Good day my good friend.

As I write this, I am on a late evening train leaving London. With fellow passengers discussing long lost loves, the history of their family, and last night’s League Cup Semi Final. And this is why I love using public transport. The opportunity to get a window into the lives of others just by sitting in a train carriage.

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

James

Giving transport planners space to think

Transport planners are under the cosh at the moment. Extremely short deadlines and a vastly changing policy environment means that there is no lack of things to do – nor lack of available work for those of us in consultancy.

But this busy-ness means one thing: lacking time to simply take stock and think. Think about where the industry is going, think about priorities, think about what is going on in the world. I am thankful that I get to write this newsletter for you, as it forces me to think about other things, and forces me to make time to think.

Many transport authorities are reviewing their transport strategies, and as part of a scenario planning workshop today with East Sussex County Council, I got to see the value of this. Not in terms of providing an updated strategy, but in terms of through engaging with people. giving them the opportunity to think about what the future can hold for transport and their jobs. More automation? Where will MaaS be in 5 years? What about climate change? A world of difference to worrying about parking spaces and cycle tracks.

Some benefit from this more than others. Those in policy teams should think about these things more than those in delivery teams (its their responsibility to strategise). But even a short time to think about what the future could hold is a good thing. And not just because it results in a greater amount of knowledge.

What needs to change to make automated vehicles a thing?

In order to pave the way for mass motorisation, road building was necessary (thanks to the cyclists). After all, you cannot drive a car without the road to drive it on. Well you can, it would just be uncomfortable. So what is needed to make driverless cars a reality? There have been some initial thought peices into this. With views ranging from remodelling cities to relying on the tech to determine what is a really faded white line or not. But there has been little on the views of professionals.

Until now. This research article by the University of Leeds asks just this question. So what do the great and the good think? There is little by way of consensus, actually. They agreed it was important, just not what was the most important. And who should be responsible for when it goes wrong. In my view, this is a case of professionals waiting to see what the technology can do, as opposed to not having a strong view one way or another.

What can be done to get citizens to act as environmental actors

In recent weeks, my town has been on a bit of a tree planting binge. But giving away lots of nice trees is the easy bit. How can you encourage people to become advocates for environmental causes? Its hard to do, no matter where or who you are. But citizen advocates are essential elements of change, and so getting more of them (and empowering those that do) is of critical importance to shifting to a low carbon future. I know this from bitter personal experience.

This study of tree-planting came onto something that I think is useful for how we do our work. Meaningful advocacy comes from solid pre-existing relationships that support it. And if they don’t exist, they need to be established in order to maintain momentum. This has lessons for meaningful engagement as part of transport schemes. Build on existing relationships, as establishing new ones is always more challenging.

Graph of the Week

Here’s some good news. Commercial flights are struggling to recover from the pandemic. That’s good news for the environment.

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.

• Meet the former Tesla director who wants to pull carbon dioxide out of the air (The Verge)

• The Tech-Layoff ‘Contagion’ (The Atlantic)

• Net zero requires massive tracts of land. Habitat conservation lies in the details (Anthropocene)

• What is framing? (New Economics Foundation)

• What does AI think the future of cities will be? (City Monitor)

Something interesting

China has been on a railway building binge. But this video sets out why it needs yet another one.

If you do nothing else today, then do this

This is an interesting read on the dual nature of cities, which attempt to balance the pressures to suburbanise and to centralise. What are the most dominant factors in the city where you live?