I attended a talk last night by Dr Paul Tranter on the concept of "Effective Speed". It was one of those total lightbulb experiences. After a bout of insomnia the night before (1 hour of sleep - thanks a lot, Sleep Gods!) and a whole day at work I was pretty fried when I went into the talk after a day at work, but I came out absolutely buzzing! The talk finally gave me proof of some things which I've always thought were true but never had any evidence for: namely that riding a bicycle around is way smart!One of the most exciting prospects from the talk was that riding a bicycle instead of owning a car means that you could work less - maybe cut back to 4 days a week or retire a few years earlier. Same goes for catching a bus or a train - in many contexts public transport is also "faster" in real terms than going by car. OK, well it isn't quite that simple, but it's not all that complicated either.
The Oregon coastBasically, Dr Tranter illustrated that the belief that driving a car saves us time is, in many cases, a fallacy. In fact, cars are one of the least time-effective modes of transport, because although the time it takes you to go from A to B might be shorter than other modes of transport, in order to undertake that journey you have to go to work for x hours in order to pay for the cost of owning and running the car. So "effective speed" takes a holistic approach to calculating the true costs of transport. If you choose a mode of transport which costs less money, although it might take a little longer to get from A to B, you don't have to work as many hours to pay for it (or you can spend the money on other things to improve your quality of life - e.g. Koigu knitting yarn ;-))
To his credit Dr Tranter was not a car-basher. He presented a really balanced argument and included several forms of transport in his analysis - e.g. car, train, bus, bicycle. His website has some references to some academic papers he has written on the subject (one 2008 paper is being posted later today apparently). There is also an older Australian Greenhouse Office paper on the subject online.
2 comments:
That's really interesting. Although I do think cycling in Canberra is faster than the car - the number of people we pass on Melba St that then pass as as we're coming into the city on Northbourne is astounding.
Besides, biking is so much fun. Should add to your lifespan just for the happiness factor!
I participated in a Pedal Power experiment last year as part of a Ride To Work Day promotion. Several people had to get from Dickson to Civic at about 8am. Some were in a car and some were on bikes. Some bikes went on the somewhat windy bike path and some took Northbourne, like the car. The car was the slowest, but only because it took about 20 mins to find a park and walk back to the Griffin Centre. If she'd found a park straight away it would have been a tie with the bike path bikes, but the Northbourne cyclists still would have won.
The mental and physical health benefits of cycling are huge and they weren't included in Tranter's analysis. So the news just gets better and better for cyclists!
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