Transportist: May 2024

Welcome to the latest issue of The Transportist, especially to our new readers. As always you can follow on Mastodon or RSS.

This month

• Posts: 2 articles and a link to Findings Newsletter

• Research: 4 papers

• Books you should read

• News and Links: Many links, sorted by topic.

Posts

The Findings Newsletter …

Findings: April 2024

Research

Some media coverage

• The Guardian: Sydney’s urban sprawl grew along rail lines similar to way cancer spreads, researchers say

The more train lines you have, the more territory that can be covered,” David Levinson, a co-author of the study and a professor of civil engineering at the University of Sydney, said.

“That territory has developed more and more intensely … similar to the process by which malignant tumours form.”

Levinson said the study illustrated an important point – that Sydney’s infrastructure could be better used.

“Sydney has a disproportionate number of jobs in the eastern side of the city, and a disproportionate number of residents in the western part of the city,” he said.

This leaves transport underutilised compared to other cities around the world, where housing and jobs are more evenly spread out.

• UK Telegraph: London’s transport system helped capital grow like a ‘tumour’ [paywall]

Books

• Killed by a Traffic Engineer by Wes Marshall … The title is a provocative thesis. I haven’t read the final version, only bits and pieces, but it is self-recommending. Bad design kills.

News and Links

• Public Transport

  • London looking at Superloop 2

  • Road Guy Rob talks about BRT in Minneapolis - St. Paul, featuring some former students.

  • Canberra Liberals' proposed public transport plan would see a busway replace light rail with locally built electric buses [As a point of comparison, the current LRT in Canberra has 8,673 passengers per day, as per Wikipedia on 12 km, in contrast Sydney’s LRT has 89,095 as per Wikipedia on 24.7 km. I will leave it to your judgment as to what’s the best investment in Canberra.]

  • How TfLs simple pop-up message led to a significant drop in paper ticket sales (UI/UX for the win).

• Autonomy … At least the people who say AVs don’t exist now don’t say that, they just say they are unsafe. We are past “Denial” to “Bargaining” (i.e. regulation). Acceptance will come.

  • Cruise robotaxis are operating again in Phoenix

  • Mercedes now selling Level 3 AVs in US

  • Self-driving cars banned in British Columbia

  • Senate looking at cracking down on Driver Assistance Systems

  • Matt Yglesias: Self-driving cars are underhyped

  • Tesla Autopilot feature was involved in 13 fatal crashes, US regulator says

  • Ford BlueCruise driver assist under federal scrutiny following 2 deaths

• Sharing

  • “Didi’s market share was 24 per cent in Melbourne, where it launched six years ago, and 21 per cent in Sydney, where it was rolled out in 2020.”

• Safety

  • Kevin Krizek has a piece in the Boulder Weekly

  • Cable Car disaster in Turkey

• Routing

  • History of ETAK, the first In-Vehicle Navigation System

  • The algorithms behind route planning

• Environment and Energy

  • Australia has a $70 shadow price on CO2.

  • Sabine on Charging while Driving: Does it Work? [YouTube video]

  • No threat to farm land: just 1,200 square kilometres can fulfil Australia’s solar and wind energy needs

• Fantasy Land Use Planning

  • Neom Cutbacks

• Public Safety, Streets, and Land Use

  • On Fire Departments