ITS

Green and smart

Facts, evidence, logic

• What sort of matter is transport

• What sorts of knowledge is involved

• Where is the punktum

• Who is the agent

• But is it art?

• What is to be done?
Dead stop
Blind rise
Table
Four Black
Green man, red man, time, stop, go
This is rather nice, I wonder where it came from?
Passenger information Scamper, undignified
Bouncy bus Never again and nowhere else
Passenger information There is a railway station here
One parking space Who, whom?
Stop, place, distance Time, interchange, informate
White bus Stop, place, interchange
Red bus Stop, place, frequency,
Real time information
Count down
Where, place Informate, interchange
Daily occurance And on the bus
Interchange Rail, bus, county, country
Automatic door Families, happy, MP.
One hundred million for the barrier gates, pounds
that is
What is the point of attack and blame
Yellow stripe Barbican
Knowing Doing
ITS

• Technology • Sequence

• Keynote • Order

• iPhoto • Argument

• Concepts • Logic

• Words • Visualisation

• Names • Agency
Storyboard

• Presentation • Picture

• Poster • Block of text

• Lecture • Knowledge

• Seminar • Information

• Video, book • Document

• Social networking • Method

Stop not

• This was a stop, a useful one,

opposite the entrance to the
V&A. What it needed was a
safe crossing.

• Now it is a stop no more, but a

place where buses park, and
the stop is a long way back or
forwards.

• There have been many changes

to stop locations, all to the
worse. Who, whom?
Who, whom?

• Where is Kensal Rise?

• Where is this bus actually

going?

• There used to be a stream of

places, perhaps six or eight?

• Clearly there could be too many

so that it would be unreadable,
but one? And obscure?

• Regular and frequent journey

Buses, stops, routes, interchanges, frequency, design
Beck on

• Variety of the 1931 design but

this shows a colour code of
who owns the contract.

• It also shows the capitalist

centrality of historic London.

• Polycentric or network
concepts missing completely.

• But this is showing geography

of a different scale, one
hundred miles, one hour.
Beck again

• The original notation now

extended to show the lines
running which are not part of
the organisation for which the
original was designed.

• There is an added concept,

thick dark line means four an
hour, thin grey, fewer.

• Then a line changes contract

and it becomes orange later.

• But the interchanges?

Stations, interchanges, routes, frequency places,
Simple

• It can be done.

• This makes a difference.

• It reduces congestion.

• Beyond it the ticket machines

and the indicator boards are
badly placed so that
congestion returns, but it
shows that someone was
thinking and did something
simple.
Scamper

• This could be Waterloo East for

Charing Cross, but just to show
it is more general, this is
waiting for the Victoria train at
Clapham Junction, 12, or 14.

• There are new real time

indicator boards which do
make a difference, but it is still
a matter of 12 or 14.

• But this does raise the issues of

granularity, scalabity, as well as
150 years of design.
What can be done

• This is what on bus real

indication should be like.

• It shows origin and destination,

the sequence of stops, and the
interchange informating for the
next stop.

• But of course, it stopped

running soon after introduction
and hasn’t been extended or
replicated or replaced.

• While the monitors exist still.

Back to reality

• Elephant and Castle, major

interchange, huge
development.

• Up these steps, or down them,

in the far distance, is the
railway station, at the other
end, the bus stops, elsewhere,
the underground stations, and
there is nothing to tell you
anything about any of this.

• One of the first green and smart

Stations, interchanges, routes, frequency places,
Back home

• This was a gate with steps

which saved one hundred yards
of walking.

• It was sacrificed to make one

parking space.
One stop

• There is a lot to explain in a text

box about two bus services,
then another two bus services,
then another two bus services,
then another one.

• KU

• 514/5

• 406/418

• 465
White bus

• This is a KU bus, on contract

among sites, which does not
stop at several stops, and
passes, almost empty.

• It is a substantial investment by
KU in making transport
available, for parking is a great
matter in the area, as is
housing, and wages.

• The stories of where it stops

are many and varied.
Red bus

• This particular bus tried to

zoom past outside the stop,
and had I not shoved myself in
front of it, it would not have
stopped. But that is the detail
of any one particular journey.

• The more substantial matter is

its stops, and its fulness, it
frequency, its destination.
Stops, interchanges, routes, frequency places,
Real time

• This must be the single most

significant improvement in
public transport since Beck?

• There are matters of

competition and monopoly, of
the sources of the data, of
networking and connectivity of
design and clutter.

• When they don’t work, human

agency has to take over, which
is another matter.

• Intermediate stations?
Real time

• The bus experience has been a

different matter entirely.

• This has been almost total

failure.

• What is called real time is most

frequently simply display of
timetable data.
Stops, interchanges, routes, frequency places, informate
You are not told what to do, and on the bus, never informed that there
is a change in route pattern.
Much more

• This is a much more

complicated matter, a major
interchange of bus and rail.

• What stops where, what goes

where?

• Buses are being parked for rest

periods.

• Terminus.
Now for

• something completely different.

• This is the automatic gate,

except it isn’t.

• It is driven by the person

responsible for despatching
trains on the platforms, who
have other things to be doing.

• There are buttons.

• Revenue protection
Another one

• These gates once provided

access to the lines lower.

• We thought we had won this.

• Then, after one hundred million

was spent on some other
gates, we now have to walk the
long way round, with everyone
else, through the main
shopping mall.
Stops, interchanges, routes, frequency places, informate, infuriate
Who is responsible?
It is

• possible to do something.

• This was the first time I saw this

real place indicator which gets
you to the Barbican Centre
from the entrances to the
estate.

• The difference is the other

direction, trying to find a
particular bus stop, for
example, the 4 for Waterloo.

• Then it all runs out.

Something can be done.
Who, whom?

• Short hand expression for listing • Owners

the agents taking decisions and
acting upon them, and who is
• Politicians, councillors
impacted, positively or negatively.

• Officials
• Part of the problem is identifying
roles and disambiguating
responsibilities. • Activists

• Workers • Professionals

• Managers • For any one of us may be several of

these at the same time. Who
knows. Or, what ever.
• Academics
What is to be done?

• This is a short-hand expression for • The last large attempt was following
listing the actions which might be the white paper on Integrated
taken and the agents who could be Transport in 1997. That resulted in
responsible. the Creating Sparks Festival.

• From this will be worked out an • This will result in the Festival of
action plan. Place at the 2009

• This time round follows the Future • Then the London Biennale, 2010.
of Transport study with the
European Commission and a series
•
of meetings reporting on the work.
Just get over it

• Or what over • But my high risk strategy is to

continue to exert energy on the
concepts informate, interchange,
• Who gives
integrate, which is a matter of
information systems design.
• Just do it
• For myself, I continue to make little
• These are expressions I encounter knowbots which help me to do
on the approach to these matters things which should be pleasurable
which seem to show a post and cost almost nothing.
modernist carelessness to the
whole matter?
• By making these available, if
anyone is interested, there they are.
Structure

• History • Information management

• Theory • Politics

• Education • Economics

• Practical design • Business

• Social activism • Management

• Knowledge sharing • Technology

Organisation

• Kingston University, etc • UITP

• RBKT, SCC, etc • European Commission

• SWT, Arrriva, etc • RSA, etc

• TfL • National Trust

• DfT • Ramblers’ Association

• MPs, Select committees • Living Streets

Data

• Place • Price

• Stop • Distance

• Time • Speed

• Journey • Informate

• Route • Interchange

• Frequency • Integrate
- all - design

• Landscape Gallery • Slow motion

• Green and Smart • STEPS

• Infosys • Antequeerians

• Infopolecon • #twalk

• Future transport 2050 • Festival of Place

• Blearning • Andoids
National Trust Place, time, frequency, journey
Green and smart, 2009. Information, systems and social change v