Wisdom lies somewhere between fixed ticket pricing and free public transport.

Please visit my web page "Urban Tenets" at https://urbantenets.nl/

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On the one hand fixed ticket pricing may assure good quality transit service but struggle to lure enough commuters, on the other hand free public transport may defy its purpose due to deteriorating quality of service.

Thinking of barriers to modal shift i.e. shift from private vehicle to public transport, the factors may include, fare, quality, frequency, coverage, commute time, waiting time among others. Price may be overarching and most important criteria (barrier or enabler), and might dictate modal shift. Thinking of price, especially fixed price, it may act as a barrier for entry to public transport and shape the behaviour of citizen. The moment a person or millions of youth over the time, start a working life in a city, they decide the best possible and economic option to commute to work. Calculating monthly public transport expense is easy, i.e. multiply fixed return fair price to number of commute days (even if subsidised its still fixed). If their calculation shows private transport (personal or shared) as cheaper option, they are most likely to choose bike/ car/ shared car as their preferred mode of daily commute. Then they are more likely to eventually buy their own car as well. Then there is no looking back, if discouraged to take public transport to work in first few instances, for any reason, its most likely that they may get accustomed to comfort, convenience and routine of travelling by car for life and never to give consideration to using public transport again for their routine commute. They may possibly even become brand ambassador of car, or shared car, or electric car; still a car.

One way a public transport can make practical sense for such millions of people making wrong choices, is if people are given a deal, a surety, that there is a chance that their effective monthly travel expenses may still come down, that their daily fair will get reduced as a function of occupancy of public transport; and never go higher than the fixed price. That is, ticket prices are likely to reduce in real time if buses or metro or tram are running under-capacity. Real time reduced price will encourage more people to opt for public transport and public transport will benefit from increased ridership. This is a win-win situation for citizens and public transport agency, agencies who are seen running their fleet without sufficient passengers many a times, everyday, over and over again, over years; loosing thousands and millions of potential latent commuter footfalls every month.

It cant be stressed enough that dynamic real time ticket pricing with a max price cap equivalent to current fixed price, is something that public transport authorities must consider for implementation, at least for pilot test of 3 to 6 months.

Author: Anoop Jha

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[Recent update

Starting 2024, launching urban management, interior design, home decor and commissioned artwork services in the Netherlands, serving local as well as international remote clients.

Please Note, that I am also conducting a FREE 45-minute online individual consultation on your interior design and home decor needs and aspirations if you are in the Netherlands or even internationally. Drop me an email at anoop.jha@gmail.com 

Please visit my web page "Urban Tenets" at https://urbantenets.nl/

Instagram interior design page @urbantenets 

Instagram fine art and illustration page @urbanoregional 

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#publictransport #fare #ticket #travel #urbanplanning #transportplanning #Rotterdam #Hauge #Hague #Utrecht #Netherlands

Live anywhere work anywhere city!

Please visit my web page "Urban Tenets" at https://urbantenets.nl/

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(Old post 2019)

Proposed model for a pilot city, a district of experimentation, a living laboratory or a city retrofit suitable for a particular demography.

Majority of people leave ancestral home, hometown, current house or current city as higher education, work or financial situation demands, and they don't mind doing so. Also given an option majority of people wouldn't mind migrating from current home to an all equipped star category accommodation managed by hospitality brand as a practical decision. Above is evidence that people can live anywhere, they don't have to return from work to the same home or house number every evening, home can technically be omnipresent.

Now, especially after covid19 mass WFH and long range remote working phenomenon it's also indisputable that work place can be omnipresent as well. They don't have to go to same workplace every morning, they don't have to go to same office or same coworking space rather they can work from any coworking facility. This city will require a central warehousing of personal belongings from where required personal items can be delivered on demand and you will require an app to locate the nearest vacant workstation for the day and nearest available home to spend rest of the evening and night! 

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[Recent update

Starting 2024, launching urban management, interior design, home decor and commissioned artwork services in the Netherlands, serving local as well as international remote clients.

Please Note, that I am also conducting a FREE 45-minute online individual consultation on your interior design and home decor needs and aspirations if you are in the Netherlands or even internationally. Drop me an email at anoop.jha@gmail.com 

Please visit my web page "Urban Tenets" at https://urbantenets.nl/

Instagram interior design page @urbantenets 

Instagram fine art and illustration page @urbanoregional 

My LinkedIn Profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/anoopjha/

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Running out of urban value capture ideas? A little tweak will help!

Please visit my web page "Urban Tenets" at https://urbantenets.nl/

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Urban Planning and design can create some serious financial opportunities previously missed by urban local bodies and developers.

At planning and design stage itself decide a threshold unit real estate price for any given commercial (landuse) street; price which is applicable equally for properties on both sides of street. Now shift entire carriageway to some extent towards one side to make typical cross section of Road ROW asymmetrical, hence making more room for pedestrians, users and recreational space on one side of street compared to other. Effectively not only improvising overall public realm, streetscape and (hence footfall) of given street but also adding more footfall on one side of road which is having wider pedestrian realm. Now you should easily be able to charge substantially more per unit commercial real estate cost for that side of road having wider frontage and expecting higher footfall. Price of properties on other side of road remains same as original threshold as still reaping locational advantage.

Theoretically idea can expand to any landuse and to any part of city!

Author: Anoop Jha

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[Recent update

Starting 2024, launching urban management, interior design, home decor and commissioned artwork services in the Netherlands, serving local as well as international remote clients.

Please Note, that I am also conducting a FREE 45-minute online individual consultation on your interior design and home decor needs and aspirations if you are in the Netherlands or even internationally. Drop me an email at anoop.jha@gmail.com 

Please visit my web page "Urban Tenets" at https://urbantenets.nl/

Instagram interior design page @urbantenets 

Instagram fine art and illustration page @urbanoregional 

My LinkedIn Profile: https://www.linkedin.com/in/anoopjha/

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City’s problem isn't congestion; problem is the way we approach to solve the congestion!

Please visit my web page "Urban Tenets" at https://urbantenets.nl/

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Majority of city's problems can be solved by simply restructuring policies, but physical infrastructure is more lucrative an option for many.

You can pump millions of dollars in augmenting and upgrading city infrastructure, of course you should, but city in its functionality will still remain a mess and increasingly convoluted unless you pause and think that what has been wrong with our planning approach, why it is that our planning solutions always seem to lag far behind the pace of growth, is it revenue constraints? No! Is it land constraint? No! It is nothing but common-sense deficit. It’s simple, if it doesn’t work go back to the drawing board, put you approach up-side-down or whatever, something different need to be introduced; at least as an experiment.

Our conventional planning approach borrowed from industrial age has remained more or less the same since decades, that is to put it crudely "Planning means addition", more people - let’s make more housing, more congestion - let’s make more flyovers, more heat let’s put more air conditioners and so on.

Building another affordable housing is not a problem but it’s also not the solution. Building another flyover will of course ease the traffic for sometime but it is also not the solution which cities are looking for. The single largest criteria of a livable city can be effortlessness of any city, but effort seems to be the mandate of our city life.

Have we ever considered why such sheer number of people are heading to metropolis in the first place apart from recreational purposes, it’s not because metropolis provide better employment opportunities, it’s because we simply fail to provide livelihood opportunity in small towns and villages. Can we suggest something to calm down this vary pace of regional population flux, instead of simply focusing on making another housing colony here in every metropolis, can we propose something which will help people earn their livelihood in the place of their choice not only in the place where they often come to struggle and survive.

Have we ever considered before making another flyover that why so many people and car out there on the roads in the first place, is it really necessary in this so called wired era for every single individual to commute to work to accomplish a job, is it that being physically present at a specified location every work weekday is of such monumental importance in a time of century were everyone claim to be virtually connected to everyone and having access to the resources of whole world on their finger tip. Considering this can we suggest something to reduce the very need or frequency of people to come to streets, people who commute to work 5-6 days a week or 24 to 40 hour a week.

Why people have to waste a substantial portion of their productive lifetime commuting on city roads or tracks, commuting long hours to work mostly doing nothing, may be listening to music or playing video game on their tab, why to commute to work unless they work in a factory like production environment.

You see we are so caught up in the debate of public transport vs. private transit vs. walkability that no one is willing to ask this fundamental question why does every one of you have to commute almost every day for the purpose of work choking almost every street of city, why have we created such system or business environment or society in general. We simply can’t seem to think of any other possibility than expanding infrastructure trying to meet the pressure of self imposed need of commuting for work.

Whether travelling through private or public transport or walking to work, it’s still a waste of precious time, energy and resources. Can you even imaging the lost opportunity cost of millions of people spending several hours commuting to work-home-work almost every day of their productive life. After decades of industrialization is it still so important even today for 200 employees of a random organization to agglomerate everyday at a specific place called office at a specific time to accomplish some work, majority of which can be done from anywhere in the world, majority of which on majority of days does not fundamentally demand physical presence of worker or employee in office. Can’t we instead of simply expanding the city and transport network think of reducing the number and frequency of trip to work? Can’t we think of increasing the share of recreational trip and reducing the work trip instead of aggressively focusing on increasing the share of public transport?

No alt text provided for this image

This conventional additive approach of planning is a vicious cycle of inefficiency perceived as virtuous cycle and promoted relentlessly without delving deep into the roots of problem and without pausing and questioning the inertia of planning process. Instead of this additive approach, a supplementary approach of planning is needed for fostering and supporting equitable growth across the region, and at the same time conventional planning wisdom which is dear to many, need to be questioned!

Author: Anoop Jha

Possible pathway for resilient public transportation system:

Please visit my web page "Urban Tenets" at https://urbantenets.nl/

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A resilient transportation system is one–

a) that is made of entire low capacity to high capacity public transportation system, and has such system under single apex governing entity, for better control, cross-subsidisation, and better access to fund due to critical mass (applicable in both mono and multi-stakeholder arrangement)

b) that includes even last mile connectivity in its project scope, offering matching service experience (often excluded and usually only limited to feasibility studies or sometime complemented with poor last mile fleet services)

c) which still plans for future growth and expansion even when battling with low ridership at any moment

d) mobilises sound instruments beyond transit infrastructure, rolling stock and fleet, like TOD, value capture, rail and metro station real estate lease, advertisement space lease, monetising experience etc.

e) which forms partnership with other forms of complimentary transportation service providers and competitions like app based cab service, rideshare, micromobility services, bicycle rental; especially for seamless connectivity, healthy mutually rewarding competition, and making use of anonymised data for passenger flow modelling, network analysis and empirical predictions

f) which has opted for digitalisation of governance and operations from customer centric services, network management to, unified cashless ticketing system, to fleet management and tracking, to predictive maintenance, to fleet automation, to on-demand services

g) which focuses on customer service, customer acquisition and customer retention in all separate target age, gender and ability groups and creates channels to actively seek passenger and anonymous feedback

h) which has excellent online and offline information dissemination and audio-visual display system and hence can devise flexible network configuration and flexible coach configuration without disappointing customers, required to respond to fluctuating demand, many a times experienced due to seasonal and diurnal variation, route characteristics and force majeure event; required to stay financially afloat (system that not just focuses on expansion, but one that is able to sequester as well)

i) finally, public transportation system, which may consider to experiment with real time flexible ticket pricing based of fleet occupancy level using gamut of technological aids like sensors and analytical cameras.

Additional thoughts on real time pricing for public transport system can be found in my other Linkedin article here [https://lnkd.in/eaa28zat]

Author: Anoop Jha

#publictransport #metro #tram #bus #transitionpathways #transportplanning #automation #technology #micromobility #bicycle #rideshare #fleetmanagement #networkanalysis #ret #ns #urbanplanning #smartcity #Amsterdam #Utretch #Hague #Delft #Denbosch #Alkmaar #Tilburg #Eindhoven #Rotterdam #Netherlands

Some embedded economic bias in road and transportation planning and policy to ponder.

Please visit my web page "Urban Tenets" at https://urbantenets.nl/

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Speed Breaker experienced differently by different price range cars; flat monetary penalty imposed on breaking any particular traffic rule experienced differently by different income group, one segment better protected while on road due to advanced safety feature of their car compared to not so privileged vehicle owner, VIP and reserved parking spaces in public domain and within public institutions, those opting public transport not out of choice or sense of responsibility but out of economic constraints, those opting private transport not out of ignorance but by choice since they can afford, similar workplace cutoff arrival time or same flexi-hour for those who are insulated from weather while on road (car) and those whose journey is tough and gets Interrupted due to changing weather conditions (bike/ bicycle), those who can afford to take shortcut toll route vs those who cannot, road tax which is not linked to intensity of vehicle usage but type and number of vehicle ownership and some more.

One or many or all may be applicable to any given city and needs a serious thought and deliberation on subject by planners and policy makers.

#transportplanning #urbanplanning #publictransport #tranport #road #design #architecture #economics #carbonfootprint #publicpolicy

Solving the Age-old Dilemma!

Please visit my web page "Urban Tenets" at https://urbantenets.nl/

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World has to come to terms with the fact that the panacea to collective misery of missed car pool, missed bus, missed train, missed flight, missed attendance, missed opportunity, missed deadlines and lingering sense of alienation on a remote ground is to always stay connected (on demand) to your collective personal, professional and support ecosystem made of family, friends, peers, financial/medical/ legal/ spiritual advisor, mentor, payment gateway, connected home and so on, through plethora of choices and virtual communication modes like text, audio, video, augmented reality, holographic twin and soon through immersive metaverse.

While there is no substitute to being somewhere in person, still its quite an archaic mindset and primitive notion in this unparalleled technological age, realm and time of history, that if someone is unable be at a designated place in any part of world at a scheduled time for any reason all their opportunities should be systematically ceased and declare them offenders. Instead if world moves to an always connected mode in times to come it opens up a world of unimaginable possibilities!

Author: Anoop Jha

#iot #tech #technology #urbanplanning #city #town #smartcity #connectedhomes #ar #vr #metaverse #transport #transportplanning #mobility #history #future #alterego #hologram 

Democratizing the process of urban planning - crowdsourcing of ideas!

Please visit my web page "Urban Tenets" at https://urbantenets.nl/

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"Too many cooks spoil the Soup" May not be the right connotation when it comes to urban planning, we require as many minds and diversified experiences as possible to do the justice to a city which is either yet to be planned or being redeveloped. Community participation and early brainstorming is the key to a successful city planning, like secret ingredient of an exceptional recipe! 

In terms of community participation the focus should be scale, hetroginity and intensity of citizen engagement in planning process. In terms of early brainstorming, all concerned citizens - "considering every citizens is a stakeholder and a client" - can be given opportunity to participate in urban planning process, that too very early when the plan is still in nebulous state, not only after draft masterplan is ready. Also, urban planning process should either come out of planning studio amidst community or planning studio should open it's door to welcome community and individual user level ideas.

For example, thinking of people who could not contribute or has limited say in urban planning process till date except some advanced countries, but they do have specific expectations from their city like all the workforce who are involved in navigation (drivers), delivery (courier and food delivery guys) they can contribute in re-strategising ease of navigation and legibility of city; those in healthcare (doctors, first responders) they can help define/ redefine emergency response routes and ease of healthcare access in terms of landuse structuring and PSP facility locations; those in safety and security (police, traffic police) can help in vulnerability and black spot mapping of city and forming corresponding spatial security and surveillance requirements; those in F&B industry (mall owners, retail, restaurant owner, cook, food vendors) can help redefine new age of intensive urban cultivation, shortening farm-to-plate food supply chain, and propose innovative ways of urban organic agriculture for self-reliance and food security; those in science (mathematicians) can help streamline city traffic by running complex mathematical models and deep algorithms; those in creative fields ( artists, designers) can help reboot, reactivate and conserve cultural and artistic heritage of a brownfield city or can lay the foundation of a new vibrant culture for a greenfield city, and so on; all above inputs to be curtated by urban planning professionals.

Additionally, there is need to make use of unfathomable descrete or curated data that already historically exists around specific city and embodiment of empirical data that exists around the world wrt city planning affair in general.

Author: Anoop Jha

#urban #urbanplanning #city #townplanning #syatemthinking #utopia #smartcity #governance #idea #crowdsourcing #architecture #streets #publictransport #bicycle #transportplanning #sustainability #foodsecurity

Success or failure of Urban Street Design is based on how you perceive it and what approach you follow!

Please visit my web page "Urban Tenets" at https://urbantenets.nl/

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-Conventional approach of designing of urban road/ urban street is based all around physical "Space provision" i.e. minimum/ optimum Right of Way (ROW) required for vehicle, bicycle and pedestrian earlier a) based on Guidelines b) now based on traffic demand modeling; through these approach one can solve functionality but it still cannot assure to cater to diverse needs of urban street users

-Conventional approach gives a lot of focus on physical safety, but ultimate objective is not just to provide everyone safe passage and commute but its equally important more than ever that road/street users should not feel anxiousness, intimidated and bullied everytime they are on road/ street.

-Streets must be perceived as a conduit which is supposed to carry entities with different built, needs, capabilities, moving at a different pace, for different purposes, with different levels of demands, expectations and engagement as well as varying degree of impact and vulnerability.

-It's all in the name, damage starts from the moment you start designing it as urban roads instead of urban streets- Roads are for Vehicles, Streets are for "People First"

#transportplanning #urbanplanning #road #street #designcode #transport

PUBLIC TRANSPORT - Revisiting fundamentals

Please visit my web page "Urban Tenets" at https://urbantenets.nl/

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- There is no such thing as over creation of public transport infrastructure as where it is actually needed no amount of infrastructure is enough; still if you witness a ghost metro anywhere know that it's just bad planning.

- Know that not everyone rides a public transport out of choice or environmental awareness; for some there is no other choice

- Lack of last mile seamless, quality and safe connectivity to doorstep is single most deterrent towards use of public transport

-They might not disclose, but they should reach break-even much before projected time, and why not, as crowd keeps overwhelming the public transport system, pusing frequently the boundaries of design safety. Their perplexity, they can't show in their financial modeling sheet that design safety compromise of public transport system will be a frequent and regular phenomenon.

#publictransport #transportplanning #urbanplanning

Notion of good and bad Urban Streets -

Please visit my web page "Urban Tenets" at https://urbantenets.nl/

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Notion of good and bad Urban Streets -sometimes it's mote than skill or fault of urban planners, urban designers, transport planners, road engineers and landscape architects! 

Broadly, there are only limited known ways a street can be designed from junction to junction, there are only finite ways street facade can be articulated and modelled. (Possibly 80% of street design work machine can do on its own, by running algorithm in near future) 

Then, what is the differentiator between a good and a bad urban Street design and quality of street experience? 

Some variables-

Outcome of Transport modelling

Quality of Development Control Regulations 

Compactness of neighborhood

Permissible adjacent Landuse 

Permissible Floor Area Ratio (FAR) 

Economic status of Neighborhood

Generosity of Landscape elements

Quality and thoughtfulness of Street furniture

Age of city neighborhood

Attractiveness of neighborhood

Locational context of street

Image and significance of city

You can see there more than 50% of variables from above list which are not in control of planners and designers; variables that influences and sometimes decides the ultimate outcome of urban street design exercise, and shapes the notion of street quality and experience. 

Author: Anoop Jha

 #transportplanning #urbanplanning #landscapearchitect #urbandesigner #urbandesign

 #design #transport #smartcity #municipality #municipalcorporation

Legibility of City by design not by labels!

Please visit my web page "Urban Tenets" at https://urbantenets.nl/

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A case of many cities in developing countries and beyond.

Sense of getting lost and directionless in your own city can be a scary experience! More frequent is the phenomenon associated with planned cities compared to those towns and settlements which have evolved organically. Reason being several planned cities tend to get overwhelmingly repetitive in its modular spatial forms, sometimes making it unnerving during commute, while organically evolved cities usually boast multitude of visual cues and anchors to build a memorable streetscape.

Feeling disoriented or experiencing a sense of Déjà vu in a city is so common that people may repeatedly be unsure about correctness of path taken or exit chosen or flyover crossed on a daily basis on a routine path, as familiar as home-work-home.

Feeling of trapped in a maze is quite obvious and frequent a phenomenon in large residential neighbourhoods when it's sometimes difficult to orient yourself and finding an exit route seems a Herculean task, compounded by encountering random access gate closure.

It may take weeks or even months to actually being able to memorise or to get familiar with even frequented route, and then it's easy to forget again. It is clear that Legibility by labels or signage on its own and in all of it's collective forms, types and glory is certainly not being able to make a city legible in one go even for its regular citizens not to speak of visitors of city.

You cannot entirely rely on signage for navigation in a city, signage which are sometimes broken, sometimes vandalised, sometimes wrongly placed, sometimes unreadable by design, sometimes hidden from sight due to tree and plant foliage, sometimes owing to bad or no illumination. There are still only limited segment of citizens who actually or frequently are comfortable with or using or relying on GPS navigation maps and apps, and they who use such tools also encounter challenges like network connectivity, distracted driving.

Also acknowledging that a commuter driving a vehicle and continuously looking for signage and clues for direction is a potential threat on road due to lack of focus.

A careful attention and planning in terms of landscape variation and vegetation arrangement, landscape and urban design elements, lighting arrangements, architectural theme and design, facade articulation and zoning regulations, structural innovation etc. in combination with time tested and some better signage may possibly be the solution and attempt towards better legibility of a city!

Author: Anoop Jha

#urbanplanning #urbandesign #smartcity #landscape #municipality #municipalcorporation #neighbourhood #transportplanning

What with (typical) agenda of bicycle, why it captures popular imagination and what is the missing piece of puzzle!

Please visit my web page "Urban Tenets" at https://urbantenets.nl/

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Why people support and promote bicycle agenda? Some support considering it is environmentally sustainable, promotes healthy life and community; some, reconsidering their values, choices and transportation means due to new enlightenment on subject, emerging from social, professional and commercial media. Social media in a sense that captures bicycle in all its action and glory all the time; professional media in a sense every alternate post talking about subject of new mobility beyond fossil fuel; and commercial media in a sense those promoted by scores of new businesses emerging almost everyday around idea of bicycle, bicycle infrastructure, MaaS etc. 

A lot is happening in this space of bicycle, micromobility and at its periphery, as its still easier for an individual or a group of people to think of building a business around the subject of bicycle,  e-bicycle, e-scooters etc. So we see lot of buzz and momentum around the bicycle agenda.

Why even some of those people support bicycle agenda even if they don’t own a bicycle. Possibly they relate more bicycles with safer streets, so good for them irrespective.

There are those who own car but still support bicycle agenda, either they use less car and more bicycle and public transport OR simply to go with the popular opinion OR to distinguish themselves from other (bad?) car owners, considering themselves good car owners. This including cars of all shape, size and fuel types.

Then from a panoramic world view-

There are those who support and want to use bicycle but they don’t have access to bicycle tracks and bicycle infrastructure in their city. (They are many)

There are those individuals and dual income household who / at least one of them cannot bicycle to work due to long distance of work place. (They are many too)

Lets just not talk about role of weather here, as there are always both examples to quote.

There are those individuals and those households who can't even afford  the bicycle, whether for individual or for whole family. (There are way to many)

Lets also not forget those, who cannot manage without car, or cannot manage only with bicycle, considering the kind of personal, household or professional situation they are in. (Health, ability, old dependent members, household members with special needs etc.) (There are still many)

So, contrary to the popular notion, bicycle agenda is a complex subject, its not always about either “for” or “against” if you assess subject at global level, going beyond city and neighbourhood. Typical bicycle agenda has certainly lot to do with reducing dependency on fossil fuel, health and safer streets, but researchers, planners and policy makers must consider that individual, household and community choices are not always obvious or easy.

#bicycle #bike
[Views and observations are personal]

Author: Anoop Jha

With possibilities of real-time response, universal payment etc. today there should be a far better public transport pricing mechanism!

Please visit my web page "Urban Tenets" at https://urbantenets.nl/

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The following may be true for a range of cities across the world.

When it comes to public transport of all kinds, while the process of ticketing and payment methods and modes have seen a lot of innovation, driven by technology over the past years and decades, but there seems to have been little innovation in the pricing mechanism of public transport ticketing.

When we think of ease and equity of population, but you still see the same decade or so old handful of deferred pricing mechanism like tourist ticket, day ticket, regular passenger discount pass, off-peak hour discount, and maybe age bracket discount. This is so outdated, while you can possibly charge on a scale from one percent to hundred percent of the ticket price (still honoring various categories of tickets mentioned above) based on the real-time occupancy level of the specific bus, tram, etc. at any given time, still running a profitable venture.

The pricing mechanism which is actually one of the most important affairs of the public transport sphere and which directly touches the lives of millions has remained static while everything else about public transport has changed mostly through technology, it's surprising.

Root cause, no authority or transport service provider would like to run the risk of changes in projected revenue from public transport for instance. Even if it means losing out on big profit possibilities (for both parties), as there is comfort in known! 

City is a unique place. You see scores of vacant unsold houses in many cities and you also see those struggling to buy own house and those homeless on the streets, all in the same city.

You also see in a city, public transport of different kinds, many a time running partially or near empty on one or many occasions of day, on one and many stretches of the city, every single day and over the years, and you see people who are not allowed to board these near vacant public transport modes without paying a pre-fixed price or pre-decided discounted price and hence you also don’t see the latent flux of people you could have seen otherwise if authority or transport service provider would have allowed them to board the public transport on a fraction of standard or discounted ticket price i.e., as low as 1% to 5% to 10% or other of the standard ticket price, as a function of public transport occupancy level. Just because no one wants to do the math, both parties are at loss including operators and users. 

Now considering baseline criteria as public transport quality is good, everyone uses a multimodal touch-and-go payment card and payment is made inside or at the entry of the transport system say tram, bus, (possibly LRT, Metro, train as well) etc.

Now if we use embedded sensors inside tram and bus (and possibly metro and LRT) for instance calculate the occupancy of this particular bus or tram at any given moment and allowing real-time adjustments in ticket prices for "this particular" bus or tram to the extent i.e., near vacant tram or bus means near zero ticket price (as the operator is anyways getting zero if the system is running empty, even marginal profit over business as usual is still a profit), hence pricing will keep changing for every next rider, mostly lower than typical pricing and never exceeding the standard ticket pricing, also prompting more people to board the tram or bus if they see it running at lower occupancy, knowing that they will have to pay lower or just fraction. Apps can provide such projected pricing reduction information about any particular route in real-time to prospective travelers. If we tailor the existing transport system through upgrade or retrofit and adopt a real-time pricing mechanism at this granular level powered by tech (e.g., sensor fusion, etc) both transit service providers and citizens will be winner in terms of benefits and savings respectively, and it will help people switch from private to public transport, a much desired ”model shift”.   

So real issue and opportunity is how to deal with occupancy level for (sometimes mutual) benefit of supplier and consumer?

Occupancy is a wonderful tool!

The hospitality industry learned this long back and hence early bird and last-minute discounts. The rental market is already thriving on this in some places. Aviation also leveraging it somewhat. Taxi services learned the other way around, how to inflate the price 2X or 4X or more through congestion charges. The public transit segment world over is still lagging far behind wrt innovation on real-time occupancy-based pricing (for price reduction not increase) with the unimaginable potential using real-time pricing adjustment mechanism with help of sensors and other connected technology.

Author: Anoop Jha

#smartcity #transportplanning #its #intelligent #trafficmanagement #policy #surveillance #databreach #ml #machinelearning #iot #delhi #mumbai #india #camera #urbanmanagement #urbandeveloent #Rotterdam #Amsterdam #DenHaag #Delft #Alkmaar #DenBosch #Eindhoven  #Utretch #Hague #Netherlands

 

What with (typical) agenda of bicycle, why it captures popular imagination and what is the missing piece of puzzle!

Why people support and promote bicycle agenda? Some support considering it is environmentally sustainable, promotes healthy life and community; some, reconsidering their values, choices and transportation means due to new enlightenment on subject, emerging from social, professional and commercial media. Social media in a sense that captures bicycle in all its action and glory all the time; professional media in a sense every alternate post talking about subject of new mobility beyond fossil fuel; and commercial media in a sense those promoted by scores of new businesses emerging almost everyday around idea of bicycle, bicycle infrastructure, MaaS etc.

A lot is happening in this space of bicycle, micromobility and at its periphery, as its still easier for an individual or a group of people to think of building a business around the subject of bicycle, e-bicycle, e-scooters etc. So we see lot of buzz and momentum around the bicycle agenda.

Why even some of those people support bicycle agenda even if they don’t own a bicycle. Possibly they relate more bicycles with safer streets, so good for them irrespective.

There are those who own car but still support bicycle agenda, either they use less car and more bicycle and public transport OR simply to go with the popular opinion OR to distinguish themselves from other (bad?) car owners, considering themselves good car owners. This including cars of all shape, size and fuel types.

Then from a panoramic world view-

There are those who support and want to use bicycle but they don’t have access to bicycle tracks and bicycle infrastructure in their city. (They are many)

There are those individuals and dual income household who / at least one of them cannot bicycle to work due to long distance of work place. (They are many too)

Lets just not talk about role of weather here, as there are always both examples to quote.

There are those individuals and those households who can't even afford the bicycle, whether for individual or for whole family. (There are way to many)

Lets also not forget those, who cannot manage without car, or cannot manage only with bicycle, considering the kind of personal, household or professional situation they are in. (Health, ability, old dependent members, household members with special needs etc.) (There are still many)

So, contrary to the popular notion, bicycle agenda is a complex subject, its not always about either “for” or “against” if you assess subject at global level, going beyond city and neighbourhood. Typical bicycle agenda has certainly lot to do with reducing dependency on fossil fuel, health and safer streets, but researchers, planners and policy makers must consider that individual, household and community choices are not always obvious or easy.

[Views and observations are personal]