Good day my good friend.

I am sure that many of you have heard of the Hollywood story of Wrexham (the team behind one of the all time greatest FA Cup shocks) and their return to the English Football League. And it is great to see. But as a football fan and Bedfordshire resident, it would be remiss of me to not point out the Hollywood story of Luton Town. 10 years ago, just like Wrexham, they were in non-League football. And now they are third in the Championship, chasing promotion to the Premier League, all while spending the same amount on players salaries as the salary of a Manchester City substitute. Up the Hatters!!

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

James

Transport consultants – what value do they add?

Before I start with this, I am a transport consultant myself. But this article in Slate and this on Pedestrian Observations had a stinging criticism of us consultants. One that is, I think, well-deserved. Notably, that by outsourcing expertise and experience of transport strategy and schemes, this can be a cause of cost increases, and repeated failures on behalf of consultants who learn how to deliver things in the same failed way. The report that is the basis of these conclusions can be found here, and is worth a read.

Consultants often think of value add in terms of completing the project (and to be fair, the client usually lets us think like this). But is value-add a happy client and repeated custom? For me, its not just about writing the report but about how our knowledge and skills are transferred in a way that could potentially make us obsolete. For example, if we train and co-work with a client on developing a transport strategy so that when they do it next, they don’t need us to produce a quality outcome. That’s a good outcome, right? Something for the consultants among you to consider, and to maybe be slightly humble on.

Tech for Safety

A shout out to the GET-IT LinkedIn page for sharing this story of Emma Kay, who founded a company that created an app that helps to keep women safe while walking down the street. In a perfect world – scratch that, in a somewhat reasonable and decent world – this app wouldn’t need to exist, but we don’t live in that, do we? To me, this seems like a good application of an everyday tech. But it got me to thinking – what other apps are there to improve the safety of anyone using the transport system.

In what is no doubt a reflection of my privilege of being (a) a man, (b) white, and (c) quite tall, this was somewhat more challenging than I thought. But from my crawl, here are some that you may find somewhat useful:

• WalkSafe – Emma’ Kay’s app

• OneScream – Contact’s your emergency contact when it detects your scream

• SafeUp – A local network of female ‘guardians’ that you can contact

• StreetSafe – An app by UK Police Forces that reports unsafe areas

It needs stressing that these apps are not a substitute for creating safe spaces and changing our attitude to how we treat people in public spaces. But in the spirit of providing some help, here they are.

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.

• TikTok and Critical Mass (Naked Capitalism)

• Rewilding the planet (Nature)

• War and subsidies have turbocharged the green transition (The Economist)

• America’s Industrial Transition (Apricitas Economics)

• The Quest for Longevity Is Already Over (Wired)

Something interesting

This is a great video on Kai Tak airport, formerly the main airport in Hong Kong. The final approach to the airport – flying below the level of some buildings before slamming down hard on the runway and the brakes to avoid ending up in the water – was something of legend.

If you do nothing else today, then do this

The International Transport Forum have produced an excellent report on Data Architecture for Mobility as a Service. You should read it. Many of the recommendations are basic in regards to establishing data infrastructure, but its worthwhile reminding ourselves of the basics sometime.