Good day my good friend.

Not much to say today. Its not you, its me. Doggie is feeling much better, but I’m tempted to get a pair of pliers and do my own DIY dentistry. And with that wonderful image in mind, lets get on with things, shall we?

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. Get your tickets now.

James

If you want to start thinking about and equitable future, then start with this paper

A big congratulations to Claire Linton, Natalie Gravett, Annesah Irshad, Daniel McCool, Susan Claris, and Rebecca Fuller for winning the best paper prize at TPM 2022, for their paper on Equitable Future Mobility. This paper doesn’t provide all the answers to the question of how to make the future more equitable (to be fair, I don’t think anyone has those answers yet), but it is an excellent starting point for you to start thinking about it.

The checklist for thinking about greater equity is very useful indeed, and there is loads of great detail in the report. For me, it also defines what the gaps are. Notably about how we define success in this whole field. For instance, showing how much work is needed to understand what is equitable transport from a gender or race lens and how we can translate that into something that we can measure. An extremely tricky question to answer, but the first step in answering questions is to ask them. And this report does an excellent job of this. Highly recommended.

The 1% are taking to the skies and it should worry us all

I try not to not to go all revolutionary in this newsletter, but this article (kindly pointed out to me by fellow Mobility Camp collaborator Liz Davidson) is making me want to spearhead the wonderful and glorious revolution. Simply put, not only is flying bad for the environment, but flying first class and by private jet is horrifically inefficient and polluting. But these stats right here will make your jaws drop to the floor:

A private jet uses as much fuel as 9 First Class passengers, 26 Business Class passengers, or 80 Economy Class passengers. Crossing the Atlantic in a private jet adds about 25 metric tons of carbon dioxide to the atmosphere. That’s 6 years of emissions from an average European household (each way)…This is why, overall, just one percent of the world’s population account for half of all emissions from aviation.

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.

• Every city needs a ‘chief heat officer’ (Experience Magazine)

• Revisiting Peak Inflation (The Big Picture)

• Union Boss Becomes U.K.’s Surprise Media Star (The Wall Street Journal)

• Scientists warn deal to save biodiversity is in jeopardy (Nature)

• Reuniting a Pilot and a Lost Drone Is Some Spy-Level Stuff (Atlas Obscura)

Something interesting

This video from the always-excellent Practical Engineering on the New York Blackout of 2003 goes to show how failure can quickly cascade through a system, and grind everything to a halt.

If you do nothing else today, then do this

Take some time for yourself. Go on. If you usually spend a few minutes do what I recommend here, then I recommend this: take some time to have a quick breather. Gather your thoughts. Relax, and refocus. Feeling better now? Good!