I gave a precursor of the talk at a public lecture organised by University of Technology Sydney, a couple of months ago. I was invited by Adrian Lahoud, and it formed part of an excellent series of public lectures around architecture and urbanism. If you're at a loose end in Sydney tomorrow evening and would prefer an alternative to my talk, you could do worse than go and see the next installment in the lecture series, delivered by none other than the Lord Mayor of City of Sydney, Clover Moore MP. She'll no doubt be majoring on their recently launched Sustainable Sydney 2030 strategy, much inspired by Jan Gehl's recent report for the City of Sydney. I'll post my own thoughts on all that soon enough.

For my lecture, I essentially 'performed' my Street as Platform piece, augmented with candid pics from a recent trip to Melbourne. I think it worked well, as a kind of freeze-framed narrative, in terms of conveying how much the street weighs these days, as Bucky might say, when you take into account the largely unseen digital communications. I called it The Not-So-Quiet City this time, as a nod to Aaron Copland's lovely 'Quiet City' piece of 1941, and to play up the sensory design aspects. This was partly due to it being a roundtable on 'Atmospheric Urbanism', where I was presenting alongside the excellent Nadia Wagner, a researcher in 'urban olfactics'. Her work is absolutely fascinating, and most Pallasmaa. The reason I think the two lectures worked well is that we got some absolute corkers in terms of questions afterwards, many of which have been percolating through my mind ever since. And I'm still not sure I have particularly concrete thoughts on them. "What is the creative challenge for architecture, in response to all this?" was one intriguing question in particular, a googly bowled by the ever-thoughtful Lahoud. (He's organised a follow-up roundtable too.)

Next week, Duncan Wilson and I are attending the Pervasive 08 conference here in Sydney. Our position paper was accepted by the workshop on Pervasive Persuasive Technology and Environmental Sustainability and so Duncan and I will be taking part in that, alongside a bunch of international researchers and practitioners in this area, such as the likes of Eric Paulos, Paul Dourish, Tom Igoe et al. I'm looking forward to the whole conference hugely and hope to post our paper shortly, including reflections on the workshop.

One of the workshop organisers is Marcus Foth of QUT (previously, here), and in June I hope to be attending a related conference at QUT, organised by their Centre of Excellence for Creative Industries and Innovation (CCI). Called Creating Value: Between Commerce and Commons, the workshops on 'Broadband innovations and the creative economy' and 'Creative Industry development agendas: design as value-add' look great. Richard Allen of Cisco is a particularly good addition to the cast of speakers (see also Henry Jenkins.)

Finally, in July, I'm speaking at Design Capital, part of the State of Design festival in Melbourne, as part of the 'Convergent World' session on day 3. It'll be great to hook up with friends like Allan Chochinov of Core77 and Michael Trudgeon of Crowd, and to meet a few new people too.  Also happy to say I'm a judge in the 2008 Premier's Design Awards there too.

Do get in touch if you're in town at the same time, or want more info on any of the events.  More news to follow, and then a return to your usual programming.

(Something of a follow-up post to the recent transport informatics survey.) A recent conversation with Jarrett Walker, a consultant based here in Sydney, popped up the following thought. Jarrett, experienced in metropolitan transit systems, was thinking through ideas around fare pricing given the new possibilities enabled by fully automated systems.

Design of fare structures have been fundamental to transit planning for years, attempting to define charges for journeys in equitable yet efficient fashion. Balancing those last two factors mean that the basic problem is often shot through with tensions - e,g, richer suburbs paying less than poorer, due to zoning often based on radial principles emanating from a central core, and so on. Jarrett knows more about that than I. Whatever, existing systems based around zones etc. do at least usually have a stated, consistent pricing for journeys that can be easily communicated, even if not necessarily agreed with.

However, Jarrett was wondering about some emerging thinking he'd heard around the possibilities of new smart card-based, integrated ticketing systems, and the sense that varying prices could be generated in real-time, based on variables like distance, time of day, number of passengers on board, overall running costs of the system at that point, demand etc. That you wouldn't know the actual price you'd been charged for that particular journey and that actually, you needn't. You just swipe the card and conduct your journey, in the knowledge you'll have pre-paid to a certain amount, or pay a monthly bill subsequently. You'll trust the system will charge you fairly, of course, and you could see the breakdown of costs at the end of the month, or when your pre-pay card needs topping up, and so on.

(As an analogy, you'd contend that few people really know/care the exact cost of each one of their phone calls, for instance. The payment is represented by sometimes complex monthly plans, based around a number of free minutes/texts that are bundled, a certain number free within a network and so on. Obviously, some do know what they pay each time, but hasn't the general tendency has been towards bundling into monthly packages, abstracting away from pricing the actual individual calls at time of connection? With a pay-as-you-go model for those without financial security.)

So the drift towards an ongoing service model of variable pricing bundled into pre-paid or direct-debited packages seems an option. With an increasing deployment of GPS devices in all vehicles and RFID-based tracking of passenger entry/egress, it seems likely that some transit systems will try this out, in effect neatly hiding the complexity of pricing from the citizen.

This is partly also due to the sheer complexity of pricing systems e.g. Sydney's train system alone has over 120 'fare products', apparently. Multiply that by ferry, bus and light rail. This fare complexity is largely a result of attempting to be equitable, and at the moment the complexity is shared by both system operator and customers.

However, Jarrett wondered whether citizens might actually want to understand, or engage with, their public transport system a little more deeply. That pricing is one way of perceiving the structure of the transport system, and that's something that customers might innately want to do. He thought that it might be important to perceive how the system works, at least as expressed in fare structures. It's a map of the city, in a sense. In a city like London, the topography is overlaid with a mental model of the zones, which take on a kind of meaning over and above fare products (I proudly lived in zone 1, would more or less travel to zone 2, and so on.)

When he asked me the question about whether perceiving the sysetm was important, I immediately thought of the importance of seams and imageability.

Seamfulness, some long time readers will know, is a particular interest here (and of others, like Anne Galloway and Adam Greenfield.) It holds that a desire to hide complexity via an apparently perfect, hermetically-sealed product can actually mitigate against a successful informational system.

A classic example here is the iPod, which given its undoubted success also indicates how complex the argument is. That success is down to its carefully linked system architecture with iTunes as well as its rigorously reduced interface and seductive aesthetic. And yet its alleged undoing is also to do with its 'perfect' design, in that batteries are difficult to replace (meaning most people don't) and that it's a music experience that can't be tweaked or modified much. You could argue that if the iPod showed its seams a little more, it would be more malleable as a device, and even more engaging as a product experience. Doing that without damaging its seductive sheen and usability would be tricky but potentially rewarding. That old "beautiful seams" ambition.

The other reference is of Kevin Lynch's concept of imageablity, from his pivotal book The Image of the City, which I've always thought should apply to system design - the ability to perceive the system around you (visually, spatially, intellectually) and be left with a strong 'image' of its structure. Also known as legibility. A few years ago Peter Lindberg developed the idea specifically around software architecture, and I've subsequently thought it an essential feature of good system design (whether the system is a building, a music-playing device, a transport system or indeed Grand Theft Auto.)

So it seems to me that the ability to show/hide structural detail is fundamentally important element of a system. It enables the legibility of the system. And that showing a bit more detail, if carefully and sensitively articulated, can only engage the user further. Not necessarily exposing minute technical detail - though a handful will always want that - but enabling perception of the basic ambit, structure, joints, seams, influences, and so on. It certainly enables that form of engagement known as adaptation or even hacking - not in the pejorative sense of the word - but in the sense of building upon systems and extending them - as we've seen with transit systems that do begin to expose their behaviour.

And of course, as these and similar pervasive systems migrate into many spheres of life, deciding how visible to make parameters, motives and controls becomes even more important. Will hiding such intricacies reduce civic engagement in urban information systems? Or conversely, will its seamless design lead to increased take-up of services like public transport and thereby greater civic engagement?

What do you think? I'm aware that I'm posing the question to a particular audience, but do you think that, in this case, a transport system that has a choice to hide the potential complexity of a fare system should do that? Or should it reveal its complexity either through having set fares or by displaying the calculated fare on the spot? Does convenience trump legibility?

This is a handsome coffee table book. Literally. It's full of handsome houses with handsome coffee tables. Every house in this book of "iconic Australian houses" is indeed a corker, each defining a new take on a regional modernism. Like Australia itself the architecture is influenced by Europe, America, Asia and filtered through its own indigenous cultures, powerful climate and terrain to produce something novel and distinctive.

The European influence is all continental, leaving contemporary Australia's British heritage well behind generally a good idea when it comes to aesthetics.) Architects like Harry Seidler are direct European injections; others draw from a form of humanist or organic modernism perhaps in common with Aalto and Saarinen. The American influence is Californian, just as the climate in Australia's south-east is similar, and the Case Study Houses were all absorbed, but the principal influence is probably that of Frank Lloyd Wright. Asian architecture is evident in the vernacular forms of Pacific architecture, particularly in Queensland, but again principally from Japanese architecture.

The writer, Karen McCartney, points out the latter in her introduction:

"Many attributes of Japanese architecture have been adopted for use in Australian domestic architecture: the tradition for post and beam construction; extensive use of wood and the exposure of the structural elements; sliding screens for flexible floor plans; changes in internal levels; framed garden views and the linking of internal and external space."

This, then, appears to have been a new architecture of both sides of the Pacific, a wave of European emigrés developing work in Australia and California, increasingly influenced by the combination of Japanese and indigenous, climactically-sensitive architecture, until a new form emerges.

It's fascinating to watch the work develop, from Seidler's Rose Seidler House in 1950 - a quietly revolutionary marker for a new way of thinking - through to the fibreglass capsule house of Ian Collins in 1974. Some houses seem responses to previous statements, widening the range of possibilities within this regional modernism, with the opening salvo of Seidler cleverly followed by Peter Muller's Audette House. Muller's house appeared to sidestep Seidler's International Style by developing an alternative way forward, dissolving into the landscape in a low-lying organic form, with local materials and references subsumed into entirely modern thinking and practice.

McCartney reveals how Seidler - forever playing Roark star - said at the time, "Does not this (organic) architecture seem rather weak, subservient and not very proud of itself?". She asked Peter Muller recently about Seidler's quote, and Muller's response, in email, is fascinating:

"Seidler was pushing for international architecture which abnegated all concerns to preserve local diversity. The climatic, geographic, cultural and spiritual integrity, and deeper meanings for ornament were regarded as some kind of superstition. So-called organic architecture was regarded as 'romantic' and intuitive, rather than intelligent and no match for what the Brave New World had to offer with its high-tech, machine-driven materials. Today, of course, with concerns for global warming, fossil fuels and so on, emphasis shifts once again and the use of natural and sustainable materials in an intelligent and sensible way to reduce energy overloads is considered admirable and strong-minded. Pride comes before a fall, subservience to Truth is a blessing and the weak shall inherit the earth."

These fierce differences of opinion, sometimes expressed in letters by the more vocal protagonists, other times in concrete, brick and wood, bounce back and forth across the projects gathered here. Yet from today's distance, the houses appear to have more in common than difference.

Robin Boyd, perhaps the most influential Australian architect of this era, offered up the aphorism "Australia is the small house", and 50/60/70 showcases many of the best of those small houses, drawn from the three decades the title lists. A book like this makes clear where today's exemplary work emanates from, detailing a rich modern tradition. (I've previously written about how strong Australian domestic architecture is, perhaps at the expense of civic buildings.)

The work is breathtakingly beautiful, each house a gem amidst the banal Australian outer suburban architecture excoriated by Boyd in his book The Australian Ugliness (a charge recently reiterated by Elizabeth Farrelly in her book Blubberland). This contrast, if you know it, further highlights the importance of this work. The level of quality in the build, as well as the integration with the landscape, look to be of the highest order and should still be aspired to.

Yet despite some of these houses being on generous plots, and photographed as if majestically standing alone in the terrain, there's a starker comparison with today, also made clear in McCartney's introduction.

There was a restriction on plot size post-WWII of 134m² and the lifting of that, combined with the new prosperity of the '50s and '60s, enabled many of the houses here to flourish. Yet most are still essentially modest propositions, with generally small bathrooms and bedrooms. The general consensus was that bathrooms should be like toilets - small, functional and not places to hang around. Ditto bedrooms are often small-ish, with a greater emphasis on the shared living spaces. This in contrast to today's houses, which are 264m² on average and, as McCartney notes, 600m² not unheard of. These larger houses, today's private commissions, feature 3 or 4 bathrooms, mostly en-suite, as well as media rooms, in-house gyms and swimming pools. Few if any of the houses in 50/60/70 have pools, and even Buhrich's famous lipstick red fibreglass bathroom - with construction inspired by boatbuilding techniques - is relatively discreet compared to today's faux-Roman monstrosities.

Of course, many houses here are built by architects for themselves, with the other half private commissions from clients apparently well-versed aesthetically. A wander - or more realistically, a drive - around Sydney and Melbourne's suburbs will tell us that many terrible houses were built at the time, blissfully unaware of this fabulous work.

Yet while the houses in 50/60/70 are in no way high-density living - Boyd noted that "it was said that flats were for foreigners" - many here are modest, and highly sympathetic to context. We could do well to learn again from building modest houses, for I hope obvious reasons. There are enough clues here as to how to do it. (And we'd also do well to look to our Japanese neighbours again to learn how to build truly high-density dwelling of quality, suiting urban context as well as 'natural'. On that count, seeing as Australia can be thought of a nation of foreigners, perhaps Boyd's quote RE flats can be reconfigured as an optimistic one.)

The houses featured here are by (in chronological order) Harry Seidler, Peter Muller, Roy Grounds, Peter McIntyre, Russell Jack, Robin Boyd, David McGlashan and Neil Everist, Enrico Taglietti, Neville Gruzman, Bruce Rickard, Hugh Buhrich, Ian McKay, Iwan Iwanoff, John Kenny and Ian Collins.

Personal favourites here? From the Melbourne masters who fell out: the wonderfully simple 1954 house of Roy Grounds and Robin Boyd's Walsh Street House of 1958. Plus, John Kenny's 1976 house, as an attempt at a modular, sustainable, late-period Case Study House, is laden with useful thinking. Though a better authority, architect Peter Myers, said that Hugh Buhrich's Buhrich House II, in Sydney's famous Castlecrag, is "easily the best modern house in Australia." The quality of all the projects here is incredibly high.

Victoria's reputation emerges from this period, and has been documented many times, but it's the work of 'the Sydney School' throughout NSW that is particularly well represented here. (There are few other non-Syd/Melb examples: a Taglietti in Canberra, an Iwanoff house in Perth, and nothing from Queensland save a few mentions of Hayes and Scott. Perhaps an oversight.)

The book contributes good if small plans for the houses, and all projects been beautifully photographed, with each house followed by a series of details which look at individual elements of construction or furnishing. Indeed, as you might expect from McCartney, an editor of interior design magazine, the furnishing is a key facet of this book. Houses were included on the basis that "the interior furnishings ... were stylistically sympathetic, if not original." Some great houses, such as Boyd's Lyons House (1968) - which in being a Sydney house by a Melbourne architect almost exemplifies many of the themes here - would have been ruled out by those criteria, but I can see why it's been done. The book works as a sourcebook for mid-century modern furniture of the highest order too.

This book won't have the erudition, breadth of reference or insight of Philip Goad's New Directions in Australian Architecture, several others by Goad, or Boyd's books for that matter. Largely as it makes more space for photographs, which are beautifully shot and well reproduced, rather than text. But it sits alongside those books as a finely curated collection of exemplary architecture, amongst the finest examples of houses anywhere, and many examples here provide potent, rich visions of the heights domestic architecture can reach when emphasising quality and modesty.

(More pictures below. Click on any image to see a larger version at Flickr. And many thanks to Celia for giving me this book.)

50/60/70: Iconic Australian Houses, by Karen McCartney [Amazon UK|US]

Data, transported and shaped by the internet, is increasingly becoming a primary way that people expect to engage with public transport in particular. Engage, as in access and navigate through transport service information, but also explore and understand the transport service itself. This last aspect might sound initially far-fetched - “Why would people want to explore their transport networks?” - but many of these examples indicate that people do. They often go well beyond basic communications initiatives like integrated transport systems and into genuine two-way and many-to-many network-based interaction. Whilst they can do little to help if the eventual public transport service itself is poorly run, built over a well-run system (such as Helsinki’s or Zürich's) such systems might increase satisfaction amongst existing users and attract new users.

Further, engaging with the energy output of transport is something people may directly engage with too, to help shift behaviour. Studies elsewhere, such as Pacific NorthWest National Laboratory of the Energy Department indicate that when exposed to the effects of their behaviour in terms of domestic energy use (electricity, water, gas etc.) via simple PC-based feedback tools, people may change their behaviour, leading to a 15% reduction in peak load on utilities. (And more might be achieved than that, through more sophisticated and better designed schemes.) Will this carry across to transport energy?

So, here are transport systems where usage data has become available - or could become available - and is then built upon, as a way of exploring whether various ‘live dashboards’ of transport across a city will engender new levels of engagement with transport. And whether this will increase awareness of personal behaviour and impact on emissions accordingly.

Some of the examples will have been seen before, so I’d be interested in any further examples you might have of urban informatics applied to transport - please add examples/thoughts via the comment form at the bottom of this post.

A note on the importance of data
A key aspect here is to ensure that transport systems are generating rich data in real-time as a side-effect of their use I.e. not as a discrete activity, measuring performance occasionally, but that systems are in effect working as continuous broadcast networks, each node - tram, bus, bike, car - generating data about its behaviour (effectively they become large ‘spimes’, or aggregates of spimes). Having achieved that, we can measure behaviour and thus measure change. And then feed back information to users to enable them to measure their own change too. The first users of the data should be the transport networks, the public or private bodies that run or legislate them, and the public themselves. This last feedback loop becomes the most interesting, ultimately, as it not only makes the transport systems accountable for their performance, but also enables users to perceive, measure and change their own behaviour.

Each car, bus, tram becomes a node in an informational network, not just the transport network - and visible by the public. Moreover, by opening up this information, people can tinker with their own applications to monitor, explain, explore transport usage - the kind of open approach to data that has fuelled the rapid growth of internet-based systems. (Related: The Personal Well-Tempered Environment) People can engage further with the city, seeing it through the prism of transport, building stronger civic relationships.

Much of the innovation in terms of transport data is from private companies. Here’s a round-up from mainly UK and US sources, based on the work of Christopher Zegras of MIT’s Responsive City Initiative (as cited via MIT researcher supreme Fabien Girardin, who has helpfully collated and discussed many of these issues from numerous angles on his excellent site):

• Inrix: data provider from stationary sources, toll systems, 650,000 vehicle probes. They then clean and sort the data and sell to TomTom, Garmin, dash.
• Navteq - Traffic.com: road sensor network (the biggest in the USA).
• ITIS Holdings and TrafficMaster (cctv, fixed sensors, probes)
• TomTom Mobility Solutions: cellphone vehicle tracking project (with Vodafone).
• TeleAtlas
• Traffic from cellphone triangulation: IntelliOne, AirSage, CellInt
• Public transportation real-time transit information and schedules: Hopstop, Transloc, mybus, nextbus, Google Transit
• Carbon Hero calculates carbon footprints (alongside many others)
• TomTom’s MapShare (user-generated maps for TomTom)

All of these rely on massive amounts of real-time data, then filtered and aggregated. The data used by most city and state governments, however, is often years old (Boston uses data from 1991, which is hopefully a worst case). Zegras suggests that most transport systems have not yet made started capturing this rich data, nor made coherent use of the data they do have. Public-private partnerships would be a good model, given the pace of the private sector’s innovation in this field, but the need for strategic overview and public responsibility lies with the state. Thus it is vital that governments retail full exposure to, and control of, the data.

An alternative approach to garnering data about mobility is that being explored by MIT’s Senseable City experiment, which uses mobile phone data to track the city in real-time. Given the near-ubiquity of mobile phones, this emerges as a statistically valid (aka near-enough) method for tracking movement. While the WikiCity Rome implementation is oriented more towards narrative, the potential for tracking movement - and therefore transport, and therefore transport energy - is there in the project:

“The Notte Bianca implementation allows people access to the real time data on dynamics that occur in the very place they find themselves in, in that moment, creating the intriguing situation that the map is drawn on the basis of dynamic elements of which the map itself is an active part … 'How does having access to real time data in the context of possible action alter the process of decision making in how to go about different activities?'”

Below, some example projects grouped into 10 categories, starting with an overview over transport systems, and then initiatives in specific modes of transport, from cars to walking via taxis, flight and more besides.

1. HOLISTIC

Helsinki
Perhaps the best case study comes from the best public transport system in Europe - as ranked by the European Commission - the Helsinki system, with nine out of ten residents satisfied or extremely satisfied. This is due to many aspects of their service, but a particular advance can be seen in their use of information - within buses and trams, but also at the level of the network itself.

“Every bus and tram in Helsinki and the surrounding cities of Vaanta and Espoo are being fitted with Linux servers and GPS units. Every bus and tram in the conurbation will not only become a wireless hotspot serving broadband internet throughout the vehicle - for free - but every bus and tram is visible on a Google map (the beta version is at tinyurl.com/2gftso) that uses the same real-time passenger information as the controllers in their command centre.”

“The Google map, moreover, is open, meaning that if someone wants to come and improve it or write some extra application, they are free to do so. Not only that, but every bus and tram stop in Helsinki is being fitted with small "near field information" tags that allow anyone with a Nokia cameraphone to take a snap of the tag and launch a Java application bespoke to that stop. This means that you don't have to have to take off your mittens or tap in tricky Finnish place names such as herttoniemenranta when it's -22C and you're faced with sleet's bitter sting.” [The Guardian]

These are all techniques to reduce time at the bus/tram stop and progressively increase time on the bus/tram versus other modes of transport. This is an informational overlay onto public transport that would help shift behaviour away from private transport.

The Guardian concludes:

“What most bus passengers want is a system that shares real-time information with them. Not just at the bus stop, but on our phones, iPods, laptops and websites. They don't want to go to the bus stop to find they have to wait 15 minutes - they want to find out how far away the bus is before they step outside. Now the controllers know where the bus is, soon the passengers will want to know too. How long will they have to wait?”

This indicates the base-level aspirations emerging around public transport now, over and above on-time, comfortable and affordable.

Note that the following map-based system - click to see buses and trams moving in real-time throughout Helsinki - is open. This is an example of this new civic engagement in public transport. Of course, if subsequent user-generated systems or displays become successful and well-implemented, they can be ‘adopted’ by the city, and made secure, resilient and reliable. It’s a common approach to innovation in the technology world.

Transport energy can clearly be displayed using the same techniques I.e. overlaid on these Google Maps-based real-time timetables. And this published to the mobile and personal platforms mentioned above, as well as on displays on bus- and tram-stops, creating an association between saving transport energy and public transport. Not even Helsinki is doing this yet, as far as I know.

Combining real-time data about the various modes of transport would enable this holistic overview of the city’s transport to be published, shared and discussed, leading to far greater engagement from the public. This, in turn, leading to potential behavioural change, particularly if conveyed with imagination, as a series of attainable goals against which progress can be judged on a daily basis. It could sit alongside reward/congestion schemes.

Journey On
“JourneyOn is a unique journey planner for Brighton & Hove. The planner helps you find a route across the city and tells you the cost, time and the number of calories you'd burn whether you walk, cycle, take the bus or go by car. To start just choose your mode of transport from the selection or fill in your journey details below.”
JourneyOn

Google Transit
Publishing the data in an open format, ideally via an API, would enable it to be usable on Google Transit. Perth has recently joined Google Transit, as the first representative of Australian cities. Interestingly from a transport planning perspective, the engineer integrating Perth’s transit data with Google noted the distinct advantage that Perth has in running the only fully integrated public transport system in Australia (in terms of ticketing, journey planning and timetable data).
Google Transit

Octopus Card, Hong Kong and Oyster, London
We often hear rather breathless descriptions of how the Octopus integrated ticketing schemes has extended into many areas of retail. But these aren’t just about ease-of-use and customer loyalty, any more than FlyBy and Tesco Clubcard are. They are far more powerful in terms of data generators, exposing patterns of use in transport networks, and even influencing patterns of use in transit - again, just as Clubcard has given Tesco unprecedented levels of information on consumer habits. As with London’s Oyster, such schemes would convey vast amounts of useful data on patterns of behaviour - suitably anonymised and with privacy taken into account of course.

See-It
In Albuquerque, New Mexico, the city commissioned Vancouver-based company Visible Strategies to use its See-It program (short for Social, Environmental, Economic-Integration Toolkits) to convey how the city was progressing in terms of sustainability strategies. This, on the premise that few citizens will actually read paper-based strategies in detail.

“If you’re interested in Albuquerque’s plans for its buses, for example, follow the “Greening Our Travel” goal to the “Vehicle Efficiency” strategy, where you can read about the fleet’s ongoing conversion to alternative fuels. You’ll also find a graph that evaluates the plan’s progress (on track!) and a form to send feedback to a city manager. “It has forced us to take a good hard look at what data we have and how we measure our success,” says Danny Nevarez, who works at Albu­quer­que’s Environmental Health Department.”

It relies on data from the city itself, and indicates a richer way of publishing strategy and conveying information. With a bit of imagination, this could be extended by opening up aspects of the data to enable others to re-combine it, and by embedding the displays in bus- and tram-stops etc.

Metropolis magazine on SeeIt

Travel-time maps, correlated with house prices

“UK-based non-profit MySociety teamed up with Stamen Design to develop some innovative time-travel maps. The snapshot of the map that you see above shows where you can live in London with a commute between 30 to 60 minutes where the median house price is over £230, 000. As you adjust the sliders, the map changes in realtime letting you adjust the commute times from 0 up to 90 minutes and the housing price from 0 to £990,00. The Department of Transportation, who requested the work, is the map's center (and basis for the commute times).”

O'Reilly Radar on Travel Time Maps
Stamen's Tom Carden on their Travel Time Maps

Analysing Madrid’s volume of traffic
These beautiful visualisations - called Cascade on Wheels - indicate two ways of modelling volume of traffic through Madrid’s centre. It’s based on a static data-set, but indicates an interactive system for exploring the pattern of behaviour over the terrain, in an almost tactile fashion. While the information itself could also be communicated in an Excel spreadsheet, and usually would have been for years, these new ways of visualising and handling the data do appear to add a deeper level of engagement - almost visceral - with the material.

One of the outputs is a sound-based interface, which is an interesting and under-used variant on exploring such data.

Steph Thirion, one of the creators of Cascade on Wheels, notes the importance of the visualisation:

“Most traffic mappings are realtime information for drivers, to help them trace their route depending on the current state of traffic. The broader view, which is representing the average quantities over time, is not so popular. That's a shame, because this is about something that affects every single inhabitant of the city, not just the drivers. And the existing maps that cover this subject usually have failed to make that data truly readable. So I wouldn't complain of a lack of data, but I think there's a blank space that is begging to be drawn on. I'd love to see more visualizations on this subject.“ [WorldChanging]

Here are a couple of short videos of the tool in action:

WorldChanging interview with Steph Thirion

2. CARS

Car-sharing schemes
Car-rental models could be usefully stimulated in order to reduce reliance on private cars (in a sense, just as bike-sharing schemes have). Both ZipCar and Flexicar in the US have struggled to turn a profit, despite some popularity, and ultimately merging (with not great consequences, allegedly). However, in part this is due to the established players of Hertz and Enterprise picking up on the business model. (See also Smartdrivers and GoGet in Australia; Whizzgo and CityCarClub in the UK etc. Note that Whizzgo cars are exempt from the London congestion charge, hinting at the integration with these wider strategies.) These systems tend to increasingly rely on Google Maps and access/identification systems, and could publish data about usage, enabling it to be folded into the holistic model described above.

The founder of the US’s most successful car-sharing network gave a talk last year about seeing transport systems as ‘mesh networks’, connecting in real-time in order to optimise service.

“Robin Chase: Getting cars off the road and data into the skies". See also StreetsBlog.

“From my Zipcar experience and from watching congestion pricing played out in London and Stockholm, I've learned that money -- market pricing, or accurate reflection of pricing -- is what turns people's behavior on a dime. If we're serious, that's where we have to go. Marketing is everything and wireless technologies bring us to a totally different world of possibility. Zipcar and car-sharing is one example of how the ability to rent a car by the hour easily and therefore pay almost full car costs for that hour causes people to drive dramatically less. You don't run out and buy your quart of ice cream, because it's going to cost you ten bucks to buy that quart of ice cream. You say OK, I'll do without, I'll eat cookies, I'll pick up ice cream tomorrow.”

See also ride-sharing, by GoLoco, enabled via the web and social-software techniques.

How route choice can be affected by real-time traffic information.
“Route Choice Behaviour of Freeway Travellers Under Real-time Traffic Information Provision - Application of the Best Route and the Habitual Route Choice Mechanisms.”

This paper investigates route choice behaviour on freeways between Taipei and Taichung in Taiwan under the provision of real-time traffic information. This hints at the effects of analytical data fed back in real-time and displayed on-street.

“The results confirm that the thresholds for changing the inertia behaviour of drivers should be larger than the ones for choosing the best routes. In addition, the drivers are more likely to choose either the best or the habitual routes once the generalised cost savings are greater than the identified threshold values.”

Congestion charging
Based on London’s and Stockholm’s experience, many other cities are also now considering congestion charging. (New York State has recently voted against introducing it, indicating a classic state/city split, perhaps, amongst other things.) Again, though, the interesting aspect here is how such systems generate date about transport in the city or state.

The technology behind London’s scheme has recently switched to IBM - there are no details thus far of plans for better feedback to users, or opening up the data and combining with other transit data, as in the idea above.

“IBM was involved in a tag and beacon trial in Stockholm in 2006 which covered 24km of the city, affected 350,000 car journeys per day and reduced car traffic by 25 per cent. According to the company, the city's bus timetables had to be redesigned because of the increased average speed of journeys. The trial allowed the city to vary charges throughout the day, with drivers paying the charge through a direct debit account as they passed the beacons.”

See also the variable pricing congestion charging system proposed as an upgrade of Singapore’s Electronic Road Pricing (ERP).

“The Singapore government has initiated a trial project to study the feasibility of a GPS based second-generation ERP system to meet the requirements of congestion pricing.”

All these systems rely on sensors generating useful data, that could be multiplied with the public transport data from other systems.

Kansas traffic monitoring
The Kansas City Scout offers visualisations of live traffic over their road networks, linked in to traffic cameras and signage displays.

In-car navigation systems
It’d be interesting to see cities liaising with manufacturers of sat-nav devices, not least to prevent the increase in accidents when lorries are led down roads not suitable for them, despite it being a quicker route. Could sat-nav systems in cities prioritise certain routes over others, to the benefit of the region as well as individual drivers? (See also Taipei/Taichung paper earlier on route-choice.)

Traffic detection
A new edition of the traffic detector handbook describes the various sensor technologies available.

The webfront retail model: displacing car traffic through home delivery
This emerging model is being trialled in a few stores now: the customer visits the store, tries on the clothes (or tries out other goods), and then orders them for immediate home delivery (you actually pay a premium if you want it immediately and carry them home yourself). It’s effectively a “physical trial space for online shopping”, which plays on its sustainability credentials as well as convenience. It enables shoppers to be downtown on foot, bike or public transport and not have to worry about the car.

“Is it greener to shop on foot or online and then have the stuff delivered? Well, surprisingly (at least to me) the answer is generally yes. Sometimes it's much greener. The ecological cost of driving a number of online purchases in one truck (a truck, I might note, that is increasingly likely to itself be more efficient than some US cars) on a pre-set route (programmed to also be highly-efficient) is a small fraction of the ecological cost of driving to and from the store to get them yourself.” [WorldChanging]

See also Brand Avenue.

A reversal of the business model of Ikea and other big box retailers, pushing the urban downtown onto the front foot again. Supported by smart web-based delivery estimate systems (“Your package is 12 minutes away, on Birrell Street …”). Becoming known as the webfront retail model, these stores need only a small footprint, and therefore fit well into older shopping streets, laneways etc. Could this be something city governments could push, as a subtle way of increasing retail mix in urban centres and helping reduce individual car traffic in favour of more efficient home delivery models?

3. SCOOTER

RoboScooter
An MIT project, which is a functioning deployed version of their more innovative CityCar research project, is a foldable and then stackable scooter (rear wheel tucks inside front) being built by Taiwan-based SYM. The interesting aspect of the model is the distributed rental model, a la ZipCar. Each scooter has its own GPS unit, thus could be trackable (and capable of generating usage data)

“Developers originally envisioned charging racks distributed throughout a city, which could double as rental stations where users would buy a one-way trip. If SYM ever decides to take that leap, adopting a business model that’s a cross between services like Zipcar in the U.S. and the successful Parisian bicycle rental program, it could be the biggest endorsement yet of one-way, short-trip vehicle rentals.” [Popular Mechanics]

See also NYT and the scooter project site at MIT.

William Mitchell, leader of the Smart Cities group at MIT, suggests a slightly different model for the USA - with scooter rented for trips to destinations, and cars rented for journey back, so the scooters should be seen in the context of their wider CityCars programme. This is more ambitious but fascinating.

“By placing stacks in urban spaces and key points of convergence, the vehicle allows the citizens the flexibility to combine mass transit effectively with individualized mobility. The stack receives incoming vehicles and electrically charges them. Similar to luggage carts at the airport, users simply take the first fully charged vehicle at the front of the stack. The City car is NOT a replacement for personal vehicles, taxis, buses, or trucks; it is a NEW vehicle type that promotes a socially responsible and more effective means of urban mobility.”

MIT: CityCar

4. CYCLING

Bicycle-sharing schemes
Velib’ in Paris, Vélo’v in Lyons, and Bicing in Barcelona have proved hugely successful (all cities with significant road systems, as well as dense urban cores). And Velib’ is now moving to London.

Photo via Inhabitat

Data underpins both systems - in terms of access and payment - but the data on usage could be revealed better to users than it is. Again, Fabien Girardin at MIT has done some great work here:

“This kind of accumulated data can help people to grasp the availability and quality of the system over space and time (e.g. do not expect to encounter available bikes in the Eixample neighborhood on a sunny sunday or it is hard to return from the beach in the evening).”

His video available here. The patterns in the data tell the story of Barcelona on a sunny Sunday evening - the bikes moving from the beach, back to the city.

Velib’ has been mapped by Girardin in the same way:

These systems (when implemented holistically, with better bike lane access enabled alongside) have already been undeniably successful, creating a new engagement with the city. Data-based experiments such as these are also manifestations of this new level of engagement in public transport that the internet can engender.

Gordon Price, in his recent PriceTags PDF on Velib’, noted the possibilities for informing urban planning that Velib’ affords:

“”Imagine the patterns and lessons to be found as the system learns more and more about how it is being used - a transportation and urban planner’s dream.”

Bike network 2.0
Boston appointed a ‘bike czar’, Nicole Freedman, and her team has used Google Maps to create a set of bike routes across the city, based on the aggregated data from actual routes that cyclists took across the city

“We found out where the actual desire lines are,” said Freedman, and has since extended the network to enable users to rate streets for bikes. It’s a little rudimentary at the moment, but shows the promise of such systems. Boston are building the city’s first official bike map from the results of the system.

View Larger Map

5. BUS

Wifi-enabled buses
Southern California has seen an influx of wifi-enabled buses (see also Helsinki, above). The Google Bus is a private system, but offers a similar level of service to that of Helsinki’s public network. Both set the bar for bus or light rail travel of the near-future (with laptops, there are issues when standing on buses/trams of course.)

“The company now ferries about 1,200 employees to and from Google daily — nearly one-fourth of its local work force — aboard 32 shuttle buses equipped with comfortable leather seats and wireless Internet access. Bicycles are allowed on exterior racks, and dogs on forward seats, or on their owners’ laps if the buses run full. Riders can sign up to receive alerts on their computers and cellphones when buses run late. They also get to burnish their green credentials, not just for ditching their cars, but because all Google shuttles run on biodiesel. Oh, and the shuttles are free.” [Wired]

Almeda County in California also runs wifi-enabled public buses now. Note the wifi is a free service.

There are some fears this might increase sprawl but they seem a little misplaced. Either way, in cities that already sprawl it’s a way of making public transport more attractive through information (particularly as phones become wifi-enabled, as well as laptops.) This is something that private transport cannot compete with.

Rethinking bus stops
MIT’s research project “Re-thinking the Paris bus line”, in conjunction with Paris RATP, provided a few prompts as to how to re-think buses and bus-stops in the context of urban informatics. Points 3 and 4 below are more do-able, initially.

• Self-Organizing Bus System
  In the ubiquitously networked urban environment, the increasing possibility to control complex dynamic systems in real time with computers and to be seamlessly connected to portable devices allows us to design intelligently self-organizing bus routes.
• Reconfiguring the Bus
  We can reconfigure the bus so that it can be structurally much more connected to the urban environment, to people and to city services. Moreover, by embedding electronic intelligence, sensors and communication systems in buses, we can escape the traditional bus design and explore innovative solutions that are more adapted to people's needs.
• Electronic Guimard
  We suggest new designs for bus stops that can take particular advantage of electronic displays and create a unique character for Paris, establishing new urban identities.
• Neighborhood Concierge
  Bus stops are not only entry points to buses, but also to local life in surrounding neighborhoods.

MIT: Rethinking bus stops
MIT: RATP

6. RAIL

Mapping real-time trains traffic
The earlier Helsinki example above is based on the transport authority’s open approach to data. These two examples from users, centred on France and Switzerland, use published timetables in a more predictive approach.

That man Fabien Girardin says:

“Since (these) train operators do not disclose the actual location of a train, these services must use indirect ways to collect these data. Where Are Trains (France) parses online schedule boards of different stations such as the one of Paris Montparnasse. The position of the train obtained in real-time upon Arrivals and with at least a 1-h delay for departures. Then the system uses pre-builded time profiles to estimate the current location of trains by-passing potential stopovers. Similarly Train Map (Switzerland) uses train timetable, and does not yet show the actual GPS-positions of the trains. “But, as Swiss trains are almost always on time, most of the time the position is accurate”

Where Are Trains (France)
Train Map (Switzerland)

See also Dublin’s trains, with data scraped from IrishRail and overlaid onto Google Maps.

“Every 15 minutes, I'm taking the realtime (not timetables) suburban rail info from IrishRail.ie, scraping it into a useful data structure, then writing it to XML. I then plot this onto Google Maps, with the help of the routes and stations data file.”

Public information design of timetables
Stamen Design in San Francisco produced designs for SOM’s new TransBay Transit Center and Tower, embedding real-time transit information into the fabric of the building.

“E.J. Marey famously demonstrated that a train schedule can be much more than a si