ITS Monday: Edition 29, 2024
ITS Monday is a small, weekly collection of curated content from the worlds of intelligent transport systems, smart mobility, and associated areas.
Included this week WFH and e-scooter controversies (again), what if we banned cars in the city, 50 cent fares, and much more.
The article headlines below are:
- Making workers return to the office might not make them any more productive, despite what the NSW premier says
- Melbourne versus share e-scooters
- What If Wednesday: What if we banned cars in the CBD?
- First week of 50 cent fares sees busiest Queensland bus weekend ever
- Human-Machine collaborative decision-making approach to scheduling customized buses with flexible departure times
- The illusion of the shared electric automated mobility transition
- Qld Gov releases level crossing safety strategy
- Tasmanian Walking and Cycling for Active Transport Strategy
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This week’s articles
Now, scroll down, and see what’s in this week’s edition. Oh, and before you do, be sure check out the quickest way to receive our new content via the subscription box just below …
There wasn’t a lot of good news during the COVID years of 2020—2022 (and, to be frank, the virus still does loom large in our lives), but in terms of positive change Working from Home was a star. It helped lessen the spread of the virus, it reduced congestion and emissions, and it allowed families quite a bit more flexibility and time together. However, it had its opponents then, and it continues to, this time in the form of the NSW Premier. Last week he argues that overseas studies showed people were less productive when working from home, and “There is a drop in mentorship. There is less of a sense of joint mission.”
In his article for The Conversation Professor David Hensher hits back at the Premier’s opinions with a healthy dose of expertness in the field, and data.
Related iMOVE articles:
- Working from Home: Info, Projects & Resources
- COVID and Working from Home: How has it impacted transport?
- Prospects for Working from Home: Assessing the evidence
Melbourne versus share e-scooters
Controversy has tended to follow around the introduction of share e-scooters to city streets around the world, but events in Melbourne this week have taken things to a new level with the announcement from the Lord Mayor of Melbourne that Lime and Neuron e-scooters have been given 30 days to get them off the city streets. If you’ve missed all the news generated by this announcement, here’s selection of stories from the past few days to get you up to speed.
- Hire e-scooters to be banned in Melbourne over safety concerns
- Creating havoc’: Rental e-scooters banned in Melbourne CBD‘
- The no-go zone that will soon make a cross-city scooter trip impossible
- Melbourne’s snap decision to remove hire e-scooters from CBD could send ‘shock waves’ to other states, experts say
- ‘There is a role for e-scooters’: premier urges Melbourne council to reconsider ban
- Scooters aren’t the problem, it’s Melbourne that needs to change
- In the contest between e-scooters and pedestrians, there’s only one choice
Related iMOVE articles:
Related iMOVE projects:
What If Wednesday: What if we banned cars in the CBD?
An 18-minute radio interview from ABC Melbourne (yes, it’s another Melbourne story this week, however this debate could be had regarding any city), on the topic of a hypothetical question, “What if we banned cars in Melbourne’s CBD?”. Featured in the interview is Dr Crystal Legacy, Associate Professor in Urban Planning at the University of Melbourne, Geoff Gwilym, CEO of the Victorian Automotive Chamber of Commerce, and a talkback caller or two.
Related iMOVE project:
Related iMOVE content:
- Smart Cities: Definition and Impact on Transportation
- What is Smart Mobility and why is it important?
- The 30-minute city: Small decisions for big gains
First week of 50 cent fares sees busiest Queensland bus weekend ever
“The Queensland government’s six-month trial of 50 cent public transport fares has already broken a number of records across its first week in action. Patronage across all modes of public transport has jumped dramatically, with South East Queensland public transport use returning to 98.5 per cent of pre-COVID levels for the week as a whole.”
Stay tuned for a soon-to-be announced iMOVE project in this very area!
Related iMOVE projects:
- Gippsland community e-Bus pilot
- Electric school buses for Western Australia: Feasibility study
- Charging requirements for Melbourne’s electric bus fleet
A new academic paper, from a group of authors from China, Greece, and the Netherlands. Abstract:
“Public transport agencies need to leverage on emerging technologies to remain competitive in a mobility landscape that is increasingly subject to disruptive mobility services ranging from ride-hailing to shared micro-mobility. Customized bus (CB) is an innovative transit system that provides advanced, personalised, and flexible demand-responsive transit service by using digital travel platforms.
One of the challenging tasks in planning and operating a CB system is to efficiently and practically schedule a set of CB vehicles while meeting passengers’ personalised travel demand. Previous studies assume that CB passengers’ preferred pickup or delivery time is within a pre-defined hard time window, which is fixed and cannot change.
However, some recent studies show that introducing soft flexible time windows can further reduce operational costs. Considering soft flexible time windows, this study first proposes a nearest neighbour-based passenger-to-vehicle assignment algorithm to assign CB passengers to vehicle trips and generate the required vehicle service trips.
Then, a novel bi-objective integer programming model is proposed to optimise CB operation cost (measured by fleet size) and level of service (measured by passenger departure time deviation penalty cost). Model reformulations are conducted to make the bi-objective model solvable by using commercial optimisation solvers, together with a deficit function-based graphical vehicle scheduling technique. A novel two-stage human–machine collaborative optimization methodology, which makes use of both machine intelligence and human intelligence to collaboratively solve the problem, is developed to generate more practical Pareto-optimal CB scheduling results.
Computation results of a real-world CB system demonstrate the effectiveness and advantages of the proposed optimisation model and solution methodology.”
READ THE ARTICLE
The illusion of the shared electric automated mobility transition
A new academic paper, co-authored by Dimitris Milakis and Dennis Seibert, both of the Institute of Transport Research, German Aerospace Center . Abstract:
“Shared electric automated vehicles (AVs) are advertised as the silver bullet for the sustainable transition of private internal combustion engine-based automobility by private and public entities. We explore the extent to which private automobility will be reconfigured into a private electric automated mobility regime or substituted by a shared electric automated mobility regime that could effectively address societal sustainability challenges.
We draw from the multi-level perspective of technological transition, develop a conceptual model outlining possible transition advancements towards private and shared electric automated mobility and review pertinent literature supporting such developments. Our analysis reveals that shared, particularly pooled, mobility emerges slowly (niche level). Key actors resist a shift from private to shared electric automated mobility for economic (vehicle manufacturers), instrumental, affective, symbolic (users and societal groups), tax-revenue, governance and administrative (public authorities) reasons (regime level).
The private automobility regime receives only moderate pressure from the socio-technical landscape pertaining to safety, congestion and environmental issues and effectively reacts by electrifying and automating vehicles (landscape level).
We conclude that the most likely transition will primarily entail privately-owned electric AVs as opposed to shared (especially pooled) AVs, unless a landscape “shock” such as a climate breakdown, energy crisis or a significant political shift towards collective mobility exerts substantial pressure on the regime. Hence, the socioeconomic benefits of the so-called “three revolutions of automobility” could be diminished.”
Related iMOVE articles:
- Autonomous Driving Info, Projects & Resources
- Autonomous Driving Technology
- Connected Vehicles: Info, Projects & Resources
Related iMOVE project:
- C-ITS national harmonisation and pre-deployment research
- Environmental impacts of Connected and Automated Vehicles
- Safely deploying automated vehicles on Australian roads
Qld Gov releases level crossing safety strategy
“A new strategy and action plan will provide a pathway to improving level crossing safety across Queensland, including a trial of innovative level crossing safety camera technology. The Queensland Level Crossing Safety Strategy 2024-2033 is a ten-year strategy aimed at making level crossings across the state safer for rail and road users.”
Related iMOVE project:
Related iMOVE content:
READ THE ARTICLE
Tasmanian Walking and Cycling for Active Transport Strategy
“The Tasmanian Walking and Cycling for Active Transport Strategy outlines the Tasmanian Government’s plan to create a more supportive and encouraging environment for pedestrians and cyclists. Cycling and walking are important transport options now and for the future and will make our communities more liveable and better connected and our people healthier and physically active.”
Related iMOVE articles:
Related iMOVE projects:
- OneDock: Supercharging e-micromobility
- Road use activity data: Cyclists, pedestrians and micromobility
- Impacts of eRideables on the transport task in WA
We used to send out a weekly newsletter, ITS Weekly Roundup, a collection of ITS- and mobility-related news from across the world. ITS Monday is a replacement for that, a collection of links to news and opinion pieces, academic papers, and more. Additionally, you can follow us on Linkedin and Twitter, both of which have a focus on iMOVE news and projects, or subscribe to our bi-monthly newsletter.
*Inclusion in ITS Monday does not equal iMOVE endorsement. It’s more aimed at discovery, thought, or discussion … or all of those and more. And while for the most part I expect content to be current, a little age doesn’t mean diminished interest.
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