Transportation
Advances in Population Synthesis, the journal article
I’ve finally published my M.A.Sc. thesis as a journal article, under the title Advances in Population Synthesis: fitting many attributes per agent and fitting to household and person margins simultaneously. This article is the preferred citation going forward; I think it tells the story best: A brief summary of the key contributions described in detail in [...]
Greater Toronto Area transit map
Many years ago, when Google first released Google Maps and revolutionized online mapping from the stagnant MapQuest era, I put together a few quick demos showing the Vancouver and Toronto transit maps. I’ve made a few updates over the years since then, but not much more. The Vancouver one is still quite popular – more [...]
Canadian Government Scraps Long-Form Census
An appalling decision from the Canadian federal government today, reported by the Globe & Mail here: “Tories scrap mandatory long-form census” The census is a vital data source for all sorts of transportation and land use planning. A voluntary census is nearly useless, since the sample will suffer from voluntary response bias. This will do [...]
Bryant and Road Rage
The judicial verdict is in on the sensational case of Michael Bryant. It sounds like a tragic case of a driver whose car’s stop/stall/roll action accidentally provoked an unstable bicycle courier, with tragic and ultimately fatal consequences. The driver appears to have behaved completely reasonably under the circumstances. The cyclist had a long history of aggressive [...]
Winter cycling, Dutch style
Growing up in Toronto, I was a six-month cyclist and six-month pedestrian/transit rider. Since moving back a few years ago, I’ve been shifting to closer to ten months of cycling. I realized that I feel much better when I get that daily exercise and sunshine, and it’s considerably faster for getting around, chaining trips and [...]
Subcultures & cycling
The Copenhagenize blog has some interesting thoughts on cycling and subcultures: do the various cycling subcultures (racers, couriers, mountain bikers) in North America get in the way of making cycling appealing to normal citizens? The subcultures define themselves by gear or attitude – and I think this is quite offputting for normal people. It’s like a [...]
Google Map updates
Several years ago, I put together some Google Maps for the Vancouver and Toronto transit systems. In light of the expected opening of the Canada Line in Vancouver on August 17th, I took a shot at updating the maps. In the interim, though, Google has made some big advances in its handling of transit. They [...]
Negawatts
I hope you don’t mind my descent into technobabble for a few moments. The Toronto Star recently published an interesting article on demand management in the electricity sector in Ontario. I go back to a speech that Paul Murphy, CEO of the Independent Electricity System Operator, gave back in January. He pointed out that of [...]
Annotated Readings
Almost all of these readings are old, dating back to my initial forays into understanding transportation. They’re listed in the order I read them, from newest to oldest. Most of the content is just quotations I found interesting, with a few comments. Many of the comments no longer reflect my current thinking; take it with [...]
Malfunction junction
A great link from vyaroshevich (via Price Tags and Thrilling Wonder). The flickr photo below shows a horrific left-turn in Russia. The route starts from the left (lower line)… and just follow the arrows from there. If I was on the road, I’m sure it would soon seem fairly natural, actually… we’re very well-trained in [...]
