Transportist: April 2025
“Running government (the university) like a business” is nonsense. Governments and universities exist to do things businesses cannot, do not, and will not.
Welcome to the latest issue of The Transportist, especially to our new readers. As always you can follow on Mastodon, or RSS. By popular demand, a BlueSky feed is also available.
Conference
International Symposium on Travel Demand Management (TDM 2025)
The 12th International Symposium on Travel Demand Management (TDM 2025), to be held in Sydney from 9 to 11 December 2025, is now open for extended abstracts.
To submit an extended abstract, please visit the TDM 2025 website (https://tdmsymposium2025.org). If travel demand management is of interest to you, we look forward to welcoming you to TDM 2025 in Sydney, where it will be summer!
Posts
Research
Research Noted
Books Noted
Sybil Derrible’s The Infrastructure Book: How Cities Work and Power Our Lives, is out.
Book Description
Clean water, paved roads, public transit, electricity and gas, sewers, waste processing, telecommunication, even the Internet – all this infrastructure is what makes cities work and powers our lives, often seamlessly and silently. Virtually everything we do and consume depends on infrastructure. Yet, most people have little to no idea how these systems work. How is water treated? How do cities manage rainwater? Why do traffic jams exist? How is electricity generated and distributed? What happens to trash after it is picked up? How does the Internet work?
In The Infrastructure Book, Sybil Derrible reveals the behind-the-scenes machinations of the foundational systems that make our societies function. Visiting sixteen cities around the world and their unique approaches to organizational challenges – from water distribution in Hong Kong to waste management in Tokyo, and from Chicago’s power grid to low Earth orbit satellites in space – this highly readable book uses fascinating case studies and historical detours to show how infrastructure works – and, sometimes, doesn’t.
With large-scale infrastructure repairs looming and the need for existing infrastructure to be transformed, the book also shows how infrastructure can be more sustainable and resilient. After reading The Infrastructure Book, readers will never look at a city the same way.
Links
Autonomous Vehicles
Liebherr is developing a Segway-style autonomous electric haul truck
Why LIDAR matters, or why mamas should not let their babies grow up to drive Teslas. (YouTube link, highly entertaining AND informative)
Safety
Clashes erupt in Greece as hundreds of thousands protest deadly train crash
Another strategy to consider for pedestrian safety. (YouTube Link, new to me).
Congestion Pricing
Who benefits from Sydney’s Patchwork of Toll Roads: Consultants
Reverse congestion pricing? New Jersey Republican wants to toll New Yorkers to fund NJ Transit [If only someone wrote an entire dissertation that could have anticipated this.]
Electrification
Reward offered for info on suspicious fire at Tesla Superchargers in Littleton, Mass.
Wireless Electricity Is on the Horizon—And It Could ‘Beam’ Power Right to Your House
H/T Jan Rosenow
The astonishing rise of solar. As solar capacity increased, prices dropped. As prices dropped, solar capacity increased further. One might almost call it a Magic Bullet.
Public Transport
Northstar Commuter Rail is on its last wheels. This lack of ridership is a problem of long standing and has been previously noted in these pages (2011).
Academia
Trends
Your regular reminder that cars are weapons
Mannheim, Germany edition: Two dead after car drives into crowd in German city of Mannheim as suspect arrested
Belgrade, Serbia edition (the protests were about transport infrastructure)
The Baptists and Bootlickers problem.
As in prohibition, some industries (“baptists”) benefit directly from tariffs. Others (“bootlickers”) benefit from having exclusive exemptions by buying TrumpCoin. The Trump Tariff is the *Trump* Tariff. He gets a cut when people pay him to get exemptions. See also Baptists and Bootleggers.