Mobility Matters Daily #122 - Mobility Hubs, LTNs and needing good debate
With some data on freight by inland waterway
Good day friend.
I’m currently writing this at a service station. I’ll save you a picture - imagine dank, dark, British service stations from the 1970s. You get the picture. To the news.
James
The Mobility Hub idea is finally getting some traction
Reading my good friend John Austin’s article on Transportxtra about Mobility Hubs, and the first accredited mobility hub in South Woodford, got me thinking about the concept again. From the description, it does sound like a hub with some great design principles, although it is hard to relocate bus routes and stops which - arguably - could have made the stop better. But having an accreditation process for hubs interests me greatly. And if I am honest, makes me feel conflicted.
The reason for this? I want to understand the evidence that accreditation actually drives up performance, which I feel is fundamentally misunderstood and simply saying something has this feature does not mean it is good. A weird thing to say, given that I am going for accreditation for my own professional standards. No doubt many of you will also think - of course it drives up standards! I argue, and this is backed by evidence from the health sector, that accreditation does not drive up performance, but it acts as a stimulant to start activities that do. Simply, a service that does all the key things well but does not have an accreditation is probably better than one that has one but doesn’t do the key things well. A sticker or award does not make something good.
Low Traffic Neighbourhoods again
You can’t go a month without a good transport culture war. This time, the Independent reported on the findings of research from my old stomping ground of the University of Westminster that low traffic neighbourhoods reduce the number of people killed and seriously injured. A very good thing, and the research I consider to be sound in terms of a before and after study. Dropping injuries by half is clearly a good policy outcome. But before and after studies have their issues.
A major issue is regression to the mean, that we never talk about when understanding impacts. Simply being, if a situation is left alone, it will regress to the mean state naturally. This means that we cannot be certain that the intervention had a cause-and-effect, or whether it was simply events taking their course. This, unfortunately, is reflected in our own studies of the impacts of schemes, that are often hastily put together using existing datasets. This is why having a controlling case (in this case a similar area) is critical to understanding whether our intervention had an impact. Perhaps a new module in the Transport Planning PDS could be experiment design?
To progress with great ideas, we need more debate and not less
This week, I celebrated one year as a Town Councillor. In addition to sorting out bins and seeing people get amazing irate about grass cutting, this last year has confirmed to me something that has driven my views on why engagement is essential to transport planning. Notably that controversial ideas need to be debated more, and not less.
This was further stimulated by Claire Fox of the Academy of Ideas sharing this article in Spiked on anti-vax protests. Talking about ideas in person leads to nuance and moderation for most people. People who shout loudly and hate an idea will always shout loudly and hate the idea. But engaging people in honest debate does more to make the case for change than shutting them down or ignoring them. They do not go away if ignored. While their conduct is frustrating and can sometimes win, it is imperative that we engage with all people on the assumption that they will be reasonable. I have found in being a Councillor, that the vast majority of people are.
Visualisation of the Day
In freight policy in Europe, what is often spoken of is prioritising inland shipping as a cost effective measure. What the data shows is that this only really happens on four rivers in Europe - the Rhine (the Netherlands and Germany), the Seine (France), the Scheldt (Belgium and France), and the Danube (Romania, Bulgaria, and Hungary).
Source: Eurostat
If you do nothing else today, do this
Read this University of Cambridge report on the value of social infrastructure in towns and cities across the UK. Food for thought on how we can plan transport for better social outcomes.