That’s a lot of letters.

Good day my good friend.

The British weather sure has a sense of humour. Just before the biggest climate change conference in years, Mother Nature decided to knock out one of the major railway lines heading into Scotland. Anyway, here are today’s links curated just for you.

James

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With transport tech, its not what you’ve got but its what you do with it that counts

How do you ensure that autonomous vehicles (AVs) and mobility as a service don’t lead to more trips, more emissions, and generally making the transport issues much worse? Plan, plan, plan, and some research from California has shown that, in the techno autopia of the world, cities really are lacking on this.

Serena Alexander et al researched Local Climate Action Plans (CAPs) to see their plans for AVs and their impacts. While this may reflect the fact that AVs are still an emerging tech, their policy recommendations are worth considering. They are:

1. Use CAPs as a tool to ensure equitable mobility in a driverless future.

2. Provide comprehensive GHG emissions reduction roadmaps for AVs and on-demand mobility to reinforce general plan mobility goals.

3. Encourage travelers to make a long-run shift to shared use of AVs and on-demand mobility.

4. Use a combination of transportation and land-use policies to prevent increasing sprawl due to deployment of AVs.

5. Stress the importance of energy efficiency and renewable energy in a driverless future.

6. Identify opportunities to link AVs and on-demand mobility to transit.

7. Incorporate planning tools that respond to the uncertainty related to deployment of AVs and extensive use of on-demand mobility technologies.

Want your logistics system to work during a pandemic? Use the subway.

Well, that is according to some analysis undertaken by Xu et al, who tested the theoretical performance of a potential logistics network under the city of Wuhan, China. Using the disruption caused by COVID-19 as their reference. Their Metro-based Underground Logistics System (M-ULS) was found to

…show that M-ULS is effective in improving the performance of city logistics and responding to the epidemic. The delivery time and transportation cost have a strong impact on the market share of M-ULS.

Using COVID-19 is a very niche use case for developing and delivering an underground logistic system. Ignoring the fact that we already have one such system (called ‘pipes’), and the fact that the authors have some previous in promoting this particular solution, what are the benefits? Avoiding traffic, 24/7 operation, consistent tempuratures (very good for maintenance), and deployment of electric propulsion are a few. But they have a very nasty habit of being very expensive and getting flooded.

Could the supply chain crisis mean that container ships become decarbonised?

That question has been pondered by Stavros Karamperidis of the University of Plymouth. The basic crux of the argument is this. Freight rates are currently sky-high as demand and supply is mismatched, and with decarbonisation being at the top of the agenda, then profits will be re-invested in new technologies to help decarbonise the sector.

My personal view is that this is an optimistic view, but like the mighty oil tanker, could shipping be slowly changing course? Most of the major shipping companies are committed to decarbonising. Liquified Natural Gas and other transition fuels are starting to be deployed, while strong economic and policy incentives are needed to deeply decarbonise. Baby steps, but steps all the same.

Random things

The usual randomness from the world of the Internet, just for you.

• Cancelled trains cause travel chaos ahead of COP26 summit (Financial Times)

• 30mph Wolverhampton ring road plan ‘another obstacle to people visiting’ (Express and Star)

• Mixed community reaction to transport plan (Stuff.co.nz)

• WHO kicks off a Decade of Action for Road Safety (World Health Organization)

• Congress is poised to fix the most annoying thing about buying an electric car (Grist)

Interesting things

I shared this on LinkedIn yesterday, but this goes to show that there are reasons to be cheerful about a low carbon future. Renewable energy is smashing industry expectations all the time. Thank you to Tom Chivers for sharing it.

If you do nothing else today, then do this

Read the UK Department for Transport’s Deepening the understanding of how to address induced travel on the strategic road network: options for improving the measurement of induced travel report. It’s insightful, techie, completely geeky, and I love it.