Archive for May 2012

Openpaths.cc – Find out where you’ve been!

May 25, 2012 Happy Cities, Maps, OpenPaths, Sustainable Transport No comments
Where I've Walked in Dublin

Where I've been since Easter.

Back at the start of April I watched a wonderful Tedx talk by a guy called Jer Thorp. His speciality is data visualisation and one of the projects he’s worked on is called Openpaths.

It’s a pretty simple app for your smartphone that tracks where you go and when you go there. It’s a slightly fuzzy map, since it only checks you in every half hour or so, but there’s more than enough there to be interesting.

Nothing really illustrates a living city as much as looking at the paths people make as they walk through them. For a long time the closest we’ve been to looking at those paths has been knowing that someone went from Clonsilla to Clontarf, without knowing the important details like the five minutes they stopped to chat on the quays or the quick cup of coffee they grabbed on Parkgate Street. It’s fascinating to see so clearly where I go on a daily basis, and how much of the city I completely miss out on.

Openpaths.cc also have a system where people using the app can agree to give their data to pre-approved researchers. I’ve just been pre-approved. Now to work out exactly how to look at the data!

Men Vs Women – Travel Style

May 14, 2012 Happy Cities, Survey Results, Sustainable Transport No comments

Do men and women travel differently? The answer would seem to be yes. Men are far more likely to cycle or walk then women.

Travel Style

Female

Male

Average

Active

29.7%

41.8%

35.0%

Car

30.0%

28.5%

29.3%

Public Transport

40.3%

29.7%

35.7%

Travel Styles

May 10, 2012 Survey Results, Sustainable Transport No comments

A few weeks back I divided all my survey responses into four categories according to their dominant mode of transport. The four categories are:

  • Active Travellers – those who mostly travel by bicycle or on foot
  • Public Transport – those who mostly travel by bus or train
  • Cars – those who mostly travel in private cars
  • Other – those who mostly travel in vans, motorcycles and even a few who mostly travel by taxi.

The process was relatively straightforward – look at the number of journeys made in each category. If the most frequent category was 20% more then the next most frequent category, then it was labelled the most dominant mode of transport. If the top two were within 20% of each other, then the furthest distance travelled was the “dominant” form.

The survey wasn’t representative, so it doesn’t matter much, but the numbers came out roughly even i.e. 750 – 950 in each of the three main categories, which means I have a fairly decent sample in each category.

Why are the travel styles important?

Well for the purposes of this blog, they’re an interesting and easy way to talk about who travels and how they travel. For the purposes of my research I’m modelling changes in travel, and the best way I’ve found to approach that is to model changes for each style of traveller.

The High Cost of Car Ownership

May 9, 2012 Survey Results, Sustainable Transport No comments
High Cost of Car Ownership

How much is your car costing you?

For the last month or so I’ve been working on transport costs, specifically what it costs to own a car. Now the survey didn’t ask directly about how much your car was worth, but it did ask about what your cars year and engine size/tax band were.

From a combination of sources (Department of Transport Fleet Statistics, Vehicle Registration Tax Prices, SIMI figures, Car Sales Databases) I’ve estimated a value for every vehicle owned by someone who responded to the survey. Because the VRT is useful that way, I’ve also estimated the value of each of these vehicles in one years time. From that I’ve worked out how much these cars are costing respondents as follows:

Car Cost = Annual Costs + Fortnightly Costs*26 + Opportunity Costs + Depreciation

  • Annual Costs – What was reported in the survey for maintenance, insurance, NCT etc.
  • Fortnightly Costs – What was reported in the survey for petrol and incidental expenses – what could be claimed back
  • Opportunity Costs – 5% of the current value of the car. This allows for people paying interest or if you own the car outright, where else you could put the money
  • Depreciation – Value of the car now – value of the car in one years time.

How did that work out?

Well for people who owned at least one car, the average cost was €4,281.

  • Annual Costs – €1,152
  • Fortnightly Costs – €1,775
  • Opportunity Costs – €278
  • Depreciation – €1,075

The average total transport spend for someone who owns a car is €4,735 vs €1,257* for someone who doesn’t.

*Note – these numbers are for buses, trains and car travel. I need to go back and include taxis which averages about €10/week across the respondents and are likely to reduce the difference somewhat. There are also a few other small tweaks related to people who use motorcycles, purchase bikes etc. that need to be made.