Posts Tagged: Traffic

08
Dec

2011

Traffic in Ho Chi Minh City

We often talk about the detriment of traffic. When we’re stuck in it, we hate it. It pollutes, it’s noisy, and it takes time out of our day.

But in this timelapse video of HCMH, Vietnam, photographer Rob Whitworth finds a way to showcases the splendor of the chaos — transforming the confusion and seemingly unruly patterns of everyday traffic into a magical urban spectacle.

Traffic in Frenetic HCMC, Vietnam from Rob Whitworth on Vimeo.



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06
Dec

2010

A Thought Experiment: Turning Tables

A thought experiment:

Do we have a transportation supply problem?

I’d say no. We’ve got plenty of roads, plenty of transit and plenty of freeways. We do not have a transportation supply problem.

Image by flickr user joiseyshowaa.

(I’m well aware, of course, that there are certain large American and developing world cities that have slim to no transit, but for the sake of simplicity, let’s leave those out of the discussion for the time being.)

What we do have is a transportation demand allocation problem. We have too many people demanding transportation services at a single time. Too many people want to get from Point A to Point B during the hours of 7am – 9am and 4pm – 6pm.

Generally speaking, about 1/3 to 1/2 of all motorized transportation trips occur during those four hours. Basically, 33 – 50% of all travel occurs during a window of time that accounts for only 16.6% of the day.

That is a demand allocation problem. Not a supply problem.

North American restaurants face this problem constantly, but successful ones handle it with ease.

The dilemma restaurants face is this: Most diners like to eat at 7:30pm. That presents an enormous problem.

Restaurants have a limited supply of space. They only have so many seats, so many tables, so many burners, so many dinner plates, etc. And there is virtually no way to expand that supply. For a restaurant to make money, they have to reuse that supply over-and-over-and-over again throughout the course of a day. There is simply no way a restaurant to accommodate all the demand during one two hour period that begins at 7:30.

Because most restaurants assume a table will be used by a given party for around 2 hours, a 7:30 reservation means the table in question is basically booked for the night. For most people a dinner out at 5:30 is too early and 9:30 too late. (In fact, for the after-movie, after-theatre crowd, 9:30 is also too early.) If a 7:30 reservation is granted, the restaurant cannot “turn” the table.

If the restaurant is slow, this doesn’t present a problem. If the restaurant is busy, however, every “turn” that’s missed hurts the bottom line hard. Restaurants operate on extremely slim profit margins. Even high-priced, fine dining establishments are used to walking that fine line. For a restaurant to make money, they need to “turn” a table as many times as possible to maximize revenues.

Therefore, not everyone can eat at 7:30. That’s the rule.

That’s why when you call a restaurant asking for a 7:30 reservation, the Maitre d’ is likely to tell you he can take you at 6:00 or 8:00. Still want to show up at 7:30, just in case? Great! There’s space at the bar while we prepare your table! He’s not saying he doesn’t have room for your party at 7:30, he’s telling you he has room for your party as well as someone else’s.

He’s not doing it to annoy or irritate you, he’s merely shifting and reallocating demand to meet supply.

So the thought experiment is this: Do we need a Maitre d’ of Roads & Transportation?



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12
Aug

2010

Hollywood Says You’re A Loser (If You Don’t Drive A Car)

A week and a half ago, Tom Vanderbilt of Slate magazine wrote a fantastic article entitled Dude, Where’s Your Car? How not having a car became Hollywood shorthand for loser.

It’s an eye-opening and persuasive article whose central thesis is this:

Hollywood films depict characters who don’t own/drive cars as worthless human beings that are leeches on society. If you don’t drive, you are a deviant, adolescent man-child – quite likely a virgin – and hopelessly, desperately dependent upon others.

Vanderbilt is best known for his book Traffic and its companion blog How We Drive. He’s an excellent writer who doesn’t burden his explanations of mobility with the mundane plannerspeak we’ve all come to know and loathe. He’s refreshingly readable and his recent Slate article is no different.

His article, however, misses a key counterpoint: Car usage is no more “independent” than other forms of mobility, except maybe walking.

While we like to imagine hopping in a car and speeding off to tame a wild frontier like some sort of Cowboy in a Honda Civic, the reality is quite different.

Without highways, roads, repairmen, stop signs, traffic lights, licenses, GPS, map books, civil engineers, parking lots, etc. there is no private automobile. Like it or not, the automobile is dependent on a whole system of people and infrastructure to allow it to function. Without those systems, people and infrastructure, good luck trying to get anywhere in your new BMW.

The car driver may rely on a different slew of dependencies than the transit rider does, but that doesn’t make him independent. A crack addict may not be a drunk, but that doesn’t mean he isn’t an addict.




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10
Apr

2010

Why Your Bus or Streetcar is Stuck in Traffic

Down to Gehenna or up to the Throne,

He travels the fastest who travels alone.

Rudyard Kipling (1890)



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