Digital data is an important component of transportation management, used by City officials both as a planning tool and to measure the success of implemented policies. Yet, as the case of Toronto indicates, no amount of data can fix a policy designed to exclude from transportation governance those who don’t drive.
In recent months, Toronto has made international headlines as the battleground for competing policies around cycling infrastructure. A new bill tabled by the Government of Ontario proposes a removal of the protected bike lanes in three major city arteries in an attempt to reduce traffic congestion in downtown Toronto. This decision sparked an outrage among the city’s cyclists, who, according to the 2019 City of Toronto survey, make up 70% of the city population. Despite Premier’s Ford attempts to manipulate the statistics and argue thar only 1.2% of the residents use Toronto’s cycling infrastructure, multiple studies show that this number is incorrect. At least 44% of Torontonians identify a bicycle as their main means of transportation, to get to work, school, or visit family and friends. Critics of the bill drew on recent evidence showing that the Vision Zero initiatives have drastically reduced the number of traffic fatalities in cities where they have been implemented consistently. Some commentators consider Bill 212 to be a political move by the Premier Doug Ford against the Mayor Olivia Chow.
Imagine if transportation in Toronto wasn’t a political issue and, instead, we could correctly assess ridership trends and promptly address the bottlenecks? In a research report called Unlocking the Public Value of Data: Smart Transportation Systems in Boston, Pittsburgh and Seoul, I explored the many ways cities use digital infrastructure to address traffic congestion, road safety and environmental challenges. Empirical data from my case studies shows that cities gain immense power when they implement standardized data protocols and deploy integrated intelligent transportation systems to diagnose and fix their transportation issues. Such technologies even help create user-centered public transit, something many cities have been experimenting with. South Korea’s capital city Seoul is a prime example of the successful data-driven transportation policies.
An exemplary smart city, Seoul is home to 9.4 million people. Through implementing smart public transit systems, the municipality has resolved the problem of traffic congestion and managed to drastically reduce the city’s carbon footprint. In Seoul, 53.2% of commuters prefer taking public transit over driving. The secret sauce behind Seoul’s success is “TOPIS,” a data-driven transportation management system that relies on thousands of real-time sensors to collect information about traffic conditions, weather, and emergencies. Topis then deploys AI to manage highways by temporarily rising the speed limits and rerouting traffic during the high times.
One may argue that the culture of public transit commute in South-Asian cities is very different from the car-centered culture of North America. Yet, the tides seem to have shifted. A growing number of North American cities are moving towards implementing public transportation solutions, sensing increased public support for these policies. Polls indicate that many Canadians give up driving due to the rising gas prices and expensive auto insurance. In a recent poll, 54 % of Canadians said they have been driving less because of the high gas prices, while another 15% were planning to drive less for the same reason. According to a 2023 survey by the National Association of Realtors, homebuyers aged between 20 and 40 are ready to pay more for a home in a walkable community. Recent surveys indicate that young Americans crave walkable cities. The share of young adults with driver’s licenses has declined from 87 percent in 1995 to 81 percent in 2021.
Interestingly, walkable and transit-friendly cities have become a global trend. In Montreal, the car-free street pilot has been a resounding success, leading to the City closing down eleven more streets for pedestrian-only use. We have all heard about the smart subway systems in Singapore and Tokyo, where density and stringent municipal policies push large segments of population to rely on public transit as their main transportation option, and data-driven technologies ensure the transit is reliable. Longitudinal studies from the Paris region in France show that expansion of the railway systems into the towns surrounding metropolitan Paris has led to bustling business activity and a significant decrease in transportation costs for the commuters.
Luxemburg, the country with the highest car density in the European Union (696 per 1,000 people), began operating its public transit free of charge in 2020, in an attempt to make it more appealing to the local commuters and tourists. In Oslo, the municipality has been testing self-driving shuttles and expects to lower the number of drivers in the city during the winter months, when driving conditions become hazardous.
The biggest differences between the metropolises that have implemented public transit systems and large, automobile-centered North American cities lie in policy and funding. Cities like Paris or Seoul have both the budgets and the legislative tools to experiment with various transportation solutions, while cities like Toronto have significantly less spending power and are limited by the provincial policies. Municipalities in the U.S. face similar constraints. For instance, the City of Boston has been looking for corporate partners to collect and analyse data on ridership and curb use, and faced all kinds of financial and legislative barriers, mainly due to the opposition from the state legislators.
Furthermore, my case studies show that successful transportation strategies must consider the interests of all commuters. In Pittsburgh, the citizens protested against the self-driving pilot because it had disrupted their regular bus routes; similarly, a progressive mayor Bill Peduto’s data-driven transportation initiatives had angered his constituents who felt that the City’s aging infrastructure was not the mayor’s priority. The city officials in Boston learned the hard way that preventing commuters from driving in the city, without providing them suitable public transit options, leads to the proliferation of ride-sharing services which clog the roads more than personal cars do.
I believe that making cities the stewards of digital data will help make our cities safer, cleaner and more comfortable. But digital data alone cannot solve all of our challenges. We need visionary politicians who understand that this is the Overton window for public transit in North America. Like the City of Seoul, we can create public transit that will turn driving into a less desirable option for commuters, and we can provide city residents with multiple transportation options to choose from. Public transit is the future of city transportation, the question is how long our policymakers are going to ignore our needs.
Anna Artyushina is a post-doctoral researcher in the department of urban and regional planning at Toronto Metropolitan University. The research project Unlocking the public value of data: Smart transportation systems in Boston, Pittsburgh and Seoul has been supported by TransLink, Metro Vancouver’s transportation network.
One comment
For an article claiming to be about using data over gut feelings, the misuse of data is impressive. A quick look at the survey the author claims says 44% of Torontonians bike as their main mode shows that the question asked was about how many people in the household bike in good weather – no mention of main mode and restricted to good weather. Ultimately, the article is another example of someone trying to twist data. Even a balanced analysis of the data shows that the Provincial government was at best disingenuous in their use of data. There was no need to twist the data to make the point.