In short: the money is in the tech, its hard to put EV charging points in street lamps, and cyclists don’t want to wear detection technology

Good day my good friend.

Whilst the virus still looms large in the background, today was the opportunity to say hello again to old friends. Anna, Pawel, Kit, and Laura – it was a pleasure! Anyhow, enough of my social life. Here are today’s links just for you.

James

Thank you for being a paid subscriber. Remember to check out this week’s in-depth article on the most carbon-intensive transport modes.

Repeat after me: when it comes to technology, the money is not made in carrying people. It is made in the technology.

This is something that I often struggle to get through to transport people. Tech companies don’t want to make money from carrying people around. It’s almost impossible to make any good money doing that (being a capital-intensive industry and all). Where the money can be found is in the tech, as Via raising $130m in funding shows.

The revenues they are generating from their TransitTech is outpacing the revenue generated by carrying riders. We’ve seen similar in logistics where startup funding is going towards brokers and new companies with a great core tech, not to those delivering the most. Its the same with connected and driverless cars. So if you are thinking about doing a tech demonstrator to help businesses, don’t ask how much money you can generate through passengers – ask how you can make the tech more valuable.

Why can’t we just put electric vehicle charging points in street lamps?

This CityFix article makes an excellent case for why, when we are rolling out EV charging points, we should use street lamps and utilities. Interestingly, it goes for the equity angle because of…reasons I guess. It also states that it is a lower cost compared to a full sized charger on the street.

There is a very good reason why you cannot just put in an electric vehicle charging point into street lights: the electricity that you can get from the light. While there has been a roll out of street light charging points, these are typically slow charging points, that need a special cable to plug into the light itself. Because there is a dual use involved, you have to be super careful with the electricity connection. The tech is there, but its not quite commercially viable, yet. Unless you fancy spending £200 on a charging cable?

Should cyclists be responsible for making sure autonomous vehicles see them? A debate led by philosophy and not evidence

A study by Berge et al risks kicking the hornets nest of cycling social media by investigating whether people are happy for cyclists to wear human-machine interface devices (basically a detection advice) so that autonomous cars can recognise them. Whilst my short answer to this question is “no” (the long answer is nooooooooooooooo), their interview study revealed interesting nuances in attitudes.

For instance, people indicated that they may be willing to change their minds as they ultimately become more experienced with AVs. There is also an assumption that AVs will act exactly like humans, and the value of an HMI tech could be very much improved by integrating with other technologies like navigation. I say it again, look for the nuances.

Random things

The internet is full of them. So is this email.

• How uncertainty can impair our ability to make rational decisions – new research (The Conversation)

• BP plans green hydrogen hub for Teesside (ENDS Report)

• The Rising Tide of Semiconductor Cost (Fabricated Knowledge)

• Counting steps: Measuring the effects of WalkArlington’s 8-Week Walking Challenge on participants’ choice and attitudes for walking (Mobility Lab)

• Lloyd’s of London suggests insurers should not cover ‘retaliatory cyber operations’ between nation states (The Register)

Interesting things

This is brilliant. This is essentially European culture in a map. I love it.

If you do nothing else today, then do this…

If you didn’t know already, I will be chairing a panel on at the ZC3 Conference next Thursday. You should sign up and tune in. We are going to have lots of fun talking about collaboration between the public and private sectors with my friends Jo Ward, Dawn Badminton-Capps, and Jamie McIlory.