Good day my good friend.
I love the BBC for a lot of reasons, and one of them is their willingness to go where other publishers and broadcasters not dare tread. And this BBC Sounds podcast called Access All and its episode of the impact of rising fuel costs on social care is a great example of that. Its really worth a listen.
If you have any suggestions for interesting news items or bits of research to include in this newsletter, you can email me.
James
Achieving zero emission vehicle sales
Just ban all car sales and count bike sales instead? Ok, before I kick start some sort of debate on that, it is well known that many countries are going to ban the sale of fossil fuel powered cars in the future. Here in the UK, the ban will come in place by 2030, and not a moment too soon in my view. But the date is one thing. Underneath it, a complex web of policy and regulation needs to be woven to guide (or force) industry to achieve it. Or you might start to lose some of them.
The lazy argument is to simply point at Norway and say “do that.” But as crazy as it sounds, most countries aren’t Norway. That is where this paper comes in, by analysing different policy pathways to achieving these ambitious targets. In summary, the mandate itself should be enough in many cases, though vehicle standards and economic incentives are good for helping towards this goal. In this case, they use Canada, who could achieve a lot by not copying much of US automotive policy.
Decide and Provide is finally getting tested
On 20th September, something interesting happened in County Hall, Oxford. Oxfordshire County Council decided to make decide and provide how it plans for transport in the County. This was not just about changing their Local Transport Plan, by the way – that was adopted earlier in the year. This focussed on parking and planning for new developments (Items 11 and 12 of this agenda), whereby the outcomes are to be determined beforehand – in a way consistent with climate goals – rather than seeing what the model says.
Decide and Provide has been talked about for many years. The TRICS Consortium (quick explainer, TRICS is a software that many planners in the UK use to estimate the impacts of new developments) even gave guidance on how to do it. But finally it is getting a field test. And its about time too. Far too much time is spent talking about policy approaches, and too little is spent actually testing them. I await the results of Oxfordshire’s experiment with great interest.
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.
The Geopolitics of Stuff (Phenomenal World)
The Case for Energy Optimism (Syncretica)
Is breaking things the best way forward for climate activists? (Open Democracy)
Is the UK About to Hit the Wall? (Naked Capitalism)
FedEx abandons its last-mile delivery robot program (Ars Technica)
Something interesting
This Twitter thread by Mark Smith (aka The Man in Seat 61) goes to show what good rail services can achieve. On the London to Edinburgh route in the UK, rail has gone from minor player to beating internal flights quite badly. And that is good.
If you do nothing else today, then do this.
You really need to listen to this podcast with Tim Steiner, the founder of online food retailer Ocado. Ocado are one of the few companies who are doing autonomous systems well (if you ignore the fire). And so his thoughts on autonomy and successful business are always worth listening to.
Mobility Matters 