Good day my good friend.

A busy week ahead, so no time to waste with introductions.

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

You should also join a lot of like-minded people at Mobility Camp in Bristol in September. Tickets are on sale now.

James

Can telling people about collisions actually increase the likelihood of them occurring?

Thank you to Francis Ostermeijer for sharing this article with me. This points to some interesting findings in a recent academic paper that appears to indicate something counter-intuitive. That if you tell people about the number of road deaths along a particular stretch of road, it actually increases the number of collisions. How to explain this, I am not sure, but their research also indicates that…

“…displaying a higher fatality count (i.e., a plausibly more attention-grabbing statistic) causes more crashes than displaying a small one, that fatality messages are more harmful when displayed on more complex road segments, that fatality messages increase multi-vehicle crashes (but not single-vehicle crashes), and that the impact is largest close to DMSs and decreases over longer distances.”

This is a periodic reminder that nudges are often talked as something that is fluffy and subtle. But they have real-world consequences, that can sometimes be fatal. Handle with care.

Transit-oriented development reduces the amount of car trips over the long term

Much is spoken about the potential of transit-oriented development (i.e. having new development focussed and densley packed around public transport stops) to reduce cars trips. And there is certainly plenty of evidence indicating that proximity to public transport has a strong bearing on its use. But it is a field that is not studied as much as it is talked about.

A new research paper on the impact of transit-oriented development on the Metro do Porto, using two travel surveys 17 years apart. The findings appear to validate the hypothesis: those living in transit-oriented development tend to use the metro far more and car use far less. Although the relationship with the use of the bus is far less certain. Maybe, we should do more of this sort of thing?

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.

• Climate Deniers and the Language of Climate Obstruction (DeSmog)

• This European airline just ordered a fleet of airships (CNN)

• Work, the wasted years (The Economist)

• Near-Zero Aviation Is Possible, But Do We Have the Will? (TreeHugger)

• How can we prevent AI from being racist, sexist and offensive? (New Scientist)

Something interesting

If you do nothing else today, then do this

Read this excellent report on the future of human potential. Transport and how we get around reflects who we are. And if who we are changes, then so does transport.