Good day my good friend.
It was great to catch up with so many of you at the Transport Planning Society and Steer event on Shaping the future of transport planning last night. A big thank you goes to Nicola Kane for expertly MC-ing proceedings, and to Victoria Hills, Jessica Matthews, and Matthew Clark for your thought-provoking presentations. Specifically well done to Jessica for expertly judging the “when is the Local Transport Plan guidance coming out?” question.
If you have any suggestions for interesting news items or bits of research to include in this newsletter, you can email me.
James
Judging false assumptions
This is a really excellent article by Greg Marsden, who has probed the data underpinning the UK Government’s transport decarbonisation plans. To summarise the key points: there are some fantastical assumptions about behaviour change and tech, and the initiatives on active travel and public transport probably won’t cut it. Greg has done an amazing job in revealing these assumptions to the public, and testing them. However…
Models, correctly applied, are decision making aids. And assumptions as to how transport will decarbonise (and trips will change) are based upon findings from work at an extremely early stage of that work. We partly overcome this through testing a range of scenarios, and while I agree that assumptions need basing in evidence, we need to be mindful that the future is a tricky thing to predict, and biases can emerge in funny ways. For what it’s worth, the work by Greg looks extremely robust. But I caution everyone: just because someone says something you agree with, doesn’t mean they are right. Check their work for yourself.
Stories are as strong as any analysis, for good or for bad
As much as I am a numbers guy, I do love a good bit of qualitative analysis. And when a project or bit of research uses a bit of storytelling to understand a transport issue, then its all the better for it, as it is an extremely powerful way of developing and influencing policy. When applied right of course. And certainly when applied to traditionally marginalised groups.
This study of women in Delhi using a story completion method shows its power perfectly. Not just in terms of understanding issues of safety and sexual harrassment, but revealing coping and adjustment strategies deployed by women simply using the metro system. Maybe this technique could be added to GET-IT?
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.
‘As bad as it gets without body bags.’ (Breaking the News)
How Ida Holdgreve’s Stitches Helped the Wright Brothers Get Off the Ground (Smithsonian Magazine)
The generative AI revolution has begun—how did we get here? (Ars Technica)
Is science synonymous with ‘truth’? Game theory says, ‘not always.’ (Big Think)
Something interesting
Flowers, bikes, and kids playing. Everything that you would like from a street transformation project.
If you do nothing else today, then do this
This is a fascinating article on how why, because all roads did lead to Rome (or still lead to Rome), it meant that the UK has become very London-centric. The actions we take now echo in eternity, applied to transport.
Mobility Matters 