Transportist: March 2019

Welcome to the March 2019 issue of The Transportist, especially to our new readers. As always you can follow along at the transportist.org or on Twitter.

February was notable for the launch of Transport Findings and our hosting the first TransportCamp in Sydney, both sponsored by TransportLab.

TransportFindings

We are pleased to announce the launch of Transport Findings, a new, independent, community-led, peer-reviewed, open-access journal focused on short, clear, and pointed research results. We welcome submissions.

Follow the journal on Twitter. Visit the j ournal.

The launch includes the following articles:

Planning Education in Accessible Transport for Persons with Disabilities
Mahtot Gebresselassie
Transport planning for persons with disabilities is not reflected in transport-planning education.
Understanding Trip Happiness using Smartphone-Based Data: The Effects of Trip- and Person-Level Characteristics
Yingling Fan, Roland Brown, Kirti Das, Julian Wolfson
It is found trip happiness increases with travel using biking and walking, for eating out and leisure, taken during daytime, with family and friends, of duration 15 – 30 min.
Are more interactions at intersections related to more collisions for pedestrians? An empirical example in Quebec, Canada
Marie-Soleil Cloutier, Ugo Lachapelle, Andrew HowardInteractions between vehicles and pedestrians at road junctions where road users adapt their behavior ahead of the “conflicting zone,” are correlated with actual pedestrian collisions.
Universal Accessibility Survey of Transport Modes
Clemente Mundi Blanco, Patricia Galilea, Sebastian Raveau
Participants with and without disabilities made identical trips. The difference in average travel times between the groups was approximately 18 minutes.
Identifying Optimum Bike Station Initial Conditions using Markov Chain Modeling
Mohammed Almannaa, Mohammed Elhenawy, Hesham Rakha
A Markov chain model for each bike station optimizes station-specific initial number of bikes for a day to minimize the rebalancing cost.
Comparing Google Maps and Uber Movement Travel Time Data
Hao Wu
Crowd sourced data provides transport researchers with comprehensive coverage in their research subjects. However, difficulties in data validation and consistency pose a threat to the credibility of research.
Measuring the Effect of Private Transport Job Accessibility on Rents: The Case of San Francisco’s Tech Shuttles
Matthew Palm, Deb Niemeier
We measure the effect of San Francisco’s technology firm commuter shuttles on rents utilizing a kernel density estimation approach. To model the effects of job accessibility improvements…
Exploring the importance of transportation infrastructure and accessibility to satisfaction with urban and suburban neighborhoods: An application of gradient boosting decision trees
Jason Cao, Xinyi Wu
Using 2011 data in the Twin Cities, this study shows that urban residents prioritize transportation and accessibility while suburban residents value affordability, safety, and school quality
dodgr: An R package for network flow aggregation
Mark Padgham
This article describes the new software package, [“dodgr”](https://github.com/atfutures/dodgr) (**D**istances **O**n **D**irected **GR**aphs) capable of extremely efficient flow aggregation over millions of routes within a network.
The connection between mode beliefs and mode liking: biking versus driving
Susan Handy
Beliefs about walking and driving differ significantly, but in both cases the responses that a given mode is fun and relaxing are more strongly correlated with liking than other responses.
Using the Average Wage Rate to Assess the Merit of Value of Travel Time Savings: A Concern and Clarification
David Hensher
With flexible work practices and different uses for travel time, the use of the hourly wage rate to determine value of travel time savings is both problematic and misleading.
Pavement condition and crashes
David Levinson, Toshihiro Yokoo, Mihai Marasteanu
Poor roads generally increase property damage and injury crashes. But on curves, good pavement quality increases fatal, injury, and property-damage crashes.
Accessibility, equity, and mode share: a comparative analysis across 11 Canadian metropolitan areas
Boer Cui, Ahmed El-Geneidy
In 11 Canadian metropolitan areas, low-income groups exhibit higher public transport use at the same level of accessibility than high-income groups.
An international comparison of equity in accessibility to jobs: London, São Paulo and the Randstad
John P. Pritchard, Diego Tomasiello, Mariana Giannotti, Karst Geurs
Results by equity measure are heavily influenced by the accessibility indicator and the method of assignment. Person-based potential accessibility measure tends to show greater inequity.

TransportCamp

TransportCamp, an unconference, was held on the University of Sydney campus. TransportLab was pleased to host and sponsor. We expect to host another one next year

WalkSydney

De-rubbishing our footpaths
Road rules in NSW [Where I learn that cars don’t have to stop for pedestrians at unmarked, unsignalised Sydney intersections.]
A bridge too far
If you care about walking in Sydney, and want to get involved, go here.

Posts at the Blog

News

Macromobility:

Transit and Microtransit

Frequency-Ridership Spirals – pedestrianobservations.com
Redfern station on track for new lifts as part of $100m upgrade – smh
Governor Cuomo and Mayor De Blasio Announce 10-Point Plan to Transform and Fund the MTA governor.ny.gov
Mapping gives clearest hint yet of sites for Metro West stations – smh
Metro plan would subsidize Uber and Lyft fares to fill late-night service gap – WaPo

Automated, Autonomous, Driverless, and Self-Driving Vehicles, and Semi-Autonomous Systems

Google’s Waymo risks repeating Silicon Valley’s most famous blunder – arstechnica.com
Does your robocar come home after it takes you to work? – Brad Templeton
What do California disengagement reports tell us? – Brad Templeton
Travis Kalanick secretly ramps up kitchen venture after Uber exit – FT.com
In 2017, the feds said Tesla Autopilot cut crashes 40%—that was bogus – ArsTechnica
Apple’s Autonomous Cars Need Much More Human Help Than Its Rivals – Bloomberg [Though definitions of disengagements are inconsistent, so tons of salt.]
Tempe faces $10 million claim in Uber self-driving vehicle fatality – azcentral
A Waymo One Rider’s Experiences Highlight Autonomous Rideshare’s Shortcomings – Futurism

Human-Driven Vehicles, Signs, Signals, Sensors, and Markings, and Roads

‘Rare event’ repeat: Overhead Tullamarine Freeway sign falls again – theage.com.au
‘Shockingly bad’: Is this the state’s worst election policy? Labor’s M4 toll cashback plan is an absurdly generous free kick to one company. [That company is TransUrban] smh.com.au

Mesomobility:

Shared Vehicles/Ride-sharing/Ride-hailing/Taxis/Car Sharing

Daimler and BMW Invest €1 Billion in Urban Mobility Co-Venture – Fortune
Source: Didi to lay off ~2,000 people, or 15% of its workforce, from non-essential business units – Techmeme
Uber Sales Growth Slows Further as IPO Nears – WSJ

Micromobility:

Human-Powered Vehicles/Bikes/Pedestrians/Scooters/eBikes/Last-Mile/First-Mile/Last-Meter/First-Meter/etc.

Lime scooters in NZ – “Since their introduction in mid-October, ACC has received at least 1263 claims for e-scooter related injuries, and paid out more than $566,405 in compensation.”
Robinson Meyer tweets … The average Bird scooter only survives 28 days, earning $75 across its lifetime, according to new data. Which means Bird loses about $285 net on every scooter. from Oversharing
Lime Scooter Software Glitch Causes Random Braking, Dozens Of Rider Injuries – Forbes
More Cities Are Taking Responsibility for Clearing Sidewalks of Snow – streetsblog
There are reasons Tacoma embraced e-scooters but kicked e-bikes to the curb – NewsTribune
Lime dropped the ‘bike’ from its name; now the bikes are disappearing – SF Chronicle
Seattle Tosses Out Rulebook to Protect Pedestrians – streetsblog
Addis Ababa goes traffic free for a day – BBC

Intercity Trains A lot of news this month about the inevitable scaling-back/delay/deferral/cancellation of America’s favorite Norwegian Parrot, the California High-speed Rail project

Yesterday’s Technology the Day After Tomorrow – Randal O’Toole, Cato
Trump administration says it will cancel $929 million in funding for California rail project – axios
California’s high-speed rail is still on. But how can it move forward? – Curbed
Why the United States will never have high-speed rail – Megan McArdle, WaPo
Calif. Governor Scales Back Commitment to Statewide High Speed Rail – Eno
Newsom says California high-speed rail must focus on Central Valley – sfchronicle
Virgin/Brightline railway shelves IPO plans – miamiherald.com
Giant European rail merger blocked [Siemens – Alstom] – BBC

Maps

Google Maps is using giant virtual arrows to stop people from getting lost – CNN

Equity and Justice

UK schools banning school run to protect pupils from air pollution – The Guardian

Behavior

Metropolitan Council surveys metro to help plan for future [Using smart phone app for travel survey. It feels like the future.] – KSTP
It’s Time for Some Queueing Theory – Kottke

Professoring

Papers by Us

Pavement condition and crashes
David Levinson, Toshihiro Yokoo, Mihai Marasteanu
Poor roads generally increase property damage and injury crashes. But on curves, good pavement quality increases fatal, injury, and property-damage crashes.