ITS Monday: Edition 40, 2024

COVID-19 and its influence on the propensity to work from home between March 2020 and June 2021

Leading off this week is a new academic paper co-authored by David Hensher, Matthew Beck, and Camila Balbonti, The abstract:

The COVID-19 pandemic has had a significant impact on the world of work. With growing support and preference revelation from both employees and employers, we might anticipate a settling in of working from home around one to two days a week, varying by occupation depending on the ability to work remotely.

Although there are a growing number of studies that have analysed data collected at a point in time or over time during the pandemic, there is now sufficient time and data to treat the waves of collected data as a repeated cross section that is jointly modelled to assess systematically, the changing roles of various influences on the proportion of working days that are worked from home.

This paper estimates random effects regression models for the Greater Sydney Metropolitan Area and South-East Queensland over four waves of data collected in 2020 and 2021, where this last one represents a period with almost full vaccinations and minimum restrictions (i.e., ‘new normal’). By jointly estimating four waves of data within a single modelling framework, we are able to track the changing roles of the influences found to be statistically significant across the waves.

The elasticity outputs reveal how these influences impact on the propensity to WFH, giving clues on whether we were starting to see a stabilisation of WFH activity mid-way in the pandemic period that can be reflective of a ‘new normal’.

Results are very supportive of employees’ preferences, suggesting that those that feel the same or more productive when working from home relative to going to the office, are more likely to working from home relative to those that feel less productive.

Related iMOVE articles:

• Working from Home: Info, Projects & Resources
• Prospects for Working from Home: Assessing the evidence

The traffic impact of road pricing: Lessons from the toll road sector

A downlaodable report co-authored by Robert Bain and Deny Sullivan, “Whereas the topic of toll price elasticity has received some attention in the literature (how drivers react to tariff changes), very little has been written about how drivers respond to the initial introduction of tolls. Given mounting pressure on transportation budgets – exacerbated by reducing fuel tax receipts as the popularity of electric vehicles grows – this issue is of increasing interest to planners, policymakers, treasury officials, investors and others with a focus on infrastructure finance. What is the traffic impact of road tolls?”

Related iMOVE articles:

• Traffic Congestion Info, Projects & Resources
  
• Road pricing reform: a thorny issue
  

Related iMOVE project:

• Innovative road network pricing models

Train architect designs the perfect commuter train

A short video from the Wall Street Journal, in which it sits down with train manufacturer Alstom to talk design. “Commuter trains are renowned for potentially being cramped and crowded, but they don’t have to be that way. Tiny adjustments to a commuter train’s design – from the width of the doors to the position of the handholds – can have huge impacts on the speed that passengers can get on and off, and can make or break the economics of a train service.”

Harmonisation of rail standards: Research report

A downloadable report, commissioned by the Australian Railway Association, National Transport Commission, Office of National Rail Coordination (ONRIC) and Rail Industry Safety Standards Board (RISSB). “Ultimately, the strategic outcome of this project was to assist in engaging industry in supporting the development of the National Standards Framework under the NTC’s National Rail Action Plan, as well as supporting the promotion pf future work under ONRIC’s National Procurement and Manufacturing Plan.”

Signals, tracks, and trams: Public transport signal priority impact on job accessibility over time

An academic paper, co-authored by Michał Niedzielski, Sławomir Goliszek and Anna Górka. The abstract:

Improving travel time by public transport is a major task for city planners and policy makers to increase its competitiveness relative to cars which can be facilitated by implementing public transport preferential infrastructure treatments such as signal priority.

We study the impact of one such preferential treatment, signal priority, on accessibility to jobs between 2015 and 2022 in Warsaw, Poland, which implemented signal priority on 187 intersections during this time period. We develop a method to extract inter-stop travel times from the General Transit Feed Service.

We find that signal priority implementation lead to (1) a travel time decrease over the network by 6.7%, (2) an increase in accessibility by 5–8.5%, (3) a full signal priority setting drives the accessibility change over time, and (4) the location of SP and travel time segments at the entry point to high-density jobs drives accessibility change.

Our analysis provides a method to help decision makers evaluate the impact of signal priority on accessibility to jobs. Our results indicate significant effectiveness of signal priority implementation.

Related iMOVE projects:

• Emissions and economic modelling of NSW road and rail freight
• Train horns: Broader social effects and pedestrian simulations
• Real-time railway corridor perception

A review of `The 15-Minute City: A Solution to Saving Our Time and Our Planet’

Professor David Levinson‘s review of said book. “Carlos Moreno, a Paris-based architecture professor, has put chrono-urbanism into the planning discourse. As an accessibility researcher, I take this as a win for Team Access, those of us trying to make accessibility the standard performance measure for transport-land use systems, displacing congestion, mobility, and level-of-service as the key metrics.”

Related iMOVE article:

• Smart Cities: Definition & Impact on Transportation
• The 30-minute city: Small decisions for big gains

Which used EV to buy? A beginner’s guide

The main interest in this article for mine is the assessment and comparison of the long-term servicing cost of a selection of popular EV brands and models.

Related iMOVE article:

• Electric Vehicles: Info, Projects & Resources
  
• Alternative Fuels: Info, Projects & Resources
• FACTS: A Framework for an Australian Clean Transport Strategy
• The Conductor Series: The electrification of transport

Related iMOVE projects:

• EV batteries: Repair, refurbish, repurpose, recycle
• Second lives for electric vehicle batteries

Australia’s e-scooter ‘Wild West’ prompts calls for nationally consistent rules

From the ABC, a look at the somewhat messy circumstances of e-scooter rules and rollout across Australia. “Experts say the rules across Australia are confusing and there is limited regulation for private e-scooters, which poses risks to users and pedestrians. So is there a place for e-scooters in Australia, and can pedestrians and riders co-exist?”

Related iMOVE articles:

• Liar, liar, e-Bikes on fire
• Micromobilty: Info, Projects & Resources
• Active Transport: Info, Projects & Resources
  

Related iMOVE projects:

• OneDock: Supercharging e-micromobility
• Road use activity data: Cyclists, pedestrians and micromobility
• Impacts of eRideables on the transport task in WA

foilone references fighter jets for the design of carbon-fiber electric hydrofoil boat PEGASUS

I know, I know. It’s single occupant, and it’s niche transport at best, but it’s not often I get to throw in something fun in ITS Monday, so allow me this small piece of e-folly (yes, it’s electric).

“PEGASUS is an electric hydrofoil boat made of full carbon fiber construction. The material makes the watercraft lightweight and, in return, allows it to speed through the water like a fighter jet for an adrenaline-filled cruise. In fact, the design inspiration of PEGASUS comes from the aircraft of the earlier decades (Editor: not to mention vintage Formula 1 race cars) with its rounded contours and vacuum-like mouth. The electric hydrofoil boat is also equipped with safety features to protect the sailor while on water, including automatic shut-off, a navigation system, a paddle, and a bailer.”