Transportist: August 2019

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

Access Across Australia

• Access Across Australia (article in The Conversation) (full report)

Transportist (the blog)

• The State of Transportation Education (upcoming presentation)

• Some Observations of China (2019)

• 1953 Detroit Metropolitan Travel Survey, Data Discovered

• Transport Rankings

WalkSydney

• There are many new posts on the site, from the organisation where I now preside. You should check WalkSydney out, and if you are in Greater Sydney, you should join.

Transport Findings

• Measuring the Added Effectiveness of Using Detailed Spatial and Temporal Data in Generating Accessibility Measures by Boer Cui, Emily Grisé, Anson Stewart, Ahmed El-Geneidy

• Perceived Versus Actual Waiting Time: A Case Study Among Cyclists in Enschede, the Netherlands by Tiago Fioreze, Benjamin Groenewolt , Johan Koolwaaij, Karst Geurs

• Identifying Twin Travelers Using Ridesourcing Trip Data by Nicolas Chiabaut, Cyril Veve

Media

• I was on FBi 94.5 radio Backchat program at 9:30 am June 29 to discuss changes and improvements to Sydney’s public transport.

• I was briefly quoted in Melo, Frederick (2019) Corbata offers an alternative to Uber and Lyft, if it can get licensed in St. Paul. St. Paul Pioneer Press

Conferences

• I attended COTA International Conference of Transport Professionals in Nanjing (and a pre-conference in Beijing). It’s a good event, and obviously, there is a lot of action in transport in China. I presented on the End of Traffic and the Future of Access, and a General Theory of Access.

Papers by Us

• Carrion, Carlos and David Levinson (2019) Overestimation and underestimation of travel time on commute trips: GPS vs. self- reporting. Urban Science. 3(3), 70 [doi]

• Cui, Mengying and Levinson, D. (2019) Primal and Dual Access. Geographical Analysis.  (accepted and in press) [doi]

News

• Transit and Microtransit

  • Seoul

    • A Short History of the Seoul Subway System

    • Opinion: Seoul & Incheon (South Korea) Metro System – Part 1

  • Transit crowdedness trends from around the world, according to Google Maps

  • Sydney eyes BYD electric buses to silence noisy inner west

  • How Unpredictable is your Subway Commute

  • All-night public transport hasn’t reduced alcohol-related harm in Melbourne

  • Technician's control room error causes metro trains to shut down

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

  • Self-Driving Trucks Will Carry Mail in U.S. for the First Time

  • Self-driving shuttle crashed in Las Vegas because manual controls were locked away

  • Driverless Cars Are Taking Longer Than We Expected. Here’s Why. [As I noted, who is “we”?] [AVs are now the Trough of Dispond in the Gartner Hype Cycle]

  • $500 Lidar From Luminar Could Move Autonomous Driving Forward

  • Protean's all-in-one drive, suspension and steering modules spin 360 degrees

  • First injury on Utah's driverless shuttle during unexpected stop

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

  • Are speed limiters the best way to reduce road deaths?

  • The traffic solution politicians should stop running away from

  • Road death toll should include victims of vehicle emissions: report

  • Costs are Rising, US Highway Edition

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

  • We subscribe to movies and music, why not transport?

  • Growing number of car-sharing users don’t rent cars for driving

  • ReachNow shutters car-rental and ride-hailing services in Seattle, Portland

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

  • A new autonomous delivery vehicle is designed to operate like a bicycle

  • Hit by Big Loss, Bird Seeks $300M in New Funds

  • In Australia, hacked Lime scooters spew racism and profanity

  • Hellobike plans to lead China’s two-wheeler transport market as bike-sharing rivals struggle

• Curbs and Footpaths

  • ‘It’s a superpower’: how walking makes us healthier, happier and brainier

  • The death of the sidewalk

  • Walking and cycling to work makes commuters happier and more productive

  • Key and Peele: Walk Button

• Electrification, Energy, Environment

  • For the first time ever renewables beat coal in the US

  • More people have access to electricity than ever before, but the world is falling short of its sustainable energy goals

  • Just a matter of when': the $20bn plan to power Singapore with Australian solar

• Land Use

  • Australian city workers’ average commute has blown out to 66 minutes a day. How does yours compare?

• Retail, Wholesale, Logistics, Supply Chain, Freight

  • Postmates has explored a sale to Uber or DoorDash instead of going public

• Intercity Trains

  • From Bangkok to Beijing

• Maps, Fonts, Visualizations

  • A comprehensive list of Network Evolution “movies” (Twitter thread)

  • History: “The Power of Trees” (1855)

  • Memorial to Edward Johnston

  • 7 Tube Maps Only The Colour Blind Will Truly Appreciate

  • 19th Century Chart of Cities’ Distances from Washington DC

• Equity and Justice

  • Indiana Is Still Arguing That It's Constitutional To Seize Your Car for Driving 5 MPH Over the Speed Limit

  • Post-it notes are the new weapon of choice for Hong Kong’s protesters

• The Smart Cities Fantasy

  • I’m an Engineer, and I’m Not Buying Into ‘Smart’ Cities by Shoshanna Saxe

• Miscellany:

  • The oldest surviving banjo recording

  • 500 years ago, China destroyed its world-dominating navy because its political elite was afraid of free trade

  • The day Earth had a near-miss with a 'city-killer' asteroid

Research by Others

• Boeing, G. 2018. “Street Network Models and Measures for Every U.S. City, County, Urbanized Area, Census Tract, and Zillow-Defined Neighborhood.” Urban Science, 3 (1), 28. doi: 10.3390/urbansci3010028

• Investments in biking routes improve access to jobs in US metros (Access Across America: Biking 2017 was released by the Accessibility Observatory (northern hemisphere). The innovation is considering low and medium stress streets as restricted bicycling networks.)

Books

• A Political Economy of Access. (2019) By David M. Levinson and David A. King (Book 4 in the Access Quartet)

• Elements of Access: Transport Planning for Engineers, Transport Engineering for Planners. (2018) By David M. Levinson, Wes Marshall, Kay Axhausen. (Book 3 in the Access Quartet)

• Spontaneous Access: Reflexions on Designing Cities and Transport (2016) by David Levinson. (Book 2 in the Access Quartet)

• The End of Traffic and the Future of Access: A Roadmap to the New Transport Landscape. (2017) By David M. Levinson and Kevin J. Krizek. (Book 4 in the Access Quartet)

• Metropolitan Transport and Land Use: Planning for Place and Plexus (2018) by David M. Levinson and Kevin J. Krizek.

• The Transportation Experience: Second Edition Garrison, William and Levinson, David (2014)