The Transportist: June 2018

2018-06-012019-03-15 | David Levinson

Welcome to the June 2018 issue of The Transportist, especially to our new readers. As always you can follow along at the blog or on Twitter.

Transportist Posts

Transport News

AVs

Waymo’s fleet of self-driving minivans is about to get a thousand times bigger – Verge [62k minivans]
Preliminary report on Uber’s driverless car fatality shows the need for tougher regulatory controls – The Conversation
Did Uber really botch the switch to one driver and a timeline of the failure – Brad Templeton
NTSB Preliminary Report HIGHWAY HWY18MH010 (Uber Crash)

According to Uber, emergency braking maneuvers are not enabled while the vehicle is under computer control, to reduce the potential for erratic vehicle behavior. The vehicle operator is relied on to intervene and take action. The system is not designed to alert the operator.

Uber is shuttering its Arizona self-driving testing operations and laying off 300 test drivers – Recode
Intel’s Mobileye wants to dominate driverless cars—but there’s a problem – Ars Technica
No, ads won’t pay for your robotaxi ride — but your employer might, and that has big consequences – Brad Templeton
Mobileye gives a self-driving demo to Israeli – reddit [oops]
The Autonomous-Car Company That’s Selling Safety First – Bloomberg
Fatal Crash Rate – XKCD
Waymo On Autonomous Road To Riches, Seen Driving Google Stock – investors.com
The Language of Self-Driving Cars Is Dangerous. Here’s How To Fix That. – Alex Roy
Driving without a map is another example of being cheap rather than being safe – Brad Templeton
Self-Driving Cars or Robot Taxis? – Sarah Jo Peterson
Steps to autonomy – Benedict Evans
Who’s Winning the Self-Driving Car Race? A scorecard breaking down everyone from Alphabet’s Waymo to Zoox. – Bloomberg
¿ Uber Finds Deadly Accident Likely Caused By Software Set to Ignore Objects On Road ? – The Information [Contrast with NTSB Preliminary Report above]

CVs [Connectivity is the opposite of Autonomy]

Hackers Remotely Kill a Jeep on the Highway—With Me in It wired.com
The Horror Of Waze Sending Drivers Through Your Neighborhood? (A Rant) – Jazz Shaw

SVs/Taxis/Car Sharing

Mary Meeker’s 2018 internet trends report: All the slides, plus analysis – Recode
Uber’s European rival Taxify raises $175M led by Daimler at a $1B valuation – Techcrunch

EVs [and Renewable Electricity]

California to become first U.S. state mandating solar on new homes – Mercury News
Highly charged: complaints as electric car points block city pavements – The Guardian
Nikola, a Tesla competitor, scores big electric truck order from Anheuser-Busch Nikola Motor Co. makes electric fuel cell trucks. Anheuser-Busch wants 800 of them. latimes.com [See also rail news below]

HPVs/Bikes/Pedestrians/Scooters/eBikes/etc

Bike N’ Ride: linking first and last mile bike-share with transit – Coord
Bird is reportedly raising $150 million at $1 billion valuation – TechCrunch [Just keep repeating, there is no bubble, there is no bubble. So what is the $/scooter on this one?]
Electric Scooter Charger Culture Is Out of Control – The Atlantic
New Penalties to Address Bike Dumping – Transport for NSW
Traffic stress and biking to work: bike access to jobs should consider where people ride – Brendan Murphy
Scooters could solve a big urban mobility issue—if startups listen – Curbed
Should DC put a bike rack on every street corner? – GG Washington
Chart of the Day: National Bike Share Ridership Growth, 2010 – 17 – streets.mn

HDVs and Roads

Were Sydney’s roads built on tracks created by Aboriginal people? Sydney’s major roads and side streets mirror the thoroughfares used by Aboriginal people before settlers arrived. – ABC
ACCC fears Transurban will gain too much advantage from WestConnex buy – SMH
Deadly Convenience: Keyless Cars and Their Carbon Monoxide Toll – NY Times
Why the need for speed? Transport spending priorities leave city residents worse off – Chris Standen – The Conversation
Driving Cars – XKCD
Contractors building the West Connex Motorway are demanding an extra $700 million from the state government. theaustralian.com.au

Transit

Is Anyone Owed a Transit Line? – humantransit.org
Passenger crowding on Sydney trains worsens as demand soars – SMH
What might explain journey to work mode shifts in Australia’s largest cities? chartingtransport.com
If you think Sydney’s trains are bad, try New York’s – SMH
The Spanish solution – two platforms, one train – wikipedia
Tracking live train loads in Sydney – NextThere
Sydney Metro’s commercialised future – The Strategic Week
How 2 M.T.A. Decisions Pushed the Subway Into Crisis – NY Times
Map Monday: St. Paul’s Proposed Downtown People Mover – streets.mn

Ferries/Ports/Maritime

Plain sailing: how traditional methods could deliver zero-emission shipping – The Conversation
Green finance for dirty ships – The Economist

Intercity Rail

Malaysia to drop high-speed rail link to Singapore – Asia Nikkei
The bad bet at the heart of the East Coast rail franchise implosion – Guardian
Hydrogen fuel cell trains herald new steam age – The Times UK

Land Use

Australia’s foreign real estate investment boom looks to be over. – Dallas Rogers
Enough with the “Ds” Already — Let’s Get Back to “A” – Transfers Magazine by Susan Handy
Sonic, Sally, and the Quest to Save the Last Remaining Pieces of Sega World – Lucy O’Brien
Airbnb: who’s in, who’s out, and what this tells us about rental impacts in Sydney and Melbourne – The Conversation
CurbSpace – Your Room Delivered Book our Hotel on Wheels now. We offer Work, Entertainment and Sleep Curbs. Choose a Room based on your needs. We deliver in 90 minutes. getcurbspace.com

Science

The National Standard Kilogram – Diamond Geezer
Artificial Neural Nets Grow Brainlike Navigation Cells – Quanta Magazine
Cells Talk in a Language That Looks Like Viruses – Quanta Magazine

Economics

More on the pro-growth aspects of networks – AEI
Basic Income, Not Basic Jobs: Against Hijacking Utopia – Slate Star Codex

Justice/Equity

Years of life lost due to encounters with law enforcement in the USA, 2015–2016 [50,000 years of life lost each year due to US police violence]
The disappearing Chinese student visa: 28% decline in Indian students and a 24% decline in Chinese students receiving visas [to US] axios.com [down to mid 2000s levels]
Did [US Secretary of Transportation] Elaine Chao’s DOT interviews help her family’s business? The transportation secretary appears with her father, founder of the family shipping business, in Chinese-language interviews with the DOT emblem – politico.com
U.S. Citizen Who Was Held By ICE For 3 Years Denied Compensation By Appeals Court – NPR

Fantasy

Elon Musk Presents His Tunnel Vision to the People of LA – Wired

Retail and Logistics

The US might need self-driving trucks to avoid a labor shortage crisis – Quartz [or maybe just raise wages?]

Technology

Oppo demos first 5G live 3D video call, promises phones by early 2019 – VentureBeat
Fixing typos the evolutionary way – Jacob Baskin (Coord)

Technology History

Raymond Loewy’s 1934 chart of the evolution in design – Jason Kottke
Invisible asymptotes – Eugene Wei
Design Thinking Is a Boondoggle – Lee Vinsel

Research & Data

Books

Metropolitan Transport and Land Use: Planning for Place and Plexus (2018) by David M. Levinson and Kevin J. Krizek.
Elements of Access: Transport Planning for Engineers, Transport Engineering for Planners. (2018) By David M. Levinson, Wes Marshall, Kay Axhausen.
Spontaneous Access: Reflexions on Designing Cities and Transport (2016) by David Levinson.
The End of Traffic and the Future of Access: A Roadmap to the New Transport Landscape. (2017) By David M. Levinson and Kevin J. Krizek.
The Transportation Experience: Second Edition Garrison, William and Levinson, David (2014)

Previous Issues

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