GToday, you get not one, but two public service announcements. Firstly, I am going to be taking some time away next week, and so you will get no newsletter next week at all. The second is slightly more important for my UK readers (readers from other countries who don’t care about UK politics may look away now).
You probably know that Rishi has called the election. Now, you can vote for who you like, and in a few weeks I will do an analysis of the main parties’ manifesto’s from a transport perspective. But in the meantime, I believe in democracy, and if you can vote, I believe you should.
Firstly, register to vote. If you plan to vote in person, remember you need your Photo ID to do it. If you don’t have a Photo ID, you can apply for a free one online to vote in the election. If you don’t plan to vote in person, you should apply now for a postal vote, or apply for a vote by proxy (when someone votes on your behalf). The most important thing is that you get your chance to have your say in this election. So go and do it!
Mobility Camp is back, and the number one transport unconference is heading to York on Friday 20th September. Book your tickets now!
I have co-authored a book on Mobility-as-a-Service, which is a comprehensive guide on this important new transport service. It is available from the Institution of Engineering and Technology and now Amazon. 📕
🤷♀️ How important are elections, really?
I had planned to write something else for this week’s newsletter. But yesterday’s announcement by Rishi Sunak caused me to change tack on this newsletter. Namely to answer the question of the importance of elections.
If you ask many transport professionals whether elections are important for delivering a policy agenda, they will say yes. Mainly because politicians can either be the enabler of or blocker to significant changes. In reality, this is much more tricky, as there are two implications of changes in political leadership on transport delivery.
The first is changes in direction, and this is often the most obvious implication of changes in political leadership. Different parties, and different political leaders within those parties, often have very different views on what should be done. Some support cycling, others choose to prioritise cars. Even then, it is often about changes in tactics as opposed to changes in general direction.
For example, ask most UK transport ministers from the last 10 years (there have been a lot of them) about what their priorities were, and you can probably name them without thinking about it. Enabling economic growth, tackling climate change, tackling congestion, sorting out the railways, to name a few. The discussion then becomes about how to achieve that (e.g. all in on EVs v. encouraging active travel) or their relative priority. The end goal is almost never in question.
The other aspect, rarely spoken of, is the mechanics of actually achieving change. Its rarely a case of a political leader forcing their will on officers and civil servants to deliver a change. This is actually a feature of democracy. While political leaders may complain about ‘the blob’ working against their grand plans, they cannot simply impose them on officers and civil servants who may advise that this is a poor policy, or in some case downright illegal.
Political leaders and officers or civil servants are meant to work as a team to deliver on the priorities of the council, authority, or government department. And most times they do. Officers advise that in order to achieve the change needed, political leaders need to ask officers to change the policy documents, develop the case for change, and then maybe actually deliver it. Otherwise there will be no funding, or there may even be a legal challenge. A failure to work together usually results in deadlock. Where nothing but the legal minimum gets done.
When you are voting in an election, you are voting for a vision, a direction of travel, and maybe a few policy initiatives. What will happen in reality is often quite a different thing, as politicians do not have the all-encompassing power that we think that they do. Its worthwhile remembering that as you look to vote.
👩🎓 From academia
The clever clogs at our universities have published the following excellent research. Where you are unable to access the research, email the author – they may give you a copy of the research paper for free.
TL:DR – Tax policy in trying to achieve sustainable transport is rarely as simple as we make it out to be.
Low emission zone and mobility behavior: Ex-ante evaluation of vehicle pollutant emissions
TL:DR – Pollutants down in LEZs. Maybe up just outside.
TL:DR – Research paper points out well-worn point that a renewable energy grid is needed to truly decarbonise, while ignoring that it takes a lot of carbon emissions to fuel current vehicles.
Influencing transport-health interactions through incentivised mode switch using new data and models
TL:DR – Making sustainable transport better may improve health.
📺 On the (You)Tube
Stockholm took the bold move towards implementing congestion pricing. And this video explores how the public was won over, eventually.
🖼 Graphic Design
Top lithium producers in 2023 (Source: Visual Capitalist)
If you purchased an EV in 2023, chances are the lithium in its battery came from one of China, Australia, or Chile.
📚 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.
- Why We Should Ban Left Turns (Econlife)
- The AI ‘Safety Movement’ Is Dead (Bloomberg)
- El Niño is ending after a year of driving extreme weather (New Scientist)
- Scarlett Johansson’s complaint to OpenAI is a new benchmark in the development of machine intelligence (The Conversation)
- Wind and solar are ‘fastest-growing electricity sources in history’ (Carbon Brief)
👍 Your feedback is essential
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