Many students know transportation is a concern when attending post-secondary school. Whether it's parking, gas, bus schedules, or accessibility needs, transportation is essential in every student's day-to-day routine on campus.
Yet over 16,000 cars enter and exit College Hill in Fredericton daily, and over 4,000 vehicles enter and exit the UNB Saint John campus daily. While both campuses are served by transit, the vast majority of people come to and from UNB by car. Making it easier for people to reduce their reliance on cars is not easy when living in a car-dependent province; however, this is something that Dr. Trevor Hanson, a civil engineering professor and coordinator of the new Community Transportation Research Lab (CTRL), hopes to change.
With this perspective in mind, the CTRL is partnering with UNB Sustainability and the UNB Urban and Community Studies Institute to host UNB Mobility Day on both campuses. The event, hosted Oct. 15 at UNB Fredericton and Oct. 18 at UNB Saint John, will cover transportation-focused presentations, information booths, panels and micromobility examples, all geared toward improving the conditions of student transportation access.
"There are many challenges we're facing in transportation," says Dr. Hanson. "I want this event to be about elevating the discussion of student transportation challenges and celebrating the way we move."
Hanson's colleague from a partner university in Germany, Hochschule für Technik (HFT) Stuttgart, a university of Applied Sciences, inspired Mobility Day. The university had its own Mobility Day in 2019, which Hanson was invited to.
UNB's Mobility Day coincides with the launch of Hanson's new Community Transportation Research Lab. Some of Hanson's students are presenting and doing work on transportation accessibility.
A Master of Science in Engineering student of Hanson's, Madeline Whitehouse, is part of the transportation research group and will be presenting on Mobility Day along with other students doing research in this area.
"I'm doing a travel diary for persons with a mobility disability to understand what their travel patterns are within different cities in New Brunswick," says Whitehouse.
"We want to see what's missing from transportation for them; whether they're able to make the trips they want to make, and what kind of difficulties they're having accessing transportation. There are a lot of rural areas in New Brunswick and a lot of people who are still struggling to find transportation, specifically to reach health services or even just to go see family and friends. It's an important thing to understand so we can hopefully improve the transportation system."
Hanson defines the goals of Mobility Day in three main themes: first, he wants to get people excited about micromobility with devices for students to try, such as E-bikes. Second, he hopes to build a stronger network amongst the university and other campuses. Third, the event will give space to students concerned about transportation.
"We have booths, folks coming from the community such as the New Brunswick Lung Association, the Fredericton Active Transportation Coalition, Saferide, NBCC researchers, UNB Security and the UNB Sustainability office. There will be lots of good discussion about transport," says Hanson. "I think we can achieve more by addressing this problem collectively."
Whitehouse is excited to connect with other researchers on transportation and to speak to other students about their experiences.
"It's going to be great to have these conversations and be able to highlight the other transportation research that is taking place at UNB," says Whitehouse.
"Our group specifically, we feel pretty isolated sometimes being the engineering department. This event will connect us to many other people doing incredible work and trying to understand how we can improve transportation in New Brunswick and Canada. It will be a great opportunity to have the necessary conversations that we need to have to improve our system as a whole."
