ITS Monday: Edition 16, 2023

The do’s and don’ts for sharing the roads with driverless cars

An opinion piece from the Washington Post about lessons learnt by San Francisco residents as a result of the Waymo driverless taxi trial. Those trials are now also in place in Phoenix, Austin, and Los Angeles.

Related iMOVE project outcome: Ipswich Connected Vehicle Pilot: Final reports

Mobility could be transformed by 2035, with US car sales dropping 30%: report

The key word in this article title, is ‘could’. The article is based on a McKinsey & Co report, The future of mobility. “Mobility is entering a new age of innovation. We examined regional trends across the world to explore the complex changes that could transform the sector by 2035.:

Sits in the city: The cheeky ‘smart bench’ changing the way we take a load off

A tale of placemaking in Carlton, Melbourne. “It may just look like a fancy bench, but this piece of street furniture may change the way we sit – and locals are unknowingly giving it their stamp of approval with their bottoms.”

Where the rubber reads the road: tire makers aim for real-time data streams for autonomous vehicles

“A tire that could track road conditions in real time would be a ‘holy grail’ of vehicle control in self-driving cars, says Goodyear’s chief technology officer. But the technical difficulties of creating one are high.”

How every government in America could stop Its own cars from speeding

“last week, a coalition of nonprofit leaders announced an ambitious goal to get 50 United States communities to install Intelligent Speed Assist (ISA) technology on at least a portion of their municipally-owned fleets by 2025 — an effort they’re calling the Safer Fleets Challenge.”

I’m glad you’ve bought an electric vehicle. But your conscience isn’t clean

The latest cycling stats from England. “This statistical release presents an estimate for changes in cycling levels in England, up to December 2022. These statistics are produced from the Department for Transport automatic traffic cycle counters (ATCs) and they replace the cycling series published as part of the domestic transport usage by mode.” And there has been some change in regards to COVID.

Related iMOVE content: FACTS: A Framework for an Australian Clean Transport Strategy and Electric vehicles: Supporting uptake, investigating smart charging

Emissions reductions from electrifying high-mileage vehicles

“This paper evaluates a strategy that would target sales of internal combustion vehicles driven at high annual mileage for displacement by electric vehicles at the time of initial sale. Using the 2017 National Household Travel Survey data, we observe that the top 20% of light duty vehicles by kilometers traveled generate 46% of the annual greenhouse gas emissions. Displacing the sale of a combustion engine vehicle in the top mileage quintile with an electric vehicle would reduce annual greenhouse gas emissions and certain criteria pollutants by more than 15 times as much as displacing a vehicle in the bottom mileage quintile.”

A year on the road to fossil freedom

The story of the making of the CAKE Kalk, an electric motorcycle designed and made with the aim of being the ‘cleanest dirt bike ever.’ On top of the explanation of decisions made, there’s also an excellent data visualisation of the C02 footprint of the bike’s parts.

Waymo’s new feature scans for cyclists, other cars to prevent accidents

“A new feature called Safe Exit alerts Waymo passengers at the end of a ride if there’s an oncoming car, cyclist or pedestrian. Screens at the front and back of the car will show a warning and map of what’s approaching, and there’s also an audio alert so you’ll know to wait before opening the door. Safe Exit uses a combination of lidar, radar and cameras to constantly monitor the car’s surroundings and detect what’s coming.”

Budget provides $2b to scale up renewable hydrogen industry

Details about a line item in last week’s 2023 Federal Budget. “The federal budget contains $2 billion for a new hydrogen program which the government says will help drive the green energy transition … designed to accelerate the development of Australia’s hydrogen industry and connect to new supply chains around the globe.”