Good day my good friend.

I loved reading this article on the Elephant Express in Botswana. It is somehow a road safety improvement, a new public transport service, and nature conservation all in one. And it is dealing with a very real problem – how to effectively manage interactions between elephants and humans. It goes to show that a transport improvement can not only improve transport, but improve the world around it in strange and wonderful ways.

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 pedestrian demand scenarios as part of new developments

All credit to the Journal of Transport and Land Use. It has been bashing out some corking studies recently. And this one on pedestrian modelling scenarios for new developments makes you think: “Hang on, why on Earth are we not doing this already?” Ok, we are doing some degree of pedestrian modelling and understanding changes in pedestrian numbers due to new developments. But more strategic modelling of pedestrian flows over a city centre? That’s rare.

The study looks at Portland (where else?) and assesses the impacts of changes in land use on walking patterns in the city centre in four scenarios. In results that shock nobody, changes in job and population density will have a huge impact on where people walk to and from. The stupid thing is we know that because we have done large scale pedestrian modelling before. We just don’t apply it in the same way as a highways model. Maybe we should from now on, particularly if you are developing LCWIPs.

It’s not a good time to have a transport start-up right now

In case you have lived in a cave on Mars for the last 6 months, the economy is not doing well. And one area that is showing no chill at all is venture capital. Whereas raising funding used to be simple (though much harder than it looks – believe me), venture capital is getting jittery. And that is a big problem for transport start-ups seeking to raise funding on their road to profitability over the coming years.

Already transport is starting to feel the cold winds blow. Tier Mobility has had to halt expansion plans. Bird cut nearly a quarter of its workforce partly due to issues raising funding. Lyft too has shuttered many services and cut staff. Its not impossible, as Exponent Energy has shown recently, as well as Sensible 4. But venture capital funding is down across the board. So maybe, that could take a few of your beloved transport start-ups with it. It’s stormy waters ahead.

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.

• ‘Wrong side of history’ – Wake up to the hype around green hydrogen for heating (Recharge)

• Key rail and bus services to return to UK-ownership (Abellio)

• We are building a “species-level brain” with big data and ubiquitous sensors (Big Think)

• ‘So, We Raised Interest Rates’ (Heisenberg Report)

• Britain Is Rewriting the Rules of Social Collapse (Eudimonia and Co)

Something interesting

I’ve not got much time for people who are completely anti-LTN, but this example of a protest sign posted by Carla Casquette is nothing if not creative.

If you do nothing else today, then do this

Check out this article on the Bus and Train User Blog on the shortest bus route in the UK. Four minutes end-to-end with one intermediate stop. And the reasons why an existing route has not been extended are very British.