Good day my good friend.

Its the week of Easter, and that means 3 things. First, Christian readers are having the most important week of their year. Second, there will be no Mobility Matters Daily either this Friday or next Monday as it is a public holiday in the UK. Finally, the announcement I had planned for Friday that I mentioned on Monday (when I forgot it was a public holiday on Friday) has been brought forward to today. So enjoy!

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

James

I love the NAO

The National Audit Office. Formerly a professional pain in the backside of civil servants across UK government. Now relegated to producing reports that have an unnerving ability to cut through the rubbish very quickly and come to conclusions that are logical, well-founded, and often right, but usually ignored. Some of their greatest hits in transport include the Transpennine Route Upgrade, the DVLA, and Improving Local Bus Services in England. But they have produced another cracking report on the HS2 Station at Euston.

What are the conclusions on this project where a lot of people are begging for it to be scrapped? That its a highly complex project that the Department for Transport and High Speed Two Limited are struggling to get on top of due to mistakes in costings early in the programme. But that deferring spend to fix a short term budget issue is clearly a mad idea as it will just increase costs later. In other words, a complex project is acting like a complex project.

A Change Gonna Come

Oh yes it will. And its time things changed around here a bit, or in some cases making a previous change permanent. After the amazing success of donating the money raised from sponsors and subscriptions to charity, I have decided to make this a permanent thing. The charity will be changed every year, but every penny raised from sponsors and your paid subscriptions will go directly to them. This year, every penny raised will go the the amazing road safety charity Brake, who do amazing work to help the victims of road traffic collisions.

The second change is for you, my good reader. I am opening up Mobility Matters Daily to writing contributions! If you want to write a 500 word article on a transport matter you care about, contact me and it will be shared with everyone. I am particularly interested in contributions from young professionals, women working in transport, and persons from ethnic minority backgrounds. But if you have a great idea for an article you want to write and share with readers, email me about it and we can see if its a go-er. What’s more, I am willing to offer you a fee for writing that article of £200. So, if there is something you want to say, share it with the readers!

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.

• How earthquakes helped us map the interior of the Sun (Big Think)

• A day in the life of (almost) every vending machine in the world (The Guardian)

• Got Milk? Not This Generation (New York Times)

• The West Agreed to Pay Climate Reparations. That Was the Easy Part. (The Atlantic)

• The improbable genius of John Venn (The Spectator)

Something interesting

National Treasure Tom Scott gets to see a Maglev train in Japan close up. And the video is brilliant. The almost boyish reaction as the train goes past will make you smile.

If you do nothing else today, then do this

Read this fantastic obituary to Alastair Hanton. I knew him from his relentless campaigning and work at the Campaign for Better Transport and the Foundation for Integrated Transport. But if you have ever used a direct debit or a free personal bank account, you have him to thank. What a man. What a life. He will be sorely missed.