Plus a video of Ghent in Belgium
Good day my good friend.
Another one of those days where it is straight to the news, on the account of yours truly not being quite fighting fit. So lets get to it.
James
Parking is more dynamic than we think, and what we can do about it is more dynamic as a result
You probably already know that that excellent Donald Shoup has done some excellent research into the impacts of parking on cities, and strategies to help manage parking better. Some new research from the Netherlands adds to this body of work by exploring the relative influence of price and time limits on parking behaviour.
If you think that what is needed is to just make parking more expensive, you really need to read this research. As the main conclusion is this:
We analyse three different parking policies commonly used in European cities – namely pricing only, pricing and time restrictions and daily tickets only – to understand the effects of these policies on a specific aspect of parking behaviour, namely the length of stay…Findings indicate that time restrictions seem more effective than pricing only strategies in managing length of parking stay.
Taking into account human feelings when we think about why we do things
Time to get a bit philosophical. This has been brought about by an interesting report by the United Nations on how to redefine progress when the world is feeling anxious about the state of the world. Their conclusions in short: centre development on sustainable development for all. But it leads to an interesting thought – how do we as transport people take account of how people feel when we define success?
We like to think we are evidence led, and we do take account of how people feel (consultation and all). And I certainly wouldn’t want to be led too far from the path of scientific reasoning and evidence-based. But maybe we could start caring about how we define our own success outside of our pure metrics of modal share and passenger numbers?
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.
A brief history of the Blackwall Tunnel (Londonist)
Corporate Climate Responsibility Monitor 2022 (New Climate Institute)
Losses Mount for Startups Racing to Deliver Groceries Fast and Cheap (The Wall Street Journal)
Reconsidering Tweets: Intervening During Tweet Creation Decreases Offensive Content (Cornell University)
Something interesting
Its not just the Dutch that do everything good on sustainable transport, you know…
If you do nothing else today, then do this
Thank you to my good friend Lucy Yu for pointing this out to me. The UK Department for Transport has started a consultation on a Code of Practice for Mobility as a Service. You should respond.
Mobility Matters 