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Tag Archives: technology
Conventional vs. hi tech – the case of train tickets
Here’s an interesting (for me) read on something we usually assume could be improved by means of technology – transit fare collection:
Unseen Japan (May 27, 2024) “Japan Railways tried replacing tickets with tech., It didn’t go well,” Medium.com, https://unseenjapan.medium.com/japan-railways-tried-to-replace-tickets-with-tech-it-didnt-go-well-1e151f9a400f [Last accessed: 6/10/2024]
To quote from the article:
“So what went wrong? Some experts say that JR East’s major fault was forcing a cutover to online and automated systems before those systems were ready for prime time.”
As with others like this that seek to ‘disrupt’ the conventional or status quo, a hastily implemented system will likely face trouble and a barrage of complaints from users. This would be especially true if the current-old system is already efficient and requires only minor tweaking or improvements and an abrupt phase out or scale down of the old is not necessary.
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29th Annual Conference of the TSSP
The Transportation Science Society of the Philippines (TSSP) held its 29th Annual Conference today, December 7, 2023. Following is the program for the conference, which featured a panel discussion in the morning and technical sessions in the afternoon.
This was the first mainly face-to-face or in-person conference for the society since 2019. Previously, the conferences were online. As reported in the concluding part of the program, there were 84 participants who showed up at the venue while there were 30+ participants who were online via Zoom.
There were a couple of awards at the conference. These were the Best Paper Award and the Best Presentation Award. The Best Paper Award, based on the scores garnered from the blind review of the papers went to:
Maria Belen Vasquez and Jun T. Castro of UP Diliman for their paper entitled “Exploring Travel Patterns of Mobility of Care in Guiuan, Eastern Samar: Assessment of Gender and Sociodemographic Factors Using Spatial Analysis”
There was a tie for the Best Presentation Award. The two were Ms. Vasquez for the presentation of the paper on the Mobility of Care in Eastern Samar, and Mr. Erris Sancianco for the presentation of a paper he co-authored with Noriel Christopher Tiglao, Niki Jon Tolentino, Gillian Kate Hidalgo, Mary Joy Leanda, and Lester Jay Ollero entitled “Evaluating the Fuel Efficiency and Eco-Driving Potential of the EDSA Carousel using On-Board Diagnostics (OBD) and Mobile Crowdsourcing“. These papers will likely find their way to the Philippine Transportation Journal’s next issue.
Though it was not announced, a likely venue for the next conference will be Vigan, Ilocos Sur in the Northern Philippines. The likely host will be the University of Northern Philippines, the premier state university in that province. Previously and most recently, the conference was held in Cebu City (hosted by the University of San Jose-Recoletos) in 2019 and before that in Cagayan De Oro City (hosted by Xavier University) in 2018. TSSP was already organizing the 2020 conference when the pandemic struck and the country went on a lockdown. That conference was supposed to have been held in Baguio City in Benguet, and to be hosted by St. Louis University.
More information on the conference may soon be found at the TSSP’s official website: https://ncts.upd.edu.ph/tssp/
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Article share: on aviation security
I found this article on Israel’s national airline, El Al, being the “most secure airline” in the world. That is, the airline has the capability to evade threats like missiles launched against it (i.e., to shoot a plane down). Here is the link to the article on Medium:
I am not aware of other airlines having similar capabilities. Two examples that I know involved passenger airliners being shot down by missile include the ill-fated Korean Airlines Flight KAL 007 during the height of the Cold War 1983 and the Malaysian Airlines MH17 shot down over Ukraine in 2014. Both could have benefitted from the retrofits/upgrades El Al installed on their planes.
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On electric vehicles and informal transport
I’ve been involved in studies on electric vehicles and their applications in the past. I continue to take part in studies about informal transport including continuing research on motorcycle taxis or “habal-habal” as they are called in the Philippines. The combination of the two is an interesting research area and there are many topics that can be developed as we determine the most appropriate applications for electric vehicles. Here is an interesting article on electrifying informal transport that sets the context for research:
Ribet, L. (August 30, 2022) “The role of data in electrifying informal transport,” Slocat partnership, https://slocat.net/the-role-of-data-in-electrifying-informal-transport/ [Last accessed: 9/9/2022]
To quote from the article:
“However, electric two-and-three wheeler startups, informal transport retrofitting pilots and e-bus initiatives cannot be the only answer to the mobility challenges facing developing cities. Phasing out oil-reliant public transportation is needed and investing in electric mobility solutions may well improve the overall picture quite substantially, but there is a far larger challenge that is omitted from these ambitions: addressing the complex operations of informal transport systems that characterise lower-income countries’ urban mobility. Electrifying minibus taxis is not synonymous with more reliable, affordable and convenient public transport, and we need to prioritise the understanding and improvement of overall informal transport systems data first.”
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On using advanced tools for infrastructure assessments
I came upon this article on how transportation departments in the US are using tools such as drones to assess critical infrastructure including roads and bridges. This is very relevant to us especially as many similar infra are aging and would need to be assessed to determine how to reinforce, retrofit or even rehabilitate certain infrastructure vs. naturally occurring phenomena like earthquakes and typhoons.
Reed, J. (August 2, 2022) “How Transportation Departments Are Using Advanced Drone Technology for Infrastructure Assessments,” Aviation Today, https://www.aviationtoday.com/2022/08/02/transportation-departments-using-advanced-drone-technology-infrastructure-inspections/ [Last accessed: 8/4/2022]
To quote from the article:
“The WVDOT may expand its drone programs to perform road safety assessments and to assist in designing new road routes by providing topographical maps.”
I recall that there have been road-based surveys involving Lidar to map the road and adjacent land surfaces about a decade ago (maybe less). This was a nationwide project funded by the Department of Science and Technology (DOST) and implemented by the University of the Philippines Diliman’s Department of Geodetic Engineering. I’m not sure where that data is stored or hosted but the DGE should have a back-up somewhere that can be used or further processed for road safety assessment applications. This could be an interesting and fruitful research area that can involve people from various disciplines.
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TSSP 2021 [27th Annual Conference]
The Transportation Science Society of the Philippines (TSSP) held its 27th Annual Conference last November 19, 2021. Here are the poster and program for the conference:
I initially intended to write about the conference before it was held but things got pretty busy last week so this is a post conference write-up. The organizers also announced the final program late (i.e., just a few days before the conference proper) so it seemed sort of anti climactic to post about it. Nevertheless, the conference proceeded as planned and the TSSP has announced it will be posting the proceedings on their official website. It is not yet there but here’s a link to the TSSP official website: http://ncts.upd.edu.ph/tssp/
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On ‘high-tech’ bike tires
Here’s another recent article about tires developed by NASA for their rovers. Obviously, the objective was to eliminate flat tires when you send them out to explore other planets or moons. The applications here, however, will have a big impact on vehicles including bicycles that have increased popularity in the last year partly due to the pandemic. These might definitely become game-changers particularly for those who bike commute.
Golson, J. (March 23, 2021) “These NASA-developed bike tires could be the last you ever buy,” Inverse, https://www.inverse.com/innovation/these-nasa-developed-bike-tires-could-be-the-last-you-ever-buy [Last accessed: 3/25/2021]
I had posted about the tires on my father-in-law’s newly acquired pedal assist electric bike. Here is what it looks like. Of course, rubber is still the basic material here so perhaps this will be replaced by more durable (indestructible?) material stated in the article above.
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On hover chairs
Here’s a quick share of an article presenting Segway’s attempt to become relevant:
So, A. (January 3, 2020) “Segway Is Bringing the Hoverchairs From WALL-E to Life,” Wired.
I still have to check though if this was the correct year for the article, which appeared in my recent Wired subscription considering it is already 2021. We now know that people have taken to active transport, particularly cycling or biking, during the pandemic. I place emphasis here on ‘active’ because anyone who’s watched Wall-e surely knows what humans there looked like. Active transport and not such hover chairs will likely be the mode of the future. Of course, there are suitable applications for these including perhaps a replacement for wheelchairs or enhanced transport for seniors and whoever may require such. But in general, perhaps we shouldn’t be dependent on these to move about.
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Article on the need for ‘Context Cities’
Here is another good article I’ve found and read recently:
Wolfe, C.R. (2017) “Forget ‘Smart’ – We Need ‘Context Cities'”. Planetizen.com. https://www.planetizen.com/features/96310-forget-smart-we-need-context-cities (Last accessed: 12/21/2017).
Much has been said, I believe, about smart cities. I, too, have attended and even spoke (about Intelligent Transport Systems) at conferences or fora that had ‘smart cities’ as the central theme. Most talk about how technology can be used to further development and to address various transport and traffic problems. A lot of people tend to be excited when technology gets into the mix of things and yet few seem to be interested in a city seeking its true identity. And so the concept of ‘context cities’ over ‘smart cities’ become important as we need to contextualise what a city should be before we conclude that a technology push is the way to leapfrog into advancement. Perhaps the soul can be found and reconciled with and this is done through the context and not tech, which cannot replace history, heritage and culture that are distinct attributes of each city.
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On transport, technology and politics
I frequently share articles I found to be interesting and intriguing. One of my current research interests is on ridesharing, ridesourcing and carpooling. And so when I saw this article online, I felt it had some good arguments pertaining to ridesharing considering these are all claiming to be
Transport isn’t technology, it’s politics
The article is by Konstantinos Dimopoulos and appeared on How We Get to Next last February 17, 2017.
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Caught (up) in traffic 