Hacking the system with virtual traffic congestions

In a brilliant artistic performance, Simon Weckert generated virtual traffic jams in Google Maps by pulling a wagon full of smartphones. HT Steven Crowley.

Is this Transit Oriented Development (TOD) ?

Aerial footage of the Maeklong Rail Market, Thailand. Captured by the talented Demas Rusli ( Instagram, Twitter).

How congestion pricing works in London and how it could soon work in NYC

New York city is closer than ever to adopt congestion pricing. This could be a major change in how they address their transportation challenges and fund public transport. A team at Vox made an informative video about this, and they asked the sharp Nicole Badstuber (Twitter) to explain how congestion pricing works in London. London started charging private vehicles to enter the city center in 2003. Last month they enacted the London’s ultra-low emission zone, which adds another charge for most vehicles manufactured before 2015.

How Barcelona is taking city streets back from cars

The team at Vox have produced some interesting videos on urban-related topics. I've posted a few of them here in the blog before. This one below covers the urban planning in Barcelona, which uses superblocks as a means to build more liveable and inclusive urban environments in parts of the city.

This video is actually from 2 years ago but I only saw this video last week (thanks to the recommendation of  Telmo Amand, who was my high-school geography teacher!)

The landscape and pulses of dockless bikes in Singapore

Yang Xu ‏(Twitter) and his team at the Hong Kong Polytechnic University have a new research project to understand the usage of dockless bike-sharing system and its relationship with built environment in Singapore. More info about the project in Yang's website.

Nice kickoff video created using deck.gl

Sao Paulo from above in new year's eve

This video is from 2016/2017 but there are shorter ones from this year and from 2014 which also give a good idea of how Brazilians take year's eve quite seriously.

3D reconstruction of the Brasilia madness

A beautiful 3D reconstruction of the Brasilia madness. It is a shame the video forgot about the men and women who built the city, but it's still a beautiful tribute to the work of Oscar Niemeyer and Lucio Costa.

Construção de Brasília em animação 3D - by Unloop from Unloop on Vimeo.
 

Magic roundabouts

Behold the "magic roundabout" in Swindon, England. It is a roundabout formed by 5 smaller roundabouts arranged around a sixth central, anticlock wise roundabout. I would also called it 'magic' if I managed to drive through it and survive. Jokes aside, it seems pretty safe.

Apparently, this is a thing in the UK where they have four other magic roundabouts. Here is how the one in Swindon works:

Related post:

• Top 10 Craziest Intersections

The high cost of free parking

Nice video by Vox and the Mobility Lab team on how parking requirements shaped American cities. Via Jeff Wood

Vertical Hong Kong

Beautiful drone footage of Hong Kong, by Mariana Bisti (2017). It's better in full screen.

Wěndìng Fánróng (left channel) from Mariana Bisti on Vimeo.

Assorted Links

1. A rank of North American Urban Planning Scholars Using Google Scholar Citation Profiles, by Tom Sanchez (twitter)
   
   
2. On a similar note, an interesting commentary on the power of the unrelenting impact factor of academic journals and some interesting arguments to why the impact factor of journals should not be used for evaluating research
   
   
3. Isoscope:  nice work by Flavio Gortana (twitter), showing how isochrones by car vary across space and time
   
   
4. How One Brilliant Woman Mapped the Ocean Floor’s Secrets via Sabrina Lai
   
   
5. Possibly the greatest scene in documentary history via David Levinson (twitter)
   
   
6. Bill Rankin's new work on Mapping Slavery Against US Incarceration
   
   
7. A 15-min video giving an interesting summary of the largest US health insurance experiment in history - ht Carl Schmertmann
   
   
8. Beautiful data visualization of music, by Nicholas Rougeux
   
   
9. The Vertical City: The Price of Land and the Height of Buildings in Chicago 1870-2010, by Gabriel M. Ahlfeldt (twitter)

The world's tallest and most densely populated slums

A short video about Tower of David, possibly the tallest slum today, located in Caracas, Venezuelza. (Thanks Telmo Ribeiro and Lucas Mation for the pointer)

And a short video about Kowloon Walled City of Hong Kong, which was of the most densely populated slums in the world until being demolished in 1994.

A glance of the street art murals of Sao Paulo

The video was made by Kico Santos and his team at Cinema de Rua. The current city policy towards the city's graffiti has been a complete joke, by the way. Thanks Vinicius Netto (Twitter) for the pointer.

Verticor from Cinema de Rua on Vimeo.

Mapped history of population expansion in the US

Great data visualization created by Nathan Yau using R and NHGIS data. Nathan's website Flowing Data is one of my all time favorite websites and I strongly recommend you check it out.

The Social Dilemma of Driverless Cars

Iyad Rahwan presents in a TEDx his recently published paper on the the social dilemma of driverless cars (arXiv version here). HT Cesar Hidalgo.

You should try out the Moral Machine. 

Related link

• Autonomous vehicles

Carmageddon and Jamzilla in Los Angeles

I have already posted in the blog about the The Black Hole Theory of Highway Investment. For this matter, LA's 405 freeway is quite an iconic case as it has been the stage of 'Carmageddons' and 'Jamzillas' over the years.

Happy thanksgiving to our friends in LA.

#MannequinChallenge? Traffic nearly at a standstill on the 405 Freeway https://t.co/yfahcIv8AR pic.twitter.com/ZQndXJwEA3

— ABC7 Eyewitness News (@ABC7) November 23, 2016

Related links:

• The impact of public transport on traffic congestion
• The unintended consequence of licence plate schemes
• Traffic Jam without bottleneck

The Age of Data

BBC Four has a produced a fascinating documentary on The Joy of Data, presented by the great Hannah Fry (Twitter).

Top 10 Craziest Intersections

Oh, humans and our monstrous creativity to deal with self-inflicted problems.

ps.the magic roundabout (3:40min) is definitely one of my favourites.

Simulados: agent-based computer simulations

A nice video of the Barcelona Supercomputing Center on the use of agent-based computer simulations to study societies. Via Andy Kirk.

How I feel trying to solve a problem in my research

This is how I've been spending my days lately. #PhDlife