Good day my good friend.

Like many people, you have probably been aware of the major search and rescue operation (at the time of writing at least) currently taking place in the North Atlantic. There is far too much commentary on the ethics of it all (because everything has to be part of the culture war), but what you might find interesting is this video on the logistics of doing searches at sea. All that is left for me to say is that every life lost at sea is a tragedy, and a loss felt by someone.

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

Mobility Camp is taking place on 29th September 2023 in Birmingham. It would be great to see you there. Get your tickets now.

James

Wrapped in Plastic, Not Fantastic

An under-reported news story this week from this week is how the world is inching closer to agreeing an international treaty to phase out plastic pollution, and consequently use. Its still a lot of talk and little action currently. But should it be agreed and implemented, this will be a very good thing. As in a major step to stopping global warming and cutting down on lots and lot of pollution. And it will make Sir David Attenborough happy.

Plastic is everywhere. The average car has 30,000 parts and about 10,000 of these are plastic. The average flight generates 1.4 kilograms of waste per passenger, and most of that is plastic. Don’t think that sustainable travel modes are much better either. Plastic is embedded within shoes, bikes, trains, buses, the lot. Its the closest thing that we have to a wonder material, and its uses are many.

Even when you look at infrastructure, it is just as bad. Plastic is embedded into parts for new roads and railways (especially anything with a sensor). Plastic can be mixed into road paint. It is often used in temporary infrastructure (sorry, pop up bike lane fans). While it can be recycled, it can only be done 2 or 3 times before it ceases to be useful.

This is not an easy problem to solve in the slightest. We are talking changing whole aspects of our economy here, and the products that we buy. But in the meantime, what I would suggest to any practitioner is that if you are worried and want to take action now, remember the phrase drummed into many of us when we were kids: Reduce. Reuse. Recycle. We do the recycling bit a lot. Its time we did the other bits.

Getting to Glasto

Currently, Worthy Farm in Somerset is home to 210,000 music lovers as they attend the Glastonbury Festival. Famous for mud, high ticket prices, and one of Metallica’s best sets, getting that many people to and from the festival is a challenge. This year, electric buses are running the shuttle route from Bristol, there are integrated bus and rail services from Castle Cary Station, and Bike to Glasto is running again. But what is the impact of all this?

Its hard to tell for Glastonbury specifically. But we know from wider research is that rather than being a community for action, festivals are often full of contradictory environmental behaviour, though many participants recognise this challenge. Social media can influence the travel decisions of younger festival-goers, and you should not underestimate the impact of the destination and experience of it in driving travel decisions in this instance. Maybe holding one of Europe’s biggest music festivals outside of a small village in rural Somerset is not conducive to sustainable travel.

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 Your New Car Tracks You (Wired)

• What to do about parallel trends when you only have baseline data? (World Bank)

• Everything is Politics (The Accessible Link)

• “You Paid WHAT?!” Or, How Echo Chambers Distort Prices and the Way We Think (What Works)

Something interesting

Yep, don’t we know it. Whenever sustainable transport infrastructure goes in, places turn into a ghost town. Its appalling. 🙂

If you don’t do anything else today, then do this

Read this truly excellent paper on the effects of including shipping in the EU carbon trading scheme. In short, good for neighbouring ports. A great piece of transport economics.