Tag Archives: weather

Preparing Potential

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Early on in my search for case studies of how people adapt to transport disruption during to severe weather events, I realised that my research project is as much about the potential for resilient travel behaviour change as it is about revealed travel behaviour change.

Some people take evasive action to avoid risk on the roads or rails, others do not. That’s revealed behaviour. But whether travellers’ reactions to storms, snow, wind and floods is due to conscious choice or pre-existing constraint, that’s about their potential.

Therefore, my project was as much about identifying the potential to encourage and support resilient travel behaviour change in response to transport disruption during severe weather as it was about describing behaviours already prevalent.

Then, at a conference last week, I learned that there are academic terms and concepts to describe this potential: capability and motility and eudaemonic wellbeing – at which point I’ve probably already lost most reading this blog. But let me explain.

Whereas transport planners usually view travel behaviour in terms of choices made because of the utility (cost, time, convenience, comfort) of transport options, this perspective looks at choices in terms of whether the traveller has the capability to make that choice, a question that considers the individual’s physical and mental abilities or constraints, their skills in navigation, their disposition to travel, their perceptions of safety and inclusion (or not).

The traditional approach then leads to planning for mobility, mainly by trying to increase modal choice, encourage modal shift, offer more services, or build more infrastructure. Motility, meanwhile, tries to take account of all the resources that make access choices possible, not just the transport ones. Therefore, there is more consideration of land use as well as transport, of past experiences and transport history, as well as present travel patterns, of levels of confidence as well as levels of competence.

As a result, a narrow focus on the ‘hedonic’ wellbeing of travellers – whether they have been helped to move quickly and reliably from A to B by whichever mode – is replaced by a broad mission of helping travellers fulfil their potential or achieve greater ‘eudaemonic wellbeing’ through inclusive motility.

All of this fits neatly with the goal of successful adaptation to increasingly extreme weather and the transport disruption it causes. For although infrastructure and services can be adapted and made more resilient, they are unlikely to be so well adapted as to maintain a high level of reliability or speed during severe weather events. Thus, measures of utility, mobility, and hedonic wellbeing are all likely to fall short.

Meanwhile, studies have demonstrated that people adapt better if they have experience with disruption, are familiar with additional accessibility choices (including online access), and if they have more time to adapt (e.g. because they have more warning or disruption is longer term). In other words, people respond more resiliently if they can boast of greater access capabilities, more motility, and more time to achieve their potential. Which, if they do, would probably make them feel more eudaemonic well-being even when things aren’t going to plan, if for no other reason than that they have avoided getting stuck on a motorway or a train platform for hours.

Conclusion? My project is about identifying who changes their travel behaviour during severe weather and how they avoid risk. But it is also about translating those evidenced behaviours into ideas for policies and measures which prepare more people and groups for severe weather, increase their potential to respond resiliently, and give them greater capability, motility, and eudemonic wellbeing.

 

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.