Highways and transport solutions provider Clearview Intelligence has welcomed comments by behavioural science expert Rory Sutherland, who is urging transport professionals to look at changing behaviour before changing infrastructure.
Mr Sutherland, who is Vice Chairman of advertising agency Ogilvy, has co-written a book called “Transport for Humans: Are we nearly there yet?” which explains how we can often use psychological solutions to fix transport challenges.
Speaking on the Highways Voices podcast to promote his keynote session at September’s JCT Traffic Signals Symposium, he commented on problems at a roundabout in Palm Beach, Florida which were not caused by the roundabout design, but simply by poorly marked lanes approaching it. He was then told about the Sheriffhall Roundabout in Edinburgh (pictured) which solved safety problems by using dynamic LED lighting delivered by Clearview Intelligence to change delineation depending on traffic priority.
“Total respect to Clearview,” he said, adding “I would argue, if you look at behaviour, you don’t rule out infrastructure. But if you look at infrastructure, you forget about behaviour. Once you start talking about road widening, no one’s giving the slightest thought to painting lines or creating traffic light buffers or whatever… whereas if you start with the mind, you define the new start with a behaviour, what is the desired behaviour here.”
“It is great to hear when someone really “gets” what we at Clearview are trying to do,” commented Clearview Intelligence’s Head of Product Management, Alastair King, “which is using inexpensive ways to support a traveller, whether they be in a vehicle or on bike or foot, to better understand and therefore use existing infrastructure to have a safer and/or greener journey.
“We are delighted that Rory Sutherland and his co-author Pete Dyson will be speaking at the JCT Traffic Signals Symposium this September and look forward to him visiting our stand so we can discuss with him all the ways we at Clearview are putting the ideas he promotes into real-world solutions and hear his comments and ideas.”
In the podcast, Mr Sutherland urges transport professionals not to focus solely on things that are easy to measure, like time and distance, and therefore missing out on “much easier low hanging opportunities to improve the passenger experience”.
Listen here:
The JCT Traffic Signals Symposium takes place at Nottingham Trent University on 14 and 15 September, with the MOVA User Group and opening barbecue networking the day before. Find out more and book delegate and exhibitor places here.
(Picture – Clearview Intelligence)
