Good day my good friend.

Yesterday, I went through the 5 stages of project closeout:

• Denial – This project is not coming to an end surely?

• Anger – Oh, damn, it is. How on EARTH did that happen so quickly?!?

• Bargaining – Ok, so it is closing out and I have a lot to do. Surely I can get an extension to get these few bits of admin done?

• Depression – Damn, I can’t. Oh God, this is going to look bad if every I isn’t dotted and every T isn’t crossed.

• Acceptance – Sod it, I’m never going to have to get it all done. I’ll submit the paperwork and answer any questions later.

It happens every time.

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

James

Induced Demand isn’t a bad thing

This post on the r/f**kcars SubReddit raised an important question, and something that we often forget. We usually frame induced demand as a bad thing. That is because it is often mentioned in relation to highways and road expansion. And don’t get me wrong, inducing more driving is a bad thing if your measures of success are lower carbon emissions, less congestion etc. But induced demand is not bad, as it depends what demand you induce.

In building new bike lanes or new public transport infrastructure, we attempt to induce demand for those modes. Indeed, the whole business case for these schemes is predicated on it. The difference is that not only is this demand more likely to achieve wider social goals, but the space-efficiency of these modes means that as demand scales up, these modes handle that demand better than single occupancy cars. Resulting in more demand for these modes because it is easier than driving. Remember, sometimes we want to induce demand, and indeed it is good that we do so.

Getting out is a slow business

Emergency planners everywhere will know that evacuating a lot of people from a location in an emergency is very hard to do quickly. Its simple maths – a lot of people needing to move quickly all at once in the same direction. Its like rush hour with a countdown and added panic. Much work has been done over the years to model evacuations, and its one taking an increasingly behavioural science approach. Because we know that evacuation travel behaviours are very different to normal transport decision making.

Fewer events could be more terrifying than a wildfire, and an analysis has been undertaken of the traffic dynamics during the 2019 Kincade Fire studied how traffic speeds varied compared to normal. The conclusion? Much slower journey speeds than normal. So much so, that the recommendation is that dedicated models are needed to understand the traffic dynamics of evacuations. Nothing wrong with more research, but maybe in the meantime emergency planners should look to modes that can evacuate a lot of people quickly. Like, I don’t know, public transport.

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.

• Could a digital Earth replica aid scientists’ understanding of environment? (The Denver Post)

• Survey: Nearly two-thirds of Americans are living paycheck to paycheck (The Hill)

• California is lone holdout in Colorado River cuts proposal (Associated Press)

• Six parts of your car that gather data on you (The Conversation)

• How Pittsburgh found a secret climate weapon in ‘the thrilling world of municipal budgeting’ (Grist)

Something interesting

Not wanting to hate on billionaires here, but perhaps you may want to cut the private jet use a bit?

If you do nothing else today, then do this

Read this brilliant blog by Dr Shaun Helman on toddlers and safe systems approaches to road safety. It is well worth your 5 minutes reading time.