Change name of scenarios

[Robinlovelace]

The high level concept of a scenario is important in the design of the app, with trickle-down impacts on all other elements including:

• [ ] The site rating - the % active and other ratings change when the scenario changes, highlighting the story that change is possible but more so in accessible sites that inaccessible ones
• [ ] The high level ClockBoard visuals such as (distance of active travel weighted) busyness and circuity change as more people walk and cycle
• [ ] The route stats change, particularly in the volume of people walking/cycling

We have 2 scenarios that we have so far called base/baseline and dutch/godutch. I tentatively suggest we call them instead:

• baseline: to highlight that this is the baseline, base is too ambiguous and although 2011 is concise and explicit it is not future proof or generalisable to new contexts where there is no 2011 census, but where there is some kind of baseline mode split data
• active travel uptake: initially I was thinking 'scenario' but even the 'baseline' is a scenario and we want to keep it broad - 'active travel' and 'go dutch' are other options that I think may be less favourable.

Split out from https://github.com/cyipt/actdev-ui/issues/14#issuecomment-780855100.

Thoughts @joeytalbot, @mvl22, @Siequnu and for an international perspective @dabreegster (or anyone else watching e.g. @MeganStreb ) v. welcome.

[dabreegster]

"Baseline" sounds perfect to me; it indicates the current reality, and isn't specific about when/where the data's drawn from, so it's not tied to a particular census.

I only learned the term "go Dutch" after being introduced to the PCT; I don't think the term would be recognizable to most people. I'm also not too familiar with transport planning terminology, but "active" travel doesn't really imply cycling to me -- I could read it as walking, or even driving. "Passive" travel to me would imply being a passenger in a car or on public transit.

I don't really like this term either, but the most direct thing I can think of is "high cycling uptake" scenario.

[Robinlovelace]

I don't really like this term either, but the most direct thing I can think of is "high cycling uptake" scenario.

A key feature of the project is it's about walking and cycling uptake. Highlights the need to emphasise walking. Good feedback on 'Go Dutch' - probably a bit niche outside the cycling policy/advocacy/academic community so I would say 'Active travel uptake' as a placeholder name is a reasonable default unless anyone comes up with anything better.

[mvl22]

active travel uptake

I would favour something a bit more visionary - 'uptake' could mean nothing more than a 0.1% increase, which a developer could validly claim would be uptake.

I wonder if 'Decarbonisation 2030" or something along those kind of lines - linking the concept of uptake to ultimate policy goals, should be considered. Though admittedly that specific suggestion would wrongly imply that increasing cycling/walking only is purely an environmental goal.

[Robinlovelace]

I like the idea of visionary but for some reason 'Decarbonisation 2030' doesn't do it for me, not least because decarbonisation has surprisingly little to do with walking and cycling and a lot to do with driving levels (of course they are negatively correlated but not to the extent that many people think as highlighted by transport stats from car dependent yet highly active nations such as The Netherlands and Switzerland).

[Siequnu]

I also like the idea of a catchy keyword rather than a complex title.

I think defining clearly what is behind our scenario and having a concise explanation of the methodology behind that calculation (maybe in the space for the site blurb) would be important.

And the process of working out that blurb might just help us with the name of the scenario.

[Robinlovelace]

Baseline and Active travel uptake can be non-controversial defaults that are better than current 'Base' and 'Go Dutch' for various reasons discussed above. Catchy keywords like 'ActiveUp' could work but I think given that we're doing this as a prototype keeping it fairly unambiguous and bland is fine, although a 3 word scenario name is a bit clunky. Any other suggestions v. welcome.

[joeytalbot]

I think a scenario name that includes the phrase 'active travel' will get confusing very fast. If we start talking about the proportion of active travel in the 'active travel uptake scenario', compared to the proportion of active travel in the baseline scenario, things will get messy.

I'd prefer a different type of name, along the lines that Martin was suggesting.

[Robinlovelace]

OK so 'Decarbonisation 2030' is the preferred? Imagine we can come up with better than that - let's ask around and see what others think. Another option is simply 'Uptake' that is broad and plain, emphasising the fact that this is actually a placeholder not a proper scenario.

[MeganStreb]

I'm not sure what scenarios are looking like, but Decarbonisation 2030 is a specific target, which I think might set expectations about carbon modelling.
What about just 'decarbonising'? or 'shorter journeys' (I realise that quality of journey is also a factor, but this would also point out reduced vehicle miles too)?
I would use 'uptake' if you're then going to later set several scenario options w/ different names down the line.

[mvl22]

Just to clarify I'm really not wedded to 'Decarbonisation 2030' and I think it would be problematic. Megan has also rightly picked up on a flaw with this specific name.

I was more trying to get the idea of some kind of sense that there is a big vision and government policy objective kind of thing which should be aimed for, a catchy keyword as it were, that inspires. 'Go Dutch' is an example of that kind of approach, but does suffer from the problem of not being fully understood by a wide number of people. 'Space for cycling' is another such catchy keyword type of approach. Decarbonisation 2030 isn't quite right, but hopefully you get an idea of the kind of lines I was thinking around.

'Uptake' remains a bit problematic to me, mainly because it makes me think of the constant cases of developers saying in their glossy design documents (that I've had to bear reading) how much their development will encourage uptake of cycling, but it doesn't happen because the design is actually so poor. In other words, purely 'Uptake' doesn't give any sense of scale of change - it just says that there is vaguely some kind of increase, and even a terrible developer would claim that their site results in 'uptake'.

[Robinlovelace]

Uptake could be a good placeholder though. Get the point about wanting to show the scale of the change being simulated/imagined/evidenced but users of the prototype tool will get a sense of that more from the outputs of the tool than the words we use to describe them. The fact is we're open minded about which scenarios would go in future versions of the tool and the current scenario simply shows high uptake of active travel, walking and cycling.

[Robinlovelace]

To answer your specific questions @MeganStreb

What about just 'decarbonising'? or 'shorter journeys' (I realise that quality of journey is also a factor, but this would also point out reduced vehicle miles too)?

the problem with those currently is that in our placeholder scenario of change demand is fixed. Future scenarios should definitely look at demand reduction, especially for long trips which has already happened with ~40% of the population still working from home, a trend that looks set to continue: https://saferactive.github.io/trafficalmr/articles/report3.html

[joeytalbot]

A few perhaps cheesy scenario names:

• Healthy futures
• Go Active (yes it includes the word active but not active travel)
• Decarbonise
• Traffic reduction

[Robinlovelace]

I like Go Active best of those, good brainstorming + ideas!

[mvl22]

Yes, Go Active really jumps out - has a clear sense of being linked to active travel (both walking and cycling) and the use of 'Go' has a sense of change and movement towards government policy objectives.

Healthy Futures would be my next best option but it has a very slight air of wishy-washy promotiony local government campaign to it.

[joeytalbot]

Go Active it is.