Exploring the changing relationship of space and time in a digitalized world

By Dr. Aldo Arranz-López

Digitization is having an increasing impact in all walks of life, not least in how, when, where and why we travel. Some of the likely effects are fairly obvious – for example, trends towards ‘working from home’ are changing the traditional ‘rush hour’. Equally, the rise of on-line, home delivery, retail must impact the nature and frequency of shopping trips. Travel associated with leisure activities may also change – for example because consumers are streaming films or even live events at home rather than journeying to a cinema or venue. How to quantify and plan for these effects, and to maintain and enhance the accessibility of appropriate transport modes, is less obvious.

A team from ZLC with colleagues from Zaragoza and Navarra Universities and the Polytechnic University of Madrid has received funding from Spain’s Ministry of Science, Innovation and Universities and from the European Regional Development Fund to research the implications of what is known as the ‘space-time threshold’ – that tipping point at which performing an activity (or a group of activities) on-line becomes more efficient than travelling in person - and how this could feed in to transport and urban planning and policy-making.

Entitled ‘Social and spatiotemporal effects of the digitization of activities in urban accessibility planning’ (or, mercifully, eRBANITY for short), the new project will build on a paper that we (and a colleague from McMaster University, Canada), published last year in the Journal of Transport Geography (https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0966692324002357?via%3Dihub). In this we sought to establish a theoretical framework by modelling time, distance and accessibility across a range of scenarios: travel into or out of densely of more distributed ‘hubs’ (areas, typically urban, with a lot of potential work, retail or leisure opportunities) and lower density, rural or suburban, residential areas, or travel between pairs of destination hubs, and using different modes of transport: walking, cycling, public transport, private vehicles.

In this paper we developed a concept we call ‘augmented accessibility’. This recognises that not only are digital options such as e-working, e-shopping and online leisure potentially more convenient but the travel time that their adoption saves can be reallocated, and that might include reallocation to other valuable in-person activities with their own, differing, travel patterns. (As an example, they might use the hour they have saved in their travel time ‘budget’ from not commuting to work, to travel into a gym for a workout, or to meet friends, or to attend health appointments).

Unsurprisingly, where these thresholds or tipping points lie depends on where people live and which of the above scenarios is most applicable (and also of course on the transport options and therefore journey times available – note though that we have not considered cost in these models – that would be a whole other piece of work!). So, for people in compact urban areas with a lot of nearby services, in-person activities with their associated travel can remain quite competitive: in more sprawling cities or in rural areas, with greater distances and perhaps limited public transport, digital options may be much more attractive. (Interestingly, the models suggest that directionality matters: the threshold for travelling from a low-density area into a hub is not the same as for journeys in the other direction).

The implications of digitalization are of course not limited to personal passenger travel – online is also changing how goods move around cities and their hinterlands. As more people shop online because they have crossed their space-time threshold, there will be greater demand for deliveries to homes and pick-up points. So, logistics providers will have to adapt by changing and improving last-mile delivery, for example by locating urban warehouses closer to neighbourhoods, the while attempting t control and reduce traffic and emissions.

The conceptual framework that we have set out in our paper looks quite convincing, but it is at present purely theoretical. In this eRBANITY project we will be gathering empirical data from the Zaragoza region and feeding it into our models to prove the validity of the concept In Real Life (as they say on-line!).

If validated and operationalised, these insights can then be used by policymakers and urban and transport planners, not only when considering the location or relocation of daily activities, but also and critically when addressing the inequalities generated by differing accessibility to the various transport modes.

Find more information at: https://erbanityproject.com/index_en.html