Good day my good friend.

This is a public service announcement. Well, a couple actually. Firstly, our very first guest contribution from very good friend John Paddington has been published, talking about what happened recently at the Transport Technology Forum. Paid subscribers get to see it first, and if you want to see it now (as well as get lots of other good stuff) you will have to upgrade for just £5 a month. Or, you can wait a week, as free subscribers will receive it next Friday.

Secondly, I made a mistake yesterday, as ably spotted by Carla Artús. I misread the report on use of the £2 flat fare on buses in England and how people earning over £50,000 use it more. That was completely wrong. The report actually say:

“….respondents with a household income of up to £50,000 were more likely to report paying a £2 fare than those with a higher household income.”

I was so wrong I was almost right. And I am happy to be corrected on this. Thank you Carla!

Anyway, now those are done, onto the newsletter.

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

James

Non-TAG Economics

Transport infrastructure is an example of public investment. In many (most) countries, investing in such infrastructure is assumed, and quantified, as an economic benefit. But that is not the only way such investment has an economic benefit. The simple act of paying for the infrastructure has a benefit, from hiring contractors to subsequent spend of people working on the project in local economies. A great example of the entrepreneurial state in some respects. But is that sustained?

New research seems to indicate that in lower and middle income countries, this effect is temporary. Which is logical in a way. As the authors indicate, such infrastructure doesn’t solve every economic problem overnight, and (in my view) creates a market reliant on a sole, temporary customer. Such infrastructure provides a boost, but does not solve every problem.

Bad Bus Drivers Mess Up Everything

In today’s edition of “stuff I never knew was interesting, but find it actually is” is the phenomenon of what I will refer to as the Stroppy Bus Driver Effect. This is when there is a queue approaching a bus stop, and an impatient driver does something stupid to pick up and drop off passengers out of frustration – like dropping them off further up the pavement or overtakes the parked up bus. Naturally, someone has studied it, and the results are very interesting indeed.

So what are the findings? How drivers approach and leave the stop significantly affects the capacity of it. Or in the common tongue, if you drive like an idiot it makes things worse for everyone. But if buses are permitted to overtake at the stop, this yields increased capacities and thus reduces delay. This needs to be done carefully, especially in bus stations and on busy streets where conflicting movements are more likely. So maybe, buses shouldn’t wait in line, but they should be nice to each other?

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.

• ‘Market Fundamentalism’ Is an Obstacle to Progress (Naked Capitalism)

• ‘We don’t need a baby, we have a cat’: Hong Kong women say no to kids as experts ponder baby shortage (Channel News Asia)

• Modified NASA space tech provides sustainable batteries that last 30 years (Interesting Engineering)

• This Is Catfishing on an Industrial Scale (Wired)

• U.S. can’t quit China in the climate fight, ex-Obama official says (Politico)

Something interesting

One of my other great loves in life is video games. I am currently flying, horse riding, and creating rather odd vehicles using flame throwers, wheels, and fans to get around Hyrule in Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom. But this video from the always-excellent Outside Xbox shows that however poor my inventions are, video games have a really bad record when it comes to transport. Though I don’t think any one of them will beat this famous mission in GTA: San Andreas.

If you do nothing else today, then do this

You may have seen on social media the story about the “Bike Karen” of New York, and the associated video. Turns out, she was right all along. As this Reddit thread rightly observes – believe nothing that you hear, and only half of what you see. I also highly recommend reading So You’ve Been Publicly Shamed by Jon Ronson on the impacts of taking such videos out of context and shaming people for it.