Good day my good friend.

Going through the BBC website on a casual browse, I came across this excellent show on The Far Future. It asks a question that is both simple and hard: how do we prepare for a society that is 50, 60, 100 years away? As transport planners, I know precisely what we do. But maybe we should think more creatively about the sort of world we plan to leave future generations?

Pedestrians and mobile phone use is more interesting than it has any right to be

There are a lot of road safety issues that, whilst not being important in the grand scheme of things, get a lot of air time because they are annoying to others. Pedestrians having their faces in their phones is one of them. In shocking news, it can be dangerous. But how dangerous is it really? We’ve been studying it for nearly 20 years, so by now we should know, right?

This is why meta-analyses are done. And this is why this particular meta-analysis is so interesting. To summarise the results, texting and walking is particularly bad, and us gentlemen are particularly bad at it. Age was also a key factor in the degree of distraction. Its a strangely compelling read that for once puts some substance behind an issue that generates a lot of heat by very little light far too often.

How regularly do people visit places?

Well, this is a rather fundamental question, and very important once you think about it. While commuting makes up a low percentage of total trips, I am willing to be workplaces are among the most visited places by working people. But when our job is about measuring where people travel to and from, its important to know how often they visit places, right? Such information was particularly important over the last 3 years when monitoring the spread of COVID and its impact.

The challenge is with understanding less regular behaviours, such as accessing public services. This paper utilised a deep learning method to reveal that, based on phone data, visits to such services are typically irregular, and subject to short bursts. Additionally, the types of services affects the intensity of these bursts of activity. I guess public services are like armies. You don’t need them until you really need them.

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.

• In the Netherlands, Balancing Energy Security Against Climate Concerns (New York Times)

• Researching, renewing and reimagining gender pay gap politics and policy (Policy and Politics Blog)

• Lived experience is key to designing compassionate policy response (Joseph Rowntree Foundation)

• What Happens When a Newspaper Dies? (The Daily Yonder)

• Congestion Pricing – But Make It Flexible & Equitable (The City Fix)

Something interesting

After issues with bollards being removed, the people of Oxford are taking matters into their own hands.

If you do nothing else today, then do this

The Transport Appraisal Guidelines have been significantly updated. This includes updated guidance on aviation, active travel, social impact analysis, and distributional analysis. You should check it out.