Good day my good friend.

Needless to say that the intervention of a certain transport minister on how cyclists should have licence plates and be insured went down about as well as a bucket of cold sick. It’s almost as if they were trying to cover for something. Sorry to be so political, but this sort of thing makes me angry. If you can only govern by stoking division against vulnerable groups, you should not govern.

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. Sponsorship slots are also available.

James

Modelling autonomous vehicle systems is complex and strangely interesting

Just yesterday I was reading this research article on optimising autonomous bus fleets to reduce costs, bearing in mind levels of crowding and desired travel times. To summarise the results, with autonomous technology it is easier to deploy at optimal frequencies when it gets crowded. That’s slightly simplifying the results, but its the basic jist of it. But it lead me to think: autonomous technology is being modelled and actively considered in modelling work. And much of it is good.

There has been much work in modelling the adoption rate of autonomous vehicles given consumer characteristics. The ability of autonomous vehicles to maintain their paths and the impacts on traffic flow has also been extensively modelled, as has management and slot allocation at junctions. The application of autonomous vehicles to strategic modelling is comparatively less develop, and some interesting research has been started on the interface with land uses, while emissions modelling is only just starting.

Digital twins: good potential, but limited ability to act

This research article on the application of Digital Twins in cities is very, very good. For those of you unfamiliar with the concept, a Digital Twin is a virtual representation of a physical thing in 3 dimensions. Such as a building. It promises a whole host of benefits, including being able to test changes without disrupting the real world use of the building, and rapidly innovate in deploying new materials. But this research article goes into the actual practice, and unlike the hype its damning.

Simply put, digital twin deployment is piecemeal, isolated, and highly constrained by the capabilities of existing technological systems of potential clients. I mean, many local council’s IT barely runs Teams, let alone a Digital Twin. But a critical missing element? Digital Twins don’t share data and standards, so a standardised method that will spur rapid adoption is missing. Sounds just like any emerging technology to me.

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.

• Influential oil company scenarios for combating climate change don’t actually meet the Paris Agreement goals, our new analysis shows (The Conversation)

• Human Augmentation – The Dawn of a New Paradigm (UK Ministry of Defence and the German Bundeswehr Office for Defence Planning)

• Shipping’s Decarbonization: A Real Prisoner’s Dilemma (Hellenic Shipping News)

• Socialism with Chinese characteristics for the young person (Global Inequality and More 3.0)

• I Loved Bike Touring—Until I Got Paid to Do It (Outside)

Something interesting

Paris is doing some good stuff on walking and cycling. Check out this video of the success of their pedestrian plazas.

If you do nothing else today, then do this

This report by the Asian Development Bank on Blue Economy and Blue Finance: Toward Sustainable Development and Ocean Governance is a strangely interesting read. And it again shows the importance of shipping and our coasts to our way of life.