Gerrit: A Christmas Stormy Story
Christmas Past – the very recent past. Eight of the family in Kinloch Rannoch for Christmas 2023. We sang carols in the little village church. We jumped in the Loch. We drank whiskies by the fire.
All good things come to an end. 27 December 2023 and it was time for the last of our kids and partners to pack up and get back to their friends and lives. I am usually a tad melancholy when everyone leaves. Today I was a tad nervous. Storm Gerrit was starting to hit. Two cars would be heading south via the A9.
Over the remains of the Stornoway Black pudding and eggs at breakfast there had been much chat and information trawling: Google, Traffic Scotland, Traffic Scotland Radio, real time gritter maps. No one had snow tyres or chains, but they packed spades, warm clothes, water.
As the four set off, all roads looked (and sounded) clear in the virtual media world but the snow was laying. There was an agreed route and a plan and promises to keep in touch. Sam drove the lead car with Jenny; Rory drove the second with Mads in the passenger seat. I closed the deer gates and wondered when I would see them again.
The journey
Sam helping a fellow driver!
The next few hours were tortuous: decisions were made; routes, way-points and plans changed in real time; our four gave help (car pushes, updates on road status) to other drivers; many calls and messages were made and sent between the two cars and back to Julie and me. As they were still picking their way forward, the A9 became flooded, was shut, and the Police declared a Major Incident. At home, we felt like we were (a worried) traffic HQ as we tidied and cleaned a weirdly quiet house in between listening to traffic bulletins, checking websites and contacting friends from certain affected areas.
Five hours later (a 3 hour plus supplement to the usual journey times) they had made their destinations: Edinburgh, Glasgow and Crieff. Julie and I had a stiff drink when we heard the news (and a couple of the rubbish left-over Thorntons).
The inquest
Two days later, when we were with Sam and Jenny, with Julie cooking leftovers, we had a good chat about their journey experience. Have a listen at the top of the page (as well as to Julie’s chicken dinner in progress).
What did I learn from putting the journey under the microscope?
- Trust: Who and what do you trust to make your decisions when you are uncertain, nervous or anxious? People. Family, friends, acquaintances, communities (eg Local Village Facebook Page) who have some relevant experience. Be that of the event itself (they’re going through it or have been through it), of similar events, of the area or even just of travelling in conditions like that. They are your trusted advisers. Though it is interesting that language and differential levels of knowledge can hinder effective communication (obvious really). A highly informed person knows local place names, a semi-informed traveller knows some of them and the visitor knows few. And maybe the "technical" language of junctions and road numbers from traffic managers is an uncomfortable common language.
- Technology: What about advanced technology and in-car and mobile phone-based information sources? The winners were those which enabled connection to those people and their experiences and knowledge: Whatsapp, Facebook, Snapchat, Instagram. There is a lot of information about: even better if that distributed knowledge and experience could be aggregated somewhere by someone (Traffic Scotland?). The only shout out to an official information source was to the Gritter Tracker.
- Meso Planning: Getting out of a traffic mess is like untangling last year’s fairy lights. It’s a mess and you need to know what to pull (and definitely what not to pull!) to ease the knot. Having some prescriptive information for those going in a general direction would have been so useful. Knowing that there is a clear route to a waypoint (even if it is not intuitive for you (or Google maps)) would give you options for your general direction of travel. A kind of middle or meso planning tool or interface. Ideally, a thematic map based interface would also show areas which are usually at risk under certain weather conditions (bit of snow + steep hill = usually unpassable = red = avoid).
- The Map: The A3 Road Map flopping out of the door pocket is now a bit of an anachronism. But having the large paper based detail and the overview would have allowed deciphering and locating of the Scottish place names which Julie was relaying and a wider vista for journey planning*. OS Maps App would do the same thing, but it’s a size and interaction thing.
- Awareness: Driving in Scotland: driving in rural areas in general (how to use passing places (especially in summer)); driving on the A9; what to carry in snow; no go areas when there is snow (snow gates are the physical manifestation). There is some good information available on some of these items, but focussed campaigns and channels to get the message out, especially at times of a higher number of visitors, could be improved massively. Focussed campaigns for real engagement with well framed messages.**
The questions
And as I think back to Christmas and Storm Gerrit, what questions am I left with?***
- When and how do you make the decision to cancel the trip? Or to turn round? How can the triggers which fire this change of plan be surfaced and squeezed into more effective “do not travel” messaging? Surely a role for the rehearsal stage of “journey planning”?
- How could Julie and I have been better enabled? To be a real HQ? How do we get over the naming issue (Julie wasn’t making up mad Scottish town names)?
- How can the War Gaming of incidents include not only planners and traffic controllers but the public and communities?
So that was Christmas Past. Gerrit was since been joined by Henk, Isha and Jocelyn by the end of January. Kathleen will be next, but we are not sure when. Officially there is little evidence that climate change is affecting storms. As I type here listening to the windows rattle here in Rannoch I am not so sure. However, I am sure that in Christmas Future there will be people making decisions about travel when storms are brewing. Here’s to an informed Christmas Future…and lots of Christmas Presents.
Notes/credits:
*Reviews of Philip’s 2024 A3 Road Atlas on Amazon:
My Dad liked it, phew! I was running short of Christmas present ideas. He doesn’t really like apps, or That Woman in the sat-nav telling him where to go, so an old fashioned printed map to replace his old one went down well. They keep changing road lay-outs don’t they? Without asking Dad! Pah etc (Karen B)
Lovely to seize control back from the satnav. Very clear. (LM Fitzgerald)
**The naming of Storms has made us all engage in the weather: we had been discussing Storm Gerrit the night before. But advice “not to travel” doesn’t seem as…powerful. It seems a bit weak. Things may not look too bad outside the window, and the perceived need to travel can always exceed the disbenefit of not travelling. We’re all human and our brains put us at the centre of our worlds convincing us, and confirming, what we think. We will be fine.
***Some of this is being incorporated int our existing work and has been part of work we are undertaking with AECOM in the highways management area.
MUSIC CREDITS: Life of a Wandering Wizard by Serge Quadrado
Thanks: To Sam, Jenny and Julie