Ellie Harrison

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Poetics & Politics of Data

1 July 2015
Christoph Merian (Switzerland) (p.116-121) ISBN 978-3856166816

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Ellie Harrison is an artist & activist based in Glasgow (UK). In 2023 she won the Stephen Fry Public Engagement Award for her ‘Bus Regulation: The Musical’ Trilogy in Greater Manchester, Strathclyde & Merseyside (2019 – 2023).
In 2021 the Second Edition of Harrison’s book The Glasgow Effect: A Tale of Class, Capitalism & Carbon Footprint was launched at the UN Habitat’s Innovate4Cities conference to mark the COP26 climate summit in Glasgow. Her Early Warning Signs were also exhibited at Glasgow’s Mitchell Library during COP26 to celebrate the 10th anniversary of the project. Harrison’s Vending Machine continues to feature in the 😹 LMAO exhibition exploring humour in data visualisation at the Open Data Institute in London.

Want to know more about our ongoing fight for Better Buses for Strathclyde? 🚍✊ Then don't miss our public meeting Taking our buses back into public control: What's next for the campaign? this Weds 28 August, 6:30pm! Sign up here 👇 @followers ... See MoreSee Less

Taking our buses back into public control: What's next for the campaign?

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2 weeks ago

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@followers if you missed our Public Meeting on Weds, you can now watch the recording here 👇 m.youtube.com/watch?v=4dgehHrgtB8

Unlucky for some? Im pleased to announce The Artists Bonds best ever annual performance in its 13th Year 🥳 @followers

Unlucky for some? I'm pleased to announce The Artists' Bond's best ever annual performance in its 13th Year 🥳 @followers ... See MoreSee Less

1 month ago

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After 15 years campaigning with Bring Back British Rail, read my opinion piece for LBC reflecting on last week's historic announcement on rail renationalisation🚆🥳 @followers👇 ... See MoreSee Less

Great British Railways should be the start of a new era for our country’s transport network, which everyone can get behind

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2 months ago

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Ellie Harrison Louise Haigh and Labour say that they will reform the complex fares system to ensure that passengers are confident that they are getting the best fare; confidence that X is the case, and X being the case are not necessarily the same thing. Simplification of fares would have to include the abolition of many fares. The assertion that simplifying the fares structure would reduce travelling costs is based upon a false premise, that being that the complicated-ness of the fares-and-ticketing structure is the reason why fares are expensive, that is not why they are expensive. They are expensive because the base level is too high. If you massively simplify the fares, one might then always be certain of getting the best available fare because there are no obscure cheaper fare hidden away in a Byzantine monolith, but that best fare is likely the best of a bad bunch. Railway fares are complicated, but it is within this myriad complexity that the nuances which facilitate cheaper options lurk; if you take a sledgehammer to the behemoth you bring down the cheaper options which lurk within the behemoth. If there are presently 18 options for doing Thing X, with 15 of those ways being cheap, and 3 of those ways being expensive, if you abolish the 15 cheap options for doing thing X you have massively simplified the paying-to-do-Thing X process because having 3 ways is much simpler than having 18 ways, and you have made it such that one is highly unlikely to not notice the cheapest of the available fares, because one is more likely to notice something when it is one amongst 3 than if it is one amongst 18, but it is nevertheless the case that the person is selecting the cheapest of the 3 most expensive. (i) Being guaranteed to always get the best fare; and (ii). getting cheaper fares are not necessarily the same thing. Be mindful of the actual specific wording of things: both before and after coming into government, Labour has never in actually promised cheaper fares, what Labour has promised is that one will be guaranteed to get the best available fare. The general public, politicians and public-transport campaign organisations alike have been seduced by the word 'simplification'. Simplification is not a virtue in and of itself. Simplification is a neutral concept, neither a good thing nor a bad thing; what is pertinent and important is the nature of the simplification. One can simplify travelling costs upwards. Simplification can simplify out the cheaper options. I deliberately say 'travelling costs', not 'fares', because thinking only terms of fares when it comes to simplification of railway fares and ticketing, and when it comes to Single-Leg Pricing is a proverbial red herring, one should think both in terms of fares AND in terms of travelling costs. Fare decreases do not necessarily mean travelling-cost. LNER is a prime example: with the June of 2023 introduction of Single-Leg Pricing on LNER, and the February of 2024 introduced of the Simpler Fares pilot, travelling costs for using LNER have gone up. Two halved-in-price Singles are more expensive than one Day Return; a fare reduction, but a travelling-cost increase. The changes December of 2023 fares-and-ticketing changes on c2c have many of the same fare-decreases-but-travelling-cost increases as LNER, plus its pay-as-you-go tap-in-tap-out integration with Transport for London (to simplify things) has necessitated the introduction of a weekday early-evening peak period between 4.00 p.m. and 7.00 p.m., which has numerous knock-on effects which can hugely increase one's travelling costs. The answer is not reform of the fares-and-ticketing structure. The answer is not simplification of the fares-and-ticketing structure. The answer is to decrease the price of all existing fares. Do not abolish any existing fares. Do not introduce any new types of fare. Just make all existing fares 45% cheaper, and leave it at that.

As the idiom goes: 'Be careful what you wish for, because it might come true'. Reform will only be good if it is good reform. We don't need reform, we need good reform. Some might fear that prices would inevitably be rationalised upwards. Inevitably, the rationalisation would rationalise out the cheaper options. Some might fear that reform of the fares-and-ticketing structure would, inevitably, reform travelling costs upwards, and reform out the cheaper options. Some might fear that simplification of the fares-and-ticketing structure would, inevitably, simplify travelling costs upwards, and simplify out the cheaper options. Just take a look at LNER. Be careful what you wish for, because it might come true.

Almost 15 years ago exactly I set-up Bring Back British Rail to campaign for a re-unified national rail network run for people not profit 🚆 Todays #KingsSpeech finally announces legislation to make this a reality as #GreatBritishRailways 👏 What a historic day! @followers

Almost 15 years ago exactly I set-up Bring Back British Rail to campaign for a re-unified national rail network run for people not profit 🚆 Today's #KingsSpeech finally announces legislation to make this a reality as #GreatBritishRailways 👏 What a historic day! @followers ... See MoreSee Less

2 months ago

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Nice one - Ealing is proud of you 🙂

Fantastic well done Ellie Harrison

Congratulations Ellie! You are a great campaigner x

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One year ago today! 🪩🛼 The last ever 'Bus Regulation: The Musical' was staged at The Black-E Liverpool in collaboration with Better Buses for Merseyside 🚍 Starring skaters from Liverpool Roller Birds & Wirral Roller Derby the Musical tells the history of public transport on Merseyside & helped pave the way for Steve Rotheram's historic decision to take the region's buses back into public control 👏 @followers watch the full show here 👇 ... See MoreSee Less

2 months ago

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Loved this experience 😍 so glad it made an impact!

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