With the usual randomness thrown in

Good day my good friend.

Take a wild guess where my local petrol station is. Here are today’s links curated especially for you.

James

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Ford is pushing electrification in a big way

Both the New York Times1 and TechCrunch posted stories about the details that Ford have released about how they are going to change their operations to really ramp up electric vehicle production. In short, it is building two new campuses to focus on developing electric batteries for its vehicles, and on producing a new electric truck. Additionally, 4 existing assembly plants are being repurposed to make electric vehicles.

This isn’t a small investment – $11.4 billion. As I have previously mentioned, there is an interesting dynamic at play in automotive. While electrification has a strong start, hydrogen is being backed by some major players particularly in the Far East. The UK Government seems to be backing both horses. Electric motors have a strong lead, but hydrogen could make up the distance quickly.

The UK bus industry is in dire straits, and nobody is talking about it

The UK’s National Bus Strategy talks a big game about investing in buses, and has sent local authorities into a mad rush to finalise their Bus Service Improvement Plans. But it may be too little, too late, as the industry that has been on life-support struggles to overcome the impacts of COVID.

Stagecoach have been in the news recently. Not may they be taken over by National Express, with substantial cost savings resulting from it, but its also encouraging government to be bolder in its plans. Underneath that, there is real trouble. Passengers are still way down compared to pre-pandemic levels in an industry that was barely profitable in the best of times. There is also discussion that the new COVID-19 Restart support grant is covering barely a third of operators costs. I would estimate that if this continues, we will soon be seeing some very large public transport companies going to the wall.

The factors that influence the seperation between home and work are changing over time

This interesting research article2 about long terms changes in Beijing shows that as cities change over time, the influence of different factors and how they seperate home from work also changes. In the words of the abstract:

We found that the relationships between the influencing factors and residential home-work separation changed substantially from 2007 to 2017, indicating dramatic urban transformations in Chinese cities. Specifically, the effects of the built environment measured by population density and jobs-to-housing ratio became stronger, reflecting the rapid urban expansion and suburbanization of Chinese cities.

Repeat after me: Transport is a derived demand.

Random things

Here are some random links that you may find interesting:

• Delhi Masterplan 2041: Are we missing the bus in transport systems? (Scroll.in)

• A social guarantee (New Economics Foundation)

• Watch a raven take out a Google drone (Yahoo! News)

• The Myth of Green Capitalism (Project Syndicate)

• Completion of the Rail Baltic Project to be delayed until the end of the decade (The Baltic Times)

Something interesting

The International Transport Forum monitors weekly the percentage of countries that mention transport, monitor it, and set targets in their Nationally-Determined Contributions to the Paris Agreement. Well, its good that most recognise the problem…

If you do nothing else today, do this…

Ever the question about how road schemes take so long? Practical Engineering has the answer for you.