Whether weather causes contention: assessing the ongoing resilience opportunity of telecommuting

The Covid-19 pandemic resulted in an unprecedented overnight explosion in telecommuting. It has highlighted a new dependence on digital infrastructures and raised new questions regarding the resilience of internet connectivity as an alternative to travel. Pre-pandemic, we considered how telecommuting could offer an opportunity for resilience when travel was disrupted by weather extremes. We analysed five years’ of recorded broadband speed variation across England and Wales in order to quantify the changing demand for internet access during the working day under adverse weather conditions. Slower broadband speeds, also known as contention, are an indication of increased demand. Thus, during the working day, contention is an indication that external factors like weather can influence the choice to telecommute instead of travel. A multilevel regression model is estimated to investigate the relationship between contention during the working day and weather, whilst controlling for background spatial and demographic differences in internet services. Emergent patterns suggest that even before the pandemic, online connectivity was in greater demand when travel was disrupted or at risk of disruption. Our research provides insights into the roles that both the supply of and the demand for transport and digital technologies might play in increasing resilience and maintaining productivity during severe weather and other disruptions as experience of both types of working has become so widespread

Travel choices, internet accessibility, and extreme weather: translating trends in space-time flexibility in the digital age

Extreme weather affects not only transport infrastructure, but also travel behaviour. Climate change is causing more frequent and intense severe weather events, and thus is increasing the risks to transport infrastructure, services, and travellers. Travel behaviour trends are also in flux due to shifting working and activity patterns, as space-time flexibility and accessibility choice increases, and standard commuting journeys decline. Information and communication technologies (ICT) are one reason for these changing trends in travel behaviour, and, like climate change, create uncertainty in predicting transport operations and travel choices. However, ICT also has the potential to make mobility and accessibility more sustainable and more responsive to climate change impacts. This thesis sets out to identify the opportunities that improving ICT and increasing space-time flexibility create for commuters and other travellers to maintain accessibility, particularly to work activities, that they may better respond to severe weather, risk, and transport disruption, thereby boosting resilience. The research also concludes that through the integration of travel choices and Internet accessibility and by taking action to address spatial and temporal barriers, policy might better support both resilience and sustainability

Climate research and open data at Oxford

Climate change is a crucial issue globally. There are many departments and groups across the University of Oxford that focus on fundamental areas of research to help support change and development, with experts in their fields contributing to key discussions, studies, and policy – resulting in a wealth of publications and research outputs. How can Open Access and Open Data be used to support, inform and shape the future? Short lightning presentations will focus on how discovery, access and re-use of research and research data can help to better inform key areas of Climate Research

Better by Bus?:Insights into public transport travel behaviour during Storm Doris in Reading, UK

This case study uses datasets from Reading Buses’ electronic ticketing system to gain insights into the reactions of public transport passengers to the disruption to bus and rail services in Reading, UK during Storm Doris on 23 February 2017. The analysis generally supports previous research findings that there are fewer public transport trips in adverse weather conditions. However, an increase in bus trips on services parallel to the more severely disrupted train services suggests that some travellers respond flexibly by using the bus as an alternative, more resilient mode

Impact of charging rates on electric vehicle battery life

This article synthesizes the sparse empirical literature on the impact of different charging rates on electric vehicle battery life with a focus on popular electric car models. The findings show that rapid and ultra-rapid charging cause more degradation of the most common electric vehicle batteries than fast charging, although this degradation is limited to an extent by battery management systems. The information in this article can aid in planning the expansion of different types of charging infrastructure and be used to inform drivers who are switching to battery electric vehicles