Good day my good friend.
Yesterday, we got younger by a full 50 editions. And we never looked so good! Seriously though, you check and double-check the content of your post 5 times, and the mistake is the obvious one. Such is the life of someone who writes.
If you have any suggestions for interesting news items or bits of research to include in this newsletter, you can email me.
James
How will transport react to its second crisis in three years?
With prices at my local petrol station now exceeding £1.70 per litre, and domestic energy prices to go up over 50% next week, transport now faces another crisis: the cost of living. In the UK, over a third of households will struggle to pay the basic bills in the coming months. A cost of living crisis last seen during the oil crisis of the 1970s.
The policy response debate is now gathering pace. A cut in fuel duty is being cited by leading politicians as a solution to the current crisis (it is only partly). Some places are cutting public transport fares in response. And the IEA has put out a great infographic that sets out how to reduce demand for oil. So, again, us transport professionals must ask ourselves: what must we do to help?
Social media sentiment seems to indicate that people are happier when public transport stops are nearby
I have written before about the reliability of social media as an indicator of how people feel (short version: its interesting, but tread carefully). And many researchers continue to use social media to understand relationships between different transport types and general sentiment. This latest research on sentiment and proximity to public transport stops in Hong Kong is no exception.
In short, new public transport stops correspond with a positive change in tweet activity. But the impact on sentiment is much more mixed, to the point of being highly variable and statistically unreliable. It also varies by area types as well. Which says to me that sentiment is driven by far more than just transport.
E-scooters need to be more tightly regulated, says PACTS
Ok, I’m taking liberties with the title. PACTS is not saying that e-scooters are unsafe. It’s just saying that some private e-scooters (i.e. not necessarily the shared e-scooter trials) are really poor and are being used irresponsibly, and that needs an appropriate reaction to ensure their safety. And the findings of its latest report are, for the large part, completely reasonable. Data nerds may be interested in the safety data that they have been able to collect (though its a PDF, annoyingly).
One thing that does annoy me is about making the use of helmets mandatory – partly because from data collected on cyclists there is little evidence that helmets will have a significant impact on safety. But I am happy to be convinced otherwise. Regardless, it is an excellent bit of research, and if you care about e-scooter safety it is worth your time reviewing.
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.
Where Mornings Would Get Darker Under Permanent Daylight Savings Time (Bloomberg CityLab)
Hot poles: Antarctica, Arctic 40 and 30 degrees Celsius above normal (Phys.org)
Jet zero: modelling framework (Department for Transport)
We should all join Andy Burnham on his journey (The Big Issue)
Something interesting
Again, storytelling. Transport needs to be better at it.
If you do nothing else today, then do this
My good friends Jenny Milne, Alex Reid, Johannah Randall, and everyone else at SRITC are running their regular online cafes, and the next one is on getting the best use out of school buses. It’s on Friday, so sign up now.
Mobility Matters 