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 School of Geography and the Environment

University of Oxford

 The Transport Studies Unit

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Part of the School of Geography and the Environment
Dr Karen Lucas

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Dr Karen Lucas

Academic Profile

Karen Lucas joined the Transport Studies Unit in October 2008. She has a BSc Social Sciences (1st Class Honours) from South Bank University (1994) and a PhD in environmental policy from the University of Greenwich (1998). From 1997-2008, she was research coordinator for the Centre for Sustainable Development and a principal research fellow in the Transport Studies Group at the University of Westminster.

Over the past ten years, Karen has established an international reputation for her pioneering research looking at the role of transport in social exclusion and has presented and published extensively on this topic. In 2002, she was seconded to the UK Government's Social Exclusion Unit (SEU) to act as policy advisor on their study of transport and social exclusion. Subsequently, she worked with the Department of Transport piloting and testing approaches to develop guidance for the implementation of accessibility planning as an integral part of local transport planning in England, which was the key recommendation of the SEU report.

Karen is Associate Editor (UK and Ireland) for the Journal of Transport Geography and a member of its editorial board. She is also an overseas representative for the US Transportation Research Board's Environmental Justice Committee, a founder member of Defra's Sustainable Development Research Network Advisory Group and an elected committee member of the Transport Geography Researchers Group (TGRG) of the Royal Geographical Society.

Current Research

Karen's key research interests are in four main areas:

  1. Transport poverty and social disadvantage - This has been an ongoing programme of case study research with different low income and socially disadvantaged groups in a variety of settings in the UK and more recently in Australia, Brazil and South Africa.
  2. The role of the car in society - A particular research interest is the impact of the transition to a low carbon transport system on low income households and the implications of this for local service delivery, land use and transport planning.
  3. Social sustainability in transport - This covers a range of theoretical and methodological issues, such as how to capture the full social benefits of new transport projects and the development of appropriate evaluation metrics and methodologies for evaluating the equity outcomes of transport policy decisions.
  4. Public participation and knowledge brokerage - The focus here is on how to secure the active public participation particularly of 'hard to reach' groups in policy decision-making at all levels of governance, as well as how to facilitate knowledge brokerage between 'expert' and 'non-expert' communities.
Current and Recent Projects

Publications

Journal Articles
Published Reports
Books and Book Chapters
Conference Papers since 2004
  • Lucas, K. (2010) Transport and Social Exclusion: Where are we now? 12th World Conference of Transport Research (WCTR), 11-15th July, 2010, Lisbon, Portugal.
  • Lucas, K. (2010) The role of transport in the social exclusion of low income populations in South Africa: A Scoping study. 12th World Conference of Transport Research (WCTR), 11-15th July, 2010, Lisbon, Portugal.
  • Lucas, K. (2010) Is it still social exclusion when the majority of the population are affected? A scoping study of transportation and accessibility in the Tshwane Region of South Africa. Transportation Research Board Annual Meeting, Washington DC, 10-14th January, 2010.
  • Marsden, G., Anable, J., Cherrett, T.J., Ison, S.G, Lucas, K. and Lyons, G. (2010) Probing the Future Options for UK Transport Policy. UTSG 2010 (accepted for presentation 01.10.09).
  • Lucas, K. (2009) Scoping study of actual and perceived car dependence and the likely implications for livelihoods, lifestyles and well-being of enforced reductions in car use forthcoming Transportation Research Board Annual Meeting, 11th-15th January, 2009, Washington D.C., USA.
  • Lucas, K. (2008) 40 year of University Transport Studies Group: social perspectives. Plenary paper 40th UTSG Annual Conference, Marriot Hotel, Portsmouth. 3-5th January 2008.
  • Lucas, K. (2007) Evaluation of the contribution of new transport interventions in deprived areas in the UK. Workshop paper Thredbo 10th International Conference on Competition and Ownership in Land Passenger Transport, Hamilton Island, Queensland, Australia, 12th-17th August, 2007.
  • Lucas, K., Marsden, G., Kimble, M. and Brooks, M. (2007) An assessment and critique of capabilities for examining the long-term social sustainability of transport and land-use strategies Transportation Research Board Annual Meeting, 21st-25th January, 2007, Washington D.C., USA.
  • Marsden, G.R., Kelly, C.E., Kimble, M.G., Nellthorp, J., and Lucas, K. (2007) Progress in assessing the sustainability of transport strategies. 11th World Conference on Transport Research, San Francisco, 24-28 June 2007.
  • Lucas, K. and Tyler S. (2006) Evaluating the contribution of transport projects to welfare to work: an international study. Transportation Research Board Annual Meeting, 22nd-26th January, 2006, Washington D.C., USA.
  • Lucas, K. (2005) Providing transport for social inclusion within a framework for environmental justice in the UK. Keynote paper Australasian Transport Forum, 28th-30th September, 2005, Sydney, Australia.
  • Lucas, K. (2005) Accessibility planning: learning lessons from the UK. Keynote Speech, Community Transport Conference, 5th October 2005, Paramatta, Western Sydney, Australia.
  • Lucas, K. (2005) Accessibility planning: the UK example. Presentation to New Zealand Ministry of Transport, 17th October, 2005, Wellington, NZ.
  • Lucas, K. (2005) Accessibility planning: the UK example. Presentation to Institute of Planners and Engineers New Zealand (IPENZ), 18th October, 2005, Wellington, NZ.
  • Lucas, K. (2005) Accessibility planning: the UK example. Presentation to Auckland Regional Transport Authority, 26th October, 2005, Auckland, NZ.
  • Lucas, K. (2005) Drawing lessons for transportation and social exclusion in the UK from the US experience of addressing transportation and environmental justice. Transportation Research Board Annual Meeting, 16-20th January, 2005, Washington D.C., USA.
  • Lucas, K. and Halden, D. (2004) Delivering the connections: transport, social exclusion and accessibility planning. Proceedings of the Annual European Transport Conference, October 2004, Strasbourg, France.
  • Lucas, K. and Machin, J. (2004) Integrating crime and fear of crime with transport and accessibility improvements in deprived areas in the UK. Proceedings of the Annual European Transport Conference, October 2004, Strasbourg, France.
  • Lucas, K. and Tyler, S. (2004) Improving job access in the US, France and the UK: examining the role of transport initiatives. Proceedings of the Annual European Transport Conference, October 2004, Strasbourg, France.
  • Lucas, K. (2004) Transport, sustainable development and social exclusion: an overview of current research understandings EPSRC Workshop Series, Society and Science Workshop Series, Workshop 4 - Transport, University of Westminster, London.