23 November 2012
Here is a magnificent piece of absolute nonsense: Auckland's traffic will come to a virtual standstill unless we spend billions on public transport.
I'd love to know how much that report cost - nice work, the boys at SKM who got it. I don't blame them, they're just doing their traffic engineering bit and I will bet any amount you like their details, calculations and predictions are completely right.
What is missing is the startlingly obvious fact that what is needed is social engineering, not traffic engineering.
I'll give you a hint: what do most of those city employees spend all day doing?
Working at a computer.
Many thousands of jobs could be replicated without any trouble by relocating the positions to people's homes, or satellite offices - at far cheaper rents - outside of the CBD.
In the internet, we have the single most-powerful tool humans have invented. Why are we not utilising it to its full extent? Is it because bosses are afraid of losing their control? Or even worse, their power?
The advantages for all parties are immense if employees work from home: no travel time, thereby freeing up between 60 and 100 minutes every day; no commuting cost, saving each employee $20-80 per week; less rent to pay by the company, saving enormous amounts over time; vehicle pollution, a known killer of thousands every year, will be vastly reduced; less road and infrastructure maintenance; the list is long and ongoing, so will always infinitely outweigh the initial investment in systems to cope with the change.
On the odd occasion where meatware (human) interface is essential, why can that not be done by Skype? Document signatures can be recorded on camera and will have the same validity as documents signed physically in front of a person. More so even, given that signing is not usually digitally recorded.
Some peculiar side benefits will accrue to this new way of working. Things like less sick leave. People frequently go to work when sick and infect other people - that cycle would be broken. It was recently mooted that sitting in traffic jams causes people to die early from the stress, and I believe that is quite likely. Working at home, or close to home would solve that.
Here's some evidence on that subject:
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-scotland-19077299
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/uknews/1404881/Traffic-jams-are-biggest-cause-of-stress.html
We should be encouraging companies and employers to do away with the multi-level corporate offices and move to working on the internet.
Copyright © Alan Charman