“Open Infrastructure Map is a view of the world’s hidden infrastructure mapped in the OpenStreetMap database. By and large, this data isn’t exposed on the main OSM map, so I built Open Infrastructure Map to visualise it... (More >)
The Broken Algorithm That Poisoned American Transportation
Aaron Gordon at Vice: “…The Louisville highway project is hardly the first time travel demand models have missed the mark. Despite them being a legally required portion of any transportation infrastructure project that gets federal dollars, it is one of urban planning’s worst kept secrets that these models are error-prone at best and fundamentally flawed at worst. Recently, I asked Renn how important those initial, rosy traffic forecasts of double-digit growth were to the boondoggle actually getting built. “I think it was very important,” Renn said. “Because I don’t believe they could have gotten approval to build the project... (More >)
Data Mining on Open Public Transit Data for Transportation Analytics During Pre-COVID-19 Era and COVID-19 Era
Paper by Carson K. Leung et al: “As the urbanization of the world continues and the population of cities rise, the issue of how to effectively move all these people around the city becomes much more important. In order to use the limited space in a city most efficiently, many cities and their residents are increasingly looking towards public transportation as the solution. In this paper, we focus on the public bus system as the primary form of public transit. In particular, we examine open public transit data for the Canadian city of Winnipeg. We mine and conduct transportation... (More >)
What privacy preserving techniques make possible: for transport authorities
Blog by Georgina Bourke: “The Mayor of London listed cycling and walking as key population health indicators in the London Health Inequalities Strategy. The pandemic has only amplified the need for people to use cycling as a safer and healthier mode of transport. Yet as the majority of cyclists are white, Black communities are less likely to get the health benefits that cycling provides. Groups like Transport for London (TfL) should monitor how different communities cycle and who is excluded. Organisations like the London Office of Technology and Innovation (LOTI) could help boroughs procure privacy preserving technology to help... (More >)
20’s the limit: How to encourage speed reductions
Report by The Wales Centre for Public Policy: “This report has been prepared to support the Welsh Government’s plan to introduce a 20mph national default speed limit in 2022. It aims to address two main questions: 1) What specific behavioural interventions might be implemented to promote driver compliance with 20mph speed limits in residential areas; and 2) are there particular demographics, community characteristics or other features that should form the basis of a segmentation approach? The reasons for speeding are complex, but many behaviour changetechniques have been successfully applied to road safety, including some which use behavioural insights or... (More >)
Gender gaps in urban mobility
Paper by Laetitia Gauvin, Michele Tizzoni, Simone Piaggesi, Andrew Young, Natalia Adler, Stefaan Verhulst, Leo Ferres & Ciro Cattuto in Humanities and Social Sciences Communications: “Mobile phone data have been extensively used to study urban mobility. However, studies based on gender-disaggregated large-scale data are still lacking, limiting our understanding of gendered aspects of urban mobility and our ability to design policies for gender equality. Here we study urban mobility from a gendered perspective, combining commercial and open datasets for the city of Santiago, Chile. We analyze call detail records for a large cohort of anonymized mobile phone users and... (More >)
Global Traffic Scorecard
Press Release: “…the 2019 INRIX Global Traffic Scorecard… identified, analyzed and ranked congestion and mobility trends in more than 900 cities, across 43 countries. To reflect an increasingly diverse mobility landscape, the 2019 Global Traffic Scorecard includes both public transport and biking metrics for the first time…. At the global level, Bogota topped the list of the cities most impacted by traffic congestion with drivers losing 191 hours a year to congestion, followed by Rio de Janeiro (190 hours), Mexico City (158 hours) and Istanbul (150 hours). Latin American and European cities again dominated the Top 10, highlighting the... (More >)
Car Data Facts
About: “Welcome to CarDataFacts.eu! This website provides a fact-based overview on everything related to the sharing of vehicle-generated data with third parties. Through a series of educational infographics, this website answers the most common questions about access to car data in a clear and simple way. CarDataFacts.eu also addresses consumer concerns about sharing data in a safe and a secure way, as well as explaining some of the complex and technical terminology surrounding the debate. CarDataFacts.eu is brought to you by ACEA, the European Automobile Manufacturers’ Association, which represents the 15 Europe-based car, van, truck and bus makers….(More)”. ... (More >)
Navigation Apps Changed the Politics of Traffic
Essay by Laura Bliss: “There might not be much “weather” to speak of in Los Angeles, but there is traffic. It’s the de facto small talk upon arrival at meetings or cocktail parties, comparing journeys through the proverbial storm. And in certain ways, traffic does resemble the daily expressions of climate. It follows diurnal and seasonal patterns; it shapes, and is shaped, by local conditions. There are unexpected downpours: accidents, parades, sports events, concerts. Once upon a time, if you were really savvy, you could steer around the thunderheads—that is, evade congestion almost entirely. Now, everyone can do that,... (More >)
Gendering Smart Mobilities
Book edited by Tanu Priya Uteng, Hilda Rømer Christensen, and Lena Levin: “This book considers gender perspectives on the ‘smart’ turn in urban and transport planning to effectively provide ‘mobility for all’ while simultaneously attending to the goal of creating green and inclusive cities. It deals with the conceptualisation, design, planning, and execution of the fast-emerging ‘smart’ solutions. The volume questions the efficacy of transformations being brought by smart solutions and highlights the need for a more robust problem formulation to guide the design of smart solutions, and further maps out the need for stronger governance to manage the... (More >)
