Good day my good friend.

No funny business today, either. Let’s get straight to it.

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

James

Mathemeticians have solved traffic, apparently

Anyone who claims to have solved traffic needs to be treated with the skepticism that it deserves. Especially when its associated with selling a new book. But, being open to new approaches, its worthwhile checking out the application of new branches of mathematics to the traffic assignment problem.

I will be nice to them. What is proposed is an interesting way of dealing with the issue of traffic assignment using new models of flow optimisation. Plus the use of digital twins helps us to approach issues of traffic assignment differently. It is completely useless as a way of solving traffic as it fundamentally ignores what streets actually are. Namely not just traffic corridors, but the primary public spaces of our towns and cities.

The economics of automated vehicles is not about time savings

Here is a question for you. Why do you think Google start investing billions into driverless cars? Do you think that after dominating the Internet, Larry Page and Sergey Brin decided that they really wanted to own a taxi company? Of course not. Running such a company is a byproduct of where the value really lies. And this value is perfectly articulated in this paper on the economic implications of autonomous vehicles.

Its a useful contribution, because not only does it articulate where the economic value lies (and therefore the revenue streams to be exploited), but it helps you understand how these technologies are being thought about. Driverless cars are an economic opportunity with transport implications, not a transport solution.

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.

• It’s time to accept AI will never think like a human – and that’s okay (Science Focus)

• The scandal of ‘ghost flights’: are empty planes haunting our skies? (National Geographic)

• Mine e-waste, not the Earth, say scientists (BBC)

• Dirty liberal pipe-dream: 3 myths about electric cars (France24)

• There’s a Real, Live Plan to End Poverty in California (Capital & Main)

Something interesting

A very good explainers of how we are still living with the effects of lockdown on the shipping industry nearly 2 years later.

If you do nothing else today, then do this

Thanks to Glenn Lyons for this link. Its a great paper to read on the role of world views on the governance of sustainable mobility.