Good day, my good friend.
When you are in a rush, you make mistakes. Thank you to those of you who pointed out the snafu in yesterday’s newsletter. This has been fixed. I can’t say it won’t happen again, but I will certainly do my best to make sure that it doesn’t.
Oh, and just a reminder. As its a public holiday weekend, the next daily newsletter will be on Tuesday. For you lovely paid subscribers, you will get your usual weekly post at 7pm on Easter Sunday.
If you have any suggestions for interesting news items or bits of research to include in this newsletter, you can email me.
James
The ‘one-stop-shop’ approach to MaaS – is it inevitable?
Thank you to good friend Hayden Sutherland for pointing this article out to me. Uber is now looking to offer rail, flight, and hotel bookings through a one-stop-shop approach. It gave me pause for thought about the nature of the Mobility as a Service market, and ask a fundamental question related to something we also covered the other day: is the one-size-fits-all approach the best one?
The free market advocate in me says this: break down the barriers to innovation, open data up, let everyone compete equally, and the market will choose the optimal solution. However, this needs to be supported by providing a basic level of service to serve everyone, so that everyone can benefit from access to good, clean, safe transport. Whilst being nudged to do the right thing. Simple, eh?
Want to decarbonise? There is a toolkit for that
Having a vastly centralised transport system in the UK means that you have to wait on the Department for Transport to do anything. And so it has come to pass for the Transport Decarbonisation Plan, where the DfT have put together a local authority toolkit.
I’m going to be nice here. It’s a well-intentioned mixed bag. Some, like the car club one, are very good and give excellent detailed guidance. Meanwhile, the rural one seems to have been written by someone who has been taught about the countryside as a high-level concept. I hope that this is a start, and that the DfT are seeking feedback because this could be very useful. Right now? Its yet another toolkit.
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.
The Invention of ‘Jaywalking’ (Marker)
The Last Cell Tower in Mariupol (Wired)
The Promise of the 15-minute City (Politico)
Ups and Downs – Rural Tourism After Two Years into the Pandemic (The Daily Yonder)
Something interesting
I knew there was a reason why I still love old Auntie.
If you do nothing else today, then do this
Check out the Provincial Roads Improvement Project in Cambodia. Because sometimes building roads is a good thing.
Mobility Matters 