ITS Monday: Edition 3, 2024

Electric cars are not the future

There’s nothing like a strong headline seemingly indicating a strong opinion to kick off ITS Monday!

“We know that some vehicle is going to replace the combustion-engine car. The EU, UK, California and several other US states will ban sales of new petrol and diesel cars by 2035, with the phasing out starting much earlier. So what will most drivers shift to? Will they take up electric cars — in effect, just a cleaner version of what they already had — or switch modes of transport altogether? My bet is that, in cities at least, the e-car won’t be the vehicle of the future. I suspect it will keep falling further behind e-bikes, e-mopeds and e-scooters.”

Related iMOVE content:

• • Electric Vehicles: Info, Projects & Resources
  • Micromobility: Info, Projects & Resources
  • Active Transport: Info, Projects & Resources
  READ THE ARTICLE

2024 will Be the year we figure out EV charging

First up, know that this is a US-based article and perspective. Australia’s readiness is not perhaps as far down the EV road.

“Around my neck of the woods, in EV-friendly northern California, I enjoy plentiful, reliable public EV charging infrastructure. Even long hauls from San Francisco to LA can happen with the bare minimum of planning. For me, the electrified future is here. But to paraphrase one of my favorite sci-fi writers, the future is not evenly distributed.”

Related iMOVE projects:

• Electric vehicles: Supporting uptake, investigating smart charging
  

The Australian Government wants to know if we should be building EV batteries locally

News of the Federal House of Representatives Standing Committee on Climate Change, Energy, Environment and Water’s decision to begin to investigate the viability of a local EV battey manufacturing industry. That, and the possibility to move away from simply mining materials to a ‘mining and making’ scenario.

Related iMOVE articles:

• FACTS: A Framework for an Australian Clean Transport Strategy
• Sustainable Transportation: Info, Projects & Resources

Related iMOVE projects:

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

Artificial General Intelligence for Human Mobility (Vision Paper)

A new academic paper, co-authored by Hao Xue and Flora Salim, both of the University of NSW. The abstract:

“This paper presents a visionary perspective on developing Artificial General Intelligence (AGI) in the field of human mobility research. Human mobility profoundly influences our daily lives, impacting transportation systems, urban planning, logistics, and healthcare. While AI methods have made significant advancements in addressing human mobility challenges, they often struggle with the complexity and dynamic nature of this domain. The limitations arise from the narrow focus of existing AI systems, lacking the ability to generalize and adapt to new situations. To overcome these limitations, there is a growing interest in developing AGI systems. This paper explores the potential of AGI to revolutionize human mobility research by enabling systems to understand, learn, reason, and adapt across diverse domains and tasks”

Related iMOVE article:

• Smart Mobility: Info, Projects &; Resources

Related iMOVE projects:

• AI optimisation for transport corridor performance
• Transport predictive solution Stage 2: AI and real-time simulation

City witnesses shocking effects after ‘banning’ cars in certain neighbourhoods: ‘We don’t have a lot of space’

This is effectively a case study of the decisions taken by Paris Mayor Anne Hidalgo since taking office in 2014, and the results of implementing those decisions.

“Hidalgo and her deputies believe motor vehicles are central to many of the city’s problems: frequent smog days, lack of green space, heat waves, noise pollution, and geographic inequities.”

Related iMOVE projects:

• Safer cycling and street design: A guide for policymakers
• Evaluation of the Wagga Wagga Active Travel Plan

Related iMOVE project outcome article:

• Movement & Place and the design of safe & successful places

A Street-Specific Analysis of Level of Traffic Stress Trends in Strava Bicycle Ridership and its Implications for Low-Stress Bicycling Routes in Toronto

If the title alone doesn’t tell you enough about the subject matter of this academic paper, then the abstract will:

“This study uses Strava bicycling data to investigate network level patterns of bicycle ridership in Toronto, Canada based on Level of Traffic Stress (LTS). We found that most bicycling occurred on a small fraction of the network, with just 10% of all roads and paths accounting for 75% of all bicycle kilometres travelled in 2022. Low-stress routes (LTS 1 and LTS 2) were more popular than high-stress routes for the top 80% most popular streets. The majority of bicycle kilometres travelled (84%) in LTS 2 occurred on routes with no bicycle infrastructure, highlighting the importance of quiet residential streets in forming a low-stress bike network. Despite high-stress conditions, some LTS 3 and LTS 4 streets were heavily used, suggesting infrastructure gaps in Toronto’s bicycle network.”

Too drunk to ride? The test you’ll need to pass to rent an e-scooter

Lime has been running a trial testing an update to its app since New Year’s Eve, and particularly during the Australian Open tennis tournament in Melbourne, of a cognitive test pre-hire for its e-bike and e-scooter users. To data 400 users have been locked out of their intended hire. And its a test that will be extended beyond the Australian Open, with it planned to be part of the hire process in Melbourne every Friday and Saturday night between 10pm and 4am, and during peak traffic or high-risk times.

“Lime director of government relations and public affairs Will Peters said the technology had also been activated across Melbourne on New Year’s Eve, locking out almost 400 people in a day. That’s equivalent to about 9.3 per cent of people who had sought to hire scooters late in the evening or in the early hours of the morning.”

Related iMOVE content:

• Road Safety: Info, Projects & Resources
  

You probably haven’t noticed it. But there’s something different – and cooler – about this path

And speaking of technology trials being run during the Australian Open, here’s another one.

“If you look closely when you hop off the tram at the Australian Open, you’ll notice the platform is painted light grey. It’s a surface coating called CoolSeal, a product designed to reduce ambient temperatures by reflecting the sun to produce cooler surface temperatures.”