ITS Monday: Edition 13, 2020

COVID-19 & Transport: Responses to the crisis

A new forum iMOVE has added to Linkedin, allowing professionals in the transport industry, plus researchers, start-ups and more to come together and share ideas to implement, or suggestions for future investigation, on how to help transport adapt in this health crisis the world currently finds itself in.

Click on the link, and request to be added – I’ll work on approving your requests as soon as I can. We hope you can join us there!

Car hoarding on the rise: Subscription services report coronavirus bookings influx

While out for a socially-distancing-correct run the other day, I had the thought that customers would probably be avoiding the use of share care services. But, if this data story via Car Next Door is correct, and being reflected by numbers from other providers, my thought was way off.

WHAT’S HAPPENING IN AUSTRALIAN CITIES RIGHT NOW?

Here’s a collection of articles that have as their genesis the data on the drop in both vehicle or pedestrian traffic in some Australian cities.

• Sydney’s peak hour traffic congestion falls 60 per cent – I’ve seen figures in the last week that patronage of Melbourne trams has dropped by 88%. Here’s the data on what’s happening on the normally very-stressed Sydney road network. And here’s an article with the stats for Melbourne roads,

• The Lockdown Effect has some data visualisation of what’s happening in the CBDs of Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, and Adelaide, plus other world cities. Also in this article is some interesting data regarding pedestrian traffic in Melbourne.

London health workers to receive free e-bike loaners to avoid public transport

It’s a small thing (now), but this is a great initiative to help the front-liners in this crisis get where they really need to be. Will such actions and decisions be more widespread at the other end of this?

For public transport to keep running, operators must find ways to outlast coronavirus

‘Minimising health risks has rightly been the focus of discussion during the coronavirus outbreak. This includes efforts to protect both frontline public transport employees and the travelling public. But we should also be concerned about the strategic, financial consequences for transport operators and their workforces.’

This piece was authored by Yale Wong – find out more about Yale in his interview with iMOVE.

the coronavirus lockdown shows how clean the air could be if we all used electric cars

Just to be clear, yes, electric cars and air pollution is a charged, nuanced, polarising debate. And that it’s not really a topic area that iMOVE is involved in. But for other reason that it being an interesting data visualisation-based article, I’m including it in this roundup.

Data-driven research aims to solve first/last-mile problem

‘Together with the city of Atlanta and Georgia Tech, the Socially Aware Mobility Lab uses data and machine learning to look at how on-demand multimodal transit could improve traffic congestion and mobility inequalities.’

Delivery drones: Where are they when we really need them?

Ahh, the years-long now promise of the skies being at least a little full with drones bringing us packages right to our door, or yard, or wherever it’s a safe space to have a drone land and deliver. But it’s a service that hasn’t really, ahhh, taken off, so Aussie journo Simon Sharwood finds out why not.

ANA to simplify travel by adding Mobility as a Service options to app

On 1 April 2020 All Nippon Airways added Mobility as a Service (MaaS) functionality to its mobile app, making it easy for passengers ‘to quickly and easily search their whole travel itinerary in Japan by entering the place that they are travelling from, and what time they wish to arrive at the airport.’

Meanwhile, what’s going on with MaaS in Australia? I’m glad you asked – our Maas in Australia page answers that question, and more.