Mobility Camp 2024

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Mobility Camp was back, and better than ever!

Now in its 7th year, Mobility Camp is now one of the premier events on the transport calendar. This year, we took the unconference to The Guildhall in York, where with 70 others we had a day of Positive Vibes and radical thinking.

Here is just a taste of what we got up to.

And what an amazing venue The Guildhall was!

This year our artist in residence was Beka. She was on hand all day to capture the day's proceedings, and produced this wonderful piece of art for us. 

A Reverse Panel is a conference panel - in reverse!

We set up the chairs in the main hall in a horse-shoe shape. Anna Rothnie and Kit Allwinter acted as facilitators. They kicked off the conversation by posing questions to the audience. Such as:

What are you feeling good about?

What are some quick wins for transport?

What gives you bad vibes that we need to bring some good vibes to? 

If someone wanted to respond, the cuddly bus or train was thrown to them. They had 2 minutes, before throwing it to another person. No one person speaks more than 3 times.

After 10 minutes, Anna and Kit summarised the discussion and pose a further question.

Each person was given a card, where they write their idea for a session. They are given 30 seconds to do this.

They then have 30 seconds to mingle with others, constantly passing cards as they go.

They then stop and spend 2 minutes speaking to the person next to them about the idea on the card that they have. At the end of those two minutes, they give the score on their card a mark out of 5 (1 being not interested, 5 being very interested).

They then spend 30 seconds mixing with others again, passing the cards as they go. This is done a total of 5 times.

After the 5th turn, the ideas are prioritised according to the highest total score on the card.

There were lots of reasons to be positive!

👍 The transport sector is doing good things, and is ahead of many sectors

🕑 There are lots of quick wins, using positive language

🚶‍♀️ More people are walking

⚡ Clean vehicle technology is advancing

We invited some willing collaborators who had challenges in delivering positive change.

Using the collective wisdom and enthusiasm of everyone at Mobility Camp, we set out providing some solutions to these challenges. And there were plenty of ideas!

Note that we do not have the notes for the How to measure Local Transport Plan success session.

Imagining a City where you don’t need to own a car (INFUZE Project)

In this session, the INFUZE project was introduced. The group split into two and each took part in 2 activities:

1. To reflect on the positives and negatives of having/not having a car from their own lives and to think about the language we use
2. To reflect on their journey to the event using design tools to identify the qualities of journeys that matter (good and bad)  

Co-designing an allyship initiative (Women in Transport)

We focused the session on actions that the attendees could take to improve diversity and wanted them to leave feeling ‘empowered’ to take action.

There were many topics covered in the discussion. This included:

• The use of co-design and role models as key enablers to being allows
• How employers can help people become allies to women through boosting their skills, better education and positive workplace policies
• Maybe transport planning could be rebranded. It’s not an inspiring title for a profession, and that may discourage diversity! 

All attendees were asked to think of a tangible action that they could take away.

Local Transport Plan Indicators (City of York Council)

No notes were taken in this session - sorry!

💬 Talking about not owning a car involves a very clumsy language – the car is seen as normal.

✍ Design tools draw out factors which discussion might not and allows some mindful reflection.

👫 You need to provide a safe environment to challenge existing norms in a positive way.

👍 Having a positive energy and diverse people is critical to developing allyship programmes

We wanted participants to come away from the day having learned a new skill. Or something they can apply in their jobs.

So we brought some willing collaborators on board to help. Participants had the chance to learn about putting their values into action, learn about the value of play, and about behavioural science.

Note that we do not have the notes for the Behaviour Change and Science session.

Putting your values into action (Loud Mobility)

Georgia Yexley took us through an exercise where participants sought to identify their values, and discussed how to put them into action.

This included doing an activity called “telephone” to explore clear communications, discussing strengths, and discussing values.

Play to convey (UK Unplugged)

In this session, participants got to learn the value of using play as part of their work in transport

After playing UK Unplugged's educational games on geography, chemistry, avionics and architecture, participants communicated what they learned from the game content as well as the intangible benefits, such as changed attitude toward the subject, cooperation, motivation.

They then collaborated to design their games around transport issues and explained them to the group.

Behaviour Change and Transport (AtkinsRealis)

No notes were taken in this session - sorry!

🚀 People like to understand how their values connect to a wider mission.

✅ Creating action plans is really valuable to explore how to apply your values.

▶ Play is a great way to break down barriers to engagement.

⚽ Creating a game helped participants pause to consider how we communicate and learn

The Sharing Stream was an opportunity for participants to share their own experiences in bringing about positive change.

This was the opportunity for participants to be open and come to solutions through discussion and sharing experiences. 

Note that we only have the notes for the engaging with children session in this stream.

Engaging with Children

In this session Anna and Ejiro facilitated a technique called Thinking Rounds.

We started off by introducing the topic of “Engaging with Children.” Anna and Ejiro demonstrated actively listening to each other, whilst the other spoke about what the topic means to themselves for 2 minutes.

Then it was over to the participants to pair up and spend 3 minutes actively listen to each other (this means no interrupting, listening intently, offering appreciation to the other person you have been listening to).

After the Thinking Rounds everyone was brought back together to offer their “freshest thinking” on the topic.

🗣 Engage actively and playfully! We heard of role playing as traffic wardens, fake speed cameras and many other ideas.

👂 Pay attention to children’s interests and find simple, tangible ways to engage.

💭 Encourage big thinking, go out, notice issues and reimagine things!

In the final session of the day, we gave people the chance to give their feedback on what they learned from the day, and importantly what they were going to do to change the world!

Here is some of what they said.

  "Use plain and simple language to help get others on side!"

"Less talking, more doing!"

"There is a lot that we can do already. We just have to be inspired enough to go out and do it!"

"Transport Planning is not doing enough to tackle the climate emergency. But it is doing more than others, and that’s something!"

"What an inspiring group of people! We should remain in contact."

"I learned loads about myself today. I can use my own strengths to do things better."