Good day my good friend.

If you ever feel bad after having one of ‘those’ days, be thankful that you are not Bradford City goalkeeper Harry Lewis. Knowing where the penalty area is – surely one of the most basic requirements of being a goalkeeper? Its like a transport professional forgetting what a bus looks like while getting on one.

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

James

Complaining about trains, again

In the UK, rail ticket prices have gone up again. Which leads to articles like this in City Monitor – asking why rail tickets in the UK are so expensive. There is a lot of nonsense published about all of this, when all you really need to understand is two things: the cost base of railways and the pricing strategy. Specifically who sets it.

We have data on what drives costs. Half of it is the infrastructure, and of the train operator costs, staff and leasing costs of trains are the single biggest items. As for who controls the pricing strategy – check any one of the franchise agreements. The government regulates most of it, while at the same time wanting to reduce subsidy provided by the government. There you have it. Rising costs are behind the price rises, not helped by government wanting to not spend anything on the railways. But, you can continue arguing that “pRiVaTiSaTiOn Is BaD” if you want.

Parklife

Confidence is a preference of the habitual voyeur of what is known as…the stated preferences of young people when it comes to autonomous vehicle ownership as they proceed through different life stages. Turns out that young people think that, because they face a great many life changes in their future, they are more likely to adopt private autonomous vehicles compared to the older generation, at least in Japan anyway.

This is interesting not because it gives you and indication as to these young people’s route straight through what is known as (Park)life, and its impacts on their travel choices. But its because we know that life stages have huge impacts on travel patterns. So as people change jobs, change where they live, and have families, is it not reasonable to expect that the attractiveness of autonomous vehicles will also change? This study is the first attempt to understand this, and that is valuable.

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.

• Imperialism and Natural Resources (International Development Economics Associates)

• Demand Grows For Stricter Transit Regulations After Derailing Train Hits Airplane At 30,000 Feet (The Onion)

• Digital platform regulation: Governing the ungovernable (Chatham House)

• Fixing the Hated Open-Design Office (Scientific American)

• Japan’s Cherry Blossoms Are Blooming Earlier and Earlier. Blame Climate Change (Vice)

Something interesting

Before we finally cracked it in 1993, there were several attempts to dig under the English Channel. Paul and Rebecca Whitewick delve into transport history to show you some of the past attempts.

If you do nothing else today, then do this

Read about this data centre heating a public swimming pool in the UK. If your data centre belches out heat, why not do this sort of thing, so that the heat isn’t lost?