You are asked to consider putting forward a proposal to your local Council which is based upon some form of infrastructure improvement which will benefit an aspect of public transport in your local area.

2024-11-12 12:39:17

Introduction

This coursework is designed to give you a practical perspective to your studies in public transport. Although there is only one option, it gives considerable scope for you to use your own initiative when undertaking this assignment.Ultimately however, you should produce a report of between 3000 and 3500 words (not including references or appendices) that fulfils the requirements of your choice. In your report, you may wish to consider the use of appendices, as in this assignment these will not be included in the word count, however note that essential material should be contained in the main body of the text. You will be marked primarily on the degree to which the content of your report fulfils the requirements of the coursework specification, these are given below. However, a proportion of the marks will be given for good presentation, report structure, appropriate referencing, spelling and grammar. The use of maps or photos and other illustrations, where relevant, will also be viewed favourably. Please note that the word limit will be strictly enforced. This has not been the case in past years, hence has effectively disadvantaged those that did adhere to the word count. As a result, a grade deduction will be applied for those over (up to 4500 words) and a two grade deduction for those over that.

Submission date and assistance

The final submission date is midnight (12pm) GMT on Sunday 24th November 2024.This should be submitted through the Moodle page. Please however retain an electronic copy for your own files and in the case on an emergency...

The Task: Improvements in Public Transport (incl. Rural Public Transport) 

You are asked to consider putting forward a proposal to your local Council which is based upon some form of infrastructure improvement which will benefit an aspect of public transport in your local area.

You have been charged with making the case to the Council, or the relevant Governmental agency in your country, for funding for your proposed new public transport improvement scheme (which may possibly be in collaboration with neighbouring Council(s)).

For this coursework you must produce a report that covers the following:

Outlines the policy context and how your proposed scheme ties in with policy objectives. These should be with respect to the relevant LTP/LTS and other policy documents, or where more relevant (i.e. outside the UK), more general local or regional economic, environmental and social goals, plans or policies.

A clear outline of the problem. You should clearly provide an overview of the problem that your scheme is designed to address. Whilst this does suggest a problem focused approach, these can also be considered in the context of constraining factors.

A detailed description of the scheme. You should provide fairly detailed descriptions of what your enhancements involve. A map and photographs may be of use, both of the area as it is at present, and of similar schemes elsewhere.

The cost of the scheme, both capital costs, and likely maintenance costs (per annum) should be detailed. Note however that this proposal is not to fund maintenance costs (of the infrastructure), only capital costs, although this may include some start up costs. Your scheme should also be of a ‘significant’ nature i.e. the cost should be greater than £800,000. NOTE 

you should use some kind of ‘objective’ measure to estimate these costs, however you will not be assessed on the accuracy or otherwise of your estimates.

This coursework is designed to give you a practical perspective to your studies in public transport. Although there is only one option, it gives considerable scope for you to use your own initiative when undertaking this assignment

Likely usage of the scheme. You will have to find out usage by considering similar schemes, which like the costs above, should be based on some form of ‘objective’ estimate, although again like above, these will only be considered as rough estimates. As regards this aspect of the coursework, you may want to consider, as supplementary or as an alternative, 

likely usage in the form of a profile of the likely types of users.

Outline and evaluate the extent to which your proposed scheme meets economic, environmental and social welfare sustainability goals described in the policy context.

The funding of the scheme. Your Council is more likely to view your proposal favourably where it is not being asked for 100% of the cost of the scheme. 

You should therefore identify potential additional sources of funding and the extent to which these other sources would fund the proposal.

 Such sources may include the private sector 

(which would be viewed particularly favourably) or other public bodies.

As stated above, you may want to consider some of these in an appendix, although this should only be done where it supports material in the main text.

Further sources of information may include www.eltis.org, www.tfl.gov.uk (‘More’, ‘Improvements and Projects’), www.wymetro.com (look under ‘Corporate’, ‘Current Projects’), and www.spt.co.uk, (‘what we are doing’, keep scrolling, it will appear…) some of which offer some interesting case studies.

CRITICAL REVIEW – in an appendix, you are asked to provide a critical review of your proposal, in which you should discuss the potential outcomes of your proposal. This should be between 300 and 500 words in length and does not count in the word count given above. This could incorporate a SWOT analysis (just google it) to base the narrative around, but note that it should largely contain narrative, i.e. not just be bullet points. It should also be ‘critical’, as in, OK, I have put this proposal together, but reflecting on it, how viable is it really? No marks will be deducted for honesty.

PLAGIARISM – Plagiarism, i.e. copying large segments of text from other sources, will be heavily penalised and will almost certainly result in failure as such practices apart from anything else (i.e. contravene university regulations!) show very little evidence of learning or understanding. If you require guidelines on referencing practices and on how to avoid plagiarism I am happy to provide this. You are also referred to the university’s ‘Be Wise, Don’t Plagiarise’ initiative (again, just google it, or you will also find it on Youtube), as well as this link Napier, referencing and academic integrity.

Jonathan Cowie, 30th September 2024

100% Plagiarism Free & Custom Written, Tailored to your instructions