The online mobility management toolbox goes on a ride.

The Australian Institute of Traffic Planning and Management (AITPM) is an organization that aims mainly to promote the positive aspects of traffic & transport planning and management for the benefit of the whole community and to increase members' knowledge within the field. Since I came to Australia, more than a year ago, and being member of The Hellenic Institute of Transportation Engineers (HITE – ΣΕΣ), I became also member of AITPM.

 

The AITPM 2012 annual national conference was held in Sydney from 9 to 12 October at a fantastic venue Luna Park and it was a great honour for me to be selected to present my work on the on line mobility management toolbox.

Presentation Part 1

 Presentation Part 2: Conclusions

Camera Director: Pam Andritsakis.(thank you Pam).

Overall it was a great conference with many very interesting papers presented. I found most interesting the presentations on alternative and sustainable modes of travel like walking and cycling. In the same session as me, there were two colleagues that I think they are very good ambassadors of Brisbane transport professionals. Rachel Smith was passionate as always, suggesting that we should trial the closure of some CBD streets for a couple of hours at lunchtimes to experiment with giving pedestrians priority and creating new economic opportunities. Michael Roth  commented on ways that we can convince more drivers to drive ecologically improving this way both their environmental impact and their weekly spending on fuel.  Both presentations were within the philosophy of mobility management and sustainable mobility. 

On the second day of the conference there were also quite interesting presentations and at times it was difficult to choose between the two different sessions taking place in different halls. Matthew Harridge presented the work on a carpooling system implemented at Tally Ho Business Centre, Victoria. Again carpooling is a solution that can reduce congestion and air pollution in cities with intense problems as Melbourne. Matt Tilly's work on Improving the walkability of Brisbane's City Centre was also very interesting. This work on the Brisbane City Centre Active Transport Study was part of the new Brisbane City Council Master Plan.

The last day of the conference I participated in the official multi modal tour of Sydney. Even though the weather that day was not so good the participants had a chance to learn about the new transport projects that are planned for North and West Sydney. But Sydney's transportation system is a very interesting story of it's own and something tells me that in the near future I will have the chance to share it.

Car free day

 Last Saturday, 22 September 2012 was the world car-free day. People, communities, cities and countries from around the world organise events to celebrate and promote sustainable mobility.

Gratz, Austria

 While the idea of restricting car access to specific streets or parts of the city even for just a few hours of a single day per year is pretty old, it was back at 1994 that a formal world day started to be organised. In 2000 the European Commission adopted the idea and funded the whole project under the title “In town without my car”. The campaign was a huge success not only in Europe but also in other countries. Since 2002 cities in Europe celebrate the “European Mobility Week” an annual event in September around the "In town without my car!" day. By 2008 more than 2100 local governments from 39 countries participated either in the single day celebration or the whole mobility week.

The first Australian Car Free Day was held in the City of Fremantle on 29 November 2000. Fremantle tried again on 2001 and 2002 organising the “Shed your car day”. Other cities in Australia tried to organise similar events but without coordination amongst them and not much success.

Pedestrians, bicycles, public transit and other forms of sustainable transportation are encouraged on these days. People have tolerated too long congestion, air pollution and all other side effects of car traffic in the cities.

As the theme and logo of this year’s European Mobility Week says “Do the right mix”.

At the same time that neoliberal policies and austerity measures deepen the economic crisis in Europe, 

extending it into a social crisis, there are still a few lessons that we can learn from their practices towards a new culture in urban mobility.

Olympic Games traffic

I am watching the Olympic Games 2012  opening ceremony and as always my mind goes to transport and traffic. 

The Games being such a huge event, involving thousands of participating athletes, coaches and spectators are such a great challenge for the transportation planners and traffic engineers of each hosting city. 

Even in the hosting city selection procedure, transport and traffic is the second most important aspect of the candidate cities’ proposal after venues. Cities are struggling to persuade the “immortals” that they can manage traffic during the Olympic games in a way that not only will be effective but also sustainable. The games provide the opportunity for the cities to build new transportation system like the Athens Metro and tram. 

But even big transport infrastructure projects like public transportation systems and construction of new motorways and arterials are not enough to ensure that athletes would not need two or three hours of travel to get to their Olympic venue. Transport planning, traffic management and mobility management plays a big role in this task. After all, transportation network capacity is not designed to support all this additional demand for travel. 

One of the traffic management measures used, is sending a significant percentage of the Olympic city’s residents away from the city or having them stay at home. Usually this is achieved by giving civil servants mandatory leave and generally by making it so much more difficult for people to travel to their usual every day destination, so they will prefer to go on holidays or stay home. Again Athens was an example for this with so many Athenians spending their days during the Olympic Games in the islands.

The objective is to enable athletes and officials to get to their events on time. This is accomplished by installing Olympic lanes. Roads or traffic lanes reserved for accredited Games vehicles – athletes, officials and of course sponsors – as well as emergency vehicles. In London there are 30 miles of Olympic Lanes installed mainly on some of the city’s main arterial roads, marked by white Olympic rings painted on to the road. 

No one else is allowed in these lanes, not even black taxis or bicycles and this raises discomfort, protests and even extreme police actions that don't exactly promote the Olympic spirit.  

Trying to achieve optimum traffic management is not an easy task as some of London’s biggest traffic engineering gaffes show. 

Olympic Games have blown out of proportion during the last decades thanks to the commercialization spirit. The sponsors and the often greedy national Olympic committees push to include more sports and more athletes to the Olympic Games and finally cities that host the games do not benefit from them overall.At least it seems that they benefit from some improvement to their transport systems and the added experience in mobility management.

Charming cycling? Not in a helmet!

Riding a bicycle is one of the most sustainable mobility choices. Cities and people can greatly benefit, if they can raise the mode share of cycling. Australia in general and Brisbane specifically has a very small bike share even thought the last few years a lot of effort has been put in increasing bicycle use. You can see all the bikeways  and shared paths on Brisbane in the maps that provide information on on-road and off-road bicycle lanes, bike shelters and cyclepods to make your ride or walk safer and more pleasant.

Yesterday there was a very interesting event in Brisbane – which unfortunately I was not able to take part. Brisbane Bike Over Speed. Cyclists in their normal cloths, their work outfit or their best suits cycled through the City and South Bank just to make the point that cycling is not only for the “hardcore - lycra wearing – Tour De France looking” cyclists. See the video of their playful ride:

Some of them were riding CityCycle bikes. CityCycle is a very good initiative that can help raise bicycle use across the city. When I first saw the yellow bikes, similar to those in Paris and in Dublin, I thought: Way to go Brisbane. The next couple of days I subscribed to City Cycle and now I use the yellow bikes regularly. That is, I try to use them every day but it seems that quite a few days I am not able to do so because I can not find a bicycle with a helmet in the bike rack. That is one of the biggest reasons that the overall daily trips of CityCyle remain so low. Dublin Councillor Andrew Montague shares his experience about the bike share system in Dublin and compares it to the one in Melbourne which is so similar to CityCycle in Brisbane. The video is from MikeRubbo artist devoted in promoting "the beauty of the body of the bike".

And then browsing about cycling and the city I found this TEDx video of   Mikael Colville-Andersen, filmmaker, photographer and urban mobility expert from Copenhangen, Denmark explaining with lots of research and data “Why We Shouldn’t Bike with a Helmet”. Interesting comments, especially those concerning Australia.

Merry Christmas and happy new year

I wish everyone Merry Christmas and a happy new year. I hope everyone stays healthy and happy.

Consider buying a bicycle for present. It is one of the top presents of all time, especially for children. 

Shared Bikes – Way to go Brisbane

Brisbane is the one of two Australian cities with a bike sharing scheme. It is the newest in Australia and the biggest regarding the total number of bikes with 1000 operating and 1000 more soon to be offered. The bicycles in CityCycle look a lot like those of Velib in Paris where the bike sharing scheme is a huge success with more than 20000 bikes on Parisian roads. CityCycle bikes can be found in 104 (soon to become 150) stations in the city centre and the surrounding neighbourhoods. In order to use CityCycle you need to subscribe and then you can ride for free for a period of 30 minutes. As long as the bikes are returned to a station within half-hour intervals the user can ride all day for free. If there is a need for longer usage then there are usage fees.

Bike sharing is a great idea for the cities aiming at providing an alternative to private car use in the city centre, thereby reducing traffic congestion, noise, and air pollution. It is a great practice for cities with parking supply problems. It also aims at supporting the use of public transportation and especially for commuters as it provides the means to the last part of the home to work trip.  Besides the obvious advantages of moving by bike like benefits in health and cleaner urban environment, bike sharing schemes are great for tourists as they provide an easy way to visit more city attractions and reach more city businesses.

There is some criticism about CityCycle especially regarding that is not so successful in attracting users. Major reasons for this are the initially high daily subscription which was 11 $ and the mandatory helmet use. The first issue was recently addressed by setting the daily subscription to 2$ which had an instant effect on rising casual hires. But the mandatory use of helmet is not. Australian bike sharing schemes are the only known bicycle share schemes that operate under a mandatory helmet requirement. But who would carry with him a helmet at all times just to use it on his last part of the daily trip to work? Also who will carry a helmet on the chance that he/she might want to borrow a bike for a quick trip to run an errand? Netherlands and Denmark are the countries with the highest percentage of bicycle use and very low percentage of accidents and no mandatory helmet use. Maybe we can learn from the best.