Welcome to the October 2017 issue of The Transportist. As always you can follow along at the blog or on Twitter.

Announcements

• The End of Traffic and the Future of Access, Third Edition

We are pleased to announce the print publication of our latest book The End of Traffic and the Future of Access: A Roadmap to the New Transport Landscape

• Softcover, Black and White ($US 18.88)*
• Softcover, Color ($US 28.88)*
• Hardcover, High Quality Color ($US 67.49)*
• PDF ($US 9.99)
• Kindle ($US 9.99)
• iBooks ($US 9.99)

This is the Third Edition of The End of Traffic and the Future of Transport. It has been updated and reorganized, with new chapters on Connectivity, Demassification, Dematerialization, and Delivery, and new data where available. It is also available in a gorgeous PDF version, in addition to the updated ePub.

Table of Contents

Preface: The Lost Joy of Automobility
What Happened to Traffic?
1. Climbing Mount Auto: The Rise of Cars in the 20th Century [PREVIEW]
2. Less Traffic is a Good Thing
3. What Killed America’s Traffic?
4. Pace of Change
5. Electrification
6. Automation
7. Connectivity
8. MaaS Transport
9. Demassification
10. Dematerialization
11. Delivery
12. Transit
13. Up and Out: The Future of Travel Demand and Where We Live
14. Reduce, Reuse, (re)Cycle
15. Pricing
16. Redeeming Transport
A. The Traditional Transport Engineer
B. Traffic, What Is It?
C. Forecasting
D. Access, What Is It?
E. (Why) Is Transport Underfunded?

Jobs

• Positions in Robotics at University of Sydney
• Postdoctoral Research Associate in Transport Networks. Closing Date 11:30pm 19 November 2017  

 Transportist Posts

• On Stationless Bike Sharing in Sydney
• On Indulgences and Carbon Offsets
• On Apple and Bureaucracy – Apple doesn’t think people move

Media Appearances

• The quest to design a smarter road | fast co-design

Transport News

Transit

• Free bus passes for workers: Columbus’s big idea to relieve a congested downtown – The Guardian
• Could this study explain why Metro is losing riders to Uber and Lyft? – WaPo
• Before Derailments at Penn Station, Competing Priorities Led to Disrepair – NY Times
• Stampede kills, injures dozens in Mumbai – SMH
• Trends in journey to work mode shares in Australian cities to 2016 – Charting Transport

Roads

• Money for jams Congestion charging is back on my list of good ideas – Thomas the Think Engine
• Pressure builds on state government to sweeten WestConnex sale – SMH
• Trump backs off vow that private sector should help pay for infrastructure package – WaPo
• Singapore to Stop Adding Cars on Its Roads From February 2018 – Bloomberg

AVs

• Opinion | Driverless Cars Made Me Nervous. Then I Tried One. – NY Times
• Why Disney Should Take The Lead On Self-Driving Cars – Modeled Behavior
• On the Road to Fully Self-Driving – Waymo [PDF]
• Baidu plans to mass produce Level 4 self-driving cars with BAIC – TechCrunch
• Autonomous cars without backup drivers could come to California roads before June – SJ Mercury News
• LeBron James will star in the first big ad push for self-driving cars – Business Insider
• Let’s Talk Self-Driving Cars – Waymo – Medium
•  It sure looks like Waymo is getting ready to launch in Phoenix – ArsTechnica
• G.M. Acquires Strobe, Start-Up Focused on Driverless Technology – NY Times
• GM accepts all liability in robocars, and other news​ – Brad Templeton
• Where Driverless Cars Brake for Golf Carts – NY Times
• Just how excited are consumers about autonomous cars? – Jim Pethokoukis
• Robocars will make traffic worse before it gets better – Brad Templeton
• Self-Driving Car Doomsday Scenarios – Twitter Moments
• Delphi, major partner of BMW and Intel, dropped $450 million on NuTonomy – CNBC

CVs

• Using ‘cooperative perception’ between intelligent vehicles to reduce risks​ – KurzweilAI

EVs / Energy / Environment

• London Adds Charge for Older Diesel Vehicles to Fight Pollution – NY Times
• The government’s energy policy hinges on some tricky wordplay about coal’s role -. theconversation
• Malcolm Turnbull’s national energy guarantee plan masks a carbon price – SMH
• Power Sector Carbon Index Finds GHG Intensity Down 1%, With Renewables Up 23% in Q2 of 2017 – Medium
• The Secret Behind Norway’s EV “Miracle” Isn’t Oil In Norway’s utopian world of electric vehicles, things are not what they seem. thedrive.com
• G.M. and Ford Lay Out Plans to Expand Electric Models – NY Times

HPVs / Bikes

• World’s biggest bike-share company Ofo to bring hundreds more bikes to Sydney – SMH
• Dockless bike share – oBike vs ReddyGo – Books, biscuits and bicycles…
• Bike-Sharing Is Flourishing in Washington. Can the City Handle It? – NY Times
• Hero throws oBike under car to stop masked teen armed with knife on Flinders Street – SMH
• Pedal power in the digital economy The idiots who wreck bikes or dump them are vandals, and should be dealt with accordingly. SMH

SVs / Taxis

• Firms that burn $1B a year are sexy but statistically doomed Five outliers — Chesapeake Energy, Netflix, Nextera Energy, Tesla and Uber — have collectively lost $100B in the past decade. – Medium
• Is Uber Helping or Hurting Mass Transit? – NY Times
• Uber Pushed the Limits of the Law. Now Comes the Reckoning – Bloomberg
• Former Uber CEO Names Two Directors Without Consulting Board – Bloomberg
• Uber Finally Sees Decline in Riders – SF Weekly
• Alphabet’s CapitalG Leads $1 Billion Round in Lyft​ – Lyft

Canals/Shipping/Maritime/Ferries

• Sydney Ferry Timetable Changes Reviewed – Robin Sandell

Land Use

• The Fast Lane: Toronto — a Scarry, busy city Toronto has a troubled history with its waterfront, much of which is cut off by an overhead expressway – FT
• Google’s Founders Wanted to Shape a City. Toronto Is Their Chance. – NY Times
• The Incredible Shrinking Yard! – Trulia
• Cities and Suburbs Are Becoming Pretty Similar – Tyler Cowen at Bloomberg

Equity / Justice

• The three things Obama wanted to give America from Australia – SMH

Safety

• SUVs double pedestrians’ risk of death – New Scientist
• ‘It will never happen to me’: The problem with road safety campaigns – SMH

Fantasy

• State officials say Elon Musk is starting his high-speed NY-DC hyperloop project in Maryland – Baltimore Sun
• Why does Elon Musk make me so cross? – Thomas the Think Engine
• S3X Appeal On July 3rd, Elon Musk handed over the first 30 Model 3s and tweeted “Production grows exponentially, so Aug should be 100 cars and Sept above 1500.” asymco.com
• Elon Musk promises ‘anywhere in the world in one hour’ – SMH

Retail​ / Delivery

• Amazon Key takes deliveries to new level: Inside your home – CNET
• Honda’s Got A New Robot Pal That Will Carry Your Crap And Be That Hot Dog Stand You Wanted – jalopnik

UAVs, Aviation and Space

• EasyJet says it could be flying electric planes within a decade – The Guardian
• Project Loon’s LTE balloons are flying over Puerto Rico – Engadget
• Can’t we agree to just not have Heathrow at all? – David Mitchell  theguardian.com
• City in the Sky – PBS (Documentary on aviation)
• Amazon Energy? Amazon Looks To Deploy Drones To Recharge Electric Cars And Other Vehicles – CB Insights

Trains

• California bullet train costs up $1.7 billion for Central Valley segment – LA Times
• The Repressive, Authoritarian Soul of “Thomas the Tank Engine & Friends” – The NewYorker

Science

• Warning of ‘ecological Armageddon’ after dramatic plunge in insect numbers – The Guardian

Culture

• BBC loses plot to offer busy viewers drama without the commitment – Telegraph