The Transportist: January 2018
Welcome to the January 2018 issue of The Transportist, which I have moved to the beginning of the month. As always you can follow along at the blog or on Twitter.
I hope Comrade Christmas, Hannukah Harry, or Elon Musk was good to you last year. While I hope to see many of you at TRB 2019. I will not be attending this year.
Books
Now available:
Elements of Access: Transport Planning for Engineers, Transport Engineering for Planners. By David M. Levinson, Wes Marshall, Kay Axhausen.
Elements of Access: Transport Planning for Engineers, Transport Engineering for Planners. By David M. Levinson, Wes Marshall, Kay Axhausen. 342 pages, 164 Images (most in color). Published by the Network Design Lab.
Nothing in cities makes sense except in the light of accessibility. Transport cannot be understood without reference to the location of activities (land use), and vice versa. To understand one requires understanding the other. However, for a variety of historical reasons, transport and land use are quite divorced in practice. Typical transport engineers only touch land use planning courses once at most, and only then if they attend graduate school. Land use planners understand transport the way everyone does, from the perspective of the traveler, not of the system, and are seldom exposed to transport aside from, at best, a lone course in graduate school. This text aims to bridge the chasm, helping engineers understand the elements of access that are associated not only with traffic, but also with human behavior and activity location, and helping planners understand the technology underlying transport engineering, the processes, equations, and logic that make up the transport half of the accessibility measure. It aims to help both communicate accessibility to the public.
Purchase:
PDF (Electronic Download) (on Gumroad)... $8.88
High Quality Color Trade Paperback (on Blurb)... $28.88
Very High Quality Color Hardcover (on Blurb) ... $88.88
Transportist Posts
Docks Off: U.S. cities are being invaded by dock-less bike share.
2018 Rail Trends: Falling Behind or on Track to Revitalize the Industry | Trapeze
Sydney
Transport News
Transit
Delhi Metro's Driverless Magenta Line Train Crashes Days Before Launch [under Human Control] - NDTV
Passport, the technology business for city transit systems, raises loads of money - Tech Crunch.
Fatal Amtrak Derailment Draws Attention Back to PTC Implementation - Eno
Can we mock Elon Musk but maybe stay real about transit at the same time? - Lisa Schweitzer
Beijing Metro to Undergo Biggest Ever Subway Line Construction This Year - The Beijinger
Roads
5 reasons why experts are so skeptical of Elon Musk’s solution for LA traffic - Curbed
Live: Pedestrians hit by SUV in Melbourne CBD Nineteen people have been injured after a SUV ran down pedestrians on the corner of Flinders and Elizabeth streets in Melbourne's CBD - The Age [But, since it wasn't terrorism, there is nothing to be done]
AVs
Uber's Self-Driving Cars Hit 2 Million Miles As Program Regains Momentum - Forbes
China’s Baidu sues its former driverless car chief over alleged theft of secrets - SCMP
SVs/Taxis
China’s Didi Chuxing raises $4B more for AI, international… - TechCrunch
Uber to endorse congestion pricing for subway funds in TV ad - NY Daily News
Third of Uber's UK drivers logged into app for more than 40 hours a week - Reuters
HGVs/Freight/Delivery
Transportation of containers by rail - unfinished business (Sydney) - SMH
HPVs
Look out, Mofo: new bike-share contender nabs $500m - Tech in Asia
History
Land Use
Science
US Life Expectancy Declined Again. - Incidental Economist. [This is an extremely bad sign]
Google Scholar is a serious alternative to Web of Science - LSE Impact Blog
Research
Understanding international road safety disparities: Why is Australia so much safer than the United States?- Wesley Marshall in Accident Analysis and Prevention.