Good day my good friend.

As I write this introduction, the night trains that I am on is just slipping out of Crewe station, heading north to the SRITC Gathering in Boat of Garten. Clearly I chose the party car, as there is a fair noise coming from next door. Hopefully I will still have the energy for those of you travelling to Boat of Garten tomorrow (or is that today?). If you are there, come and say hi!

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

James

What’s the point?

Readers from the UK will no doubt be aware that longer lorries are now being permitted to run on UK roads, subject to certain requirements being met by operators. Predictably, active travel and road safety advocates are urging caution, and much of the rest of transport planning is indifferent at best. As always, look at the results yourself to come to your own view.

I can’t help but be left thinking what the point of this all is. It really seems to me, by the government’s own admission, to be a stop-gap to help address current driver shortages in the UK. But this is tactics as opposed to strategy. What is this trying to achieve? How will impact be measured? Finding out if its safe is one thing, but whether or not its addressing a driver shortage – how will we know that? Sun Tzu once said that strategy without tactics is the slowest route to victory. Tactics without strategy is the noise before defeat. This is all tactics, no strategy.

Blue(tooth) in the face about commuting

Simple question: is commuting the most popular reason for travelling? There is a short and long answer to that. The short answer is no. The long answer is nooooooooooooooo. But it is the one that we pay the most attention to as professionals due to a mixture of its economic value and of the fact that our major transport problem (congestion and overcrowding) just so happen to take place when people are going to and from work.

The problem with this is that people, gosh darn them, really don’t seem to get how important this is to us, and keep on making more trips than just the commute. Some new data using Bluetooth detection shows that road users regularly have less than 20% of trips for commuting purposes. So it begs the question – is it really worth us caring that much about the commute that we base our planning around it?

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.

• Hydrogen fuel cell trucks to decarbonise Toyota logistics in Europe (Automotive EV)

• Bank Turmoil Is Paving the Way for Even Bigger ‘Shadow Banks’ (New York Times)

• Fourth Industrial Revolution slow to start in America (Asia Times)

• The Roman Town that VANISHED – The Calleva Story (Paul and Rebecca Whitewick)

• US Has Already Seen 7 Different Billion-Dollar Weather Disasters This Year: NOAA (Common Dreams)

Something interesting

This infographic and the data behind it on attitudes to AI I find incredibly interesting. It seems most people in most countries are positive about AI. The ones most cynical are in rich countries. Answers on a postcard on why that is the case.

If you do nothing else today, then do this

There is the old political adage of ‘its the economy, stupid.’ If you believe that (I don’t), this report by KPMG articulates why its good to make public transport accessible from an economic standpoint. You should check it out.