Barnaby Williams: Transport infrastructure in Southampton - is mobility accessible?

Barnaby Williams (BA Geography) joins us to discuss his research project "To what extent does the transport infrastructure in Southampton, UK, promote accessible mobility?".A huge part of living in society today is movement – flows of people across space are everywhere. Transport infrastructures are vital in supporting mobility. This project, focusing on the UK city of Southampton, uses a triangulated research design to scrutinise the impacts of transport infrastructure on accessibility. The results from the online questionnaire survey, semi-structured interviews and auto-ethnography show that the perceptions and experiences of the research participants paint an incredibly mixed picture of mobility in Southampton. Factors including other members of society, the quality of transport infrastructure itself and accessibility-motivated measures in the public sphere were all shown to have an influence on mobility, however not always in a positive way. There is a definite need for further research – this study has uncovered a wide range of areas that influence accessible mobility, but with the ever-increasing urban population, such results as this may change as time passes.This research relates to SDG 11 (Sustainable Cities and Communities) and SDG 9 (Industry, Innovation and Infrastructure), also touching on SDG 10 (Reduced Inequalities), demonstrating in part the complexity of mobility as a process, and its multi-disciplinary nature.Episode Guest: Barnaby Williams, BA GeographyEpisode Host: Prof Simon KempProducer and Editor: Mya HarveyThe Meliora Podcast Student Research Symposium is part of the 2026 Student Takeover Season where we celebrate the fantastic sustainability research work of our Undergraduate Students.