⚾ Steeerike! - MM#583
Good day my good friend.
The last few weeks have been a bit of a sprint to get a long-awaited, much delayed, and labour-of-love book on Mobility as a Service written and off to the publisher. The good news is that there are only a few thousand words left to write. But with last minute sprints comes last minute research. And that has shown me that many smart card systems are essentially stuck together with tape, with extras outside of the original requirements of the source code bolted on and left because they work (somehow). Full in the knowledge that if someone pulls at any loose thread the entire thing will break.
It makes me realise that sophisticated ticketing systems are like any IT project in history. Working well beyond their functional life, where the only requirement is that they work. And woe-betide any IT support staffer whose upgrade crashes the system.
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
🪧 Strike One
Transport strikes are a common occurrence no matter where you are in the world. In many instances, cities and even entire countries can grind to a halt due to industrial action over pay, pensions, working conditions, or even in instances where workers simply do not like government policy. Regardless of your own views on the merits of strike action, they have a significant, if somewhat short term, effect on travel. Or is that effect short term?
I recently read the Virgin Media O2 Business Movers Index. Not something I’d usually propose, as their methodology is far from open. But it covered strike action and how business people change their travel in the UK due to ongoing rail strikes. Apparently, 47% of commuters choose to drive instead of taking the train, but that varies wildly by region. For instance, in the South East nearly 40% work from home instead, whereas nearly 70% drive to work in Wales.
The inevitable question is whether or not such patterns have been replicated elsewhere. Research on disruptions in Washington DC showed that people generally tended to stay the same (battle through you could say), change mode, change destination, or change departure times. And this is highly variable by factors like income. Transfers to car have been found in Melbourne, Australia. Work in Kashmir has focussed on developing human capital in response to disruption, though much of this is something more substantial than a strike.
So, the evidence shows that the impact of strikes is highly context specific, and specific to the circumstances of the individual. If you have a car, you are more likely to switch to a car. If you need to get to a job otherwise you don’t make rent at the end of the week, you try and battle through. I find that the high propensity to work from home in the South East of England to not be a shock. People in the South East use the train more than the national average, have higher incomes on average, people on higher incomes use trains more and are more likely to work from home as well.
Disruptions such as strikes have a funny impact on how we travel overall. For some of us, they push us into a new way of moving. For others, people grin and bear it. For more, it has a more profound impact on their lives. They are an inevitable part of having a public transport network. The challenge is not so much tackling the root causes of them (though it helps), but tackling the impacts of disruption when it happens.
What you can do: Everyone should read the outcomes of the Disruption project, that explored the impacts of transport disruptions as part of a wider exploration into enabling low carbon travel.
For professionals, the challenge is moving a lot of people along defined corridors with reasonable ease. Yes, buses can be provided. But I would like to see more temporary bikes lanes when disruption happens. So, research when strikes are taking place, identify nearby direct corridors, and put in temporary bike lanes and promote them heavily.
🌳 Plan for life, not just for birth
I’m going to talk about trees again. So if you don’t want a couple of paragraphs about trees then look away now. The reason being is that it was revealed on Friday that National Highways in the UK had let 400,000 trees planted by way of offsetting road schemes die within a few years of them being planted. So what has happened? Its not just a case of brutal weather or being exposed to pollution. Its a matter of care.
There is advice on how to do this well. There is just the lack of willingness to actually do this well, and systemically. Lack of feeding, watering, pruning, even looking after the roots requires hard work for trees that are planted. And even if you care for them all the time, success is not a sure thing. As much as planting more trees is a critical part of our approach to tackling the climate crisis, we cannot just plant them and leave them to it. You have to prepare to give them life as well.
What you can do: If some trees on your street are not looking good, ask your local council if you can help to take care of them. Get some of your neighbours together and form a tree adoption group for your street. That way, you can take in turns to care for the trees on your own street.
🎓 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.
TL:DR - Big Government intervention changes the dynamics of land redevelopment in cities. City governments may or may not be annoyed.
Refocusing MaaS approach: A brief
TL:DR - Stop focussing MaaS services on car users as its inequitable.
Prediction model for drivers' tendency to perpetrate a double parking violation on urban trips
TL:DR - Start designing models based upon the factors that influence people’s tendancy to park illegally.
An exploratory study of Mobility Hub implementation
TL:DR - Real life lessons on how Mobility Hubs come about that are not covered in best practice guides.
✊ Awesome people doing awesome things
A good friend from my days at Transport Systems Catapult, Beata Szoboszlai, is doing an incredible thing. She is only sailing around the world right now. Her blogs from her voyage around the world have been a must-read for a while, and her latest on the difficult passage from Vanuatu to Australia is no exception. When it includes snippets like this, what she is doing is even more incredible.
We had to manoeuvre against the wind, and at one point, the boat was going upwind, against the current, with the engine revving at two thousand RPM, yet our boat speed was a mere 1.8 knots. We had to maintain this direction for 21 miles. Every boat in the fleet agreed that this was the most challenging passage we had encountered since the beginning of our journey. Some experienced sailors even claimed it was the most difficult passage they had ever faced, and we're talking about individuals with tens of thousands of miles under their belts.
She is even making me want to get my sea legs back. Apparently there is a small lake near me that does sailing lessons. That will put me in good shape for sailing across the Pacific, right? Anyway, follow her blog. Its amazing.
📼 On the (You)Tube
Can cities save themselves? There has been a bit of a spat on the old social media about Not Just Bikes saying that America cannot save itself and so Americans should stop watching his channel (extremely bold, I must say). But I am of the view that the fastest route to losing is to give up, and history is full of stories of people never giving up and their cause eventually winning. South Bend, Indiana is just an example of this. As this video explores.
🖼️ Graphic Design
These graphics, produced by the always-excellent Our World In Data, are not transport related, but reflect on something important - how we do our job. The current UK population is 67.33 million. The current US population is 332 million. The current New Zealand population is 5.1 million. If you met 3 new people each day for 73 years (the average life expectancy across the world), you would meet 0.12% of the UK population, 0.02% of the US population, and a positively-popular 1.57% of the New Zealand population.
Transport professionals plan and deliver for everyone. So any plans for everyone based upon personal experience only are destined to fail. I don’t agree with the conclusions of the article which state that only statistics provide the whole view. But this puts in perspective quite how limited our world view is, when we are planning for everyone.
What you can do: Everyone should read this Harvard Business Review article on outsmarting your own biases. These are not detailed tactics for every instance when you are making a decision, but are good general rules of thumb that give you a base on which to work. Sorry, there are no easy fixes here!
Professionals and any volunteers looking to make a change at a local level must have targeted and welcoming engagement as part of their strategy and scheme development. You must check out the best practices and tools of Involve that are a really good practical start.
📚 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.
The big idea: is it too late to stop extremism taking over politics? (The Guardian)
The iPad was meant to revolutionize accessibility. What happened? (MIT Technology Review)
The LK-99 ‘superconductor’ went viral — here’s what the experts think (The Verge)
'Where Should I Live?' (The Crucial Years)
The original “Climate Barbie” (Heated)
📅 In the Diary
Over the next couple of months I will be doing the odd trip here and there. So if any of my good readers want to meet up for a coffee, simply drop me an email and we will arrange something. It will be great to see some of you lovely peeps!
This Friday (11th August) I will be in Leeds. If you want to meet up for lunch, I’ll be happy to have a bite!
Next Monday (14th August) I will be in London. Again, if lunch is on the menu it would be great to catch up.
Finally, on Thursday 7th September I will be in Edinburgh. If any of you have the morning free for a coffee or a cycle around the city, let me know!
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