Mobility Matters Daily #459 – Blithering idiots and the DfT

Good day my good friend.

Selling the property to fund transport improvements – a sound financing strategy, or selling the family silver to plug a budget gap? Whenever I see the idea of selling property to fund improvements, I am reminded how Japanese Railway Companies buy up land near stations and rent out the space, generating a lot of money for the railway. That, and I just know that behind this, a Section 151 Officer is reminding a Director of Infrastructure Improvements that they can only spent capital funding on capital schemes.

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

James

Blithering idiots – A practical guide

Its rained a bit in the UK, and that can mean only one thing. People getting stuck driving through floodwater. If that wasn’t enough, Rufford Ford had to close because a TikTok account shared people getting stuck in it, so people turned up to do stupid things as well. So the question is inevitable: what encourages people to do stupid things like this?

Yes, this has been studied. A psychological study in Australia identified that the decision to drive through flood water is driven by attitudes, subjectives norms, and percieved behavioural control – as well as identifying the fact that women are more likely to drive through flood water than men. To no shock, risk perception also plays a big role in the decision to hit the accelerator. But changing this behaviour is hugely complex, and outside the remit of a single educational campaign. You are talking rewiring people’s brains here.

several men pushing a car through flood water

DfT shows the data

Some of you may be aware that the Department for Transport appealed against a Freedom of Information request by Professor Greg Marsden on the traffic level and EV adoption assumptions underpinning the Transport Decarbonisation Plan. Well, here is some news. Yesterday, Greg announced that DfT had relented, and these assumptions are now public record. And can be seen here.

Without knocking together a model to make more sense of the assumptions (that I don’t have time to do), you can’t say for sure how robust these are. And it needs stressing that part of the purpose of such models is to test a variety of scenarios. My sense from reviewing this data is that the degree of uncertainty ranges on the projections will be critical in how reliable these estimates are. I will say this though – a medium ambition of 70% of new car sales being ULEVs in 2030 seems to be something that can be questioned.

Active Planning is an active travel consultancy, specialising in walking and cycling strategies and funding bids

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.

What causes motion sickness—and how can you prevent it? (National Geographic)
Waste Not, Want Not (JSTOR)
Are Gas Stoves the New Cigarettes? (Curbed)
Japan dives into rare earth mining under the sea (Asia Times)
Right-To-Repair Advocates Question John Deere’s New Promises (Wired)

Something interesting

It’s been a while since I shared a Geoff Marshall video, and this one is one of his series where he explores the extremities of the London Underground. It focusses on the Chesham Branch, which is my favourite part of the Underground.

If you do nothing else today, then do this

Read this Twitter thread and this post by Tom Forth. Not only does it include some great analysis on what is the real accessibility of buses, but the commentary on the difference between local and national officials is striking. The former ask what is best for communities, the latter ask what is applicable nationally. Thanks to Beate Kubitz for sharing this.