Well, good morning everyone. I apologize for being late But duty calls over at the mayor's office, but I'll go ahead and jump right in so as many of you know when when I was appointed to chief I identified pretty quickly a top priority of Preventing crime lowering our crime rate and working in collaboration with the community It's also no secret that one of our greatest crime challenges is auto theft and we also know that many auto thefts lead to other crimes often violent crimes. And so It's really been A challenge for us and in here today, we're going to announce The beginning of a new program in partnership with the community that gives us a greater ability to prevent cars from being stolen Allow them to be recovered much more quickly and great give us a greater opportunity To catch those individuals that have stolen those vehicle those vehicles and hold them accountable So with that I'll introduce a lieutenant Ryan Harris who cannot talk about the specifics of this particular program Thanks, chief So a little bit about me again Ryan Harris I work as a lieutenant in the Southeast district district 3. I was assigned there in 2022 Later last year and I spent most of my career in and bison narcotics and other investigations when I came out to district 3 My dad actually contacted me who used to live in district 3 and in 1981 my parents moved to Denver and My dad tells me about his car getting stolen in 1981 and what am I doing about auto theft? So obviously auto theft was an issue in the 80s. It was an issue in the 90s in the 2000s but we're seeing a level of auto theft that's much higher than we've ever seen before So with chief Thomas and commander Aragon The ask is for us to come up with innovative strategies So we looked at the the data What was it telling us and we looked for strategies that we could impact the Auto thefts that we're seeing in our community So one of the the ideas we came across was from Cook County, Illinois And we found that they had developed a vehicle tracker partnership and that vehicle tracker partnership was to combat Carjackings for their city to their city which includes Chicago is about the size of 5 million people and they were having upwards to 2700 carjackings a year now. We're not experiencing The same level of carjackings, but what we are experiencing is out of those so we repurposed that idea and we're here today to Release information about it. So in reviewing that the information from Cook County What we found is vehicles that are newer than 2015 the vast majority of them already have some level of tracking Built into them. So this could be an infotainment system. This could be a telematic system GPS and other devices What we also know is that people across our city regardless of what type of car they have are taking In a beyond themselves to place some kind of tracking device in the vehicle and that could be a Bluetooth device It could be an aftermarket GPS What we have not done as a community is share that information with our offenders Share that we are tracking our vehicles and share that we are in a partnership with the Denver police department That if my vehicle is stolen that I'm going to work with the Denver police department to recover that as quickly as possible So this program works in two ways one or three ways this deters Autotheps we're going to place this sticker on People's vehicles, and I'll explain that process in a second, but the information that we obtained from Cook County Gave us information that the desire to steal a car when we advertise this sticker Reduces by up to 50% So this isn't going to be perfect But this is something that the community members can do to make their car less likely a car that's going to be stolen So in addition to deterring crime We're going to make arrests on a more frequent basis with this partnership with the community and giving us information About where you're stolen car is we can arrest our suspects and provide meaningful law enforcement intervention to those offenders And then third will reduce that when we look at all the crime that we're looking at last year we had Of all of our auto theft arrests 70% of those people arrested were arrested for a secondary crime so Everything starts with the vehicle crime a lot of our burglaries our other property crimes and violent crime starts with the use of a Stolen vehicle so if we can decrease the amount of time that we have a stolen vehicle out there Our hope is and we're confident that we'll be able to decrease other crime categories as well So how does this work? so We created Denver track. So Denver track is a website It's on Denver gov.org slash Denver track Anybody that lives in the city in County Denver or works in the city in County Denver is eligible to register When you go to this website you go to the registration form and this registration form will ask for some Some pertinent information This will include the year to make the model your VIN number your license plate and the state of issuance Next page is going to be the owner information and the owner information is is the owner information for the vehicle And that needs to be the person that's filling out this form By filling out this form what you were doing is you're attesting that you are the registered owner of this vehicle that you will That you do have some level of tracking available in your vehicle and that if your vehicle is stolen at a later date You will provide consent to the Denver police department. So as far as the consent goes We're asking for that people to attest that they will provide consent at some time But I wanted we want to get that consent on The front end of that steel and that's for a couple reasons one to ensure that that Consent is not stale to ensure that we have the registered owner and so that We get that as soon as that car is stolen So once you fill out this information You'll be provided a couple options about what sticker you would like to have so these stickers We have two different kinds right here. So if you Get on here, you will be provided with these two stickers right here One of the stickers right here will be placed on the lower right hand corner of the driver's door Right where an offender would gain entry into your vehicle The second sticker is this one and this one will be placed on the windshield of the car facing towards the driver and this is another way to advertise that The vehicle is being tracked and to notify that offender that this vehicle This you will you won't have this vehicle for long and law enforcement will be coming for you We have another option as well that Does not have the DPD badge for residents that do not want to have a DPD badge on there They don't feel comfortable with that. There is an option for there, too So how do we get this program to be effective? First is getting community members to sign up We've met with community members in southeast Denver and we presented this program And we've had overwhelmingly positive feedback on this So we need to get this information out to the public and we're going to do that through not only talking to the media But getting information out on social media and other digital platforms But it's not just important that we push this information out to our community members But we also need to advertise this to our offenders So if you look at this poster right here, we've partnered with the Denver Sheriff Department And the Denver Sheriff Department is going to have these placed in the intake and in all the pods in our jails This is that they'll be receiving information about what this program is about So if they come across a vehicle if we have an offender that's going to reoffend They will know that this vehicle will be recovered in a short period of time So we understand that some people Might have problems filling out this filling out this form online So we've opened up an auto theft prevention week for next week. So Monday through Friday Community members can go to any one of our six district stations between the hours of four and seven p.m And there we'll have some police volunteers and officers available to assist any community members with signing up for this program Additionally, we'll be providing catalytic converter etching kits to any community member that might need that I want to do a quick. Thank you to a lot of partners with this We started developing this program in November of 2022 and that took a lot of help That started with the Colorado Auto theft prevention authority who's been a big help in this RTD we've recently reached out to RTD and we know that a lot of their ridership has been victims of these crimes And we're working collaboratively with them not only with RTD and their marketing team, but their transit police On this issue and then lastly the Denver Sheriff Department has been a great partner with this and I believe will continue to do so Any questions Will the Denver Police Department be able to trap people Who don't opt into opt into this but don't actually report their car stolen? Great question. No, so if your car is not reported stolen We will not we cannot track and it's important to state when we talk about the the level of tracking that people have So if you have a Bluetooth device Like an air tag or a tile you can register for this program The person that holds that information about where that location is is the vehicle owner So what we're saying when we ask for consent is we're asking for your consent for you to give us that information We don't hold that information. Let's talk about other ones. Sorry So on start on start blue link my Ford You connect there's a numerous amounts of telematic systems that are inside vehicles that are 2015 and newer So with those ones that company owns that information The the consumer might have the access to see that but we don't have access to that and again The consent is if your car is reported stolen that we will use that consent to work as your Advocate to locate your vehicle You mentioned was that you know while this is a great innovative thing having that sticker is a huge deterrence piece For someone who doesn't want to opt in are you guys going to be making these stickers available for people to pick up? To slap on their vehicle. So that's something we're looking at in the future, but currently With us adopting data-driven Approaches to crime prevention and evidence-based. We need to prove some effectiveness of this program. So before we do that We're going to demonstrate some effectiveness Do you think that a program like this could have prevented Situations like we saw in early February where a vehicle owner decided to take the matter of a stolen car in his own hands and Resulted in the death of Elias Armstrong So as far as that is that incident This program is Demonstrates that we can't put the toothpaste back in the tube people are already tracking their vehicles What this program does is provides us a safe alternative to finding your own car And if people take one thing out of this this press conference, what we need to get across is do not go find your own stolen car work with the police department and We will help you safely recover your vehicle So is there any private privacy concerns or considerations other than you know provide information like say for instance You have a car that's not stolen, but actually, you know, let's say to have a Registration to have the person owner has a warrant out for the rest with that information from this program be used for that as well No, so again the consent that we would obtain all of this is a testing that you will consent at a later date We're not using this consent We we can't use this consent to go to on-star my forwarder or if you have a Bluetooth device I can't do anything with that information So we would only track the vehicle if your car is reported stolen We obtain a consent at that time and then and then we would work with a third party to gain Location information most of the time that's going to be the community member that community member if they're paying for on-star They're paying for blue link to pay for a lot of these products or if they have that Bluetooth device like tile or air tag They're going to be the owner of that information. We're just asking for that information to be shared with us again This is a voluntary program I Don't but what I will say is I think that that percentage might be not necessarily helpful to us understanding How many people are tracking their vehicles because what we found is people that live People that live across the city are using tracking devices regardless of the vehicle On-starring so forth I'm glad you brought up that question so that's not necessarily the case so what we found in reaching out to these telematics Companies is that a lot of them will allow you to activate it after the car is stolen if that is the case then that might create a fee or a cost that would Be responsible to the the citizen that has their vehicle stolen To pay for to reactivate it But that's not that's not always going to be the case in some cases We might have where a telematics system or an infotainment system provider that will not provide us the information if the If they're not paying for that pay-to-play option Yes, sir And the other thing that I'll add to add to answer your question is We track the top 10 stolen vehicles most likely to be stolen and all of those vehicles are within that 2015 range And it was mentioned that in Cook County There was data that suggested that desire to steal a car when there was the use of a program like this went down Do you know what kind of data was collected to reach that conclusion? So the data that was obtained for that was based on jailhouse interviews So they did what's called TTP interviews inside the jail with offenders to learn more about The MO and people committed crime when this press when this program when their program Was presented that was where we got 50% reduction in desire that came back with that data But I will say that they rolled out this program publicly in October of 2022 They did this data about 30 days in before there was a big push out to not only the offenders But to the public so I believe and I'm confident that that number will only increase This is a question for the chief This all might be just be a coincidence, but earlier this year Governor Polis essentially asked lawmakers to create tougher laws around Car theft Is this a product of that sort of mentality coming from the top? No, you know as he mentioned this is something that we have been discussing and trying to identify solutions since late last year I know there's a statement made about wanting to make more car theft arrest obviously a product like this will help you guys out but Wanting to you know have the legal authority to make those arrests and How sentencing works when the person is you know arrested for a car theft is that all at all encouraging from the governor's push Certainly certainly because one of the things that we understand is helpful in crime prevention is surety consequence So the likelihood that someone is going to be arrested and then later held accountable and face consequences I think that that's going to help us significantly with reduction. I Saw that the first round of stickers was purchased by the Colorado Prevention Authority has there been any thought to potential long-term funding needs for the program Yeah, so what we've what we found is we've had a lot of different partners come forward and other jurisdictions So as we started putting this forward this program forward We had neighboring jurisdictions that found out about it and have started reaching out So working with the Colorado out of that prevention authority has been has been huge But potential other financial means to obtain more stickers or develop this program into a Metro wide program is a possibility So yeah, all options are on the table Correct so Yeah, if you have an air tag and if you look at the cost associated with these it really makes it equitable to the entire community Regardless if you have a vehicle that's you know worth a hundred thousand dollars or you have that six Disc CD changer in your vehicle You can open this up to to really any any community member by the purchase of one of those devices And we're not just talking Bluetooth devices. They're aftermarket GPS devices that are relatively inexpensive with inexpensive Service plans, but by far the cheapest option to do this is a Bluetooth tracker similar to the Apple air tag or the tile and other Bluetooth devices The only advice that I'll give on where to place it is put it in a place where an offender won't easily find it I don't want to give out an exact location so that we're advertising to the offenders Where we're going to be placing those but put it in a place where where the offender won't find it The Yeah Is this strictly for cars or would other vehicles like motorcycles be included so motorcycles can be included in this anything That's considered a motor vehicle But if you look at other other items across the board This isn't designed for those items, but people are already tracking those tracking those things if you look at construction sites a lot of construction equipment now has a Bluetooth device Attachment where you can put that on construction equipment and other items that are commonly stolen If you do not Ahead of time, but you have an airtight in your car and your car gets stolen You can't come to the place afterwards and say I have an airtight. Do you guys go find this thing? We will still go find that vehicle. So if we have information regardless if you sign up for the program We will we will follow up on that now as far as how we follow up on it in both situations It's going to be dependent on the variables that are there if we have the vehicle That's let's say and in the state of Wyoming We're going to be limited on what the Denver Police Department can do We can work as a referral agent at that time to work with the local agency to recover that vehicle So I want to make sure I understand how this will work You fill out this form and then your car gets stolen and I call you to say what's stolen And I've already opted at that point then you go Get the data to figure out where it is. Yeah, let's walk through that So you sign up for the program when you sign up for the program and fill out the registration form And we send you the two stickers. The stickers are important because we're advertising to Our offenders that your vehicle is being tracked Which will act as a deterrent of your vehicle getting stolen So we're trying to stop your vehicle from getting stolen initially If your vehicle is stolen then you contact the police department first thing You report it an officer will come out and obtain the information The officer will have information that you're part of the program through some Data that we put that we put into our rms and they'll ask you about it Once they ask you if you have real-time information because you pay for a provider Or if you have one of those providers that that has real-time information Give it to the officer the officer will then utilize that information to To take a good faith effort Let's say we come into a circumstance where that information is not readily available If that information is not readily available and you have a telematic system and gps system that you don't have the information We'll ask you to fill out a consent form completely voluntary And then we'll forward that to our detectives to work as your advocate to obtain the location information about your stolen property You mentioned other forms of transportation. You can already register bicycle and non motorized vehicle with dbd Do you have any plans to incorporate gps if i want to throw an air tracker in my bike To incorporate that in the bicycle stuff not currently so currently we're we're limiting it to motor vehicles I saw data in here about report of eagle soul last year. Is there any updated data for so far this year? I know it's just a couple months in but Uh, I do not have I don't have that information readily available In a way could you compare this maybe to like the doorbell video Subscriptions a lot of people are doing in different cities where you can say hey, I have a doorbell You can't watch it right now, but in the case you need it, you know where to find it Is it similar to that concept? I mean it's similar in the concept that we're we're utilizing existing technology To to deter crime. So yeah, I mean in that sense it is it is some It's also similar in the fact that we have to get that permission before we're able to do it Could you just clarify what a catalytic converter etching kit is? So catalytic converter etching kit is a a way for Community members to mark their catalytic converter and register it with a unique number So that does a couple things for us one when you get it There's a sticker that you place over your catalytic converter and then there's a A low acid level paint that you paint on there That's clear and then that will inscribe a unique number onto that catalytic converter Then you go online to a third party vendor And register to hey, this is my this is my catalytic converter So what that does is two things one it deters criminals from stealing that catalytic converter Because they know it's registered and then two if it unfortunately it is stolen and law enforcement comes across that catalytic converter They can work with that that that company to see who is that catalytic converter registered to How much is this cost and all like for an owner, you know, I don't know if you set the price or anything like that As far as the the services and stuff. Yes. So it really depends on the provider. So if you look at A bluetooth device, you're talking less than 30 dollars with no service fee If you're talking about an aftermarket gps device, you could be talking between 30 and 50 dollars with a service fee In probably about the 20 dollar range Is that annual monthly what it's completely dependent on the provider But there's no fee here. There's no fee here to register for this program. This is an absolutely free program That the Denver police department is is asking you to register So if you have a car that's already equipped with a tracking Sort of mechanism built in within the car or if you are one who has an air tag and you're able to come to police Even if you're not opted into this you said that you guys would still be able to use those devices to track the car So it's really the incentive or the benefit of opting in really to just expedite the amount of time You guys have expedite the process to locating the vehicle Yes, so I mean you you talk about expediting that and shortening that time that that vehicle is stolen So I think I mentioned earlier, but of last year when we looked at all the vehicles that were stolen There were 70 percent of those of the arrest 70 percent of those arrests involved the secondary crime So that could have been a property crime a crime of violence Um, a lot of different crimes. So if we can decrease that window that that vehicle is stolen Ideally we decrease other related crimes If I fill out the form and I registered then my car gets stolen and for whatever reason I don't want you all to use the tracking device after all. Am I able to say no at that time? Yeah, so if you do not want us to use the tracking information at the time of time of the theft Don't fill out the consent because that's the only time that we're going to utilize it and that can sense Really only going to be used if you have a third party third party vendor So Yes, you can and then let's say you're part of the program and you no longer want to be part of the program If that's the case you can send us an email which is provided on the the website and say I would like to opt out of the program and we will remove you from the program Do you guys currently or do you plan to have any kind of program for people who can't No, 30 bucks might not sound like a lot but some people it's a lot to help provide people Who can't afford an air tag or after market advice with it. It's something that we've talked about but we're not at a place Where we're doing that currently Have you talked to dealerships about this because I mean there's their new car owners that might not get their title in You know for a certain amount of time and their tag and everything like that registered and they may be vulnerable there Have you talked to them about this program? You know part of the auto theft prevention throughout the city has involved us partnering with not only the dealerships But with the manufacturers themselves. So yeah, those conversations have been at In addition to that kind of outreach and I know you mentioned you've had some meetings in district three What other groups have you reached out to to start publicizing this? Well today's the big the big first push, right? So I appreciate you all being here The we presented this at our community advisory Meeting that we hold once a month a couple different times now And the main reason for that was to get public feedback We've also presented this in our Lowry neighborhood At a community meeting to see what the input was and i'll tell you I I cannot say thank you to those community members enough Because a lot of times they mentioned things and provided feedback that was in our blind spot So I think that feedback loop between the community And the police department is extremely important on getting the program like this off the ground I just clarify on the The thing next week from four to seven I'm in here Friday. That's at the district stations, but not here Correct. It's at all six district stations not at headquarters And again, it's it's four to seven p.m. Every district will have that I will say that some of the this some of the districts are expanding on those hours So if you live in one of those communities, please look at our social media posts And there are some additional opportunities beyond that as well Thank you You


All right, everybody. What is going on? It looks like I'm at a photo shoot. It looks like I've got a black background for a photo shoot See? No, I haven't been outside yet Where are we? It's it's like nine o'clock in the morning. I got to sleep at about two o'clock our time so that's 12 30 p.m. No, sorry for 30 p.m So 3 30 p.m. Australian time. It's 2 o'clock at 2 o'clock Indonesian time so The time now is 9 o'clock Indonesian time and I'm about to go and drink my first coffee of the day And I can't wait so last night. I decided to put the camera away I I tried to vlog throughout the plane journey, but to be honest I was I was pretty keen just to get here And so I didn't I honestly didn't have much to say I tried to talk to the camera It didn't come out very well, so I decided just to cut it. So today is our first day in Bali I'm gonna head outside see where Anna is. I feel like she's She puts on my own Facebook like two hours ago.  It's pretty small. There's three bedrooms in this villa We only need two obviously man. I'm stoked day.  I was expecting it. I was I was gonna roll around I was gonna be you know excited for today. I wouldn't be able to sleep I'd feel like shit because that's what usually happens man. Usually usually when I come to Bali I'm drinking on the way So I get here I'm pretty tipsy. I might have a few more I go to bed. Yeah, I pass out and I sleep But I wake up with a hangover on the first day last night didn't happen.  Have you been up? Where? Oh sweet Your room's a mess already. You're only been here eight hours Good sleep mine was Why was it six? No, it's too early for me. Anyway, I'm gonna go get coffee then. Good. Bye And that's ours by the way Just for us. I Don't know what's going on there It's gonna check out the lounge. I mean look at like the only thing guys. I'm sorry. I'm gonna have to Wipe the lens here the only thing About Bali villa accommodation Man, I can't I can't fault this. It's huge.  So You know these these camera lenses won't do this forever like honestly even the camera lens will get used to it So what's up? What's this over here? The locals trying to market their stuff What does it say? If you want to see try or buy some jewelry, please ask the manager or the maid to unlock the display Ganga gemstones is a small family business from Bali Thank you for your support You know what? No, what if I do find something here that I like I might actually buy it. Look at those lock those lockets They look pretty sick Anyways, where's the coffee? plunger coffee as well Is that hot? Yes, it is Cup cup cup any sugar Come on, man. It's gotta be What's this? All right Thought it might be it's salt What's this? No? Definitely not that. Oh well straight black coffee. It is. I've done it before. I'll do it again Now you guys You guys that are with me man. You guys that drink coffee. You'll know you know exactly how I'm feeling right now Prior to the first sip of the day Okay We all know how good their first sip is Especially when you're on holiday could be hotter, but it's good. I'll see you guys in a little bit All right, everybody How's the beard looking? It's getting a little out of hand What is up? We're back. It's day number two yesterday Well Not much happened to be honest, but we did start drinking at about 5 p.m. It's what time is it? It's like 730 721 Sunday the 4th of November and here we are Welcome to the villa welcome back. I don't know about you and I don't know about my sister but right now I Need some coffee and then we're gonna do some more editing So I'm gonna try try work this out. We've got where is the where is the coffee? She's stolen it.    Look at it. You dare jump at me, mate What do you make of that? I'm not sure Locked it just as I should have Okay. Well, nothing's easy this morning. It seems so I'll see you guys in a little while I'm gonna go and get a coffee sit down set my computer up again Send some messages back and some emails do some editing wait for my sister to wake up and Who cares we're on holiday man. You can do anything. All right everyone. I have returned With with coffee Four different types believe it or not Because there's no way I'm coming back here with the wrong sort You never know what they're giving you honestly communication barrier Everything's in Indonesian on the front of the packets. You just don't know what you're getting so I Do know one thing this one will be a winner Nescafe ice-cold mocha in a can in fact, you know what let's do this See, I don't like that With my coffee.  I don't like milky coffees. So what I've tried to do is I've chosen three different sachets. They all look like they've got black coffee in them But I guarantee not all of them do I made a bit of a loss. I Don't know how I'm gonna heat up water They don't have a jug first one. There's got to be black coffee, right if it's not We both lose I think they put sugar in there. They do have hot water by the way Ah Alright everybody what is going on? morning three of The trip to Bali Yesterday I didn't pick up the camera. I haven't been taking the camera out of the villa because it's too big the camera is huge I mean look at it. It's like two kilos.  We had some breakfast We went to get coffee of course.  It's like you're not gonna last so Today is our final full day here in Kuta or South Kuta tomorrow morning at 11 o'clock We get picked up from here We go down to the wharf to the port get on a boat and head over to an island I think it's Limbongan Island Limbongan Island. I think so I haven't ever been to an island off of Bali so Bali is you know If you were wondering Bali's an island One of the islands that makes up Indonesia. So Indonesia is the country Indonesia has their flag. It's red and white and Bali is one of the islands. It's a big tourist destination It's a huge tourist destination for Australians and New Zealanders especially because it's so close and it's so cheap So, you know, we'll go to any restaurant and you'll be able to get food a good meal for Definitely under $10 if not like six or five. They can be slightly small But if you're paying five bucks a meal, what's what's the problem? So, you know, we've eaten well we've drunk. Well, we probably did about six or seven K's walking yesterday So as far as my physique goes because that's another thing on holiday man, you know You don't want to let go of all of the work that you've done in the gym If you're trying to diet you're trying to get lean for the holiday If you're trying to put on muscle like I've been trying to do I don't want to let that go So if I don't go to the gym at all over these next few days or this, you know, this entire holiday You know, the least I can do is keep my diet in check So I don't go back fatter than I did if anything.  I haven't gone out of this room yet it's about time I get my first coffee of the day because that's always a great time and I'm gonna open these curtains for the first time and go and find my sister. So let's do that. Oh There she is How long have you been up for? Since 6 30 because I ate 30. I knew we needed coffee. You got some did you? I got some proper stuff like instant coffee and it was 50 cents for 10 We've got instant coffee. I was actually thinking we could we could we could order some expressos and then put some ice in there I was gonna say if I walked like two minutes further. I would have gone to the Whoops Expresso cafe, which I think would serve our iced expressos Well, I think it's a school and all the kids go to school at 7 a.m How crazy what day is it Monday? Hmm? That is crazy 7 a.m. It's because they can get off at lunchtime go work for their family Yeah, they're all being in the pool man Yeah, exactly Yeah, what about the fricking weather man just when you went to bed it just started pouring yeah I think it's gonna do that every night Must be the tropical You see the lightning in the thunder first and then it just pisses down with rain Yeah, well I was seeing lightning out there, but I couldn't hear any thunder It must mean ages away, and then it got closer in the down, but no there's fricking animal sounds and shit It'll keep me up. I think it's the frogs Possibly well I'm a walker in love, but you know that from there Well, there was one about ten times the size like that big fattest bark and someone had run over it And that literally all its guts Thought a frog that was three centimetres wide was scary enough. No no no no.  That's what it is pool lounges nice bedrooms big open space lounge area although You need air conditioning man.  Oh, yeah coffee Back to the old Nescafe Let's do it Okay We've got something It's the best version of an iced americano or an iced iced long black That I can make Not bad, so I'm gonna get in the pool just as Anna did and Get back to some Instagram messages because the reality is is that I get hundreds and One of the things from the very start That I've always wanted to do early on in the YouTube channel I made sure to do this is to get back to every single person that commented Obviously once the YouTube channel started getting more successful that was impossible, so I moved over to Instagram Every single message I've ever received on Instagram for one of you guys I've replied to and if I have down in the comment section below let them know Because that is it's a bit of a grind sometimes, but I do enjoy it So right now and I especially enjoy it in the morning with a coffee. That's exactly what I'm gonna do so if you've sent me a message over the last few days, I'm gonna get back to you right now and Let's talk


I'm Paul Trowler from the Department of Education Research at Lancaster University, and I've been asked to talk about our projects on student engagement, and I'm going to talk until about 10 past 10, and then there will be 10 minutes for comments and questions if you have them. There were two projects, one funded by the Higher Education Academy and one funded by the Leadership Foundation for Higher Education consecutively, and that's quite nice because for the first project what we did was to do a huge literature review, Vicky Trowler and myself, she's my wife, and she's the same name, and Vicky did the work on that so I acknowledge that straight away. It's a 20,000 word literature review, and poor Adrian was telling me that he had it dumped on his desk the other day. It takes some getting through, but there is a summary as well, which is one of the outputs from that project of that, and also a summation of kind of what we know. The Americans would say I think 10 things we know for sure about student engagement, well not quite that crass, but some of the things that the more rigorous research can tell us, and we can be fairly robust about in terms of our understanding of student engagement. We also did some case studies from secondary data of highly engaged institutions and the kinds of things that they did, and we were able to follow that up with the second study funded by the Leadership Foundation to go and interview leaders. Leaders here are not meant in formal terms, like Vice-Chancellars or heads of department or teams or whatever in universities, but leaders of students and leaders of courses and so on. We're all leaders in the sentiment and we're also all followers, so it's a very flexible concept and of course we were interested in student engagement, so we were interested in interviewing students. We also interviewed leaders as well, and so we developed out of that a toolkit for leaders and I'll briefly be showing you that here. All of these resources, all of these deliverables are of course available on the web, both at the Higher Education Academy's website and the Leadership Foundation's website, but also as one of the deliverables we set up a Sakai site. Sakai, if you don't know, is an open source web 2.0 thing where you can contribute as well as download, and so we've brought resources up there for people who are involved with student engagement. So there's quite a lot of resources out of those two projects, and what I want to do in this talk really is to think a little bit with you about what student engagement is. It's one of those terms that's thrown around a lot. Of course it's a hot term. It's a sexy term at the moment. Everybody's thinking about it, hence the funding of these two projects in quick succession and lots of invitations like this one to give talks about it. But it's used in a very flexible way. Karl Marx talks about chaotic conceptualisation, and I think that's quite a useful idea, you know, the fact that the horizontalization and the capitalism and so on are used in many, many different ways. And I think it's really important for us to try to pin down what we mean by terms if we're actually going to take action about them. So I'd like to talk a little bit about that. And I'd also like to think about the implementation issues, and this is where I come in, really, the implementation side of it. I think, as I say, you did the hard work of going through all that literature on student engagement. But I brought what little brain I have to the question of, OK, what do we do about it? Of course, as I say, it's a very flexible term. How do you review literature on student engagement? Well, if you begin to think about it, almost all the teaching and learnings about student engagement, you know, you go back to Socrates, and the Socratic Method, and so on, that's about student engagement. So what we had to do on that literature review was to only look at the literature that self-identified itself as being about student engagement. Thinking about the implementation side, what I want to do is to bring a little bit of theory to that. I don't think you can understand change unless you understand Stasis, how the social world works. Well, of course, we don't fully understand it, but we can theorise about it, and we can try to suggest ways in which it works, which we can then apply in terms of thinking about change. Paul mentioned Girardi's work and work at Management School at Lancaster, which is based on communities of practice theory, activity systems theory, and so a broad body of work, a social cultural theory. I want to say a few words about social practice theory, which is part of that body of work, and really social practice theory says we shouldn't concentrate too much on individuals and what individuals do. We should think about groups and how they develop the social world, how they develop meaning, how they develop sets of practices, recurrent practices that often are invisible to them, and sets of feelings, sets of assumptions and sets of evoked responses that are really significant and that are picked up as new talents come in to the situation, and so on. There are ways of going on, if you like, both among students and academics and others, that might facilitate or might obstruct students' engagement. So, this focus on leaders, we should be a bit careful about. There's only so much that individual people can do, and obviously we're in a social world at a miso level, the social construction of reality to some extent, and we're also in a world, of course, that is structured by the economic system we're in, the culture that we're in and so on. For example, the stress on students as consumers, that whole flow of thinking of ideology, if you like, of course, in patients on questions of student engagement. So, taking a social practice approach to all this means that we should be really careful about focusing too much on individuals, of course individuals can do things, but we should also think about context, how recurrent practices and so on have developed in particular context, and therefore it's a bit difficult to sort of say, OK, this works with student engagement in one place, in all the evidence that we've looked at. Therefore, that's what we should do, because context is different, recurrent practices are different assumptions, values, emotions, emotional responses and so on are different. So any innovation that wants to enhance student engagement really needs to be low resolution, not too much in a way of big visions fully developed, but broad sets of aims that can be domesticated, to can fit in to some extent and also change to some extent the practices that are already there. Innovations come preloaded with sets of responses and so on, as market products do, and so people in particular situations will respond to them in particular ways and will perhaps ignore them, will change them, reshape them and so on, otherwise they will domesticate them. OK, so that's a little kind of introduction to where we're coming from on this. I will be asking you to do one short thing and also to do a little bit of reflection in a second, so I won't be talking all the time. OK, marks, chaotic conceptualisations, let's try to unpick what student engagement actually needs before we begin to think about what we might do about it, if we think we need to do it. OK, there's the first substantive slide then. As you can see, it suggests that engagement has these three dimensions, three aspects, behavioural, cognitive and effective, what people do, what people think and how they feel about it at the moment. And in the literature, you can say that also students might have a congoant or conforming, and what they call oppositional or negative or rebellious kind of dimension to it as well. The language of that second one is quite difficult, so obviously if a student is engaged they're taking on the assignment that you've asked them to do, they're working as you want them to do and so on, they're conforming. But some of the literature tends to say, OK, well there's also the oppositional dimensions, or they're engaging but they're challenging, they're opposing and so on, and often that's the situation that's been a bad thing. I think about the students, was it last year or the year before, demonstrating in London about three years and a half ago, it sort of in the news was nice and so on. Oppositional, they're engaging for sure, but they're engaging, they're challenging. For me, I don't know what you think, I would say that's a good thing, that's a necessary, that's higher education, if they're not doing that we're in trouble. So this language of oppositional negativeness is an innovative process, but you can see that it could go in one of two ways. The goody-goody students who engage and does what they're told, and or the students who engage, but says, hang on, this is rubbish, I don't want to be assessed like that, I don't want to be assessed like this, the curriculum is wrong and so on. So, and of course feelings and actions and thoughts are involved in all of that. There's our draft, it's going to be draft forever, we did this for the HEAR draft definition, they said, oh no, I don't like that, for example what would you prefer, I don't know, but people won't agree with that. Well, okay, tough, but you have to have a definition or something, you can't, you know, this chaotic conceptualisation, you can't use a word and not try and define it at least. I think the key thing about this one for me is that it places the emphasis on both the students and the institution. There's a lot of emphasis on one or the other in the literature, sometimes governments place all the emphasis on the institution for academics and some useful words. There's a thing in the literature called the magic effect, you know, who can do this, then it will just happen by magic. Well no, it needs effort and time and so on and intelligence from both sides, from students and academics and of course blended professionals as well as teaching environment. And you can see too, we've added as well as enhancing, optimising the experience and enhancing the learning outcomes and development of students. Also performance and reputation of institutions and that prefigures something I'm going to talk about in a second about what student engagement is for. We tend to take that into as bread, but actually there are multiple objectives of student engagement and senior managers may have one set of objectives which might be the reputation of the institution going up the lead tables. So on particularly lead tables when students engage me, academics will have another one and so on and that's often a good thing. I did a study years ago about the credit framework and the assignment of credit value to assess learning which spread across the country very quickly in the entities without the direction from above. Well I think one of the reasons was there were multiple objectives behind them and so all sorts of people at different levels and different field like educational ideologies could subscribe to it and be in favour of it. And I think the same is true of students engagement, so it's quite an optimistic thing, but actually there are multiple purposes, multiple agendas behind the student engagement initiative. Ok, I think this slide is particularly important because it pulls out these three focus on student engagement. When we talk about student engagement, I don't know about you, but I tend to think about learning and teaching, student engagement and learning process at first because I'm a new teacher. How do we get them in class to have you get them in a lecture to listen and process and stuff? Have you get them in a workshop or seminar or tutorial in class to be involved, to speak, to meet the stuff and so on? And then further along from that kind of thing perhaps maybe we could be involved in designing the syllabus, in designing the assessment. In being involved in assessment and so on, so there's a whole sort of spectrum on that first one that you could go on. Then there's the question of the structural process and the kind of axis of your league. In other words, things like student representatives, course representatives appearing at the bucket of committees and having their input going on to the governing bodies of institutions. Or whatever it is that you have against student representatives. Giving a voice to students through some kind of democratic system and again you've got an axis from fairly limited involvement to actually being involved in selecting staff. And other things that some people would say about that and for others it would be perfectly normal. One of my current PhD students will carry it that John Ward is doing a study on this and he makes the point and it's got a telling point I think that so often the student representative system is simply reactive. We didn't like this, we didn't like that and so on. It's not actually involved in an involved way, in a positive way, in a creative way, it's a consumer kind of situation. So again you're thinking of an axis on the spectrum of the taxes. And then third one, for me this one is particularly important is identity, student identity. How do they feel, again it comes to this affective design? Do they feel part of the institution? Are they, are students engaged with the institution and do they feel that they're part of your institution? Do they proudly say, no, this is me, do they get involved in extracurricular stuff? I think Lancaster's quite lucky accidentally because of its collegiate system. And there are students feel part, not of Lancaster University but of Carpill College or some of that college. But nobody has thought about that, they just called it Oxford and Cambridge. But actually in terms of student engagement on identity it was a clever thing to do accidentally. And you know a lot of the American work on minority ethnic groups in higher education talk about the revolving door of higher education. When people come in they see that this is a white institution, they don't feel it, but it's for them what the class of people and so on. And so they're actually feeling it. And that issue of identity and engagement in that sense, who students feel that they are, is really important. And it's one that isn't much considered in literature. And I'll say a little bit more about that in a second. So as I say, this just sums up in a fairly calculated way. What I've just said, so you've got the learning one, the first one on the left, the structure process at the bottom and identity on the right. And you might want to think about where you're positioned and the cube. There should be more on each of those things where you're students. And where you'd like to be, which of those three axes is most important for you? And where are the challenges and so on? Well, I'll come back to that again in a second. I've given you a hand out. Oh, sorry, no. So again, this is just summing up what I've just said. So you've got the behavioural emotion on the cognitive side. And you've got the congruent, the conformity, non-engagement and the, as I said, it might work, but the opposition or the challenging and some examples of what students might do. OK, the QAA have just very recently developed a students' engagement chapter on their new quality code. And it's longer than this, but I just pulled around for the QAA. So you've got the big indicator and then lots of subsections of that. So just over, for two minutes, very, very quickly, I don't know how much time, but I'd like you to just have a look at that and offer any comments. OK, so it's a big expectation. Any thoughts? I think, obviously, just from what I've written on the indicators at the beginning, there's an idea of more of a sharing idea between the institution and the student. And then if you take the model you had before of rejection and congruent, are we, there's a point where could you not be rejecting and congruent at the same time having a reason and an enthusiastic and apatistic poetry approach to the lectures and the things that you're learning, but questioning and rejecting them, not from a position of marching and picketing and being outside the institution but being within it and questioning what you're being taught and what is there. And if there is, then if this became part of that, although it's encouraging talk, does it also still then reinforce the idea that the institution does hold all the power ultimately? And so then that rejection will be for sure lost. But it has to be assimilated and how along with that discussion we could take if there was a real feeling of, no, we don't agree with this, but academic integrity and the frameworks in the institution believe that there has to be there. Does it create that kind of a change? That's a real danger, isn't it? I absolutely agree. Constructive criticism would be the ideal. I agree, it's going to take a lot of resources to do this properly. And I agree there's a danger that students will come. And if it's not done fully and they don't feel their voice is being listened to really, then there'll be alienation and so on. That's one of the things that we picked up from the literature, but so-called closing the loop. Listening to students, taking action and closing the loop by telling students what action you've taken is really important.  And they do exactly what you're saying. Indicator 7 stands out for me again in relation to, or briefly mentioned, in relation to the reforms of the rebel group, which I like that so much. Because there's a statement to excel at the effectiveness of students engagement, using 3D5 to keep forth indicators, et cetera. One of the whole ideas, I think for me there's a danger of not only making conform this whole of students, but conform this whole of academics and stuff, who might have quite out of language ideas, but there's a risk of what they might be told by creative aspects or innovation. Because at the end of the course, you'll be assessing how things are being refined, which is absolutely a closing down system. Teaching to the test. Whenever you set up indicators, you do actually structure practices and that's a danger too. I think for me, one of the... I was involved on the steering group with development of this, and this is the best iteration. But when it started, it was all about quality. Of course it's the quality agency. But if you're looking at student engagement, you can easily forget exactly that, but the indicators will drive the behaviour. And if you're driving behaviour only in one direction, you're forgetting certain elements of student. OK. Sorry. Since I disagree with some of the thoughts on the same thing, the behaviours that were lessons, some of what it says on the turn, that students don't turn or might be left, I think in a moment like this, where we've got a policy working process page, sometimes there's students on our course who are working well independently, coming less briefly there, but are highly engaged with their working adults, but on a more kind of philosophical basis. So it might look a register as it happens. Just at the end of it, you know that there's something that was aimed at at the work, highly engaged with them, and that was the challenge. Yes. I absolutely agree. I mean, that's the difficulty of only looking at behaviours and not looking at it in other things, reasons for the issues and so on. Skipping lectures, but doing the work and talking to the lecturers. It's not what it is. I agree with it. It is a new class. I don't respond to that actually. The word you use is registers. Registers, in my memory of registers, was when I was a boy in the prime of the school. When I first went into education, I saw these registers, and I'm now alone. I mean, in fact, I have nightmares now. I have a universal sense that, the great temple of contrast and rejection and contestation is suffering the dead hand of a register. Now, my understanding was that traditionally, seven other tendons were obligatory. I had a painful memory from my undergraduate days, and postgraduate days were my issue. But I understand increasing registers is the border agency, and this is what I've been about, about larger structures, conditioning, practices. It's the border agency that is beginning to control what is going on in university practices. That's deeply established, so you have to be ready to ensure basically that your, really, the issue is, you're overseas students at 10, but you can't target just overseas students for the right thing to do. So, actually, you have to have registers on every point, but the real issue is very sensitive. So, that illustrates the point. I need to move on quite quickly. I think what's missing from that is the third thing about identity, actually. There's a lot about quality, and there's a lot about enhancing and learning in the first and second axis, and obviously representation and so on. It's very interesting, I'll just point to that, though I'm saying more about it. A very interesting study just came out on that, and they're finding, through empirical studies of undergraduate courses, basically that axis one, teaching and learning, and particularly engagement with knowledge, has a big effect on axis three, identity. And changing the students, and changing their own identity of someone, and for all of these authors, that latter thing is really important. Identity change, that's what our education really is about. You know, you're a different person, a more critical person, and you think differently, and so of course that varies from discipline to discipline, exactly how that's manifested. So, engagement with knowledge leading to identity change, and that's actually actually the point I would say from this study, and I think that third axis is a bit absent. I've mentioned educational ideology, and I think it's really important. In the Leadership Foundation materials, we call it philosophy. We'd go away from the word ideology, because ideology isn't, you know, as a negative connotation, I'm certainly not using it in a negative way. But it permeates a lot of what we do, and in some other work, I talked about four educational ideologies in higher education. Traditionalism, concentrating on the discipline, progressivism, concentrating on the student, social reconstructionism, nice of changing the society, and a sense of what I've mentified in the sense of vocationalism and contributing to the UK and PLC, and we see those manifested, I think, in two different models of student engagement, and I think there's some contestation right now in this country and abroad between those two models. One we call the market model of student engagement, and I think you can see it to some extent in the QAH chapter. In other words, seeing students as consumers, entering a higher education market, and seeing them as consumers when they're satisfied, as opposed to a developmental model of students engagement, which sees them as participants in the process of education, of their own education, of being fully involved, not as consumers, but as fully involved participants. And those are manifested in two different approaches to evaluating what happens in universities. I would say that the National Survey of Student Satisfaction embodies the first one to the market model. Did you like it? You bought some beans? Did you like them? You had an undergraduate degree? Did you enjoy it? That sort of thing. It's situating the student as a consumer. In Australia, in North America, piloting in South Africa and piloting in China, and in some institutions here and other institutions in other countries in the rest of the world, they're using an engagement survey. So in North America, for example, you have NES, the National Survey of Students Engagement in Australia. They have Aussie. Something like that. You can read the rest yourself. So they're asking different questions. And as we said before, the questions that are in Australia, there are funding consequences. Nesi in North America has important implications. So people try to get good answers to those questions. And they're questions like, where are you involved? Did the lecturers discuss where they're representatives? Did you have an opportunity to do this? In other words, ask about a process of education, not about outcomes or satisfaction. And I think it's really hard to move all the way to partnership if you're involved in it. Behind all questions, you're taking a market model for your students engagement. So engagement for what? I mentioned that there were multiple purposes for engagement. And so these are some of the things that we abstracted from the literature. There's a gap there because there are probably different types of roles interested in them at all. And some pointers, again, that we abstracted from the literature. I'll talk about the empirical work. The deep project, there's a lot of very good materials and handbooks and things in states stemming from the documenting effective education practices. So these are the things that they've identified and seem to be the indicators of success from what we can see from the literature and sort of from our own empirical work. Again, some of them in some context might be seen as quite radical. What did we find from our interviews? Well, and we, as I say, we went to case study institutions which on a number of cases were highly engaging institutions when we didn't sample the resources for that. So we just wanted to ask the question where are the roots of success in those institutions? And this one identifies people at the top. I said we shouldn't overemphasise individuals, but the literature on change and the universities generally tells us that it's really important that it's on your side to get good stuff. It's not a it's not an unobvious point, but some of them commit that students having a proper voice co-produces in all aspects. See how radical that's on the on the framework. So it's a bit of a journey according to this person to mention the power relationship. Of course you can't get away from the institution and the people in it do have that. But it's been a building on from that I'm trying to go around. And this business about these different agendas the university was and maybe that first quote is suggesting those different agendas, those different targets objectives are not in confidence to get the high rankings on student engagement on a scale is to get a better reputation so actually you do have to do some real things that do involve students in their learning and so on. And again you've got a champion to deal with some of the senior managers about that, to convince them. So I would agree with the senior manager same journey, different motivations and it doesn't matter. In fact it's a good fit though because everybody's involved as it is the junior manager. And this individual making the comparison the analogy between investor relations, employers and employees, students and then universities from Exxon sports partnership, co-operation working together not a conflict power based what you can take. So some of the success factors the critical success factors that we've abstracted from the literature and abstracted from the empirical work of themselves, I'll just pick up one or two things.  Perhaps I should be a bit less but there's only so much that surveys and questions are going to be so go to the goal and procedures, software and procedures and even structures, university structures and mitigated gains and student engagement so that mentioned the closing feedback So it's practice theory if an evoked responses see somebody in a suit looks like a manager talks like a manager and so it evokes a response and the cheers but those can be evoked to responses social practice theory which says are very important and you need to think about what responses you're evoking in your discourse and how you behave So really what we're saying is that if you're thinking about enhancing student engagement you need to think about where you are at the moment on one side of the river where you want to get particularly the three axes and how you might get there and also of course the metaphor has environment in it climate, geography et cetera so it's a bit of a criticism metaphor we kind of expand on it So in that then in thinking about making a bridge and crossing a bridge you need to think about the three dimensions of student engagement think about not only the future but where we are now what are our recurrent practices what are our assumptions about our students and what's possible within this context what resources are we talking about and some of the key lessons about change if you go to any talk that I give you here is through the salience conference to be successful change has to be salient it has to matter issues the agendas that we have at the moment if it doesn't then it will eventually assume a lot of the need for change has to be congruence what your planning needs to be to something so congruence with what current practice is at the moment is obviously practices need to change and will change not just to fit into the status quo but it does need to have congruence profitability not in terms of money but in terms of what matters academics is time time is the key thing that you always hear from academics what do you want a lot more time I've got too many things to do so if something is about resources if something is getting into it for an innovation towards student engagement it will cost you time and it's another thing to do it must be ways to find so if you want to reflect whether you are in the future then those are some of the questions and then I mentioned the resources the HEA reports the other leadership foundation reports the Sakai engagement site the interactive one has everything on it from all the sides so just I'll give you those details some examples of materials from the NUS themselves as they are working on this course very strongly with the number 2 and then the examples from SC and LZ that I mentioned deep project management project report and also there is one of the more useful things the student engagement tool kit I'm sorry the other time but we did have a bit of discussion before so do you want to go first? sure, thanks Paul just was securing to me as you were talking that there's a heavy emphasis on the literature and evidence in the QAA increasingly student engagement is viewed as a systemic it's a series of things you do but the question in my mind is if you want to comment on why do you think or do you feel like staffing engagement is a necessary precursor to effective student engagement yes our focus has been on student engagement but you are absolutely right and one of the things I skipped over very quickly you said choose the right people and that's one thing in terms of selection how committed are usually there are but in terms of the staff as we're already there absolutely if the staff are alienated and disengaged from the institution from their work for whatever reason of course they're not going to it's about profitability and salience and coherence and so on if their work and being excellent in their work industry aren't salient to them so I absolutely agree if you're making a point that's both staff exhibit the same characteristic of individual difference as students do so we also have rebellious and inhibitive yes the social practices approach one of the things that always attracts me about that is how it does do all the things there that we're talking about bringing students in and making a dialogue part of how we shake things or develop from there and it reminds me very much of adult literacy as well that I used to be involved in and how that was where old staff and all the theoretical discussion seems to go for a large part but we ended up with functional skills and it's like how do you get that point where there is a great sense of this is how people feel enriched and empowered and how we can develop courses but it's in the face of a government agenda and a policy agenda that also runs this which is saying here we want the NSS we don't want this open shared thing we do want the kind of beings approach to your ideas and if we're not doing it right then you hit with that and how do the two do you think fit together for you as a practitioner for us and for institutions and we've got that that drives everything where the money comes from and so although these are brilliant ideas and can really develop what we do they're in the face of that and they're in the other direction I know and it's it's depressing isn't it so much is taking it towards the quality agenda narrowly can see towards a market model satisfaction and so on but I don't think we ought to be we're not tubes we're not social tubes and that's one thing that social practice theory says we're not just puppets of the situation that we're in of course we're not and especially not in universities and higher education centres we're a pleasure people and we can think this through and we can recognise as you've just done what's happening and that's really important I wrote a paper in 2001 called captured by the discourse question mark in other words do we eventually sink into a closed or do we necessarily seek into those discourse things I wasn't even then a student at the age of but you can apply to that it's a very limited view and my conclusion was I hope I'm right that no you can apply your mind to it and one of the things is to surface all this and point it all out and to keep it in mind all the time but it takes work to challenge the discourse of the market so it's it's effort it's resources and as I say times on the issue so I don't want to talk about any other questions I don't want to talk about what's wrong I think just relative we're going to work captured by the discourse in particular I think the resources were on the faircraft two years ago about the language language and what was fascinating about that was that Norman crystallised this nasty destruction distinctions and the way the way that then the orthodoxy tried to say there were no divisions there were no there were no contestations that we were all being together goodness me, that's her again which is really just a bit of temp philosophy recycled of course and I just wonder whether this what could be called honest debate, honest honest disagreement that for a period of time in this country what could be called sharp individual differences that were either ignored or defined out of existence and some people say we'll bring back a good old 1980s and in a funny sort of way we're entering a period now in this country's macroeconomic management where there is a degree of contestation and I wonder whether this is going to actually be diverse thank you, that's so optimistic and I thought it reminds me actually when we were talking in England they have the quality enhancement framework very nice with universities as autonomous people making their decisions and so on so there is that difference and potential for contestation and so on that's very nice I just wanted to kind of go back to these QIA indicators again the more I look at them the more I begin to question whether they are consistent with each other as a set of indicators that could be implemented by any institution I wonder is this a sort of I wonder is this really being examined to see if these things are consistent with each other and actually make sense to try and achieve all at once well the working group met about three or four times and there was a national consultation finished two or three months ago maybe it didn't but they haven't been piloted in any sense and in a way what's happened I think with these is that they have been improved I mean one of the early ones was that they had that students and institutions should get together and define student engagement well I'll tell you what having spent 30 months trying to do exactly that I thought my chances of that were nil which was the point I made so that's not there but no I mean I still think there are lots wrong with these things and I think they are inconsistent but I do think actually they have the advantage that they're pretty broadly drawn now so you could there is a space for an institution to make their own definitions to do it their way so in that sense I'm not too concerned about that I suppose I look at them and I see that things that managerial types will single out and ignore the things that are inconvenient students and staff engaging in discussions that aim to bring out the one support enhancement of the education experience I think that is the part that is hardest to achieve and will be conveniently swept away and number seven will be key performance indicators discussing data to the students we are going to be all saying things again and again but of course I'm sure you're absolutely right hardly because it's easy quantitative stuff and so on it's just easier than engaging in discussions that are not just to talk and do something talking about which and over my time so I'd like to stop there thank you so much for a very good period


When you have trams in North America, you probably think of Toronto, or maybe San Francisco with the cable cars and muni. But one of the great trams, or in this case trolley systems in North America, is actually in Philadelphia. Whenever I look at Philly, I get special railway butterflies in my stomach. Because in so many ways it feels like London or Tokyo, with just tons of high quality rail infrastructure all over the place that is unfortunately stuck in the past. In Ecepta, the local transit agency actually has pretty broad plans to modernize and improve the entire transit system in Philly. And there is a plus here. Not unlike Philly. A few years ago, Toronto's streetcar network mostly consisted of really quite old high floor streetcar type vehicles. With that in mind, I think Philly could probably learn a few things from Toronto's transition from high floor tram style vehicles to modern low floor vehicles. I also think the city could leapfrog its neighbor to the north. Using an even better tram or trolley network to serve the city. Let's talk about how. If you're not already, consider supporting the channel on Patreon. It helps a ton and makes sure I can produce videos at a regular rate. Philly's trolleys are not exactly like Toronto's streetcars, but there is a lot in common. And there's also a huge potential to leapfrog right over them. Now I'd say service levels generally aren't quite as good, but the topology of the network is also totally different in Philadelphia. So perhaps these systems are best compared in the sense that they are the remnants of old streetcar systems that survived. And since they were both, of course, traditional North American streetcar systems, they operate in many cases in very similar ways. The existing trolley system in Philly can be a little confusing because it's broken into three divisions. Philly has a crazy number of different transit lines and modes and stuff. So it's not really that surprising that that's the case. Now not all of the tracks, but most of the tracks for Philly's trolley network are on the west side of the city, sort of like a reverse Berlin. First, you have the subway surface lines, which are numbered 10, 11, 13, 34 and 36. Now these services run into Central Philadelphia via a subway tunnel, which has express services with the Market Frankfurt Line and local stops with the trolleys. When the trolleys actually hit the city center where the Market Frankfurt Line and the Broad Street Line cross, they loop around Philadelphia City Hall underground and then make connections to those rapid transit lines. Now, once the subway surface lines are actually on the surface, and if you're wondering, yes, Philly also has issues with people driving into the tunnels as we constantly do in Toronto. Once the lines are on the surface, they operate mainly in mixed traffic. The subway surface lines use boxy Kawasaki trolleys that were manufactured in the late 20th century. They're fairly similar to Toronto's older CLRVs and like them, they still use trolley poles. The next division consists just of the 15 route, which runs east-west through the city, largely on Gerard Avenue, north of the city center, intersecting and connecting with Route 10 of the subway surface lines in West Philadelphia. Now, Route 15 isn't currently operating, but when it was operating pre-pandemic, it operated with PCC streetcars, manufactured back around the 1940s, also with trolley poles and mostly mixed traffic alignment yet again. The last division are the routes 101 and 102. These run out west and southwest of the western terminus of the market, Frankfurt Line alongside the Norristown High Speed Line. That said, unlike the Norristown High Speed Line, they use similar trolley vehicles to the subway surface lines, except these ones are bidirectional and feature pantographs. The 101 and 102 might be my favorite trolley routes in Philadelphia because of their Erntor Urban routes and just the fact that they go through a lot of cool environments, which is something you don't really see in Toronto, unfortunately. These routes also don't spend a ton of time in mixed traffic, which is nice. Now, it's worth mentioning that, as you probably expected, the trolley network used to be much, much, much larger historically. And there are still tons of diversion and connector tracks which are used during diversion periods or just other non-standard service patterns. Also quite notable is the use of a unique wide gauge, known as Pennsylvania Trolley Gauge, again, like Toronto. However, unlike Toronto, since it is Pennsylvania Trolley Gauge, it's actually used even more widely, including on the Tea Light Rail in Pittsburgh. Now, as you've probably guessed, Philly's system, like most North American systems, has declined a little bit since its peak. But you have to give kudos to Philly for at least keeping the system around, which of course was all too uncommon. Well, in Toronto, I'd argue the streetcar rethink really came in the early 2010s roughly. It seems like Philly wants to do something similar in the mid-2020s, and I think there's a lot of opportunity to find success where Toronto didn't exactly find success. The first big change that's obviously needed for the network is standardization of vehicles and operating practices, as well as modernization of the vehicle fleet, which is incredibly dated, especially those PCC streetcars. To be fair, I'm totally cool with having some PCC streetcars around for heritage trips. Toronto does it as well, but not for primary service. Now, if it hasn't been yet, the overhead will also need to be upgraded to use pantographs system-wide, which is valuable anyways for being able to move more current. Now, having a larger and standardized fleet is super valuable because of what means larger orders of vehicles can be placed in the future to work across the entire city, which will make more modernization in the future possible, as well as just more service in general. Of course, at the same time, a modern vehicle design should be transitioned to. I find the dichotomy between Canada and the US on light rail slash tram designs really interesting. In Canada, most of the light rail systems are using Bombardier LRVs, and in the US, most light rail systems use Siemens LRVs. And likewise, in Toronto, when we bought modern streetcars, they were Bombardier LRVs. And in Philly, at least the renders seem to suggest that Siemens LRVs might be the leading contender, the S70 model in particular. Now, I do think the S70 would be a big improvement over the current trolleys used in Philly, but I really do think that for an urban trolley or tram style service, 70% low floor doesn't make as much sense as 100% low floor. I think 70% low floor is better for rapid transit and higher speed applications. That said, clearly having more doors and all-door boarding, as well as just higher capacity per vehicle, will be super valuable nonetheless. Now, at the same time, the shape of the network is really ripe for a number of really strategic extensions. For example, to Overbrook and Eastwick Regional Rail stations on the subway surface lines, and to Sharon Hill and Darby on the 101 and 102 lines. I think having more connections to regional rail and rapid transit could really help feed the trolley network. And it's interesting to note that in Toronto, there are only three streetcar termini of the many termini around the city that aren't actually already at regional rail station or a subway station. So Philly could also get to a place that's quite similar, pretty easily because so many lines end close to, but not quite at a rail station. The beautiful thing about having those connections is that if you're coming in on a rail line, whether it be a subway line or a regional rail line, you could transfer to a trolley or streetcar in the case of Toronto and ride the rest of the way into the city or only part of the way into the city on that local transit mode, which is really convenient and helps again feed ridership. Now, the nice thing about new vehicles is that since they could probably and should probably be bi-directional, is that you could have simpler termini with crossovers instead of having to have whole turning loops. Of course, having bi-directional vehicles would also just mean you could have crossovers more broadly, which would be incredibly valuable if you have a disruption. Instead of having to travel to the nearest loop or not being able to travel at all in some cases, you could simply use the nearest crossover to turn around and avoid the disruption. Many systems in Europe, as well as places like Melbourne, also use temporary diversion tracks that literally lay on top of the street when there is construction work or even sometimes diversions going on. And that would be even more possible with bi-directional vehicles. Of course, having a unified fleet would also be nice because you could redesign some routes and do some longer operations, which would be super cool. Now, if all of these sound like great ideas and I think they actually are, well, there's actually great news. CEPTA has proposed doing almost all of these things. Unlike most North American or Australian, I guess, transit improvement plans I've seen, these plans are pretty buffet-proof. If you look at them, there isn't a ton of low-hanging fruit left. It's really impressive work. Now, probably the most awesome part of the plans that we didn't get in Toronto when we sort of modernized our streetcar network is a lot of stops will be removed. This will allow the trolleys to move much faster and provide more of a higher-order transit service that they naturally should as rail vehicles. This will treat the trolley system less like a bus on rails and more like its own proper light rail network with dedicated stops and platforms as well. That said, there may be some risk in tying these improvements to stops and the like to procurement of new vehicles, which is something, again, that Toronto didn't really do. The issue here is that, hey, if your vehicles are delayed or if your stop construction is delayed, you could have issues, will they be compatible otherwise? Now, that said, while Philly does have some great plans, I do think there are a few places where the punts could be spruced up a little bit to help make Philly's network even better than in Toronto or comparable to a lot of great international tram networks. The first thing I think is that if there really is a commitment to system-wide, higher-boarding platforms that would be located in street right-of-ways as well as on the off-street portions of the network, and if this is happening in conjunction with the new vehicle procurement, well, then why even suggest using ramps in the first place? It seems like jumping straight to proper-level boarding, like you see on some modern light rail systems would be fantastic. Anecdotally, that would be a huge benefit too because it would allow the vehicles to be simpler. One of the biggest issues Toronto's new streetcars had was the complicated ramp that needed to be able to deploy to a higher platform, but also to street-level, which created a ton of issues. Now, at the same time, while there is a great commitment to having dedicated stops with better wayfinding, I would like to see more dedicated right-of-way, and in particular, GreenTrack, because as I mentioned in a recent video up here, I think GreenTrack is a great way we can enhance our tram systems, but also enhance our cities. Of course, this would also go a long way in addressing one of the issues I was surprised to find is quite prevalent in Philadelphia, apparently, which is cars blocking the tracks. For whatever reason, I guess Philly drivers are just particularly shamelessly aggressive with the parking, but that's brutal, and maybe we need to install some sort of car removal thing at the front of the trolleys to help get those out of the way, if you know what I'm saying. Now, I will say on the wayfinding note that while I do like the future wayfinding plans for the city, which kind of unify everything and bring them together, it does feel a little weird that the various trolley routes are all branded completely differently. It makes sense to maybe give them a different icon or something like that, but they should probably all be the same color or share some similarities in that sense because they provide a similar level of service with trolley-type vehicles. Now, the last thing I would add to the network's revamp plans are really high-quality connections at regional rail stations. Obviously, Philly already does a fantastic job of this in the central subway section of these subway surface lines, but having super-high quality, perhaps even cross-platform transfers to their regional rail lines at new connecting stations would be a fantastic way of just improving that interface. That said, even if all of these things don't come to fruition, Philly still has the bones of a really awesome tram system, which is kind of the story with Philly Transit in general, like New York, but perhaps to an even greater degree, Philly was once a grade A transit city, and most of the infrastructure is still there, so with a little good planning and a little more money, the city could come back to easily be one of the greatest rail cities in the Americas, if not the world in the future. Thanks for watching, and I'll see you in the next one.