Going all nerdy, today

Good day my good friend.

I start this email by giving a big shout out to Northern. I claimed for delayed trains from a few weeks ago. Despite the fact theirs was the only train on the route that ran to time, and the fact that the companies who trains were actually cancelled refused to cough up (I’m looking at you, East Midlands Trains and Thameslink), they stumped up the cash for the refund. Good eggs, that lot at Northern. Anyway, news.

James

If people are more engaged with active travel apps, they are more likely to respond favourably to its prompts. We are none-the-wiser.

Anyone who has experienced the Internet over the last 10 years knows one thing. On social media, a series of highly engaged users drive the content and consumption, and are more likely to react to changes and prompts. In Milan, they applied this to active travel through developing a Digital Social Market tool (translation: app) to see how people’s behaviours would change in response to non-monetary incentives to take up active travel. The results?

Our model results show that a broader engagement with the DSM app (number of claps to posts, number of posts made, non-monetary rewards earned by participating in non-travel events) is positively correlated with the monitored level of active travel. Lifestyles, attitudes, and social influence also explain the variability in cycling and walking. This highlights the importance of investigating these factors when replicating such initiatives on a large scale.

I’ll put this under the heading of “yeah, I could have guessed that was going to happen, but its useful knowledge anyway.” Social factors strongly influence travel behaviours, users engaged with the app respond strongly to its prompts, and that may change their travel behaviour. Good to know.

Using machine learning to make bus times more reliable

Some years ago, a bus operator local to me gave some insight on how they set timetables for new routes. They ran the bus end-to-end on a Sunday, added 90 seconds for each stop they passed, and then added 10 minutes ‘for traffic.’ They may as well navigated by the stars. Thankfully, computers have made such estimates more reliable.

A really cool bit of research is testing using machine learning to test the robustness of bus timetables in different passenger and operating scenarios. Simply, by considering certain system characteristics, and training the system using historic data, this proof-of-concept shows promising results in terms of estimating how robust timetables are in different scenarios. Amazingly useful if it can be demonstrated further.

Turns out that some of our assumptions on demand elasticities for travel may be wrong

Just mention the term “demand elasticities” in an abstract and I will read the paper. For those of you unfamiliar with the concept, it is how demand for (in our case) travel responds to changes in other variables – usually cost and demand. Mark Wardman has been looking at this for as long as I can remember, and he has published a meta-analysis of transport demand elasticities in the UK. Its essential reading, really.

Simply, the model he has built as a result of this meta-analysis reveals that demand elasticities are different to those assumed by UK Government and the rail industry. He also sounds a well-overdue word of caution when it comes to measuring demand elasticities in the long term:

[The research] was unable to detect variations in elasticities over time, despite extensive testing, but casts doubts on whether elasticities drawn from discrete choice models represent long run effects and on the reliability of elasticities estimated to cross-sectional demand and transfer price data.

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.

• The danger is still on our devices (Columbia Journalism Review)

• Will California’s New Zoning Promote Racial and Economic Equity in Los Angeles? (Urban Wire)

• Why Mexico Needs a Federal Funding Program for Semiformal Transport (The City Fix)

• A USDA Program Aims to Strengthen Climate Resiliency in Indian Country (The Daily Yonder)

• Systems Reform – The Core of the Levelling Up White Paper (Centre for Cities)1

Something interesting

If you do nothing else today, then do this

Check out the Streets Ahead podcast’s episode on integrated transport in Nottingham. Its very good, and goes to show that integrated transport is achievable regardless of ownership structures.