Good day my good friend.

No time to chit-chat. Lets get straight into things.

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

You should also join a lot of like-minded people at Mobility Camp in Bristol in September. Tickets are on sale now.

James

Can e-scooters reduce transport carbon emissions?

Sadly, we don’t quite know yet. Or at least the data so far is inconclusive. But this study points to the potential to reduce short car trips by transferring them to e-scooter. But while these results are interesting (if a little simplistic in their assumptions), the study reveals that if e-scooters replaced short car trips by electric car, emissions would actually increase. For reasons completely unknown to me!

Our analysis shows that 13% of the daily car trips, corresponding to 2% of the car kilometers in Germany, are suitable for replacement. Based on these results, we show that saving potentials of greenhouse gas emissions are heavily dependent on the general conditions of the specific use case (e.g. e-scooter lifetime) and the type of vehicle replaced.

Racism appears to be an active travel issue

This study is both interesting and depressing. What the authors essentially conclude is that during the COVID-19 pandemic there was an increase in anti-Asian racism in Melbourne, Australia, and that this seems to have had a measurable effect on people’s propensity to talk. No words, really.

The results suggest that Asians experienced a significantly higher level of discrimination than other racial groups and were less likely to increase walking than White people. We also found that neighborhood cohesion helped alleviate perceived discrimination and promote walking.

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.

• On probabilism and statistics (Lars P Syll)

• Hacked satellite systems are closer to reality now than one might think (The Straits Times)

• How refugees leading city walking tours helps increase their sense of belonging (The Conversation)

• Why Rural Americans Keep Waiting for Fast Internet, Despite Billions Spent (The Wall Street Journal)

• It’s Hard to Do Climate Research When Your Glacier Is Melting (Wired)

Something interesting

This video is essentially: why the military can make simple transport things more difficult.

If you do nothing else today, then do this

The Department for Transport has published a new Future of Freight Plan. You should go read it.