Transportist: December 2024
It’s like the 1850s and 1930s got together and had a child.
Welcome to the latest issue of The Transportist, especially to our new readers. As always you can follow on Mastodon, or RSS. By popular demand, a BlueSky feed is also available.
New Zealand Transport Knowledge Conference
I will be giving a Keynote at the New Zealand Transport Knowledge Conference on December 11, 2024 9:00 am at Victoria University Wellington.
Access for Evaluation and Using Land Value Appreciation to Fund Investment
Meta
(But not MetaTM)
If you are new to BlueSky, Starter Packs are a way to follow people in a particular area quickly. If you are in transport, these might be use.
Posts
On Navigating Cyclicality
Cycles define our lives and our world, shaping everything from natural rhythms to societal evolution, technological advances, and institutional frameworks.
Some Comments on the Prospective Sydney Trains Industrial Action
The Labor Government and the railway Labour Union in New South Wales are at loggerheads over pay. [news article in Daily Telegraph] [ABC] The Union wants more money (obviously) and insists on 24-hour trains on weekends (bizarrely, they say it’s for the riders, but let’s say this is for the overtime). The Government wants to pay them more than they get now, but less than they are asking for (obviously). The Government also says 24-hour trains will limit the amount of time for repair and maintenance (bizarrely as well, given the number of maintenance shutdowns here compared to everywhere else in the world, there is a rort going on).
In the event, this Industrial Action did not occur this time, the state government seemed to cave on the 24 hour-demand, (other interpretations of events welcome) but they have occurred before, as documented here: Clunas and Black (1985), which mostly looks at the traffic effects, since traffic counting stations were easy to come-by at the time.
Clunas and Black (1985) Transport Disruptions Caused by Industrial Disputes: Commuter Travel in the Sydney Metropolitan Region During the Rail Strikes.
Resolution of the state-wide rail strike on January 28, 1985, represented the end of the ninth industrial dispute since January 1980 that disrupted rail services in the Sydney metropolitan region. This paper attempts to describe the responses of both commuters and the traffic authorities in coping with the withdrawal of rail services. It also analyses the changes in road traffic conditions during rail strikes by studying the situation before, during, and after the nineteen-day strike of June-July 1983. The traffic counts used in this statistical analysis were collected at ten traffic signal sites in the metropolitan region that formed part of the computerised Sydney Co-ordinated Adaptive Traffic System (SCATS).
Why Progress Outpaces Preferences
Most people like the status quo because it works well enough for them. They’ve built routines, habits, and expectations around how things are, and that stability is comforting. There’s only so much capacity for change in a person’s life at any given time, and most of that energy goes toward navigating immediate personal and professional challenges. The
"Peer Reviewed" by ChatGPT: Motive, Opportunity, and Means
As you might notice, I co-author a lot of papers. Thus I see many peer reviews. I am also a heavy ChatGPT user for lots of things. One thing I have noticed in the past year is the number of reviews “written” by ChatGPT.
Research
Links
Depths
Deals
My beloved Ontario Science Centre, like the Powerhouse in Sydney, has been murdered.
Matt Sullivan at the SMH writes (Nov 4, 2024): The winners and losers from Sydney’s most annoying train surcharge
Sydney University transport professor David Levinson said the city’s airport train fares were among the highest in the world and represented a failure of public policy.
“It is bad public policy because it discourages people from taking public transport to the airport. For groups of two or more it’s cheaper to take a taxi or Uber,” he said.
Adult train passengers are charged $17.34 – and children and concession-card holders $15.50 – when they pass through station gates at the domestic and international terminals.
Death: Your regular reminder that cars are weapons.
The most dangerous roads in America have one thing in common.
Waymo compiles largest ever dataset of pedestrian and cyclist injuries.
In Warsaw, Falling Road Deaths Signal a Traffic Safety Turnaround (you see, I left you with some hope)
Deadlines
Democracy
Discharges
Driving
Uber being Ubered by a Startup: Empower, which doesn’t have commercial insurance for its drivers. ““Empower does not provide transportation anymore than OpenTable provides lunch or Expedia provides flights,” the company wrote.”