Mobility Matters Daily #248 - Livable cities for AVs, commuting and income, and megaprojects
Random nonsense to end the week with
Good day my good friend.
Again, thank you to everyone who expressed your interest in testing the new version of the Future Mobility Scenario Game. I will be in touch with you! In the meantime, if you want to help test it, and add a bit of depth to your strategy and policy development, simply respond via email! Anyway, news.
James
Want your city to be welcoming to shared and autonomous vehicles? Make them livable!
Some emerging research from the US, that includes a fair amount of discreet choice modelling, has come to a somewhat counterintuitive conclusion:
Results show that improving neighborhood walkability can be an effective way to increase public’s interest in using automated ride sourcing and carsharing services. Findings also highlight the opportunity to enable [shared automated vehicles] adoption by harnessing the synergies between green (transit) travel, technology use for work/non-work purposes, use of existing mobility-on-demand (MOD) services, and affinity towards automated MOD services.
In plain English, if a place is nice to walk around, the people who live there are more likely to favour using shared autonomous cars in the future. And linking them up with public transport may help. This adds a spatial element to early research into who the early adopters of autonomous vehicles might be. In short - it is inconclusive.
The relationship between income and commuting distance is tricky
Being poor is expensive. Never a truer word said in my view (speaking from experience). But in terms of transport commuting time, this is complicated. Work in Los Angeles has identified that if you are well off, chances are your commute is shorter and consequently less expensive. But that is not the same everywhere. In China, for instance, people who are better off are more likely to commute longer distances. While the reverse of this is true in Latin American cities. So what gives?
I can only urge that you look at your own datasets to understand this relationship yourselves. Then you will get an understanding of the spatial element of segregation by commuting in your area. In the UK we are fortunate, we have the Census that does this for us - or local travel surveys are better. If you are looking for a hard and fast rule here, you will be disappointed.
Megaprojects are rarely a technical decision, and more a political one
I was digging around the Department for Transport’s research archive, and I must have missed this report into the Union Connectivity review and studies into a fixed link between Great Britain and Northern Ireland - either a tunnel or a bridge. The conclusion, its possible, but unless you have a spare £77bn down the back of the sofa (and that’s an optimistic estimate) it won’t happen.
There are all sorts of reasons why the engineering challenges facing such a link are herculean. My favourite being constructing over one the largest ammunition dumps anywhere in the world. But this project is political, not economic. Research shows that they are shaped by community and political dynamics, maybe moreso than by the business case. Consider that before listed the reasons why these projects won’t happen. After all, the Channel Tunnel was once thought impossible.
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 they do just that.
Energy trends in 2022: ‘Known’ knowns and the ‘known’ unknowns (Observer Research Foundation)
Why Great Data Journalism Should Have Destroyed Djokovic’s Story – But Didn’t (Wired)
Incorporating health and wellbeing into housing developments (Policy@Manchester)
Are our cities fulfilling toddlers, children, and caregivers’ mobility demands? (ITDP)
Something interesting
If you do nothing else today, then do this
The UK Heat Street project allows you to visualise and forecast energy use at the street level in the UK. Give it a go.