CHI by rail?
by Adrian Friday, Prof. of Computing and Sustainability, Lancaster University, UK
As CHI 2023 approaches, and it’s in Europe, I am hoping to attend in person. Attending a conference has a nuance for me these days that only a handful of years ago, it did not. I think about the climate crisis [5] and the impacts of my travel — among other things. I wonder if I can justify the environmental impact, for what gain — seeing some friends, making new ones, the serendipitous interactions I value, the workshops, the demos, and probably a little focused time listening to some papers. Of course, travel can be enriching in other ways, seeing another place, culture, people; which is not to say that the actual travel itself is always entirely pleasurable.
I work on sustainability, this is probably not a surprise from what I’ve just written, and like most if not all the people I know who work in this area, this is not just research; it’s something deeper that pervades our lives and our thinking. Not least because the very real impacts of climate change are already devastating parts of the world (not admittedly where I live much yet, but even the Global North is feeling effects through supply chain shortages and increasingly extreme weather events). We want to do something, we want HCI to do something, we want to bring all the agency we can to doing something meaningful.
So, I’ll probably go if I can, and it’s ok with my family. I could attend virtually, and if the venue were say, in the middle of the Pacific, that’s what I would likely choose — I no longer justify the high altitude emissions of flying on the grounds that the research I conduct will offset this — many academics I know are now setting themselves strict limits on number or frequency of flights, adopting personal carbon budgets, or not flying at all [11,12,13]. But it’s in Europe — as am I — so I can get there in many and varied ways. Hamburg is well connected by road, rail, air and sea [14]; so there are actually many options from UK (and from the North West of England, where I’m based).
Could I not just offset my flight you might ask? Well I could, I’d have to pay for it personally, it’s not an ‘eligible cost’ of my institution nor my research funder, but certainly I’ve done this in the past. Even if you find a good, ‘gold rated’ scheme you can trust for this [1], this could help remove emissions in the future and support climate projects, but will it be at least equivalent? and what about the time for that to have effect given the urgent need for action now? Surely it’s more effective and safer not to emit in the first place? Otherwise, won’t business as usual and the pollution, emissions, fossil fuel dependence just continue? The way I see it, it’s like a big loan (think mortgage): the more you borrow, the more you’ll have to pay off in interest, so the more you’ll pay in the long run (neglecting that this metaphor doesn’t capture runaway effects and tipping points!). Keeping the CO2 lower now, is the smart choice.
How do I make this decision? There are lots of simplifying assumptions, like how many people are sharing the footprint of the train, plane or car, but broadly even high speed rail journeys are roughly 20x less in CO2 terms than flying. This is especially the case where rail routes are electrified, and the energy mix to generate the power is not reliant on fossil fuels. A car might be an option, especially if you share, the emissions per km are also dependent on how the car is powered, how many share it and so on; but this will likely to take longer — and probably not be as comfortable over long distances, at least for the cars I can afford to hire! Plus someone, (me?) will need to drive, so they at least will lose productive time.
So what will my journey look like? Well, I’m writing this from the Eurostar train from Paris to London on my way back from Germany [7], and I went via Hamburg by rail last year, so I feel well placed to comment! The journey has multiple legs. First, I need to get to London. This takes just 2.5 hours on the West Coast main line. Short walk down Euston road and I’m at St. Pancras. Eurostar to Brussels is really quick (and really picks up speed impressively > 290kph(!) across France). Brussels to Colne. Colne to Hamburg. This is achievable in one day, if it all works out.
I don’t want to paint too romantic a picture. There are pros and cons to traveling this way. It usually takes longer. My largely outsourced University travel service prefer not to help me navigate this complexity. It can be more expensive, especially if you have to overnight somewhere. There’s some stress if you have a tight connection or something is running late. I can only imagine how hard this would be if I had accessibility needs, or was trying to marshal a family and luggage on my own.
But, there are upsides too. Wandering casually onto a train is nothing like being funnelled through an airport. I have room to work. I can usually integrate stopping for some food and drink. Sorry airlines, the food is usually better, especially if you go outside the stations. Plan this well and you can have some excellent experiences in the places where you have changes [8]. There’s usually at seat power; space, often free WiFi (of sorts!). There’s often a great and stimulating view. And sometimes you get talking to interesting people, and are more immersed in the countries and languages of the lands you pass through. Railway stations are normally in the heart of a city too, rather than at some remote airport, so when you do arrive, you’re there.
In contrast, as a new friend from Dagstuhl reminded me, making a similar journey from Germany to UK in part via air, was much faster (4.5 hours), but possibly had only an hour of potentially useful time to work. The usual security queuing and boarding on/off the flight, baggage handling, customs, then no working during taxi, takeoff and landing, cramped seating arrangements with little elbow room, etc.
So, if you’re coming to CHI in person. How could you maximise the value from your trip to reduce the number of flights this year or get more value personally, professionally from this? Could ground transit or public transport replace one or more flights?
This is the path less travelled, so the first time is harder. Top tips? Check out ‘seat 61’ [3] which is the guru for getting around the world by rail. There are lots of good portals for buying tickets [2,14]. I’m now a pretty big fan of the Interrail app, if this is open to you. This gives you flexibility over route and travel days. You then add journeys dynamically to your ticket on the app and it’ll account for generating the ticket and counting how many days you have left. You’ll need to reserve the non-regional legs such as Eurostar, sleepers, high speed services such as TGV, etc. but the app tells you that. The usability of the app is pretty good once you get used to adding trains to a trip and from the trip to the e-ticket. Most of the supplements can be picked up in one hit via the Interrail web site. If you’ve got the time not to take the fast trains and use regional ones instead, then less reservations means less pressure to make specific connections. Route finders [10] are great at helping you work out the end-to-end connections, but pay particular attention to ‘short changes’ between platforms, this can be a source of stress if there are delays. Better, allow for more leisurely changes if you can, then you can grab some food and drink at meal times [8]. I now consider whether to take a sleeper train or break the journey if it’s a long one and the end-to-end journey looks too unlikely to work out. My advice is take some snacks and water with you too. Take a battery pack, if your phone goes flat, it’s all electronic!
One thing I learnt the hard way: it’s much easier to download the transit app for Hamburg (which is excellent) before you arrive. You can use it to generate transit tickets for the trams and buses, and in Germany this is all integrated ticketing. I now try to do this ahead for wherever I’m going. Much easier than working out the local system when you get there! Plus a new lesson from today, sometimes it’s better to buy the ticket while you have good network connectivity, to avoid later disappointment!
Finally, some trains require advance booking or have limited numbers of Interrail places, so it’s worth looking at how many are available if you like to leave things until the last minute! (who, me?)
Anyway, dinner eaten, and blog post draft ready as I’m approaching London. As I’ve written before [4], carbon intensive practices are writ large across society, but this needs to change [9]. There is no planet B [6]! I hope you’ll be part of the conversation on how to reduce the environmental footprint of what we’re doing as a community to address climate change. But for now, please think about how you’ll get to CHI, and if you’re able, consider taking a lower impact route for at least part of your journey. We can share our travel adventure stories!
Links
1. https://www.atmosfair.de
2. https://interrail.eu
3. https://www.seat61.com/european-train-travel.htm
4. https://medium.com/sigchi/the-academic-machine-flying-again-8dcdf1f333d
5. https://www.ipcc.ch/2022/04/04/ipcc-ar6-wgiii-pressrelease/
6. https://dl.acm.org/doi/fullHtml/10.1145/3503916
7. https://www.dagstuhl.de/en/seminars/seminar-calendar/seminar-details/23092
8. https://www.happycow.net
9. https://www.scientificamerican.com/article/economics-in-a-full-world/
10. https://maps.google.com
11. https://tyndall.ac.uk/about/travel-strategy/
12. https://doi.org/10.1145/3401335.3401582
13. https://link.springer.com/chapter/10.1007/978-981-16-4911-0_7
14. https://www.bahn.de
