Mobility supports many of our activities, whether they are basic ones such as going to work or to school, or whether they are for leisure. All this mobility has a significant impact on our quality of life as access to basic needs outside our homes ensures we can get education, employment, healthcare services and much needed entertainment.
The way in which we move, however, produces impacts, some of which are good such as health benefits from walking and cycling, while others are bad such as pollution and congestion when we drive our cars too much. In a society that is heavily dependent on the car the impacts can outweigh the benefits and so the private car becomes a very costly way of moving around.
Research conducted at the University of Malta has, over the years, highlighted the way we move in this small island and documented the impacts of increasing car dependence. Of course, we do not need research telling us about congestion when we experience it all day, but to document how much that congestion is costing goes a long way to quantify the damage that, for example congestion has on the economy. In 2015 a report produced by myself, Dr Philip Von Brockdorff, and Prof. Frank Bezzina, estimated the annual cost of congestion from private car and commercial vehicle use on the island at €118 million a year. Not only, air pollution, road accidents, noise and the costs related to climate change added a further €156 million a year.
The total cost of these impacts was found to be equivalent to four per cent of the GDP. And as we know since then not much has been achieved to reduce car dependence and its ‘costly’ impacts!
Research into individual mobility also shows some severe impacts on vulnerable groups within our communities. An article published in 2018 by Dr Deborah Mifsud, Prof. Stephen Ison and myself shows the determinants of elderly mobility and how these influence elderly people travel and how. Findings show that increasingly, elderly people are excluded from the transport system, especially women who drive less than men. And that systems designed to support travel for those outside the car are becoming less reliable in terms of public transport or non-existent in terms of walkable spaces in our towns and villages.
These practices of social exclusion caused by the increasing dependence on the car are becoming increasingly common in our communities. Recent findings I presented at a conference in the UK earlier this year show how in Malta the burden on private car travel is significant on low-income households.
Regional statistics show similarly high expenditure of households on transport between the regions with higher levels of people in poverty and those with lower numbers. Additionally we see increasing risks in the road for those outside the car. An analysis of road accident data between 2005 and 2015 shows an increasing percentage of fatal and grevious injuries among pedestrians. This shows that people are slowly being excluded from the public road. A space designed originally for people to access places, interact with the community and to exercise and play.
Much needs to be studied to understand what drives car dependence in a small island State and what solutions can deliver sustainable mobility.
Prof. Maria Attard is head of geography and director of the Institute for Climate Change and Sustainable Development. She has a team of eight researchers working on various issues related to mobility for better cities.
Sound bites
• Researchers have determined that the mix of bacteria that live inside your nose – yes, there are organisms living inside your nose – correlates with the type and severity of cold symptoms you develop. For example, people whose noses are rich in staphylococcus bacteria had more severe nasal symptoms than cold sufferers who have less staph, new research shows. That is despite their colds being caused by the exact same strain of virus. The researchers found that the bacteria in volunteers’ noses fell into six different patterns of nasal microbiomes. The different patterns were associated with differences in symptom severity. The compositions also were found to correlate with viral load – the amount of cold virus inside the body.
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/09/180926111001.htm
• To rapidly detect the presence of E. coli in drinking water, Cornell University food scientists now can employ a bacteriophage – a genetically engineered virus – in a test used in hard-to-reach areas around the world. Rather than sending water samples to laboratories and waiting days for results, this new test can be administered locally to obtain answers within hours, according to new research published by The Royal Society of Chemistry, August 2018. “Drinking water contaminated with E. coli is a major public health concern,” said Sam Nugen, PhD, Cornell associate professor of food science. “These phages can detect their host bacteria in sensitive situations, which means we can provide low-cost bacteria detection assays for field use – like food safety, animal health, bio-threat detection and medical diagnostics.”
https://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2018/09/180927105706.htm
For more soundbites listen to Radio Mocha: Mondays at 7pm on Radju Malta and Thursdays at 4pm on Radju Malta 2 https://www.fb.com/ RadioMochaMalta/.
Did you know?
• Caterpillars do not ‘morph’ into butterflies. Their bodies turn into a protein ‘goop’ within their chrysalis and rapid DNA-driven cell-division takes care of the rest.
• Wax worms can eat and break down one of the most common plastics, polyethylene. Their digestive process breaks the plastic’s chemical bond, producing an organic compound.
• In 2007, China executed the head of the State Food and Drug Administration (Chinese FDA) for accepting bribes and approving unsafe medicines.
• There are only two living species of alligators on earth: the American Alligator and the Chinese Alligator, the latter being critically endangered.
For more trivia see: www.um.edu.mt/think