Good day my good friend.

No nonsense, straight to business today. The joys of trying to fit 5 days worth of work into just 4 days. Don’t you just love it?

If you have any suggestions for interesting news items or bits of research to include in this newsletter, you can email me.

James

Londoners valued their travel time more during COVID-19

I’m not going to open old debates about the relative influence of values of time when it comes to transport assessments. But this paper I found to be fascinating, as it shows that during COVID-19, how Londoner’s valued their time with respect to travelling on the Underground changed. The following results particularly fascinated me:

The results indicate that travel time valuation of Underground users increases by 73% when it operates at technical capacity…the sensitivity analysis suggests that making face masks mandatory is a main driver for recovering the demand for the London underground.

No reasons for these findings are given (and there is plenty of variation in the results). So what did affect this change in time valuation? The chances of catching COVID-19? Changes in attitude on working from home? If there is any research on this, I would love to see it.

Digital Disruption is often talked about, but rarely understood

A recent article in Wired covered the legacy of disruption to transport that has come about as a result of the likes of Uber, and how the disruptors are, in some cases, having to eat a bit of humble pie. Its a good summary article, but it doesn’t really touch on the nature of digital disruption. For which there is a lot of good research.

Simply put, its a two-way street. Digital disruption changes industries and societies, but it is also affected by the social and economic forces at play. A single technology is rarely a disruptor, but blends of them (often unforeseen) often are. It is often more a mantra and is rarely led by evidence of what happens. Essentially, shockingly, its complicated, so look for the connections to other things, rather than thinking about whether a new technology will change the world on its own.

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 that you enjoy them.

• High gas prices have a lot more people searching for electric vehicles (Grist)

• Nordic cities: How Bergen is moving from oil and gas towards a net-zero blue economy (City Monitor)

• Providence Should Use In-Motion Charging for Buses (Pedestrian Observations)

• Providence Should Use In-Motion Charging for Buses | Pedestrian Observations (The Daily Yonder)

• Collapse Won’t Reset Society (Palladium)

Something interesting

If you do nothing else today, then do this

UK-based subscribers may like to respond to a couple of consultations. Transport Scotland is undertaking a review of its Strategic Transport Projects, and wants your comments. Meanwhile, the Welsh Government is asking for comments on co-ordinating the bus network in terms of of times and fares.