43. References
Greer, J. M. (2009). The Ecotechnic Future: Envisioning a Post-Peak
World. Aztext Press.
Illich, I. (1974). Energy and equity (1st ed.). New York: Harper & Row.
Retrieved from http://www.ridemybike.org/energyandequity.pdf
Lovelace, R., Beck, S. B. M., Watson, M., & Wild, A. (2011). Assessing
the energy implications of replacing car trips with bicycle trips in
Sheffield, UK. Energy Policy, 39(4), 2075–2087.
Wilson, D. G., Papadopoulos, J., & Whitt, F. R. (2004). Bicycling
science (p. 477). MIT Press. Retrieved from
http://books.google.com/books?id=0JJo6DlF9iMC&pgis=1