Frances Hodgson

Profile

Research Projects and Experience

A sociologist by training Ms Hodgson has also completed an MSc in Transport Planning and Engineering. Frances provides research leadership to the Social Aspects of transport research theme at ITS, having acted as Co-Investigator and project manager for research funds in excess of £4M within the last 8 years. Her research has been conducted at both national and international level through UK research council and EU funding. Her most recent grants include funding from the Economic and Social Research Council, the EU, and the ATI. 

She was co-investigator on the EU funded EMPOWER project looking at the use of ICT and positive incenties in transport schemes. Co-investigator on the ESRC funded HABITS project using new and emerging forms of data in transport scheme evaluation and modelling and is currently co-investigator to the Alan Turing Institute funded KARMA project. She has been a joint grantholder and manager of the Connected Lives project, an ESRC funded project of the National Centre from Research Methods. She has also been a grantholder with John Urry of a seminar series funded by the ESRC to develop a social science understanding of transport impacts; the manager and co-author of a project funded by EPSRC adopting a multi-disciplinary approach to understanding pedestrian accessibilities. She is responsible for investigating cultural attitudes to walking and joint grant-holder of an Equal Opportunities Commission project designed to look at gender disadvantage in transport. Her past work has included a DETR project on social exclusion managed by Imperial College and Mott McDonald, three pedestrian safety projects funded by DfT and EU, input to the qualitative aspects of a project assessing the proposed move of Liverpool Football Club, an assessment of Kirklees Council's TDM project focussed on Council workers and providing the evaluation expertise of the EU funded TARGET project, an EU funded project aimed at developing TDM measures throughout the Yorkshire and Humberside region to encourage sustainable land use patterns. In addition she has worked on two EPSRC funded projects aimed at evaluating attitudes to TDM. Over the past 16 years, she has specialised in developing a social science understanding of the equity and other impacts associated with transport.

Responsibilities

• Programme Manager for Transport Planning MSc

Research interests

• Sustainable travel behaviour and innovation in transport scheme and policy - see EU funded EMPOWER project.
• Social impacts (including inequalities and gender impacts) of mobility technologies - see EU funded EMPOWER project.
• Using new and emerging forms of data and using ICT and mobile apps in transport schemes - see ESRC HABITS project and Alan Turing Institute funded KARMA project.
• Walking and cycling.
   

• New micro-location data analytics for improved cross-sectoral policies mitigating transport, environmental and inactivity related societal burdens (KARMA)

Qualifications

• MSc, Engineering, Transport Planning and Engineering, University of Leeds
• BA Hons, Sociology, University of Leeds

Student education

Current Teaching

• I contribute to teaching as Programme Leader for MSc Transport Planning.
• I also contribute expertise to teaching on transport planning and understanding travel behaviour. 
• I take an international perspective and contribute to an understanidng of the role of transport in development.
• I also contribiute and develop an appreciation of behaviour and show how that is significant for appling to transport policy and schemes.
• In addition I contribute to the development of specific skills in the social evaluation of transport.
• I also contirbut to dissertation supervision for a range of topics, recent examples include walking and urban planning in USA cities, car sharing and car pooling, food insecurity, planning for extreme weather events and disaster management.

Research groups and institutes

• Social and Political Sciences