Healthy Streets: London to Melbourne

Session 4

Room: Portico room

Session Title: Healthy Streets: London to Melbourne

Presenter Name: James Laing

Presenter best contact email: James.Laing@gta.com.au 

Key Findings:

• Healthy Streets is a robust assessment tool that is a focal point of the London Mayor’s Transport Strategy and is designed to enable people to become more active by walking, cycling and using public transport.

 Key Insights/Takeaways:

• The approach is transferable to an Australian Market.

• It challenges how we look at our streets and encourages a more holistic approach.

• It highlights both large and the most basic improvements that can make a huge difference to the lives of people.

Key Questions:

• How does Healthy Streets compliment Movement and Place?

• Does the functionality of a street make a difference?

Session Highlights:

• A discussion that people focus on reasons not to do things, such as a perception that street improvements attracting homeless people, rather than the benefits.

• Discussing how the bar in our suburban streets is very low and needs to be raised significantly

Micro mobility, Masculinity, vandalism, and the battle over change in cities

Session 5

Room: Portico

Session Title: Micro mobility, Masculinity, vandalism, and the battle over change in cities 

Presenter Name: Vaughn Allan, Sensible Transport

Format: Presentation

Presenter best contact email: vaughn@sensibletransport.org.au 

Notetaker: Justin

Summary:

Vaughn explores the behavior of people in vandalising obike. He explains the behavior through photography through social media and social practice theory. He discovered that the behavior is much based on masculinity and external validation. He points out that social policing is needed for the maintenance and promotion of social order by the community in order to carry out better shared mobility future.

Failed Attempt at getting platform markings on train stations.

Session 5

Room: Regent Room

Session Title: Failed Attempt at getting platform markings on train stations.

Presenter Name:   Alexandra Almond, Meld Studios

Format: Presentation

Presenter best contact email: alexandra@meldstudios.com.au

Notetaker:  Ben Thorp

Summary:

Platform sharing and the problem of long dwell times.  Proposed trial of markings to get people to stand away from the doors.  Show where the doors are going to be open. Initial resistance to it was overcome with good arguments.  But the Minister said no to the trial. The reason it failed to get up was the risk of setting up expectations it would be across the whole network.  A brainstorming session followed with lots of good ideas for the design of markings and ways the proposal could be brought back.

Car Sharing

Session 5

Room: Yarra

Session Title: Car Sharing

Presenters: Darcy Lechte, Go Get, Luisa Paganelli, RMIT, Taru Jain, Monash

darcy@goet.com.au  

carsharing@luisiana.com.br 

taru.jain@monash.edu   

Format: Presentation and Panel Discussion

Notetaker: Vincent Ng

Notes/Summary:

This session focused on what do we know about car sharing and how can it be more sustainable? Car sharing has begun to take off in Australia, particularly in the last 5 years and across cities around the world. Policy makers are continuing to explore whether it proves to be scalable as a sustainable transport modality. In the last four years the industry has quadrupled. Yet there are still many barriers which include:

1. Lack of awareness. 

2. Lack of advocates

3. Lack of public support or incentives

4. Lack of regulatory systems for car sharing

Car sharing is already demonstrating that there are many people who are switching away from the decision to own a car. Both fleet based models and peer to peer networks are growing significantly, particularly in areas well service by public transportation. Approximately 1/3 of car share owners. Many are also using it as a second car - approximately 44%. Attitudes are shifting as social norms around car ownership are beginning to show signs of changing. In Melbourne there are three councils that have taken a particularly proactive role to include car sharing as part of their longer term transport strategic plans and there is a recommendation that other councils consider a similar approach. GoGet, the largest Australian provider already has 900 cars in Melbourne and is proactively pushing for seeing Mobility as a Service, more than simply an app and emphasised the importance of seeing car sharing as a critical component of an integrated transport system.

Tram Stop Future

Session 5

Room: Supper

Session Title: Tram Stop Future

Format:  Interactive Workshop

Presenter Name: Naomi Langdan, Department of Economic Development

Presenter best contact email: naomi.langdon@ecodev.vic.gov.au

Notes/Summary:

This interactive workshop engaged with the audience to explore a variety of tram stop designs in what made them comfortable, safe and accessible spaces. The workshop explored how design should appropriately respond to various conditions and requirements.  Platform stops for example are DDA (Disability Discrimination Act) compliant and offer pedestrian priority and protection from traffic. Stops with seating such as backrests and armrests and shelters also offer a more accessible experience for people waiting for a tram. Consideration was also given as to how to best integrate the design of stops into the street and urban activity. For example malled areas such as Acland Street in St Kilda are highly active pedestrian areas that are energised by tram boardings and alightings. The audience were involved in many exercises which interrogated and dissected these various components in designing new ideal stops.

20 Minute Neighbourhood: Where to next?

Session 5

Room: Melbourne

Session Title: 20 Minute Neighbourhood: Where to next?

Format: Discussion

Presenter Name: Knowles Tivendale, Hesara Weliwitiya, Lachlan Burke, Rahman Shafi

Presenter best contact email: hesara@movementandplace.com

Notetaker: Rahman Shafi

Notes/Summary: 

In the most rudimentary terms, a 20-minute city is where residents can commute to basic amenities such as education, medical facilities and shops without a car under 20 minutes. Attendees in this session discussed limitations of a 20-minute city and the challenges that need to be overcome for building more of such cities. The primary concern was specifically defining what a 20-minute, and how success for such a development would be defined. Community acceptance was raised as an issue, especially in rural townships where people can already access all the places they need to within 20 minutes, albeit with a car. There are certain benefits of 20-minutes cities, like reduced car-dependency, increased density and activity centre developments.

Melbourne bike share: what went wrong?

Session 6

Room: Portico

Session Title: Melbourne bike share: what went wrong?

Presenter Name: Elliot Fishman, Institute of Sensible Transport

Format: Presentation

Presenter best contact email: info@sensibletransport.org.au 

Notes/Summary:

Globally bike share is growing, but the Australian experience with bike sharing is underwhelming. First of all, before the implementation of Melbourne’s bike share program the issue it was trying to solve wasn’t thought out well. There were several reasons why the program didn’t become a success:

• Program was way too small for a city the size of Melbourne

• Mandatory helmet legislation formed the main reason for people not to use the bicycles

• Promotion and marketing was done poorly

• The program was launched right before a wet winter

• Limited bicycle infrastructure

• No stakeholder engagement

Transport and Flourishing Communities

Session 6

Room: Melbourne

Session Title: Transport and Flourishing Communities

Presenter Name: Andre Vaneymeren

Format: Discussion

Presenter best contact email: andre.vaneymeren@community.how

Notetaker: Hesara Weliwitiya

Notes/Summary:

• A lot of work in planning neighbourhood is done in isolation

• Good access to green space

• Walking requires stimulation

• More quality interaction

What is a flourishing city:

• People on the streets

• All ages/people/city for all

• All times of day

• Night market

• Diversity of activity

• Active transport

• Tram/public transport - people owning and contributing back to their transport such as art on trams and stations, local businesses at stops and stations, helping encourage visitors and migrants to use the PT network, small libraries, grants to the community

• Make a place from streets and stations - where people feel involved

• Public space/libraries

Community contribution being valued
Communities need to hold grief and joy
A growing sense of meaning (life is connected to something bigger)
Designed a framework for what a flourishing community is based on some of the above categories.

Data Enabled Transportation: A call for public private collaboration

Session 6

Room: Regent

Session title: Data Enabled Transportation: A call for public private collaboration

Presenter name: Jackey Liu

Presenter email: jackey.liu@here.com 

Notes/Summary:

This session deep dove into the some of the key challenges in creating better access to data. Disruptive benefits for cities include everything alleviating congestion, leveraging ride sharing, utilizing real-time information for public transport services or even access to parking information. While open data portals exist, many common challenges were expressed across both councils, academia and the private sector relating to the challenges of creating common standards for data collection, the need for scale yet consistency, privacy concerns, and accessibility standards. For local governments who are often under resourced both in terms of skills and funding it is often hard to prioritise data collection and analysis and there is often a reluctance to share data even though it may result in long term benefits. Examples from Scandinavia such as the app Whim, provide good examples of where governments are mandating technology providers to register their data sets, implement open APIs and allow researchers to access data even from private companies. 

Two examples from Australia stood out. AURIN provided several examples of dealing with diverse data sets and working with local governments to clean up data sets and make them publicly accessible. A second example explored the Gold coast consortium of councils who collectively prioritised how they could look at integrating existing data about parking into a more cohesive framework for smart city management of their local challenges. The workshop concluded with a consensus that data is only useful at scale and with the collaboration of government, private sector, and citizens.

Make Bus Data Useful

Session 6

Room: Yarra

Session Title: Make Bus Data Useful

Format: Presentation

Presenter Name: Phillip Mallis

Presenter best contact email: Philip.Mallis@darebin.vic.gov.au

Notes/Summary:

• There are several key datasets available for public use related to buses in Victoria

• Making the best use of this data requires using to answer specific project questions or back up specific advocacy statements

• GTFS offers the most information but it is also the most complex to analyse

• We need better consistency, coverage and transparency for data

• Combining different datasets is often the best way to exploit their full potential

• Presenting results visually and in simple, interesting and engaging ways is essential to communicate key messages

• Using tools like QGIS and Tableau are relatively easy (and free) ways to play around and see what visuals work for you and your data. Chris Loader’s blog has some good examples of GIFs and other interesting ways to display information:  https://chartingtransport.com/

Shark Tank!

Session 6

Room: Supper

Session Title: Shark Tank

Presenter Name: Knowles Tivendale, Managing Director, Movement & Place Consulting

Format: Shark Tank

Presenter best contact email: knowles@movementandplace.com.au

Key Findings:

• There is some desire to find new ways of charging for premium spaces (such as high quality bicycle infrastructure or wider footpaths)

• Getting better data on pedestrian realm was a focus of one presentation - and was very well received by the audience and Panel of Sharks

• Plenty of passion in the room with a presentation of a three stage railway network expansion for the Mornington Peninsula, and a not for profit that wants to buy a bus service. 

Insights:

• We already have pretty good laws enabling licensing/leasing of road space (local government and State government can do this)

• People love more data

• The Mornington Peninsula community is unlikely to support a significant expansion of urban railway services

Questions:

• Would the public see benefit in 'privatisation' of footpaths and bicycle lanes

• How do we make pedestrian realm data easy to collect

• Could the Mornington Peninsula community get interested in an expansion of heritage based railway services?

• What are the benefits to facilitating a not for profit entry into the public transport franchising space?

Highlights:

• Brave people sharing their inner most passions and ideas

• Expert Shark Tank Panel giving support, encouragement, sage advice and sometimes very direct feedback

• Four new ideas to get the creative juices flowing