Researching Transit

In this episode of Researching Transit, Professor Graham Currie chats to Dr Evan Gwee, who has 25 years’ experience working in the Land Transport Authority (LTA) of Singapore. Dr. Gwee currently oversees the Transport Research Division in the LTA. Government’s role in overseeing and stewarding research is one of the key factors contributing to Singapore’s excellent reputation in transit research and collaboration.

LTA’s approach to encouraging research involves maintaining close relationships with Universities, such as Nanyang Technological University, as the incubator of ideas. In addition, LTA funds research that is aligned with LTA’s interest. They are prepared to facilitate trials so that new mobility concepts useful to Singapore can be tested on actual grounds.

“We call ourselves a living lab. You can come and trial something in Singapore…We are prepared to facilitate it from a Government perspective if it is useful to Singapore”

In a small but densely populated country, Evan highlights the importance of finding new solutions to today’s problems. “We are trying to stay ahead of the curve”. Among Singapore’s research priorities are harnessing new technologies so that mobility solutions meet the needs of both an ageing population and workforce. LTA has identified automation as playing a key role in meeting future mobility needs.

Evan highlights the importance of both involving the public as new solutions are developed, but also in managing their expectations.

Dr Gwee provides some useful insight into LTA’s criteria for new research endeavours: attractive projects are those that are aligned with LTA’s interest, can be delivered in a timely fashion, and which are scalable in terms of cost.

To learn more about public transport in Singapore, visit the LTA’s website: https://www.lta.gov.sg/content/ltagov/en/upcoming_projects.html#technologies_innovations

Read about the LTA-NTU collaboration for automation by visit CETRAN Centre of excellence for testing and research of AVs; http://erian.ntu.edu.sg/Programmes/IRP/FMSs/Pages/Centre-of-Excellence-for-Testing-Research-of-AVs-NTU-CETRAN.aspx

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In this episode of Researching Transit, Dr Laura McCarthy from Monash University highlights the need to design public transport services that are convenient and safe for new parents. Her research uses a life course approach to understand the mobility changes that occur during the transition to parenthood.

Dr McCarthy’s research, including qualitative interviews and a survey of new parents, aimed to explore the factors influencing mobility choices following parenthood.

While there is much anecdotal understanding of the challenges faced by new parents in terms of the increasing complexity of travel with children, Laura’s research sought to build an evidence base in the empirical literature. A number of studies have shown that, overall, households with children are more car dependent than other household groups. Laura’s research identifies different groups of transport users’, or ‘mobility trajectories’, based on their pre and post parenthood mode use. This approach revealed that, while car use did increase for most groups overall, other groups displayed more sustainable travel patterns following parenthood.

Despite having positive attitudes towards public transport, the largest group (so called ‘Transit Leavers’), experienced the greatest decline in transit use. Frequent public transit use declined from 50 per cent pre-parenthood to 10 per cent post-parenthood. This group was most likely to include females and primary caregivers.

Each of the five groups shared different characteristics and attitudes towards travel modes. This suggests a one-size-fits-all policy-making approach may need to be abandoned in favour of a more nuanced consideration of the public transport needs of new parents. However, the findings suggest that potential policy changes don’t necessarily need to be extensive or expensive to get new parents using public transport. Even though some parents stop using public transport, they continue to hold positive attitudes towards this mode. Modest changes could be made to better accommodate families with young children using public transport and potentially retain these users.

Laura’s publications can be accessed at the links below

McCarthy, L., A. Delbosc, G. Currie and A. Molloy (2019). "Trajectories and Transitions – mobility after parenthood". Transportation. (In press).

https://doi.org/10.1007/s11116-019-10051-5

McCarthy, L., A. Delbosc, G. Currie and A. Molloy (2019). "Transit Faithfuls’ or ‘Transit Leavers’? Understanding mobility trajectories of new parents”. Transport Policy.

78: 105-112. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tranpol.2019.04.007

McCarthy, L., A. Delbosc, G. Currie and A. Molloy (2018). "Parenthood and cars: A weakening relationship?". Transportation (In press). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11116-018-9963-7

McCarthy, L., A. Delbosc, G. Currie and A. Molloy (2017). "Factors influencing travel mode choice among families with young children (aged 0–4): a review of the literature". Transport Reviews 37(6): 767-781. https://doi.org/10.1080/01441647.2017.1354942

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In this episode of Researching Transit, Dr Waiyan Leong, Chief Transport Economist of Singapore’s Land Transport Authority, joins Professor Graham Currie to discuss transport economics and project evaluation.

Dr Leong explains the scope of research undertaken by his five-member team, comprising four economists and a psychologist. Two key areas of focus are travel behaviour change and traditional economic analysis. Dr Leong discusses some of the field trials designed in-house by his team, including the gamification of travel to school, to encourage uptake of non-car (‘car-lite’) modes among primary school students. He also shares findings from the 2013 trial of demand-shifting initiatives, designed to alleviate congestion during the peak with free and discounted travel. Trials and policy evaluations enable Wai Yan’s team understand the nuances of these demand management strategies and identify the initiatives that give the best return-on-investment. His team made the important discovery that when it comes to shifting peak travel “…a 50 cent discount is almost as effective as free”.

On-location in Singapore in early 2020 (pre-COVID shutdowns), Professor Currie remarks at the visible success of integration of land use with transit. Dr Leong reveals how a robust post-implementation review process helps LTA assign the correct benefit to new projects. He shares insights from a review of the cost-benefit analysis of Singapore’s North East Line, which opened in 2003.

“…we need to think a little bit harder about what sort of wider benefits we include in our project appraisal”

Findings from the post-project evaluation suggest that the value individuals living near the train stations put on the increased access to jobs afforded by the opening of the line was higher than the conventional benefits estimated before project implementation.

Read more about LTA’s evaluation of wider economic benefits, using the North East Line as a case study:

Venter, C. and Leong, W.Y. 2018, Workshop 6 report: Wider impacts of public transport and successful implementation of desirable and beneficial projects, Research in Transportation Economics, 69, pp. 489 – 493. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.retrec.2018.08.006

Le, H., Lim, W.L., and Leong W.Y. 2018. Land enhancement and intensification benefits of investing in an urban rail network, Research in Transportation Economics, 69, pp. 512-522. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.retrec.2018.04.009

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Picture this: a future in which shared autonomous vehicles are run by public agencies, providing equitable transport to address a multitude of travel needs in a city decoupled from car ownership.

In this episode of Researching Transit, Konstanze Winter ponders this scenario and the big what-ifs it poses. Konstanze guides us through many of the pointy unknowns of automation - such as how to avoid the transformation of shared public space into parking lots for empty vehicles.

“We can learn from other systems, but there’s the difference that automated vehicles can replace themselves”

She sets the scene by discussing the multitude of possible technological, individual choices and policy scenarios at play. These complex interactions are being tackled by cities and researchers, trying to guide automation down a path of equity and accessibility. However, with so many questions and no lived experience of automation, how can we really anticipate the outcomes of new technology?

“We cannot rely on a single study. We have to combine all studies to get a holistic picture across borders, across scenarios and across specifications.”

Konstanze’s research assumes we are more likely to see shared automated vehicles than privately owned ones in our lifetime. Centrally deployed services overcome many of the barriers to automated vehicle adoption, including (1) high investment costs (2) efficient redeployment across multiple users and (3) a market segment of typical tech-savvy early adopters, who are not interested in owning a vehicle. Listen in to hear more about the potential for shared automated vehicles to provide more flexibility in our future transport network.

Read Konstanze and her colleagues' published research on shared automation:

Winter, K, Cats, O, Martens, K & van Arem, B 2020, 'Relocating shared automated vehicles under parking constraints: assessing the impact of different strategies for on-street parking', Transportation, https://link.springer.com/article/10.1007/s11116-020-10116-w.

Winter, K, Cats, O, Martens, K & van Arem, B 'Identifying user classes for shared and automated mobility services', European Transport Research Review, vol. 12, no. 36, https://doi.org/10.1186/s12544-020-00420-y.

More on the levels of driving automation (Konstanze’s research focuses on level 4 and 5): https://blog.ansi.org/2018/09/sae-levels-driving-automation-j-3016-2018/#gref

More on urban parking policies and why they work: D.Shoup (2018): “Parking and the City”. New York, NY: Routledge

More on why parking self-driving vehicles can be game-changer: E. Guerra & E.A. Morris (2018): Cities, Automation, and the Self-parking Elephant in the Room. Planning Theory & Practice, 19:2, 291-297

Konstanze Winter recently complete her PhD at TU Delft’s Smart Public Transport Lab. Her work is bundled in her thesis: M.K.E. Winter (2020): “Providing Public Transport by Self-Driving Vehicles – User Preferences, Fleet Operation, and Parking Management” (Doctoral dissertation). Delft University of Technology, Delft, the Netherlands.

She can be contacted at linkedin.com/in/konstanzewinter.

Music from this episode is from https://www.purple-planet.com

The impacts of COVID-19 are felt by individuals, while also disrupting the macro processes by which society functions. The effects of restricted movements, fear of virus transmission, and reduced economic activity on travel and activity are significant. In this episode of Researching Transit, Professor Graham Currie delivers early findings of research exploring the long-term impacts of COVID-19 on travel demand.

Professor Currie’s project seeks to evaluate the likely effects of COVID-19 on long term travel demand, with implications for spending on big infrastructure projects in cities. The shutdown period has seen a reduction in personal travel, leading to a marked reduction in automobile and public transport use as individuals switch to active modes and work from home instead of travelling to work. For a city like Melbourne, with an infrastructure pipeline of $57 billion, this raises questions about the relevance of such large investments in projects including a suburban rail loop and major road expansions. Despite the marked reduction in travel and shifts to alternate modes, early findings suggest that individuals will return to their preferred travel routines once the threat of the virus is gone.

“The number one answer from everybody is that they will go back to the activities that they had done before… Fundamentally the land use we have, the activities we have, the employment we have and the transport system we have are all there influencing their travel patterns”

The desired “return to normal” poses bigger problems for public transport, which cannot safely accommodate the normal peak capacity while the risk of virus remains. Professor Currie suggests this will encourage us to be flexible: to draw on the full range of travel demand management tools to find ways to facilitate the movement of people that were previously using public transport. With no space available for extra road capacity, this will challenge planners and policy makers to go beyond the conventional approach which has been to predict and provide.

In its next phase the project will seek to understand how the population is affected differently by COVID-19, and what the behavioural responses have been. More information about the project is available at the links below.

Project scope: https://lens.monash.edu/2020/05/19/1380466/will-covid-19-affect-victorias-57-billion-transport-spend

Webinars:

- Planning for uncertainty in public transport, Veitch Lister Consulting, https://veitchlister.com.au/webinar-planning-for-uncertainty-in-public-transport/, 13 May 2020

- Reimagining mobility in Melbourne after COVID-19, Committee for Melbourne, [insert link] 19 May 2020.

Other research mentioned in this episode:

Modelling public transport capacities to support safe social distancing: WSP 2020, COVID-19 & Public transport: From response to recovery, https://www.wsp.com/en-AU/insights/covid-19-and-public-transport-from-response-to-recovery

Beck, M.J. and Hensher, D.A.2020, Insights into the Impact of Covid-19 on Household Travel, Working, Activities and Shopping in Australia – the early days under Restrictions, Working Paper, https://ses.library.usyd.edu.au/handle/2123/22247

Marsden, G, Anable, J, Chatterton, T, Docherty, I, Faulconbridge, J, Murray, L, Roby, H & Shires, J 2020, 'Studying disruptive events: Innovations in behaviour, opportunities for lower carbon transport policy?', Transport Policy , https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tranpol.2020.04.008

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An interest in built environment and sustainable travel behaviour brought Yamini to the Netherlands and pursue a PhD in the same. After several years of researching ‘transit-oriented development’, Yamini found a new passion for ‘gendered mobility’. She found that even though this topic has been so well-researched, the people remain unaware about its consequences on their daily lives and choices. According to her, this missing link is the reason why so little has improved on ground. She now tries to create awareness on the same by transferring the knowledge from academic domain to public at large.

How does women’s mobility differ from men’s? How did the planning of our cities and its transportation networks come to overlook women’s travel patterns? Yamini discusses gender bias and its equity implications in this episode of Researching Transit.

“What we consider a gender-neutral approach, which is very well intentioned… has created a gender gap in our cities”

Yamini explains why equitable mobility is beneficial for the entire population and dispels the misconception that gender equality is at odds with economic development. In fact, Yamini argues, the opposite is true.

She adds that since Smart City technology is being hailed as a potential means of breaking down the urban mobility gender divide, she delved into the research to reconcile the promise of equity in smart cities with the reality. For now, she finds, that unconscious bias towards certain user types is apparent in the design of smart city technologies, thereby proving to be unequal and unequitable.

Fortunately, there are simple ways by which, planners, women and men alike can influence more equitable planning. Yamini describes some of these. She outlines research to date that suggests development that makes public transport and active transport more accessible is also the kind of development that is more inclusive of women’s travel.

More information about Yamini and her work can be found on her website www.yaminijsingh.com. She has also published content related to mobility, equity vs equality, transit-oriented development and gender on her blog.

Learn more about this topic at https://yaminijsingh.wordpress.com/ including this featured post about the difference between equity and inequality: https://yaminijsingh.wordpress.com/2019/04/02/equity-or-equality/

Watch Yamini’s talk at TEDxAmsterdamWomen (themed “Bridging the gap”) at https://youtu.be/6Z2rhkVJK7k

You can also read about the role of gender equity in achieving the Sustainable Development Goals here:

- SDG 5: “Achieve gender equality and empower all women and girls” https://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/sdg5

- SDQ 10: “Reduce inequality within and among countries” https://sustainabledevelopment.un.org/sdg10

Some evidence on the gender bias in mobility systems:

o 1 – Bhattacharya, A. and Kopf, D. 2017, “For their own safety, Indian women are choosing o go to worse colleges than men’, Quartz India, https://qz.com/india/1138346/data-shows-that-women-in-delhi-are-choosing-to-go-to-worse-colleges-than-men-for-their-own-safety/.

o 2 –YJ 2019, 'Is smart mobility also gender-smart?', Journal of Gender Studies, https://doi.orgDOI 10.1080/09589236.2019.1650728.

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“By enabling integration of services we can provide transport alternatives to individuals that are better than their own car, which is why MaaS is attracting so much attention”

Mobility as a Service promises integration of new transport technologies with existing transit networks to provide flexible transport options. Attracted by the unmatched user-orientation of MaaS, Maria Alonso Gonzalez’ research dives into the needs and attitudes of different population segments in terms of their readiness to adopt MaaS.

“By catering to the needs of the users you can improve the satisfaction of the users. If you improve the satisfaction, you can improve patronage”

Maria's research identified five distinctive user segments defined along the four dimensions of mobility integration, openness to new services, technological readiness and willingness to pay for an increased level of service. Two important barriers emerge as the biggest challenges to successful MaaS implementation: the digital divide and avoiding automobile attachment.

Maria shares the characteristics of the market segments and the insights they yield for successful MaaS implementation in Europe, with lessons for the rest of the world.

Read more about the characteristics of user segments in terms of their readiness to adopt MaaS here: “Drivers and barriers in adopting Mobility as a Service (MaaS) – A latent class cluster analysis of attitudes” (https://www.researchgate.net/publication/338082996_Drivers_and_barriers_in_adopting_Mobility_as_a_Service_MaaS_-A_latent_class_cluster_analysis_of_attitudes)

María can be contacted at [email protected]

https://www.linkedin.com/in/mariaj-alonsogonzalez/

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In this episode of Researching Transit, Joanna Moody discusses the future of sustainable mobility, and her research exploring car pride. We focus our discussion on car pride, its implications for car dependence in rapidly urbanising cities, and what we can do to de-market the car or market more sustainable public transit alternatives.

“[Car pride] is the attribution of social status and personal image to owning and using a car”

Joanna’s recent research surveyed in two U.S. cities and internationally with a sample of 42,000 people across 51 countries to clearly understand whether the symbolic attachment of success to the car (car pride) causes people to purchase cars, or if their pride results from owning and using the car. She discusses examples from New York and Houston, where findings suggest that the relationship is cyclical: car pride predicts ownership, and those who own cars are more likely to use it and have their car pride reinforced. Internationally, she finds that car pride is highest in rapidly motorising countries with less developed car markets, such as in South East Asia and the Middle East.

“[There is] a symbolic value of the car that encourages people to own and use cars beyond their ability to get you where you need to go.”

The reinforcing cycle of car pride and use adds to the growing car dependence of rapidly motorising countries. Understanding the symbolic attachment assigned to car ownership and use may help stem ownership rates and the feedback loop it engenders with use.

According to Dr Moody, providing high quality alternatives to the private car and finding a way to connect them to an individual on a symbolic and emotional level are essential. Taking away car ownership implies a penalty – therefore something needs to be offered in return. An implication for policy-making is the need for public transport rebranding that sells its attributes. These selling points vary depending on the target user, and include its social and time saving value, as well as sustainability benefits.

“Couple service and fleet improvements with marketing to better connect to the things that local people care about”

AC Transit in Berkeley, California recently introduced a fleet of battery-electric buses are an example of better branding of buses that could have the potential to elicit bus pride. Joanna emphasises that sustained efforts at selling the bus fleet’s sustainability advantage and delivering high quality service to match, is needed. She also talks about the success of London’s Mind the Gap campaign. This branding has opened up opportunities for revenue streams (merchandising) that helped overcome potential cost barriers for marketing and added to the available funding to reinvest in the quality of London’s transit network.

Related publications

Moody, J., and J. Zhao. (2019). Car pride and its bidirectional relation with car ownership: Case studies in New York City and Houston. Transportation Research Part A: Policy and Practice, 124: 334-353 (https://doi.org/10.1016/j.tra.2019.04.005)

Moody, J. (2019). Measuring car pride and its implications for car ownership and use across individuals, cities, and countries. Doctoral Dissertation, Massachusetts Institute of Technology: Cambridge, MA. https://dspace.mit.edu/handle/1721.1/123232

MIT Energy Initiative. (2019). Insights into Future Mobility: A report from the Mobility of the Future study. MIT Energy Initiative: Cambridge, MA. https://energy.mit.edu/insightsintofuturemobility/

Find out more

- Find out about Joanna’s publications and research: http://www.mit.edu/~jcmoody/

- Read more about research at MIT Energy Initiative’s Mobility Systems Center at http://mobilitysystemscenter.mit.edu/

Eudy, L. 2018, Image of California’s battery electric bus, [image]. https://www.metro-magazine.com/news/photos/730412/ac-transits-hydrogen-fuel-cell-bus-evaluation-surpasses-targets/68141.

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Welcome to Researching Transit, the public transport research podcast. Your podcast hosts, Professor Graham Currie and Laura Aston, share the motivation for bringing you a podcast focused on public transport, and provide a taste for what you can expect to learn...

How can transit be made more resilient, efficient, convenient and reliable? How will cities continue to meet the access and mobility needs of a growing population, while mitigating congestion and supporting thriving economies? These are questions Graham and Laura will seek to answer by interviewing leading researchers from around the world.

The aim of Researching Transit is to engage the public in shared learning around contemporary issues and innovation in public transport and provide a platform for public transport research communication.

Researching Transit is brought to you by the Monash University Public Transport Research Group.

Music from this episode is from https://www.purple-planet.com

Transit priority is controversial and its potential to unclog congested roads often goes overlooked. How can cities gain support for implementing priority measures aimed at improving the operation of transit and the efficiency of the road network?

In this episode of Researching Transit, James Reynolds of Monash University’s Public Transport Research Group explains the notion of incrementalism in the context of transport planning. Mixing engineering with public policy has allowed James to recognise that technical solutions without political will are destined to languish.

“It’s not just the amount of [transit] priority that matters, but the legitimacy, and how much is legitimate”.

James offers three main approaches – and some pragmatic strategies – to achieve legitimacy in transit priority. Drawing on case studies from Toronto, Melbourne and Curitiba, James explains how transport planners are already achieving success by using these pragmatic strategies to implement transit priority, and that the missing element has largely been a lack of links to public policy analysis and legitimacy theory, which provide the formal language and understanding to describe these types of approaches in transport planning.

For more on transit priority and related public policy research, James recommends:

• Marsden and Reardon (2017) Questions of governance: rethinking the study of transportation policy, discussion to much techno-rationalism, and a lack of engagement with social sciences and politics, in transport research;

• Lindblom (1959) The science of "muddling through", on incrementalism

• Lindblom (1979) Still muddling, not yet through, refining incrementalism into three types

• Reynolds et al. (2017) Moving beyond techno-rationalism: new models of transit priority implementation, applying public policy analysis to transit priority

• Reynolds et al. (2018) Top-down versus bottom-up perspectives on streetcar priority, comparing the effectiveness of different policy implementation approaches in Melbourne

Videos of presentations about the research:

o PTRG Transport Research Series: on pragmatic strategies for practitioners. https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLdKZm70C8JtUhxmdHtdcc_gZ0n6xsP68G

o PhD project final review seminar: on three main approaches: (1) building legitimacy before implementation; (2) avoiding impacts on other road users; and (3) building legitimacy through implementation; and eight pragmatic strategies https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLdKZm70C8JtUkhuBkq5Jt4pvRYIQitfpi

Learn more about the three different roles for public transport in a city’s transport policy of: 1) providing for social transport needs, 2) peak-period congestion relief, and/or 3) as a replacement for the car; in a chapter by Professor Graham Currie (2016) in Handbook on transport and urban planning in the developed world.

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