❎ Pun Central - MM#584
Good day my good friend.
All I need to say by way of introduction is, well done the Transport Planning Society. Their letter to the Prime Minister is a must-read!
If the recent announcement by the Prime Minister still has you hot under the collar, we are talking ‘changing the narrative’ on sustainable transport at Mobility Camp on 26th September 2023 in Birmingham. It would be great to see you there. Get your tickets now.
If you like this newsletter, please share it with someone else who you think will love it. I will love you forever if you do. ☺️
James
📱 MaaS Ado About Nothing
Mobility as a Service is in bit of a funny place around about now. Trials of MaaS continue, certainly here in the UK with trials taking place in areas such as the Solent and in Scotland. But how is the idea faring now? COVID-19 certainly seemed to take the wind out of the sails of MaaS, and the idea along with shared transport seems to be in the doldrums currently.
But its really, really hard to get a handle on what is happening now without understanding quite how hard MaaS was hit by COVID-19. For an industry struggling with profitability prior to COVID-19, to have a huge drop in total travel demand nearly killed the industry entirely. In the immediate aftermath of such shutdowns, many operators of MaaS services and shared vehicle services offered assistance to essential workers who were required to continue travelling despite restrictions on travel for others. Uber Medics was an example of this.
Right at the height of COVID-19, David Hensher proposed two seperate visions of how MaaS could emerge, which are quoted in full below. I wonder whether this is a case of the future being a bit of both, and what this means for MaaS and MaaS operators. There are wider challenges facing the transport industry in terms of reduced travel on some modes, especially public transport, that make the resale of tickets (a key MaaS revenue stream) increasingly challenging. The future of MaaS as a commercial proposition is tied to the future of other modes.
Scenario 1: Travel will return to the pre-Covid-19 normal within a few months, with public transport, ride share and private car use showing very similar levels of use, crowding and congestion as before. Working from home will have a limited impact. The rationale is that, although the situation is somewhat fluid and the likely response is very uncertain, with Australia’s success compared to other countries in minimising exposure and transmission (“flattening the curve”), there is a real possibility that normality might return quicker, with perceptions of risk dissipating at a fast rate. Habit persistence is also a significant trait of human beings. Crowds, described as heaving, at shopping precincts on Mother’s day (10 May 2020) in Melbourne and Sydney, despite social distancing requirements in place, highlights this outcome.
Scenario 2: One of the most important policy levers now available, in contrast to pre-Covid 19, is the effectiveness and growing acceptance of working from home (WFH). We have never had a real experiment of what might happen to the transport network in the presence of a growing interest in WFH. One of Australia’s leading banks, the National Australia Bank (NAB), for example, is reporting a 15% increase in productivity (associated with WFH) since travel restrictions. This evidence, and growing anecdotal evidence together with the findings from a National Survey, suggest the possibility of a noticeable shift to WFH and consequent changes in commuting (and non-commuting) travel demand. WFH will be encouraged all the while offices are required to practice social distancing and hence have to stagger working hours for staff, including the possibility of less days in the main office and the balance as WFH. Firms will be interested, as they can save on office space in the longer term (although NAB have just invested in a huge building or buildings at Redfern near the City of Sydney).
I wonder, therefore, whether MaaS as a commercial proposition needs a significant rethink. To put my tuppence worth, without a substantial resurgence of the use of public transport in a profitable way, I struggle to see how the pure version of MaaS will be possible without significant subsidy from the public sector. Or maybe, some more radical vision of the future of MaaS is out there, and we just don’t know it yet.
What you can do: Honestly? Keep a watching brief. And if you do want to consider delivering a MaaS trial in your area, think about the consumer problems that it solves first, and consider subsidy options.
🔀 Track Record
There has been plenty written over the years about how transport is significantly off-track when it comes to reducing carbon emissions. I was reminded of just that when reading this latest research by Adnan Khurshid, Khalid Khan, and Javier Cifuentes-Faura on achieving the 2030 agenda on sustainable travel. Much like other research, its good in that it articulates the problem well, and states quite how off track we are. If you want some more damning reading, just check out the work of the Committee on Climate Change.
I constantly communicate that the current crisis is in action, especially political action. But there is a secondary professional issue that is not often discussed. Namely that of a lack of pathways to decarbonisation. These are common place in climate change policy overall and in adaptation, and form the basis of IPCC scenarios. And the basis is a really simple. Estimate your current carbon emissions, identify the actions that are needed and by when, and calculate the carbon reductions this would generate over time.
What you can do: Getting started on your carbon reduction pathways is easy. Integrate it within your strategy development process that you will quantify your carbon emissions, and then identify the policies needed to deliver said reduction. The Pathways Framework by the Climate Group is a good and free resource to help you get started.
🎓 From academia
The clever clogs at our universities have published the following excellent research. Where you are unable to access the research, email the author - they may give you a copy of the research paper for free.
How the COVID-19 pandemic changed travel behaviour? A case study on public bikes in Seoul
TL:DR - More people are using public bike share in Seoul.
On-Demand Autonomous Vehicles in Berlin: A Cost–Benefit Analysis
TL:DR - If you are going to introduce AVs in urban environments, using it for buses is marginally less bad.
TL:DR - Sometimes we walk for the fun of it, so maybe we should plan for that as well?
Health and equity in transportation health impact assessments: A retrospective analysis
TL:DR - We could be doing better at assessing the health impacts of policies and schemes.
✊ Awesome people doing awesome things
We don’t give politicians enough credit when they do the right thing, especially when doing the wrong thing is an easy decision. So a shout out goes to Joy Dennis of West Sussex County Council for giving the approval for, and supporting, 3 School Streets across West Sussex. Namely Swiss Gardens Primary School, Shoreham, Arundel CE Primary School and Thomas A Beckett Infant School, Worthing.
Also, a big well-done to David Brazier of Kent County Council for standing up for walking and cycling improvements in light of contradictory and silly comments from fellow councillors from his political party. I am not sure if he won them over, but sometimes fighting the battle is enough.
Hey, these might not be world-changing interventions here. But success is built on small victories.
📼 On the (You)Tube
It’s been about a month since I posted a Tom Scott video, and so that needs rectifying. In this video, he shares the story of the town of Zermatt in Switzerland, a town that banned the cobustion engine so that air pollution could not block views of the Matterhorn. Not that it stops some cars from being driven around.
What you can do: This one is easy. You don’t have to ban cars completely in an area, but make it so that only vehicles that have zero or very low emissions can drive in an area. If you are in the UK, that means delivering Clean Air Zones, or making a variation on vehicle restrictions for low emission vehicles. Identify roads in your community that may be suitable for this, potentially with a Healthy Streets assessment, and then work with your local council to make it happen.
🖼️ Graphic Design
Let’s be straight about this. Emissions from aviation are going up. And that is very, very bad. But just focussing on that (incredibly important) figure hides a more interesting story. The amount of passengers using planes has gone up even more exponentially than emissions. Maybe in part due to more energy efficient planes and better utilisation of aircraft. Though it appears from this graph that we have reached about peak efficiency for aircraft.
📚 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.
‘We’re changing the clouds.’ An unintended test of geoengineering is fueling record ocean warmth (Science)
The Creepy Rise of Bossware (Wired)
Unpacking California’s Transit Budget: A Huge Victory, But an Unfinished Fight (Transit Center)
How classic psychology warped our view of human nature as cruel and selfish - but new research is more hopeful (The Conversation)
How a mobile-home park saved its community from a corporate buyout (High Country News)
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