Editor's Blog - February 2019

NTC EXAMINING DRIVER DISTRACTION AND THE AUSTRALIAN ROAD RULES

The National Transport Commission is examining the effectiveness of the Australian Road Rules relating to driver distraction.

NTC Acting Chief Executive, Dr Geoff Allan, said the current approach was developed in 1999 when mobile phones were used primarily for calls and text, and in-vehicle technology referred to television screens.

This approach has been prompted and is aimed at, in many people’s mind, the taxi and ride sharing services who have to click on a screen to accept jobs. 
The fact remains, however, that on a considerable number of occasions we all stop concentrating on the road and move our attention to activate things in the car.  Selecting radio stations, stored music or podcasts; adjusting the volume; changing the air-conditioning; activating the phone, selecting a phone number, answering a call; getting messages read to you; selecting and adjusting the navigation system, to name the more common ones.

As vehicles develop, more features are being added that you can select and adjust. 

Having the choice to change the driving mode of the car from comfort to economy or sport is now very common. Heated and cooled front seats at various levels are now standard in the top variants of most Kia vehicles for example (thankfully the switches are easy to use – in some cars I notice I was getting a very warm posterior but I could not readily find out how to turn off the heating). Sun roofs are common which can entice you to look up to find the switch to open the inner lining or go for the full fresh air.

Here is a couple of pictures of the overall layout and some of the details available in the centre console of the Range Rover Velar. I am not condemning the vehicle because while it has many functions, it is relatively easy to use. 

Adapting the presentation of information to your personal preferences is also starting to appear, with limited pre-defined choices, for the dials and information in front of the driver.

There are several conclusions that I think we can make out of this:

1. This is not just an issue for the hiring companies
2. Car share drivers rely on their mobile phones and they have good systems that just send them the address so they don’t have to enter this information.  This is a good example of getting the interaction down to a working level.
3. Further development of voice actuation is critical 
4. We need to have a more active involvement in how the interface between driver and car systems is developed.

ELECTRIC CARS AND REDUCING POLLUTION

Perhaps one of the clearest indications that electric cars are headed for the main stream, was the release of the Hyundai Ionic, which is available as an all-electric, hybrid or plug-in hybrid model. The thing is that it looks ordinary.  Not as in being plain; in fact, it is quite stylish.  But even when you sit inside, it looks and feels like most new cars (except the gear lever has less choices and there is no grille on the outside). 

This is a different approach from a Toyota Prius, that has what one might call, diplomatically, a ‘distinctive’ look.

The Ionic starts at $45,000 plus on-road costs so prices are coming down but it is still not priced like a ‘normal’ car. However, as Prof David Hensher has found in his modelling, the quickest way to reduce pollution from cars in urban areas is to take on new technology.

I note that the Korean bosses at Hyundai hate the use of the expression “Cheapest electric vehicle on the Australian market”.  They think it makes the car sound like they have cut corners to get the price down. The Ionic has many comfort features and is well made, so “Lowest priced” is a more acceptable term to them!
There is an alternative electric vehicle option shown in Quirky News at the end of this newsletter.

DATA IS A TRADABLE ITEM

Provoking some controversy, the Sydney Transport Partners consortium, led by Transurban, will pay $9.3 billion for 51 per cent of the Westconnex motorway, which is scheduled to open in its entirety by 2023 and serves areas to the west of Sydney and goes near to the airport. 

AITPM member and transport modeller Frank Milthorpe is particularly interested in one condition of the sale’s contract that was, apparently, imposed by the ACCC.  Transurban must release their NSW toll road usage data going back ten years.

Frank says “This provides data which will be especially relevant to the Sydney traffic modelling community”. 

The data is available at:  http://nswtollroaddata.com/

The issue of making data available is hugely critical for governments to understand the needs of the community and it is made all the more important, with private industry providing more transport services.

Prof David Hensher from Sydney University ran a forum last year on Mobility as a Service (MaaS) and one point that was raised was that if we are to provide a service that links a range of transport modes, then government needs to have data on how it is being used.  This is critical to ensure community benefits are being achieved. With at least one ride-sharing company being very protective of their data, which is understandably a competitive advantage, the point is whether MaaS services should be corporate branded or run as part of a general service which has a number of providers. Alternatively, a very important condition of allowing any new service to operate, should be that data is made available to government.
 

NO LONGER THE BRADMAN ERA?

In the late 1940s, Don Bradman featured in a road safety film which had him saying to young children playing on the street “Now if you want to play [cricket] for Australia there is something you must not do – play on the road”. 
 
Now Sydney City Council wants to turn that around. It is proposing a trial that would fully or partially close a several streets to through-traffic for two to three hours on a Sunday as reported in the media.  I like the fact that it is for a short time only during the week at this stage. It focuses the intent when there may be strong criticism for a total change. 

FALLING SIGNS

When I was a young traffic engineer, the senior manager, Frank Hawes, came to a meeting carrying a small parking sign, noting that it cost the Department of Main Roads an extra $700 (a lot of money back then). The reason was that it dropped off its post and landed on a Volvo.  The money was for the repair bill.

Most of us would have seen the recent news report of the more spectacular sign failure in Melbourne when a five-by-four-metre sign over the inbound exit for Bulla Road and Bell Street on the Tullamarine Freeway crashed onto a car. Link to news coverage.   
 
Safety is about applying good standards.  As noted by an AITPM member in a previous newsletter, astronaut John Glenn once pondered, as he sat strapped into a Mercury space rocket about to be blasted into space, that “I felt exactly how you would feel if you were getting ready to launch and knew you were sitting on top of 2 million parts — all built by the lowest bidder on a government contract.

FOOTPATH FOXTROT

“The footpath foxtrot is a common dance performed on streets around the world; that awkward scenario when two people walking towards each other, both move in the same direction to avoid a collision”.

In America I believe it is called the “Sidewalk Salsa” or the “Sidewalk Shuffle”.

I am the type of person who seems to get into the Footpath Foxtrot more often than not! I might be too keen to please the other person.  I am also quick to apologise when it is not really just my fault!

An ABC article quoted Dr Jared Cooney Horvath from the University of Melbourne, who said that the neurological reason is that humans try to avoid obstacles and at times two people mis-read the intentions of each other. 

I think this is pretty logical.  I have a feeling that it happens more often when a person is super sensitive and so when you try to go one way and the other person decides to go the same way, you panic and change direction without thinking, as does the other person.

Dr Horvath went on to say “that children bumped into people because they hadn't yet had the brain prediction of how footpaths worked”. I have a feeling that many adults don’t appear to understand footpath etiquette or they lose the knowledge once they purchase a smart phone.