Hattie Hlad: Driven By Excellence, your trusted place for all
things logistics and road safety.
Welcome to today's podcast, where we explore the latest trends, challenges and
innovations in the world of transport.
I'm Hattie and today we are joined by a very special guest, Dr.
Elizabeth Box.
Elizabeth is a seasoned transport researcher and commissioner with over
two decades of experience in the field.
Her work spans across road safety, behavioural psychology, intervention
design, policy development and much more.
She's currently the head of RAC's foundation's research program
and also provides national policy advice on road safety education.
Liz, it's a pleasure to have you on the show.
Elizabeth Box: Thank you, Hattie.
Really good to be here.
Hattie Hlad: Let's start by taking a step back.
You've had an impressive career so far working in the NGO sector, academia,
both public and private sectors.
Can you tell us a little bit about your journey and how you initially became
interested in the transport sector, in transport research and road safety?
Elizabeth Box: Yeah, thanks, Hattie.
That's a really interesting question and it's funny, isn't it, when you're
asked to kind of look back over that sort of winding road you've often taken
to kind of where you've got to today.
So I guess for me, it all started when I did my undergraduate degree in geography,
at Trinity College at University of Cambridge and I thought when I was coming
out of that, I thought, I'm going to be a town planner, that seems like a really
good thing for a geographer to go on and do and then I found actually that it was
transport planning where there was a lot of graduate schemes in, they were looking
for new people coming into the sector.
So I ended up kind of going into transport planning and up and really, I suppose
I've always been interested in human geography, why people do things, how
they do things and you know, transport is such an integral part of that.
We all travel somewhere some of the time.
When it's working, people don't really think about it, but actually,
when there's problems, that's when everybody's got an opinion about it.
So I think it really makes it a really dynamic environment to work in.
So I think that kind of started off my transport career.
I then went on to work in a local authority and studied for a master's in
transport planning and after a few years there, which was really kind of great to
think about what's happening on the ground and actually how do we deliver things
in practice, the opportunity came up to work at the RAC Foundation, which is an
independent charity conducting research into all aspects of transport policy.
So, environment, mobility, safety and economy.
So quite a broad field.
So I've been there for 17 years now.
It's amazing how quickly the time goes.
But what I think I've really enjoyed as part of that role is just the
opportunity to work with so many different organisations, individuals,
all with their individual skill sets that really kind of brings a lot to it.
I've been around in the, kind of road safety field.
I mean, we look at, as I said, a lot of different areas, but I've tended to
specialize in that and a lot of people in the sector have been around for
sort of that length of time as well.
So I think we've got a real depth of knowledge actually, which I
think is really, really beneficial.
So I guess I'd say for the last seven or eight years or so, I've had
a bit more of a portfolio career.
Obviously I'm still at the RAC Foundation.
About, well, seven years ago, I made the decision it's about time to do that
part time PhD that I've kind of always wanted to do and took the step to do that.
So I was with Dr.
Lisa Dawn at Cranfield University doing a PhD in transport psychology and yeah,
quite, quite an endeavor doing that part time, you need to all kind of grit and
determination, I think, and a subject that you really care about and the subject I
took on was around pre driver education and really very much trying to understand
the kind of behavioural science and how we can bring that into the practice.
So at the RAC Foundation, we're very much about getting that research and converting
that into policy and practice and I think I wanted to do not just an academic
PhD, but something that was valuable and useful, I guess, to the real world.
So I was really fortunate to have a lot of support from a number of different
organisations in supporting that research.
So the Department for Transport, the Road Safety Trust, obviously
the RAC Foundation, National Fire Chiefs Council, Road Safety GB.
So a huge number, which was really important for both getting the work
done, but then also ensuring that the findings were rolled out and had some
impact in the sector and it's really nice to see that starting to have an
effect on how people are delivering education now, which is really, you
know, really encouraging and kind of why I was doing it in the first instance.
It was a little bit challenging at times because it was during COVID
that we were working in schools.
So we had to suddenly go virtual and online, which was, you know, interesting,
but we kind of got there in the end.
So, when I finished my PhD last year, I decided what I wanted to do
alongside my work at the foundation was set up my own consultancy.
So ECM Research Solutions, very much helping public and private sector
clients to develop educational based interventions using all of
the things I'd learned in my PhD.
So it's been really nice to kind of continue with that on.
As part of that, I work as a behavioural science consultant at CoPilot with James
Evans, I think he's been on your podcast before, many in the sector will know him.
So we've been doing that for about 18 months now, and it's really starting
to grow what we're doing at Copilot in terms of the educational interventions
and very much my role is making sure we're using a good evidence
base, to kind of set those in train.
And I guess one of the other kind of projects I think that's taken up quite
a lot of my time over the last four years as well is at the RAC Foundation.
We're commissioned by both DFT and National Highways to conduct the
road collision investigation project.
So we had some investigators from the police working with us and very
much trying to understand, when you look at serious collision files, what
is actually happening behind those collisions, not just obviously the police
look at it from a criminal culpability perspective, which is really important,
but what we wanted to understand is there some safety learning here that we
can apply going forwards in the future and really the project was trying to
understand, is there a good basis for a Road Collision Investigation Branch?
Could we have a business case for that?
And essentially the answer was an unequivocal yes, absolutely,
there's a good case for doing this.
Some listeners, if they've been following that particular area, will know back in
2022, the then government said, yes, we're going to set up a branch and many people
will know we don't have a branch in place now, unfortunately, but I think it's
going to be really interesting to see what the new government is going to do around
some of these issues and yeah, we're kind of watching with interest for sure.
Hattie Hlad: Amazing, thank you for sharing that.
You've been involved obviously in a range of different roles over the years.
In terms of this, what is the most significant change in the field
of transport and road safety that you've witnessed during your career?
Elizabeth Box: Yeah, that's interesting, isn't it?
Because, as I say, I've been working in this field in transport generally, road
safety, probably more for the last 12 years, but in total just over 20 years in
the sector and I think one of the biggest things I've noticed in terms of a pattern
is how important the politics and policies are around these things and we often go in
cycles and also the importance of having the right funding in place and you can
kind of see when there's lots of activity and when it works and when people are
pulling together and when that's not the case and I mean, many people will know
we've kind of flatlined over the last 10 years or so in terms of getting an
improvement in our casualty statistics, but we've also not really had a policy
or plan or strategy at the highest level.
So as I say, it'll be interesting to see what happens with the
new government around that.
I think having the right leadership is important as well when you see whether
that can be at a local authority level, that can be at a company level, but when
you see those leaders coming out and saying, yeah, this is really a really
good direction we should be going, that can make a massive change as well.
So I guess those are some higher level patterns.
Obviously, over that time, we've seen huge technological advancements in vehicles,
which has been really, really important.
So obviously we're all aware of sort of airbags, ABS, electronic stability
control, that sort of technology.
But also now we're getting into much more of the fleet sort of driver
assistance systems, such as, you know, adaptive cruise control, lane departure
warning and I think there's a really interesting job for us to do in the
educational space because actually we had to put our car in the garage
recently and picked up a hire car.
My husband picked it up and I said, Oh, what handover
did you get for the hire car?
And he was like, literally nothing, here's the keys and our car's 10 years old,
almost 10 years old, this car was brand new and it had all the new technology
on it and my husband's a computer programmer, so he likes looking at all the
technology and working out how it works.
But if you're not that way inclined, it even took us a while to work out
how do you even open the petrol cap, you know, really kind of basic things
and I think we really need to make sure that we're taking people alongside us
when we're kind of this new developing technology, because it can really help
reduce collisions and serious injuries.
But if we don't actually help people understand what it does, and you
know, lots of people saying lane departure warnings and oh there's
the problem it's pushing me into people I'm trying to overtake.
Well, it's about indicating and letting the car know what you're doing and I
think we've got a long way to go on that, but technological advancement has
a big role to play and then I think the other thing to bear in mind, I've already
talked about policy, but I think in road safety, we often talk back to things
like in the 1960s with Barbara Castle, who was the Minister of Transport at
the time, who introduced drink driving legislation that then had a massive knock
on impact in terms of public perception of drink driving, the likelihood of
being caught and the impact in terms of how many collisions we were seeing
with, related to alcohol and driving.
So a lot of my work is, I guess, and I used it quite often in talking
about systems thinking, so and it's strange in a way, because in a way
my academic qualifications around behavioural science and education, and
I, you know, that is vitally important.
We need to do that and do it properly and do it well, but I think what we learned as
part of the Road Collision Investigation Project, we were applying these systems
thinking models where essentially you look at a crash that's occurred and you
say, well, okay, what were the human factors, so what happened in the road?
What happened in the human?
But also what happened at a higher level?
So was there a business policy in place, did they do randomised drug testing,
do they have rules on how long you should be driving to and from work in
any given day, if it was a business context, understanding what the government
policy levers are, because actually when we make changes at the top, it
makes it much easier at the bottom and I always say it is so incredibly hard
to change individual behaviours, you know, sometimes there's certain things
like, you know, setting your phone to do not disturb whilst you're driving.
You do that once and it's done and that's great, but there's so few things like
that out there that we can do once.
It's a constant bringing back to your value systems.
Do I want to do this?
How do I do it?
How do I stop myself from doing the easy thing and doing the hard thing
that we need to, if there are some system level things that we can do.
One of the things we're promoting at the RAC Foundation at the moment and
doing work on is Graduated Driver Licensing, which is essentially young
novice drivers would have some sort of limitations in the first six to 12
months after passing their test, often as it's passenger or nighttime, but we
know that will be protective because they're so at risk and those are the
things that are causing the collisions.
So, yeah, if we can think a bit more broader, I think that's really important
and I'd say we're getting there, you know, we talk about safe system, so safer road
users, safer roads, safer speeds, post crash response, and all of those elements.
So those are starting to come together and people taking that recognition that
we're all human, we're all fallible, you know, we will make mistakes and
we need to design systems that takes account of the fact that we will make
mistakes and I suppose that's probably the biggest change I've seen over my time
is that there is much more recognition of that and I think the really, I guess,
exciting thing now is it's very much about how do we put that into practice?
Lots of people understand the concept, but what does that mean
in practice and how does that mean I'm going to design my roads?
How does that mean I'm going to engage with people about these issues?
So I think there's probably really exciting five to 10 years ahead, actually,
in terms of where we're going to get to.
Hattie Hlad: Yeah, that does sound amazing.
So just to follow on from that, you've mentioned a couple times that it will
be interesting to see how the new government will approach transport
and road safety and that top down policy would be the most impactful.
What would your advice to the new government be in terms of policy changes?
Elizabeth Box: Yeah, that's a really great question.
I think it's, everybody's sort of waiting, aren't they, at the moment to kind of
see what this new government is going to do, what it's going to be the key
priorities, we certainly hear from what's been announced that, you know, Louise
Hay, the new Secretary of State, is very interested in active travel, working with
devolved administrations, so working with mayoral units to kind of really understand
what the local transport issues are.
So it feels like quite a different shift in approach.
In terms of what we would be recommending, certainly on the road safety side,
listeners might have been aware that ahead of, or whilst the general
election was taking place, Parliamentary Advisory Council for Transport Safety
put together a kind of manifesto, which had four main asks within it.
We're a signatory of it.
I think a hundred other organisations are as well, which on its own is really good
that we've got the road safety community coming together to say yes, we think
these are the things that we really want a new government to get behind and do.
So the four things were actually develop a road safety strategy targets,
actually have some sort of direction of where we want to travel, we've
not had that for such a long time.
The last strategic framework came out in 2019 and there's been sort
of a bit of silence since then.
So I think that will be really helpful.
The other ask was around having a road safety investigation branch.
I've already spoken about the work that we've done at the RAC Foundation on that,
certainly the sector, we're very behind it as approach, recognise that until
we really understand the multiple root causes of collisions, and for that very
reason, that if we can identify, okay well, this looks like we need to change
a policy here, because no matter what we're trying to do in terms of changing
people's behavior, the same thing is happening again and again and again.
So we have to set the right structure in place to help and
support people to make the right decisions and choices, et cetera.
So that, I think, will be extremely important.
People might be aware that we've got the automated vehicles bill and what's
kind of gone through there and that there is sort of developing capability
about understanding once we've got IVs on the road, if there's something that
goes wrong, can we investigate that?
But crucially, we need both, we need current vehicles, we need new vehicles
and also there's going to be a period of time where there's a transition
where these vehicles are going to be potentially in collisions with each
other, and we need to understand that.
So that is really important.
Listeners might also be aware that you've got the EU adopted the general
safety regulations fully kind of coming through and we don't have those in the
UK at the moment and this is very much strengthening our regulation around
vehicle technology, what we want in vehicles and how that can support safety.
So that, again, is really important to kind of look at and this is
kind of working through kind of what the post Brexit world kind
of looks like with our regulation.
The third item was around introducing Graduated Driver Licensing, which
we've already spoken about in terms of how important that is, particularly
for a very high risk group to have some very minimal restrictions.
driving in those first few months, essentially when it's most at risk.
So very much supporting that gaining experience, ensuring
that's done in the right way.
Hattie Hlad: So obviously you currently direct the RAC's
Foundations Research Program.
Could you give our listeners an overview of the key areas
you're focusing on right now?
What are some of the major challenges you're tackling?
Elizabeth Box: Yeah.
So we're really fortunate at the RAC Foundation that we're a small team.
There's only seven of us there and we're a team of Researchers, Analysts,
Communication Specialists, essentially and what we really look to do is understand
what are the specific needs at this moment in time in terms of research evidence
analysis to help move policy forward.
We, we're really keen of being that translator of translating research
into policy and action, we don't just want research that sits on
the shelf or that's very good, but actually what's it mean in practice.
So we kind of have two different or maybe three different streams of work.
So our analysts do a lot of the number crunching, kind of looking at open
data or we'd be doing FOI requests and really trying to understand, for
instance, we've done that on how local authorities are spending parking revenues
on how much that is coming in as well.
So we kind of look across the whole field, but very much trying to give that data
led information to people that need it.
We also have a longer term program of research, so we tend to commission
work that's run over a year, sometimes it can run over a little bit longer.
A current project that we've got with UCL and London is essentially doing
a bit of a scanning exercise to look at other European countries, cities,
and understanding kind of what are the active ingredients in how they're doing
city planning, what that means for, active travel, what that means for car
usage and really trying to understand, is there things that we can learn here?
Importantly, we didn't want to look at the Londons, the Parises of this world.
We wanted to look at, okay, what's the equivalent of Manchester somewhere
else, because interestingly, with the new government coming in and saying
they're really interested, and city regions, I think that will be quite
a useful piece of work to see, well, what can we learn from others and
how can we apply some of that here?
So that's kind of a longer term piece.
Back in the kind of road safety world, we published a report
earlier on this year, looking at Road Safety Data and Data Linkage.
So between, at the moment we have kind of what happens in road safety and
then often we have what happens in health over here and it's really hard,
particularly for health researchers, to understand what was the mechanics
of that injury causation so they can understand what they're more likely to see
and also on the road safety side, we can understand, well, what
improvements do we need to make, to make sure that, particularly for
certain users, that those aren't going to be the injuries that they face.
So, we had a PhD student who, actually is a surgeon working in A& E, sort
of, unfortunately picking up the pieces on their day to day work.
But it was really interested about how can we actually make sure we
can prevent a bit more of this and use the data that we have.
So it'll be interesting to see, we're kind of talking with various
different partners, sort of, Government bodies and others to see how we
can better join this data together.
Obviously, data privacy is really important, but you can get these
trusted research environments where you kind of have a wall between who can
access the data, making it anonymous and making sure that we can learn
those lessons so that less people have to face those consequences.
So that's a recent report.
We've also commissioned a couple of reports in automated vehicles.
A lot of the research in automated vehicles is often done in private
enterprise and obviously often that doesn't get published.
So, what we really wanted to understand is the human machine interface part.
Things like, how easy is it for people to take back control?
So, one of the studies we did was in a simulator, on a weekly commute, people
getting used to being on the motorway and taking back control and having
emergency situations, and how long it took them to deal with it, because we
want to make sure that when vehicles are coming out that, and policies
are being made, that it's related to actually our human capabilities, not
what is not even possible, essentially.
So the recent report we did, that was the third one, the second was very much
about how can we train people to actually drive vehicles that are going to be
very different to what they are now.
That's coming over the horizon is something we need to be thinking about,
what that looks like in training.
But the third one was very much about when you have other people in the car.
Lots of these studies are done with one individual, but actually we know that
it's that social interaction that can be positive and negative, depending who
you are, what the circumstances are.
But if a passenger knows that they need to be quiet when you're coming up to
a busy junction because you need that attention, that's great, maybe again
with younger drivers, we know that passengers can be quite distracting
and potentially risk inducing as well.
So we wanted to understand what impact that had on automated driving and
had some really funny videos actually of different, you know, there were
friends or partners, but kind of helping part of the driving task and
what they were partly involved with.
But again, we need this information to make sure that when we do have
this technology, we help people manage it the best they possibly can.
So that's another key area and as I said, we're doing work on graduated driver
licensing in particular, looking at what a British version of GDL might look
like and you know, we're hoping in the next couple of months we'll have some
details to be able to share on that one.
Hattie Hlad: That all sounds amazing.
One thing I did want to speak to you about as well is collaboration.
Now, this seems to be a reoccurring theme in your work.
Why do you believe that connection and cooperation are so crucial in
the transport arena, especially when it comes to achieving goals like
safe, affordable and clean mobility?
Elizabeth Box: Yeah, it's interesting, isn't it?
When you kind of step back and take a look and think, well, what's the
connecting factor with all of this?
And yeah, it is collaboration.
I think that's partly because the role we have at the RAC Foundation, as I say,
we're small, there's not a lot we would be able to do individually on our own.
So we're always working with others and supporting others, seeing how we
can use our unique skill sets to help others and I think we are also convenors.
So we're very fortunate, we're based at Royal Automobile Club.
We're able to use those facilities to convene people and you know, when
you have people, I find that are in very big organisations often, they've
got really busy day jobs, they're often head down, they're getting
the next thing off the to do list.
What's really nice, I find, is bringing them to an environment where they have the
opportunity to speak to people that they wouldn't normally speak to, sometimes in
their own organisations that they don't even have the opportunity to have a chat
with and kind of think about, look across the horizon, see what's coming, see how
they need to address that and it's nice that we're able to fulfill that function
to get people thinking about those things that are coming down the road that we
are going to be able to address without having to deal with a busy to do list.
So I think that's really important and you know, collaboration, as I say,
nobody can do anything on their own.
Transport is one of those sectors where you need engineers, you
need psychologists, you need urban planners, you need educationalists,
and we need to come together in a multidisciplinary way to solve
these really difficult challenges.
It's not as straightforward, maybe as some other sectors where, okay, we just
get the engineers in and then we've done it, you know, built that and we're done.
We need to be thinking about it from all angles and I think again, thinking
about changes over time, there's definitely more recognition of the, I
would say, they're called soft skills.
I don't believe that's the case, they're very rigorous in terms of social science.
But, you know, if you look back to any transport department back in my local
authorities in the old days or department for transport, it'd be very engineering
focused and there's now a recognition that yes, engineering is vitally
important, we need a great asset base.
We need to keep that well maintained, look after it and design it well.
But until we understand how people are using it, you know,
we can't really get behind that.
So yeah, I think without collaboration, we don't get that innovation and
we don't get effective solutions.
Hattie Hlad: So that actually leads me on nicely to my next question
and this is around your areas of expertise and behavioural psychology.
How do you apply behavioural science principles into
the context of road safety?
Could you share an example of how these principles have informed the
design of effective intervention?
Elizabeth Box: Yeah, sure.
So it's interesting, really, because behavioural science doesn't have as
long a history as some other elements of psychology, so it's probably
been developing over the last couple of decades and I think it's really
important sometimes that we all recognise that it can take a while for best
practice approaches to feed through the system, and that we shouldn't
be too hard on ourselves when we're not doing the ideal thing right now.
I'm a big proponent of, let's gradually move ourselves towards where we should be,
take step by step, we can't immediately get there, that's fine and we need
to be realistic, I guess, about that.
In terms of some of the approaches around behavioural science, what's really
important is just breaking down what you're doing all the time and having
some sort of behavioural diagnosis, whichever way you do it, whatever model
you use really sort of, I guess the traditional approach has been people
going, okay, we've got a problem.
We know we've got a problem, let's brainstorm some solutions.
Some of them might be good, some of them not, but there's no real kind of framework
within which to do that and I think what behavioural science really helps with
is saying, great, let's break down this problem and work out, well, who is it?
When are they having those issues?
Is there particular times?
Is there particular individuals?
What would a positive change look like?
What would, what are we trying to aim for?
And one of the models, which I use frequently, because it kind
of draws on, I think, about 19 other behavioural models is COM-B.
So COM-B stands for Capability, so do people have the physical or mental
capability to perform a behaviour?
Opportunity, again, can they actually have that opportunity to
do something, or can we take that opportunity away if that's problematic?
And then Motivation, so this can be your kind of considered motivation or your
automatic motivation and as part of that diagnosis process, you can go through
and go, okay, well, seatbelt usage, for instance, or this particular type of
user group that we're addressing, they don't have physical issues with putting
on a seatbelt, but they might not have the full capability or understanding.
of what it would do in the event of a collision, for instance, that would
help from a physics, not from a, you know, blood and guts perspective, but in
terms of why these things are important, how they work with airbags, et cetera.
So you'd kind of go through each of those, work out what you need to address and
then there's a behaviour change wheel approach, which uses COM-B, which I'd
recommend people to look at, you can get hold of the manual online, I think it's
about £10 to get hold of and essentially, it takes you through the process of how
do you build an intervention using that.
It then says, well, okay, do you use education, persuasion, training?
What are those intervention functions that are going to deliver what you need?
And then once you've got that far, it will kind of push, well, not push, but
suggest certain behaviour change that you can use to achieve those ends.
So that might be the importance of problem solving, action planning.
It could be salience of consequences that can sometimes be helpful, but maybe we'll
talk a little bit about kind of framing of these things and how people perceive them.
But there's different methods you can use.
One of the key taxonomies in this area is about ninety three
different behavior change techniques.
Now, sometimes people go, OK, behavioural change techniques, let's dump them
all in there and the key thing is, more is not necessarily better.
You want to have specific ones that are going to achieve what your outcomes are
and then I'd say finally, once you've kind of done that behavioural diagnosis,
you're able to form what's called a logic model to say, OK, I can explain what I'm
doing here and why I think it's going to have the effect that I want it to have.
These are the inputs, these are the immediate outcomes, these are the
behavioural effects and these are the health effects and you kind of really sort
of chunk that down and then finally, why that's really important is when you come
to evaluate something, you can go, okay, well, let's look at this logic model.
Okay.
I said it was going to change attitudes.
I said that it was going to improve somebody's intentions to not speed
and then you've actually got something that you can measure before you've
done the intervention, after you've done the intervention, there's plenty
of survey questions you can use out there that give you that, you know,
validated question that you can use to really understand what effect it's had.
So that's just one model I've gone through there, but there's a lot
of different processes out there.
I've used theory of planned behaviour as well in my work to really design
intervention, understand its effects.
So, yeah, use the stuff that's out there because there's a lot
of helpful frameworks to use.
I guess the example I'd very quickly go through is DriveFit, which was
what I did as part of my PhD research and that was targeted at 16 to 18
year olds in schools and colleges.
It was a pre driver, young driver intervention, and traditional
interventions in that field are very much focused on, that's tell them how
risky driving is and you might've come across testimonial performances where
BRII family members, fire and rescue services, any of the emergency services
go in and talk about their experiences of collisions, which is extremely
emotionally impactful for anybody that's engaging with that, because, you know,
we all feel for people that have had those tragic circumstances and that
has been the norm for a long time.
Now, what we know from the evidence is young people will say
yes, that anybody will say yes, that was extremely impactful.
But what we find is that it doesn't end up changing their behaviour when
you actually start to measure it and there's some reasons why that's the
case and this is particularly true for young people, but there's a lot of
it that's true for all of us as well.
When you're faced with these consequences, it's much easier
psychologically to say that's not going to happen to me, that happens
to other people, third person effects.
If you ask anybody, how good a driver are you?
More than 50 percent will say they're above average, you know,
so we all have these inbuilt biases about our abilities and that's a
very natural, normal thing to do.
We all want to feel that we are good.
I'm not going to face those awful consequences and therefore we need
to take a different approach with the education that we deliver and that was
very much what I did as part of DriveFit.
It was supposed to be helping young people develop coping mechanisms and
strategies, so resilience education.
They are going to face these difficult situations, absolutely they are, and
it's about working through that in advance to say, okay, if you're out
with your friends and you know, your designated driver has been drinking,
what do you do in that instance, and actually kind of going through, because
that's a really tricky social dilemma.
There's a huge amount at stake for young people in terms of what they
could lose socially, and that we have to recognise that is going to
impact them so much more than thinking about the potential for collision,
because that's the immediate effect.
So the intervention I designed was based on theory of planned behaviour.
It was looking at improving attitudes, intentions of young
people towards safe driving.
It had a 40 minute film that they watched and then within two weeks
they had a interactive workshop where they critiqued the film.
They looked at what was relevant for them and then they came up
with their own action plans.
One particular approach that's really helpful is what's
called If Then Solutions.
So in this particular circumstance, so if I've been driving for two hours,
then I should take a 20 minute break.
That's something that's quite familiar to all of us in the sector in terms of
dealing with fatigue, but it really helps put that into the memory system, something
that you can hold on to because in the moments it's sometimes really hard for us
to all do the right things and actually having those plans in advance is really
helpful, has been proved successful.
So I ran a cluster randomized control trial with schools in Devon and Somerset
for that and essentially the trial found that the intervention had a small
impact on attitudes and intentions in a positive way and importantly,
it lasted for a longer period of time than the existing interventions.
So traditional fear and threat appeal, you might have an immediate
effect, but then if you go back eight to 10 weeks later, it's absolutely
disappeared and that's been shown not just by my research, but other
researchers doing similar work as well.
Whereas what was great about the, this positive framing is that people kind
of internalised it and you could see that in the results that lasted longer.
So yeah, hopefully that's a useful example.
Hattie Hlad: Absolutely, that sounds amazing.
That leads me on to another area of your expertise.
You also work as a behavioural science consultant for CoPilot
and offer consultancy services through ECM Research Solutions.
How do these roles complement your work at the RAC Foundation and what
unique perspectives do they bring?
Elizabeth Box: Yeah that's an interesting question.
I think really my work at the REC Foundation is about, research,
evidence, pulling together that really high level information and
working at a strategic policy level.
Whereas I'd say my consultancy work, what I really value is the opportunity
to kind of be a bit more hands on, working directly with deliverers,
looking at, you know, those specific real world problems and actually how
we can deliver those interventions in.
So I think that's probably the kind of key difference and I suppose it
complements each other because I like being grounded in kind of what's
happening in the real world, because if you just deal with national level
policy all the time, you don't really understand what are the limitations,
what are the challenges and so I really welcome the opportunity to talk with
people that are facing those day to day and particularly with the example I just
gave around DriveFit, there's so many, fire and rescue services in particular
now that are changing their approach.
And I know from the feedback that they've had that that's incredibly hard, that
when you've got a system in place, it's been running for years and a lot of
passion and determination behind it, trying to steer that ship in a different
direction is really, really difficult and I think it's important to recognise
and have an appreciation of that so that you don't go, Oh, well, we'll just
do this and make this massive change.
The people on the ground are the ones that are really doing
the hard work and actually heavy lifting and getting that done.
So I think that helps.
I mean, at CoPilot, we've done quite a lot of different intervention designs.
So from e scooter interventions about supporting safer riding to Advanced
Driver Assistance Systems Awareness for car dealerships, that point I
mentioned earlier about people not knowing at all what they're picking up.
So we're getting quite a breadth of topics and that's very much been led by our
members in terms of what they're facing with, what they need to be able to provide
that additional educational resources with as well and I think of my consultancy work
at ECM Research Solutions, I work with public and private clients and again, it's
just really a diversity of issues that they're facing and being really able to
understand kind of those key issues at the moment and how to help with those.
So yeah, I think it's nice that it's a, I really like the balance to be honest,
it's a dynamic and engaging environment to work in and I like combining that
research, the practical collaboration and practical implementation as well.
Hattie Hlad: Looking ahead, what do you see as the biggest opportunities
and challenges for the future of transport and road safety?
Are there any trends or technologies that are emerging that you're
particularly excited about?
Elizabeth Box: Yeah, that's really interesting and you know, immediately
when people say the future, everybody does automatically go to tech and
there are a lot of interesting things happening in that field.
So we're starting to get this sort of vehicle to everything communications.
So that's helping people understand what the traffic flow is around them,
how other vehicles are operating, communicating with infrastructure and I
think we're going to see such a massive expansion of that over the next 10
years that it will hopefully help us all make better decisions as drivers.
It will hopefully prevent collisions as well, because, you know, some of
the technologies that's coming on board, it's identifying things that
are beyond our human capabilities of identifying in that split second
of time, even if you're active alert driver at any given moment, so there's
a huge amount of opportunity there.
I think there's also, we need to recognize there's challenges, you know, there's
always a challenge with that transition period and what we really need is
really robust regulation to make sure that we are getting the technology and
that kind of goes back to what I was talking earlier about the general safety
regulations and making sure we're getting things that work and are on our right.
We need to adapt our infrastructure to take account of the technologies
that are coming on board.
I mean, it comes down to sometimes really basic things like signing and lining.
As I say, when I had that hire car recently, really understanding the
challenges of the technology at the moment in terms of identifying, say, a five mile
an hour limit in a car park, and then going out onto a rural road that doesn't
have any roundels and beeping at you saying it's five miles an hour and you're
like, this is a 60 mile an hour road.
People saying that happens in motorway service stations, you
come out onto the motorway and it's telling you it's five miles an hour.
So we need to get the technology right because we're going to
lose people because of that.
We understand why, but getting those speed limit maps from a local authority level.
They all know what the speed limits are in their area and joining that up,
I think is going to be kind of really important going forward because otherwise
we're going to lose the public argument and there's huge benefits, I think, from
the technology and we need to kind of capitalise on that and I guess as we're
talking about technology is, I guess it's really important that we still
focus on education and awareness as well.
They need to understand the new tech, they need to understand its
limitations, they need to understand what their responsibilities still are.
I mean, as we're moving towards automated vehicles, the kind of who's in charge,
who's responsible vehicle person is a whole new area for everybody to get their
heads around and you know, education awareness is going to be so, so important.
I think we've kind of gone through a time at the moment where sometimes
we kind of think that people need knowledge to improve their behaviours
and actually they already have the knowledge, they already know it's
actually other things we need to address.
But this particular area, the knowledge is not there at all.
So we need the baseline of knowledge before we can even move on to the kind
of behavioural side of things as well.
So that's important.
So yeah, I think we've got to balance those human elements with
the technology to, to kind of make sure we're getting it right.
Hattie Hlad: Yeah, I agree.
Finally, for those who are listening that are interested about making
a difference in transport and road safety, what advice would you give them?
Elizabeth Box: I mean, obviously as we've talked about, it's such a broad
and wide field, I guess it very much depends who you are, but I guess I'd
have three key things that I identify, which I guess have been themes
of what we've been talking about.
So kind of whatever you're working in, you need some research or data to kind of back
up why you're doing what you're doing.
I think increasingly we're going to see that funding mechanisms are
going to be linked to a much higher recognition of what data you need
to actually say what you're doing.
So, you know, build that foundation of evidence based knowledge and make sure
you're kind of using it in your work, collaborate as much as you possibly can.
It's the most I've engaged, well, it's the most I've got from my whole career
really is engaging with other people and being able to learn from their expertise
and you know, the whole is always more than the sum of its parts and we
need to kind of make the best of that.
So think across sectors, diverse insights, and particularly if people are
in their early careers as well, just go and sit with people and chat with them.
It's often a really nice shortcut way of getting some information.
I wish I'd done that more when I was younger.
I see more people doing it now and I think it's a great way of
shortcutting and getting there quicker.
Continuous learning, I obviously I've just finished my PhD.
I think I've probably done now with education learning after two
masters and a PhD, but I'm always going to be a lifelong learner and
you know, it's really important to kind of keep that learning going.
There's new trends and developments coming out all the time, particularly
in transport and it's important to be on top of that and yeah,
I just say to people, keep going with the passion and persistence.
I think that's also what I enjoy working about in this sector in particular is
you've got knowledgeable individuals who are passionate, who wants to do
the right thing, who are completely committed to reducing deaths and serious
injuries on the road and we need those people and we need more of them and
I want people to, you know, keep that passion and persistence because it does
matter and it does help in the long term and you know, every step forward
people take in that regard kind of gets them towards that larger goal.
So yeah, keep up the excellent work, I guess.
Hattie Hlad: Thank you.
Thank you so much for being with us today.
It's been an absolute pleasure talking to you.
Your insights into transport research, road safety and behavioural
psychology are truly invaluable.
So thank you for sharing your knowledge with us.
Elizabeth Box: Thank you very much, Hattie.
It's been a pleasure.
Hattie Hlad: Well listeners, what a huge amount of valuable information that was.
Plenty for us to digest and learn from the experience and
research of Dr Elizabeth Box.
From firstly how important it is for our government to get the policies right,
and how we all have a part to play in keeping our roads safer and remember one
thing, collaboration is key and finally, thank you to our listeners for tuning
into this episode, Mobility Matters.
Remember, stay safe and we'll see you next time.
Thanks for tuning into this episode of Driven by Excellence.
We hope you enjoyed listening and if you did, please don't forget to click
that follow button, leave us a review or share this episode with a colleague.
For more information and to keep up to date with industry news, head to
our website pdtfleettrainingsolutions.
co.
uk