Good day my good friend.

Hmmm…really, Captcha. Really?

If you have any suggestions for interesting news items or bits of research to include in this newsletter, you can email me.

James

Growing up in a city means you can’t navigate for love nor money

Ok, slight exaggeration on behalf of the country person here. But some interesting research using an app-based video game tested people’s navigation skills, and came to an interesting conclusion:

We revealed that, on average, people who grew up outside cities were better navigators than people who grew up in them. This applied whether they were from a rural environment or a suburb.

The researchers themselves cannot explain this phenomenon based on their research. They posit a number of explanations, notably the grid pattern of cities that they tested in their research, and found that there was some link between how griddy city patterns were and ease of navigation. Though not one causal link was established. But, dare I say that us rural folks can just read the landscape better?

Poor understanding of the innovation process, and spotty funding, really harms our ability to innovate

In my time in the Transport Systems Catapult, one thing I hated more than anything was the UK’s approach to innovation. At best it was piecemeal and patchy, with no coherence to it. While funding sources map well across technology readiness levels on a Powerpoint slide, it often fails for a simple reason. It does not understand the motivation for innovation. As a participant in a project I did on the future of the sea stated:

There are two reasons why companies innovate: to solve a problem or to make money. Governments should either set problems, offer to buy the end solution, or just fund development of new ideas all the way from idea to solution.

This came to my mind when reviewing the outcomes of the First Of A Kind funding rounds from the rail innovation programme. Particularly the finding that puts it quite blunty. Believe me, the report is worth a read.

The FOAK process is often leaving projects at a point whereby there is no natural process for them to reach market, with additional time and funding normally required.

People with limited mobility plan their trips by taxi in a vastly different way, and what’s important is different to them as well

The Department for Transport published a really interesting study recently of wheelchair accessible travel on taxis and private hire services. What was really interesting to me was simply how much participants in the research study preferred using taxis. As in they overwhelming preferred using them compared to other modes of transport, especially where they were wheelchair accessible.

What also struck out at me was how different mobility needs lead to a different perception of value for money. This paragraph in the summary puts this point across perfectly:

In the best cases, drivers provided their customers with one-to-one support, including helping them up the ramp, anchoring the wheelchair to the floor, and securing the seatbelt for the customer. Although participants looked for affordable rides, there was acknowledgement that travelling by wheelchair accessible taxis and wheelchair accessible private hire vehicles was a different, more comprehensive service than regular taxis.

Random things

These links are meant to make you think about the things that affect our world in transport, and not just think about transport itself. I hope that you enjoy them.

• Ever Forward ship still stuck in Chesapeake Bay after three weeks (The Guardian)

• Light pollution: Environmental impact, health risks and facts (LiveScience)

• “You can’t be a CEO without a carbon agenda”: Santiago Gowland (New Statesman)

• Porsche hits the gas on synthetic fuel with $75M investment (TechCrunch)

• Global Supply Chain Risk and Resilience (Naked Capitalism)

Something interesting

Translation: firefighters and cycle paths.

If you do nothing else today then do this

Good friend Brendan Hill pointed towards this research that shows that personal transport emissions could be halved without reducing miles driven, using only vehicles currently on the market and ignoring any potential technological or efficiency improvements, solely by reducing the size and weight of vehicles used.