Mobility vs Accessibility: new evidence for an old debate

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I was at a public exhibition many years ago where I was approached by a rather aggressive environmental campaigner. He told me that if public sector transport planners like me really wanted to promote sustainable travel, then we’d all live and work within the same Local Authority area. Everything we did should be local and we shouldn’t really need to go anywhere, and then we wouldn’t be emitting all that carbon travelling. As I lived in another District from where I was working, albeit only 10-12 miles away, I naturally did no more than nod and smile politely.

Inside, I was thinking: Yes I agree that we need to reduce our transport emissions and impacts on the climate, but my husband is the one that lives next to his work and I had to find a job nearby. Yes I’d like a shorter, more convenient commute, but there wasn’t a job in my field, never mind at the level I was looking for, advertised within my District at the time. Yes I prefer to travel by sustainable modes, but I do take the train to get here, whereas I might have to drive to other jobs at a similar or shorter distance. Yes, but…!

Ok, enough of the protests in my head that clearly have been yearning to break free for far too long. My point in recalling this story is that the man’s superficially inane, impractical argument does have a grounding in a fundamental principle of transport that many transport planners, never mind transport users, often overlook. Transport planners tend to focus on creating and promoting options (read new infrastructure or services) for mobility, rather than accessibility.

Yet people travel for the purpose of accessing a job or a shop or a friend’s house, and travel further if those things they are trying to access are further away. The further they travel, the less mobility options they have, which may result in a poor choice between car-dependence and isolation. The latter I add as we consider the impact of new online technologies on accessibility over mobility. See a great blog on this by @alikirkbride for #LTTMobilityMatters.

Moreover, I have recently discovered that the concept that humans seek accessibility rather than mobility can be backed up scientifically. In the last decade, researchers [1-4] have used big data from mobile phone call records and social media to show that human movement follows certain patterns, namely:

  • Most people can be found in a few predictable places (home, work) most days of the week at the times (night and day) where you’d expect to find them there.
  • Most people make more short trips than long trips, and the distribution of short trips follows a certain pattern, decreasing with distance, up to a threshold.
  • At which point you have a different pattern where people who travel further can be found in expected places more often and have fewer irregular trips.
  • And, those people who travel further tend to live where there is less density – of population, employment, opportunities, activities – than those who travel shorter distances.

It is this last point that is key. None of the studies are looking at mode of travel, but they say something very basic about travel behaviour. Namely, that people are not choosing which trips to make to minimise journey times or distance travelled, even if that may influence modal choice. No, they are choosing which trips to make based on where the destinations are which they are trying to reach. They will choose the nearest destination that meets their need or desire or nearest ‘intervening opportunity’ as one study calls it [2].

Thus, transport planners should be as aware as land use planners of the importance of place-making, of mixed-use development, of walkable neighbourhoods. Discussing those is a whole other blog, so I’ll leave it there, but in a twisted way, that man who chastised me long ago had a point. If we could work at the sort of job we wanted, shop for whatever we needed, socialise with our friends and family and have our children in decent schools, all in the same area as our home, we would probably choose to do so. Then we would have more options for sustainable mobility (e.g. walking and cycling), which would be better for the environment and our health and make us more resilient to unforeseen events. And so transport planners would be planning for accessibility rather than mobility.

  1. Gonzalez, M.C.H., Cesar A. & Barabasi, Albert-Laszlo, Understanding individual human mobility patterns. Nature, 2008. 453(7196): p. 779-782.
  2. Noulas A, S.S., Lambiotte R, Pontil M, and Mascolo C, A Tale of Many Cities: Universal Patterns in Human Urban Mobility. PLoS ONE, 2012. 7(5): p. 1-10.
  3. Isaacman S, B.R., Caceres R, Kobourov SG, Martonosi M, Rowland, J and Varshavsky, A. Identifying Important Places in People’s Lives from Cellular Network Data. in 9th International Conference on Pervasive Computing (Pervasive). 2011.
  4. Song, C.Q., Zehui Qu; Blumm, Nicholas and Barabási, Albert-László, Limits of Predictability in Human Mobility. Science, 2010. 327: p. 1018-1021.

 

Weather Warnings

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A couple weeks ago, I published a blog called Whether the Weather. It was about some of the research I’ve been doing into how everyday changes in the weather affect our daily travel choices. I’ve read quite a bit more on the topic since then, but I won’t bore you with that. Because I’ve also read about the impacts of more extreme weather on transport infrastructure and how that can more irregularly and infrequently affect our travel choices. Except it’s not as infrequent as you think.

I found a couple of websites from the Met Office and an organisation called FloodList with non-exhaustive reports of recent extreme weather events in the UK. Who needs disaster movies when you can read about real life? Especially when you can attach personal memories to many a story or photo.

Although not every individual resident has experience of being evacuated from their home due to floods or stranded for hours due to transport disruption, most of us can probably recall how some of these events affected us, our family, our social network or even the wider society.

Did you know people who took untold hours to get home after snow cut short Christmas shopping in 2010? Did you smell smoke from the forest fires of Spring 2011? Maybe someone told you about the Toon Monsoon in 2012. Or you saw on social media one of the great pictures of the lightening during the electrical storms in July 2013? Do you have family in the Southwest you couldn’t visit when the rail line was washed away in 2014? Or friends in Yorkshire that saw their favourite restaurant flood in 2015? Perhaps the flash floods on 23rd June 2016 in London affect the voter turn-out there for the EU referendum?

Although snow may be more immediately disruptive and heatwaves more enduring, heavy rain and storms and the floods they cause are the greatest risks to the UK’s transport infrastructure [1]. Great Britain may be an island, but coastal flooding is only a small part of it. Tides and storm surges, rivers bursting their banks, flash flooding, overflowing drains, groundwater seeping upwards – all forms of flooding pose risks to a significant proportion of national transport (and other) infrastructure throughout the country. Heavy rain, storms and flooding can trigger further problems, like landslips, sinkholes, coastal erosion and trees falling in the heavy winds that often accompany storms. When energy and communications infrastructure are also affected, the impacts can be compounded.

One study calculated that the storms of 28 June 2012 caused 10,000 minutes of delay on the national rail network, which didn’t get back to normal until mid-July, whilst there were also long delays on the strategic road network [2]. And this research didn’t even investigate local impacts. As this was the storm that caused the Toon Monsoon, a different study describes roads and properties flooded and severe disruption and damage from which it took some time to recover [3].

As we face such destructive weather, we as a society needs to adapt. I found three ‘R’s’ that should form our strategy: resistance, resilience and recovery. These ‘R’s’ are not only for engineers and scientists, civil servants and emergency responders to consider as they prepare strategies, redesign infrastructure, or even coordinate evacuations. They are also for people in their communities to think about how they would prepare, adapt and react.

Put yourself in that disaster movie. What would you do when the severe weather warnings or flood warnings were first issued? How many of your daily activities could you carry on with in the event? Do you have the skills to help get things back to normal quickly and painlessly? And in the longer term, would it affect your decisions about where you live and work and play, and how you get around?

 

 

1.Dawson, R., Chapter 4: Infrastructure, in UK Climate Change Risk Assessment 2017: Evidence Report. 2016, Committee on Climate Change. p. 1-111.

2.Jaroszweski, D.H., Elizabeth; Baker, Chris; Chapman, Lee and Quinn, Andrew, The impacts of the 28 June 2012 storms on UK road and rail transport. Meteorological Applications, 2015. 22: p. 470-476.

3.Pregnolato, M.F., Alistair; Robson, Craig; Glenis, Vassilis; Barr, Stuart and Dawson, Richard Assessing urban strategies for reducing the impacts of extreme weather on infrastructure networks. Royal Society Open Science, 2016. 3: p. 1-15.



Whether the Weather

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Are you a weather stoic, giving two fingers to whatever the clouds might throw at you, or are you a weather syncophant, letting a little rain pressure you into changing your plans? As the clocks change, are you pleased to have the additional daylight for the morning commute, for the accidents purportedly prevented, for the comfort of walking your children to school? Or do you worry about the dark trip home and choose to hibernate when possible?

The impact of weather on travel choices is a subject discussed and considered by many transport planners. Researchers have subjected various hypotheses to empirical testing. One literature review of the subject compiled a list of 54 articles reporting research on how normal weather variations affect normal travel patterns, and this is cited as only a sample of the total (Bocker et al 2013).

Many of these studies test commonly-held hypotheses using real-time weather measurements, empirical transport data and statistical modelling. For example, everyone has heard of the fair weather cyclist and it would surprise no one to be told there are more cyclists in the summer in temperate climates. Thus, researchers in cities from Montreal to Melbourne and San Francisco to Singapore have used cyclist counts, travel diaries and route-side surveys to investigate whether and by how much precipitation, high or low temperatures or wind affect the amount of cycling for utility or leisure. Their results indicate that the weather does have an impact, particularly rain, and to a lesser extent, temperature and strong winds. Not that it’s completely straightforward. The studies differ on whether the precipitation effects take hold at the first sign of drizzle or only in heavier downpours, and whilst cyclists do prefer warmer weather, it’s only up to a point. Numbers decline again when it’s too warm or humid – a trend that has significant consequences in hotter climates.

Another theme of research focuses on changes in car traffic in different types of weather. Unsurprisingly, snow can reduce traffic substantially. The impact of rain is more nuanced. Some studies show a decrease in traffic, whilst some show an increase and more specifically a modal switch from walking and cycling to car travel. Few cancel their trips entirely if they are commuting or on business, but changing the timing of a trip is an option more often considered. Perhaps this is due to the commonly-held and well-substantiated belief that traffic speeds are slower and congestion greater in wet weather.

Indeed, there is another suite of studies on the performance of roads in wetter weather and the effectiveness of weather-responsive traffic management, although such articles were outside the scope of the aforementioned literature review, specifically excluded due to the focus on “infrastructure maintenance, accident rates and… performance” rather than travel behaviour.

Also excluded were extreme weather scenarios, as the purpose was to assess the studies of everyday events. Yet heavy rain, heatwaves, snow and gales can so affect infrastructure that travel choices are reduced – and some are removed altogether…

Thus, as winter approaches, how will you choose to travel no matter the weather or no matter whether the weather takes some choices away?

Böcker,  L.; Dijst,  M. and  Prillwitz,  J. (2013) Impact of Everyday Weather on Individual Daily Travel Behaviours in Perspective: A Literature Review. Transport Reviews: A Transnational Transdisciplinary Journal. 33:1. pp 71-91.

Rooting for Rail

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With Brexit, Syria, the US presidential election and enough drama and controversy to fill the daily broadsheets twice over, you’d be excused if you thought there was no news about transport worth mentioning. But announcements have been made, the policies Teresa May’s Government plans to pursue are approaching the starting line, and rail appears to hold poll position among transport sectors.

Earlier this month, Transport Secretary Chris Grayling confirmed the Government’s commitment to High Speed 2. He also announced three new funds to be allocated to local authorities along the route worth a total of £70 million. This money will support community, environmental, economic and road safety outcomes.

Such outcomes form the basis of the challenge for transport planners. How do we make rail infrastructure work for those who live along the route? It is difficult to mitigate impacts where there is just track in the vicinity, but there are the stations to consider too. Not only as milestones in the prestige, high speed race, but also on local lines.

Another announcement, probably ignored in the run up to the August bank holiday was for £20 million to part-fund a second round of new local stations, following five that were funded in the first round. Then there’s the ongoing programme of station upgrades. From Birmingham and Reading to York and Weston-Super-Mare, billions are being spent by Network Rail and Train Operating Companies to bring stations to a new level of peak performance which can cope with the new scale of peak passenger traffic.

The expectations of regeneration, interchange and accessibility around these stations are high, with a lot of money riding on them. National planning policy is pushing for higher density housing around railway stations and ‘commuter hubs’, extending the transport planning challenge to new developments as well as existing communities. Meanwhile, although plenty of government agencies are getting involved, city devolution deals and rail route reorganisation means that it may be local governments and businesses who are having to back and perhaps even ride their own horse.

If rail projects are to cross the finish line posting respectable times, then it is our responsibility as transport planners to ensure that they achieve outcomes such as coherent surrounding communities, thriving economies and improved accessibility to jobs and services by sustainable modes of transport.

It is a timely topic and one that will be discussed by experts with knowledge of current policy, best practice and on-the-ground delivery at this year’s RTPI-TPS Transport Planning Network event on 21 November in Birmingham. Click here for more information and to register. Rail development is a runner worth rooting for.

The local transport forecast is…

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After a summer of huge economic and political uncertainty – Brexit, a new Prime Minister/Cabinet, upheaval in the Labour party and continued reports of tragedy abroad – perhaps we can excuse local transport not being a policy priority. Yet even in the more stable times of last Autumn, local transport was a poor relation. (See my blog on Chancellor George Osbourne’s last spending  review.)

So it seems timely to make a case for local transport now, in advance of Philip Hammond’s first budget in November. Perhaps that is what the Campaign for Better Transport (CfBT) thought when they published a briefing called Fix It First last week. It describes the benefits of investing in local transport rather than big infrastructure projects when money is tight:

  • There are more jobs in road repair than in road construction.
  • Fixing roads is more popular than building new ones.
  • Local projects can be delivered quickly with tangible results, e.g. recent challenge fund programmes.
  • The unemployed are more likely to find jobs if they have ways to travel to job opportunities.
  • Encouraging more walking and cycling more often would lead to a physically fitter population – saving major healthcare costs.
  • Improved public realm can attract private investment.
  • Most small-scale new rail stations/lines opened in recent years have exceeded forecast use.
  • Investing in new buses would support UK manufacturing, as they are usually made in the UK.
  • Greener buses would improve local air quality, quickly and cheaply.

There are plenty more reasons than those above and many examples of successful local transport investment. The most local and most innovative changes are happing in people’s pockets – journey planning, ticketing, on-demand services. No wonder I’ve long been a fan of local transport solutions.

This isn’t to say I’m categorically against major infrastructure projects. I see some benefits to HS2, even if I’m not sure they necessarily outweigh the costs. And I’ve admitted in the past that I greatly appreciate the convenience of Heathrow and do not mind the price of noisy planes overhead. I even have occasional mixed feelings about new roads projects. There is some irony in my finding the briefing by following a link in a ‘Welsh’ news item, as one of the ‘white elephant’ infrastructure projects CfBT list is the M4 ‘relief’ road south of Newport. Surveying and assisting in the modelling for said relief road was one of my first projects as a graduate transport planner, back in 2003. It’s hard to be untainted.

However, if all this focus on national infrastructure schemes is at the expense of local improvements, I completely agree that it is money poorly spent. Even in a globalised world, most of our travel for economic activities or social ones occurs at the local level. This is where transport planning can impact on the quality of people’s lives. From public health to access to jobs to better environments in which to live and work, spending on local transport makes a difference.

Local leaders know this, and therefore, as well as reallocating pots of capital and revenue, we should call on the new Government to continue or even accelerate devolution of transport powers and funding sources to local governments. Perhaps once cities and counties can fund their own local transport to an adequate level, central Government will be able to consider its plans for national infrastructure projects. But let’s hope they think about the local transport forecast first.

Air Quality is on Us

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The Royal Geographic Society issued a media release on a paper given at their annual conference last week: Study finds impact of road transport on air quality not given sufficient priority in UK transport planning.

The release was picked up by a national newspaper, The Guardian, by the Royal Town Planning Institute’s professional journal, The Planner, and probably plenty of other publications as well. Air pollution may be an unseen killer in our cities, but it is no longer unseen in the media. There was even a headline this week that air pollution is linked to Alzheimer’s Disease. Thus, as Chair of its Transport Planning Network, the RTPI asked me for a response to the academic study to put into The Planner. You can read it here. They cut down the two paragraphs that I sent them, but the first answer that actually came to mind was even shorter:

‘Harsh, but fair.’

If you read my blog, you are already aware that I am a transport planner by choice, career and professional identification. I have worked in both the public and private sectors and am now starting a PhD. First and foremost, I believe in the transformative power of transport planning to create a better society in reality, not just academic theory. So of course I found the conclusion of the study harsh.

However, I am also asthmatic. My asthma is manageable and I have never been hospitalised, but I am more aware than many when warnings of dangerous air pollution are issued. I tend to assume my asthma has more to do with pollen than pollution, having suffered from hayfever for as long as I can remember, yet I also empathise with those whose respiratory conditions are caused by poor air quality. It makes me think it is fair to ask transport planning to do more.

Furthermore, I am part of a small minority of transport planners who has, at some point, worked on the business case for a Low Emission Zone. At the time, I read up on particulates and receptors and undertook a little training on emissions and air quality. I even have the certificate to prove it. Therefore, I understand some of the complexities involved in how the increased use of diesel vehicles can reduce carbon emissions, but increase local air pollution. That’s why I wasn’t surprised by the VW Emissions Scandal last year – as I wrote in my blog at the time, I should have known. And yet, many transport planners aren’t well-informed in the intricacies of air pollution. If any environmental impact is prioritised by policy, it is carbon emissions, which might seem to be addressed by technologies like efficient diesel vehicles. Again, I thought it harsh to expect transport practitioners to manage air quality with neither training nor political support.

On the other hand, making a business case for a new project is a key task in transport planning, so any competent transport planner should be able to uncover the immense cost savings to health budgets of reducing air pollution. Air quality and other public health impacts, incidentally including road safety (pun intended), might take a back seat to carbon emissions and more particularly economic growth in transport appraisal guidance, but one doesn’t have to fully understand the morbidity and mortality calculations of reducing air pollution to achieve a much better benefit to cost ratio. Government may press for new roads and new housing, but transport planners are also taught that it takes good infrastructure for public transport, walking and cycling balanced by restrictions on car use to achieve the environmental, societal and even economic benefits we strive for under the banner of sustainability. So if we aren’t pushing for such policies and action, well, once again criticism is fair enough.

Response to study? Harsh but fair. Recommendation? Transport planners, air quality is on us.

 

Hitchhiker’s App to the Galaxy

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Have you gotten lost on holiday this summer?

Don’t panic!

Have you struggled to find somewhere nice to eat?

Don’t panic!

Are you worried you’re not getting enough exercise after all that indulgence?

Don’t panic!

Did you forget to pay that bill before you left home?

Don’t panic!

Are the kids getting restless?

Don’t panic!

Need to make someone jealous of the glorious weather you had at the beach?

Don’t panic!

I sometimes look at the plain black case on my smartphone and think I should use the phone to search online for a replacement case with ‘the words DON’T PANIC inscribed in large friendly letters on its cover’.

Douglas Adams may not have had a smartphone in mind when he was describing The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy in the eponymous book, but he might as well have. Smartphones these days not only allow immediate access to encyclopaedic information on any subject of curiosity or concern that may present itself (even if, depending on the internet sources you gravitate towards, such information may well contain ‘many omissions and… much that is apocryphal, or at least wildly inaccurate’), they also offer apps that provide solutions to any situation you might find yourself in, especially when travelling.

It has been reported that over a third of UK internet users aim to have a digital detox on holiday, leaving devices at home to avoid the temptation to check work emails or spend more time on Facebook than facing their partner or family. However, another study has found that ‘more than half of smartphone users consider [their device] essential to their travel experience’.

Admittedly, the latter study was about travel generally, rather than holiday travel specifically. However, the point remains. More than a third of the UK population (over half of the 72% who the study identified as having a smartphone or smartphone access) turn increasingly to smartphones to plan journeys, navigate on route, find shops and services on arrival, distract the kids when queuing, track their physical activity and so much more.

The biggest challenge may not be whether the information or app exists, but how to find ones suited to personal circumstances. Ones which are reliable, both in terms of the information and the battery drain.

If your concern is your regular commute, you can choose travel apps that allow you to have an account with your local bus operator to buy tickets, or sign you up to receive alerts on whether your normal train service is delayed. You might have an app that allows you to check any roadworks or incidents on your usual route to work in seconds. You might download a travel loyalty scheme with rewards or sign up for a cycle challenge, competing against colleagues.

But if you are seeking more flexibility in your daily choices or are travelling to unfamiliar places, knowing what app to use or what information to look up becomes trickier.

Some places have a multitude of apps developed from a plethora of data, others are black holes for 21st century technology, offering little for locals, never mind tourists. Some apps you use at home might offer their services nationally, or even internationally, but can you be confident that their data or user base is as high quality or includes as much detail in Londonderry and Yorktown as in London or New York?

Furthermore, how many apps do you want to download, filling your phone with unused icons? How many will tell you what you need to know, when you need to know it, maybe without even asking?

The answers to these questions are a work in progress, but the future looks bright. Increasing open and standardised data will increase app coverage and confidence. Healthy competition between app developers will create options for everyone. And improving access to wifi and 4G (then 5G) for travellers would increase service delivery. Perhaps in the not too distant future, our smartphones will assess our situation and be able to tell us, “Don’t Panic.”

 

Which Side of the Tracks?

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There’s an old way of saying someone is ‘lower class’: they’re said to be from ‘the wrong side of the tracks.’ The saying came from the way that railway lines could sever one neighbourhood from another and designate the residents of one as lesser than those of the other. Railway tracks were symbolic of division.

Division seems to permeate society at the moment. Which side of the tracks someone’s on seems to determine their outlook, their view of any outcomes, even their awareness of what or who might be living on the far side.

This isn’t new, but the UK referendum on the EU has highlighted many divisions in stark relief. Young versus old. Elite versus disadvantaged. Metropolitan versus rural. Local versus Central. Northern England versus Southern England.

Chartered town and transport planners tend to consider themselves a pretty professional and well-educated bunch, but the divisions and the blindness to whoever’s on the other side of the tracks has infiltrated here too.

I was at an event in south Hampshire recently. A presentation on some research by the Royal Town Planning Institute (RTPI) into spatial planning issues for the Northern Powerhouse was, I thought, received with a little too much naivety from some of the southern planners. Perhaps they haven’t been paying attention because the issues are too far away and not part of their day job.

However, they attended the event. There, with a minimal expenditure of time, funds and effort, they were able to educate themselves. Providing such updates and raising awareness is a valuable part of what a professional institute is designed to do.

I also recently attended an interesting workshop on housing development around railway stations. There, I saw divisions between disciplines within our profession. I heard land use planners discussing housing development around railway stations without making any reference to their colleagues’ transport input. There was concern that station regeneration could limit future station expansion, or transport planning for railway capacity might not account for demand created by new housing.

Those from both sides of the planning tracks worried that the processes for building new railway stations and housing developments simply could not be managed in parallel. Local government planners are baffled by rail industry processes. Network Rail is being brought back into central Government, which is also taking responsibility for directly funding housing, yet Government departments are scrambling to keep control in times of unprecedented change.

If the Government is promoting policy to build higher density housing around stations, planners and transport planners at all levels of Government need to work together. Together we can ensure that those new dwellings aren’t severed from each other into the ‘right’ and ‘wrong’ side of the tracks nor from necessary services and employment by the very railway stations and lines that are supposed to be increasing their accessibility.

Such partnership working requires professionals who are well-informed about the roles of their colleagues. That is a key purpose of the Transport Planning Network, a network based in the RTPI, but run in partnership with the Transport Planning Society. I am Chair of this Network and we are organising an event on the topic of development around railway stations. We plan to have case studies from North and South, to have speakers representing the central and the local, and to attract an audience of planners involved in both transport and land use. Let’s build bridges over those tracks.

Data x3

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Data, Data, Data. Does it have the same cachet as Location, Location, Location? Big data. Open data. Standardised data. Personal data. If it doesn’t yet, it soon will.

I attended the Transport Practitioners’ Meeting 2016 last week and the programme was full of presentations and workshops available to any delegate with an interest in data, including me. With multiple, parallel sessions, I could have filled my personal programme twice over.

Transport planning has always been rich in the production and use of data. The difference now is that data is producing itself, the ability for the transport sector to mine data collected for other purposes is growing, and the datasets themselves are multiplying. Transport planners are challenged to keep up, and to keep to their professional aims of using the data for the good of society.

The scale of this challenge is recognised by Research Councils and is probably why I won a studentship to undertake a PhD project that must use big data to assess environmental risk and resilience. Thus my particular interest in finding all the inspiration I could at the conference.

Talk after talk, including my own presentation on bike share, mentioned the trends in data that will guide transport planning delivery in the future, but more specific sources of data were also discussed.

Some were not so much new as newly accessible. In the UK, every vehicle must be registered to an owner and after 3 years must pass an annual service, called an MOT. A group of academics has been analysing this data for the government in part to determine what benefits its use might bring. Our workshop discussion at the conference on this agreed the possibilities were extensive.

Crowd-sourced data, on the other hand, could be called new; collected on social media platforms or by apps like Waze. Local people using local transport networks share views on the quality of operation, report potholes, raise issues, and follow operators’ social media accounts to get their personalised transport news. This data is the technological successor to anecdote; still qualitatively rich, but now quantitatively significant. It helps operators and highways authorities respond to customers more quickly. Can it also help transport professionals plan strategically for the future?

Another new source of data is records of ‘mobile phone events’ – data collected by mobile phone network operators that can be used to determine movement, speed, duration of stay, etc. There are still substantial flaws in translating this data for transport purposes, particularly the significant under-counting of short trips and the extent of verification required. However, accuracy will increase in time, and apps that are designed to track travel such as Strava and Moves can already be analysed with much greater confidence.

Even more reliable are the records now produced automatically by ticketing systems on public transport, sensors in roads and traffic signals, cameras, lasers, GPS trackers and more. Transport is not only at the forefront of machine learning, but the ‘Internet of Things’ is becoming embedded in its infrastructure. Will such data eventually replace traditional traffic counts and surveys, informing reliable models, accurate forecasts and appropriate interventions?

It is certainly possible that we will be able to plan for populations with population-size data sources on a longitudinal spectrum, rather than using sample surveys of a few hundred people or snapshots of a short period of ‘neutral’ time.

However…

Despite attempts to stop it (note impossibility of ignoring Brexit in any field; its shadow hung over the conference proceedings), globalisation is here to stay and data operates in an international ecosystem. Thus, it cannot be used to its full potential without international regulations on sharing and privacy and standards on format and availability.

Transport planners also need the passion and the skills to make data work for us. Substantial analysis of new datasets is required to identify utility and possibility, requiring not only statistical and modelling training, but also instruction in analytical methods. People with such skills are in limited supply, as is the time and money for both training and analysis of new datasets.

Therefore, perhaps the most important lesson is that sharing best practice and successful projects that employ data at conferences like TPM2016 is more important than ever.

 

 

 

Moving On

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I haven’t felt this moody since I was a teenager. Then I wrote poetry. So for this post, I’ve decided to do so again.

 

 

This week’s had two events for me.

First a birthday without note,

Then closed doors, closed minds; can I close my heart

To the outcome of the vote?

 

A summer ago I left my job

And chose to take a chance

To better balance family

By finding new projects free-lance.

 

No clients, no fees came my way.

I considered giving up.

Yet opportunities unsought appeared.

I thought I was in luck.

 

A professional Chair was secured,

And a studentship won

One child learned to read and one to speak;

A mother’s work well-done.

 

Then to this uncertain weather,

A nation now divided;

Whilst a transport planner’s role’s defined

By connections she’s provided.

 

So what is next for one who makes

Movement healthy, safe and free?

We can’t move anymore, but can we move on

When anger won’t let us be?