A Backwards Decision - MMD#379
Good day my good friend.
Complete contrast to yesterday, but today (or Monday as I write this) I have been in a bit of a funk. I can only put it down to being drained by a hot, very humid day on Sunday. For those of you looking at those temperatures and thinking “that’s nothing,” I can assure you that a hot summer in the UK (a country not built for hot summers) is brutal and unlike any temperature you will ever experience.
If you have any suggestions for interesting news items or bits of research to include in this newsletter, you can email me.
Mobility Camp is taking place on 29th September 2023 in Birmingham. It would be great to see you there. Get your tickets now.
James
Not the ticket
And so it has come to pass. In the coming weeks, the UK Government will be rolling out a wave of ticket office closures at railway stations across the UK. As in nearly all of them are closing. This is a bad idea for many reasons. The impact on people with disabilities cannot be underestimated. It will make women feel less safe using the rail network. And that’s just two issues. This is all being driven by a single metric: number of tickets sold at ticket stations.
There is no public data that I can find on tickets sold by different channels, but from a number of people I know who are far from fans of ticket office closures, ticket offices sell a tiny percentage of total tickets across the UK. But this metric drives the decision making. You are what you measure, and in this case it would seem that when it comes to ticket offices, we are measuring their value in the wrong way. And no, more staff on stations won’t help with necessarily help either!
Parcels need decisions
Having recently moved home, I have had a lot of recent experience with parcels. But an amazing recent one has been with Sky TV and Royal Mail. I had no need for a Sky TV box and broadband router at my new house, and Sky offer a service where you can send this equipment back, for free, for it to be re-used. Now that my local town has lost its Post Office, I had to use the Royal Mail’s Parcel Collect Service to send this equipment back. And it was so easy I’m amazed it worked. As delivering parcels is hard to co-ordinate.
New research has been trialling new methods for determining the best locations for package pick ups and drop offs. While the results and methods are interesting, what is even more interesting is the assumptions around operational flexibility and commercial drivers underpinning such models. Transport planners can learn a lot by peeking under the hood of decision-making models occasionally, and poking around at the assumptions inside.
Random things
These links are meant to make you think about the things that affect our world in transport, and not just think about transport itself. I hope that you enjoy them.
Performing science (Science)
Rural Communities Are Upbeat About the Future Despite Persisting Issues (The Daily Yonder)
Inside “The Black Agenda” (What I’m Reading)
The Gentrification of Disability (Freddie De Boer)
Something interesting
This was a screen grab of the main road between Rostov-on-Don and Moscow, taken on Saturday on Google Maps. Can’t think why there were so many road closures…
If you do nothing else today, then do this
Honestly? Take some time for yourself. Go for a walk at lunchtime, read a book, listen to music. Do whatever relaxes you. You deserve it! :)