COMMENT
Connecting future cities At
Transport links are essential to connect people with jobs and opportunities in cities, but transport infrastructure can also exacerbate existing inequalities. So how can cities use the latest technology to deliver access to vital services and boost growth in a sustainable way? Kate Ashley spoke to FirstGroup’s Tim O’Toole.
the Infrastructure Summit: Future Cities, run by The Economist and sponsored by Hitachi, RTM heard from industry experts on the biggest challenges in rail and beyond.
The transport panel consisted of Michele Dix
(pictured right),
managing director for planning at TfL; Xavier Lety, chief executive officer of France’s RATP group of global transport operators; Paul Priestman, co-founding director at leading transport design firm Priestmangoode; and Tim
O’Toole, chief executive of
FirstGroup, who discussed the role sustainable transport plays in the future smart city.
Data and demand
Big data and especially pricing can help to spread demand for transport, the panel said. This is something train operators and the government are working to introduce, through greater use of lower fares to incentivise travelling at less busy periods and smarter shoulder-peak pricing. Smart ticketing
Transport as an enabler
Ahead of the debate, O’Toole told RTM that transport is “central” to creating smart cities.
He said: “As the world continues its relentless march into urban areas, there are certain basic challenges and one of them is how people can live ever-closer together and still move around in an efficient way. Transport is central to solving that puzzle and if we don’t solve that, we can’t have a society that prospers.
“For running one of these great urban areas, the three big challenges are energy, transport, and waste. How you deal with those subjects determines how liveable the area is. All of those things inter-relate and that’s why transport is one of the great enablers to liveability but also prosperity.”
O’Toole said that whether governments or tech developers are judged to be doing ‘enough’ to equip smart cities “doesn’t matter: peo- ple are going there”.
“We used to talk about the fact that more people live in cities than don’t – we don’t even need to make that point anymore. Now it’s all about the fact that 75% of the world is going to be living in cities soon – so everybody better figure out what to do about them. History is determined by demographics, not great ideas and that’s the direction people are going, so we better do something about it.”
Priestman agreed that transport needs the human factor; passengers who feel their needs are catered to are more likely to return to that mode of transport, creating demand for the service.
A question from the floor raised the common concern of technology subsuming human
technology is also taking off, with a number of areas implementing their version of the Oyster card to speed up transactions and streamline journeys, based on ITSO-compliant technology.
The future holds more mass transit, but more personalised than ever before, O’Toole said. The rise of apps and smartcards will allow operators to make better use of passenger information and ensure offers, information and purchases are all tailored to that individual, just as retailers have already been doing for years.
Human touch
jobs, and leading to “mass unemployment”, particularly at stations and on trains and metro systems. O’Toole said that while roles will change, greater use of technology will lead to
better safety and productivity.
Dix pointed out that there’s value in people with information in transport for future cities, and that there will always be jobs in transport, even if they’re not behind the wheel.
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Staying ahead of the curve
There are “tonnes” of great examples of smart cities, O’Toole said. London has done “tremendously well” with its underground system, and there are also great urban areas in the Far East.
“They’ve invested hugely in transportation systems.”
He described working with the Shanghai metro at a time when LU was the oldest metro system in the world and they were the youngest: “At the time they were half our size and we knew by the time of the World Expo 2010 they were going to be our size. In a few years they’ll be twice our size!”
Good maintenance and keeping ahead of the curve is essential to stop “the belt coming off the machine”, O’Toole said. “If you maintain these systems they can do great things, as I think Hong Kong shows.”
20 | rail technology magazine Dec/Jan 14
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