When someone is ill, there are two choices available to them. On the one hand, they can take painkillers or lozenges to mask their sore throat or headache. But while this makes their symptoms disappear for a few moments, it doesn’t address their underlying syndrome. It’s more desirable to take antibiotics as these will both… Read more
Monthly Archives: October 2013
How ‘wicked’ are your public transport operations?
Transport planning is a wicked problem. A wicked problem is a problem so complex it seems insoluble. Take the health issue of smoking in Australia – stakeholders include government, consumers, the tobacco industry, the health sector, and the rights and freedoms of the public. Different political parties don’t see eye to eye, people hold different… Read more
Customer service and the ethics of influencing travel behaviour to improve public transport operations
Influence is a powerful phenomenon. As people go about their daily lives, they are pushed and pulled in various directions by forces as varied as advertising, the news media, their significant other, even signs and information points – these all influence the decisions they make. These relationships are positive if they are in the best… Read more
Using personalised digital information to increase peak spreading on public transport services
Public transport providers come under pressure in peak periods. Providing for high passenger volumes on networks running at their upper capacity means time windows for recovering from service disruptions are smaller and more can potentially go wrong if delays with one service cascade into another. In Sydney, like many other cities around the world, the… Read more
Keeping customers happy and transport operations stable: reducing the steady state
Imagine a bucket with water in it. It’s got a hole in the bottom and a tap above it. Depending on how big that hole is, and how much the tap is flowing, there’s some level of water that stays the same. In some ways train stations hold true to this analogy. Trains act as… Read more