Plus the supermarket wars, visualised
Good day my good friend.
Just a couple of things today. But they are good things, so I hope that you like them.
James
Thank you for being a paid subscriber. Remember to check out this week’s in-depth article on how low carbon transport is bad at the politics game.
The used car market is the indicator that a vehicle has become established. And electric vehicles are making inroads.
In the USA, an estimated half a million used electric vehicles have been sold in 2021. Not that impressive, especially in a market where in 2020, 39 million used cars were sold. But that market has arisen from essentially nothing in 2013, and under 250,000 in 2018. This is showing signs that electric vehicles are breaking through into the mainstream market, and sometimes at significant discounts.
The used car market cannot be underestimated. In the USA, it is over twice the size of the new car sales market, and the picture is similar in the UK. So this raises a question. Is it equitable to introduce a discount or tax break for used electric vehicles? A tricky discussion, that gets to the heart of equity debates on electric vehicles themselves.
Digital accessibility is not just about the broadband connection
If you are a fan of triple access planning, then you will want to check out this paper by Federico Cavallaro and Alberto Dianin on combining transport and digital accessibility to assess access to work. Simply, the indicator that they developed includes digital accessibility as part of a wider assessment of the accessibility of work. Their findings are really interesting:
Work accessibility via ICTs still plays a minor role compared to the physical one, due to the only partial development of digital infrastructures and opportunities of remote work. Second, [the indicator] provides the most varied results compared to a traditional indicator in the remote municipalities, according to their degree of digital-infrastructural coverage and physical isolation.
In other words, transport accessibility still seems to be more important, and ICT accessibility varies wildly. This doesn’t just reflect the actual ICT infrastructure where there is wild variability in broadband speeds in rural areas, in my view. Because when you consider variances in digital skills and capabilities, accessibility takes on a whole new dimension. This should be borne in mind when triple access planning.
Random things
Random. Internets. You know what to do.
Ajman’s self-driving shuttle bus hits the road (National News UAE)
Would You Manage 70 Children And A 15-Ton Vehicle For $18 An Hour? (FiveThirtyEight)
French minister: We won’t push EU short-haul flight ban (Politico)
Financing EV Infrastructure in the UK (The National Law Review)
Interesting things
A tweet for the English in the audience. I live in a Tesco town, but the colours say Co-op is dominant where there are no specific preferences. So, where are you?
If you do nothing else today, do this…
Read this Centre for Cities post on everything you need to know about Levelling Up.
Mobility Matters 