Transport modelling for major road projects like Sydney’s WestConnex and Melbourne’s Western Distributor is at odds with what is known about motorists’ behaviour.

A big part of the benefits claimed for new major roads in Australian cities is travel time savings. Evidence shows, however, that instead of saving travel time, these roads encourage us to travel further and often increase car dependency.

Transport modelling for major road projects like Sydney’s WestConnex and Melbourne’s Western Distributor is at odds with what is known about motorists’ behaviour.

A big part of the benefits claimed for new major roads in Australian cities is travel time savings. Evidence shows, however, that instead of saving travel time, these roads encourage us to travel further and often increase car dependency.

Travel time savings (calculated by transport models) have been used in transport project assessment since the 1960s and are often the main justification for projects. These models assume people try to minimise the “generalised cost” of travel (a combination of money cost and the dollar value of time). UK transport researcher David Metz notes that this assumption “is consistent with the idea that travellers take advantage of improved infrastructure to save time”.

Standard economic theory assumes people are motivated to obtain the maximum satisfaction (economists call it “utility”) from the consumption of the goods or services they can afford. This implies they are also motivated to keep the costs associated with that consumption to a minimum.

Where travel is concerned, motorists are assumed to minimise the generalised cost of that travel. Transport models use this approach to calculate travel time savings from new transport infrastructure.

A recent review of research, however, shows that people have a certain amount of time they are prepared to spend travelling each day. This means they don’t take advantage of added infrastructure to save time.

While new roads may reduce travel time for a period on some routes, in the longer run, these savings are spent on travelling further. This means the travel time savings put forward by proponents for these plans are not backed up by real world evidence.

As a result, these assumptions should not be relied upon for the assessment of road projects like WestConnex and the Western Distributor. For WestConnex, the value of calculated travel time savings is A$13 billion, or about half the claimed benefits for the project. Without these time savings, the costs of the project exceed the benefits.

Melbourne researchers John Odgers and Nicholas Low found that the forecast time savings for Melbourne’s CityLink project did not eventuate. They suggest that, rather than being based on evidence, transport policy is probably driven by political momentum to build more roads, because that’s what Australia has been doing for a long time.

Governments and their technical advisers also have strong incentives to find benefits to justify what politicians want to do.

Partly in recognition of the problems with transport modelling, some European cities have changed the way the problem is framed – from meeting forecast travel demand, to achieving a number of social and economic objectives through transport investment. Through sustainable urban mobility plans, different types of projects are favoured. These include better integrated bus networks, more bus lanes, safer cycling and walking routes, improved park and ride facilities, and traffic calming measures that redesign streetscapes and reduce speed limits to improve mobility for all road users.

Rather than facilitating the movement of motor vehicles, this process emphasises creating safe, reliable and affordable access with less travel and a reduced environmental footprint. It also requires that engineers, urban planners, economists and other specialists sit down with the business and community sectors to build a consensus on what needs to be done. This is in contrast to current engineering-dominated methods.

In Australia, the Delivering Sustainable Urban Mobility report prepared for the federal government emphasises “putting people first” in urban transport. The report recommends a three-part approach: less travel, shifting away from trips by car, and improving vehicle fuel efficiency.

While this is somewhat encouraging, there is no recognition in the report that current methods of calculating the benefits of roads projects are unreliable because of the way time savings are calculated.

Despite a lack of evidence, the use of travel time savings calculated in transport models is deeply entrenched in government and professional practice. Until this flawed approach is replaced by something like sustainable urban mobility plans, government road spending will continue to encourage sprawl and car dependency, rather than save us time.

Modelling for major road projects is at odds with driver behaviour is republished with permission from The Conversation

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World shipping changed forever when the Panama Canal opened on August 15, 1914. It was an engineering marvel of its day, cutting the distance required to get from the Pacific Ocean to the Atlantic by as much as 8,000 nautical miles.

World shipping changed forever when the Panama Canal opened on August 15, 1914. It was an engineering marvel of its day, cutting the distance required to get from the Pacific Ocean to the Atlantic by as much as 8,000 nautical miles.

The shipping industry is changing once again as 70 heads of state gathered in Panama City recently to celebrate the canal’s expansion to handle the super-sized ships that now dominate global trade. They were there to witness a Chinese container ship become the first commercial vessel to take advantage of the new, larger locks to pass from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific.

As a civil engineer and native of the Panama Canal Zone, I have long marveled at the feats of the original and am impressed by its expansion. So what prompted the Panama government to finally expand it after more than a century? What makes it innovative and what challenges remain?

The canal had to be expanded to allow for today’s super-sized cargo ships. Carlos Jasso/Reuters

Wonder of the modern world

The U.S. government built the original, 50-mile Panama Canal after a failed effort by the French in the late 19th century.

The American Society of Civil Engineers named it one of the seven wonders of the modern world in 1994.

When the canal first opened, it was the size of U.S. Navy ships that dictated the width of the locks: 110 feet across and 42 feet deep. Before it opened, ships had to journey all the way down to the Strait of Magellan near the tip of South America to cross from New York to San Francisco.

Ships enter the canal through a series of three chambers, which lift the vessels up to the higher level of Gatun Lake through which they will glide, and subsequently lower them to sea level. In addition, tides on the Atlantic side are much lower than the Pacific.

The upgrade, which cost $5.25 billion and was built alongside the old locks, was designed to support the contemporary needs of global commerce from Asia. Modern so-called neo-Panamax ships can be more than 150 feet wide, extend three football fields in length and have a draft of 50 feet. (Draft is how deep into the water a ship goes below the surface.)

New locks’ innovative engineering

When designing the new locks, engineers knew they needed constant access to plenty of water to flood the locks and ensure the ships don’t hit bottom.

Having enough water has been a problem with the current locks, such as during a recent drought when shippers had to lighten their loads to make it through. So with the new ones, they created water-saving basins, which capture and recycle water as ships step down from chamber to chamber. Consequently, even though the new locks are 3.3 times larger than the 1914 ones, they use 7 percent less water.

Another enhancement is the expansion locks’ use of rolling gates to close each lock, a significant upgrade from the old ones. The rolling gates allow maintenance to be performed without having to temporarily close the lock, saving lots of time and money.

In addition, whereas the 1914 locks used electric towing locomotives (known as mules) to guide ships through the locks, the expansion locks will rely on two positioning tugboats (fore and aft) to position vessels during transit, which is more efficient – though there are some concerns, as noted below.

The new locks are 3.3 times larger yet use 7 percent less water. Carlos Jasso/Reuters

East Coast ports prepare

The impending arrival of new Panamax ships with a required draft of 50 feet has sent East Coast ports and businesses in the U.S. scrambling to benefit from this increased cargo.

Currently, only Baltimore, Norfolk and Miami are ready to accommodate these larger ships and containers. Shipping channel deepening and widening dredging projects are underway in Savannah (which currently allows draft of up to 47 feet) and Charleston.

In addition, in New York, the Bayonne Bridge, which spans the channel between Bayonne, New Jersey and Staten Island, currently restricts both states’ biggest ports from accepting these super-sized vessels. The project to raise the bridge has been delayed until the end of 2017 because of engineering miscalculations and construction work slowed by inclement weather.

Expansion project challenges

Besides which U.S. ports are ready for the canal, the project has encountered other difficulties, as is typical with many projects of this magnitude.

Most notable of these been the cost and time overruns (two years longer than expected), leaks within the concrete lock walls and concerns about the use of tugboats instead of electric towing locomotives. The main worry on the tugboats is that they won’t have sufficient control of the vessel, particularly during the dry season when trade winds blow hard.

Mixed in with these challenges is the drop in demand for global trade and one of the worst shipping industry slumps ever thanks in part to the slowdown in China, which has diminished the expansion’s economic viability.

However, history reminds us that the construction of the original canal was also fraught with obstacles. The French company that started the project in the 1880s went bankrupt and severe landslides necessitated an additional excavation of 25 percent more soil than originally planned.

However, these challenges were overcome, and the U.S. completed the canal in 1914, although just one year later, it was closed for seven months after another landslide.

So certainly, there will be more “hiccups,” as there always are, but I expect they will also be surmounted, and we will be able to celebrate Panama’s marvelous engineering achievement.

Explainer: how Panama Canal expansion will transform shipping once again is republished with permission from The Conversation

The post Panama Canal: It’s OK if You Have a Bigger Boat appeared first on Economy Watch.

The evidence is that if you ensure that people travel safely in terms of safe rates you will get proper outcomes … you will get improved safety. – Shadow Minister for Infrastructure and Transport, Anthony Albanese, speaking on RN Breakfast, April 11, 2016.

The evidence is that if you ensure that people travel safely in terms of safe rates you will get proper outcomes … you will get improved safety. – Shadow Minister for Infrastructure and Transport, Anthony Albanese, speaking on RN Breakfast, April 11, 2016.

Australian Prime Minister Malcolm Turnbull has promised to abolish the Road Transport Remuneration Tribunal if re-elected.

That announcement came after the tribunal issued a Road Safety Remuneration Order setting minimum pay rates for self-employed truck drivers consistent with the 2010 Road Transport and Distribution Award.

Turnbull told reporters that the tribunal is not effective in improving safety and that it undermines owner operator drivers and family businesses.

This FactCheck will not examine whether the Road Transport Remuneration Tribunal is the best way to improve road safety. It confines itself only to testing against the evidence a recent assertion by Shadow Minister for Infrastructure and Transport, Anthony Albanese, that better driver pay results in improved safety.

Is that assertion correct?

Checking the source

When asked for evidence to support his statement, Albanese’s spokesman referred The Conversation to Shadow Minister for Employment and Workplace Relations, Brendan O’Connor.

O’Connor’s spokeswoman referred The Conversation to the 2016 Review of the Road Safety Remuneration System conducted by PricewaterhouseCoopers for the Commonwealth government, which recommended the tribunal be abolished.

On the question of pay and road transport safety, the Pricewaterhouse Coopers report said:

* directly comparing remuneration and safety does demonstrate statistically significant correlations. However, results vary substantially.

* the four most recent papers range in conclusion from a) a very large effect, b) a U-shaped curve, in which a large positive effect of initial remuneration rises eventually turns negative, through to c) and d) with a very small effect

* the literature is very limited in size and focuses on employee drivers

Drivers are likely to benefit the most [from tribunal orders] due to increased remuneration and fewer road accidents, followed by government and members of society who face costs following road crashes, and will therefore benefit from an improvement in safety.

You can read the full response from O’Connor’s spokeswoman here.

If you just read that Pricewaterhouse Coopers report excerpt above, you might think that the evidence is fairly mixed. In fact, the overwhelming weight of evidence supports Albanese’s claim: there is persuasive evidence of a connection between truck driver pay and safety.

What do other Australian studies say?

Australian studies conducted since the 1990s found a significant link between scheduling pressures, unpaid waiting time, insecure rewards and access to work, and hazardous practices such as speeding, excessive hours and drug use by drivers. The researchers found that those on trip-based payment schemes (typical for owner drivers but also increasing amongst employee drivers) drove on average 15km per hour faster than those on fixed rate payments (like hourly wages).

A 2001 study found drivers who were paid in terms of the amount of work they did reported fatigue more often than drivers who were paid in terms of the time they were working (for example, hourly rates).

An Australian study published in the American Journal of Epidemiology in 2007 analysed drug use by drivers in both surveys and concluded that:

the strongest predictors of drug use were payment based on the amount of work completed and fatigue reported as a major problem … The strong association of payment by results and low pay with drug use among Australian long-distance truck drivers is consistent with other research suggesting that economic factors are an important influence on health and safety in the workplace.

An Australian survey of 300 long haul drivers found owner-drivers experienced significantly worse health scores than employee drivers, especially when employed on the most competitive route (Melbourne – Sydney).

Owner-drivers and drivers working for small firms reported more injuries than those employed by larger firms and owner-drivers had a slightly higher crash rate.

Another survey of Australian heavy vehicle drivers published in 2014 found:

piece-rate compensation methods were associated with higher levels of fatigue-related driving than non-piece-rate methods. Follow-up analysis also revealed higher caffeine and amphetamines use among piece-rate drivers for the purpose of staying awake while driving.

In that study, the authors found no association between compensation methods and sleepiness.

What do US studies say?

A US paper published in 2002 found that driver pay has a strong effect on safety outcomes.

Similarly, a large survey of long haul truck drivers undertaken by the National Institute for Occupational Safety and Health in the US detailed scheduling pressure on drivers, widespread unsafe driving practices, regulatory non-compliance and failure to report injuries.

Safety outcomes should not be confined to crashes, although understandably these are the focus of policy and public debate. Safety outcomes include unsafe work practices (like excessive hours, speeding, poor maintenance of trucks and use of drugs).

Most of the research has relied on cross-sectional surveys of drivers, meaning they analyse a snapshot of data from a population at a given moment in time (as opposed to longitudinal studies, which follow the same people over time). Cross-sectional surveys can have limitations.

Comparing safety outcomes between employee and owner drivers is also difficult because owner drivers are much more sensitive to market ups and downs. There has been a convergence of conditions between employee and owener-drivers, especially in the small firms (for example, many employee drivers are paid on trip-based rates now and Award non-compliance has also grown due to competitive pressures). Most truck safety studies have not examined this.

Nonetheless, the research findings are clear and consistent.

Verdict

Albanese was correct. There is persuasive evidence of a connection between truck driver pay and safety. – Michael Quinlan

Review

This is an excellent brief summary of the literature. Albanese is quite right that “safe rates” gets the public a safer outcome. The literature the expert cites is quite competent (Australians are way ahead of Americans on this) and is some of the same literature I would cite, and have cited, in my own work. I see that this expert has cited my work, which I modestly think is valid and has been peer reviewed.

Studies my team performed for the US Department of Transportation Federal Motor Carrier Administration in 2002 demonstrated that higher compensation led to significantly safer truck driver performance. For every 10% more in truck driver mileage pay rate, a very large American truckload carrier found that the probability that a driver would have a crash declined 40%.

Research shows this effect is true across carriers. A cross-sectional studyof 102 non-union truckload motor carriers found that for every 10% increase in truckie compensation, carriers’ crash rates were 9.2% lower.

In sum, there is ample evidence that supports the relationship between compensation and safety in trucking and across other modes. In my own work, I see it in intercity buses. In others’ work, I see it in airlines and even in rail. – Michael H. Belzer

FactCheck: do better pay rates for truck drivers improve safety? is republished with permission from The Conversation

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Last week, SpaceX held another successful launch of its Falcon 9 rocket. Unfortunately, its landing was not quite as successful as the one in December (it crashed into the ocean).

SpaceX isn’t alone in trying to develop reusable launch vehicles. Other private companies such as Blue Origin and Virgin Galactic are also in the race to achieve the dream of consistently landing a rocket after hurtling it into the heavens. Each success – and failure – gets us a little closer.

Last week, SpaceX held another successful launch of its Falcon 9 rocket. Unfortunately, its landing was not quite as successful as the one in December (it crashed into the ocean).

SpaceX isn’t alone in trying to develop reusable launch vehicles. Other private companies such as Blue Origin and Virgin Galactic are also in the race to achieve the dream of consistently landing a rocket after hurtling it into the heavens. Each success – and failure – gets us a little closer.

However, how significant is the creation of reusable rockets? In addition, where will we go from here? Are we finally close to the future once promised by the Jetson’s FX-Atmos “flying car” or Han Solo’s Millennium Falcon: a world of personal, space-bound transports that can leave your garage, reach orbit and beyond, and return home in time for dinner?

What else stands in the way?

The final frontier

The “democratization of space exploration,” spurred by NASA encouraging private companies to develop and manage complete launch systems, is igniting a new age of space development and awakening a spirit of exploration and technology innovation that’s been absent from our culture for far too long.

This resurgence of interest is reflected in NASA’s latest call for astronaut applications: 18,300 hopefuls applied for just 14 positions.

In addition, in the private sector, venture capitalists are showing the same enthusiasm by investing US$1.8 billion in space startups in 2015, compared with an average of $193 million a year over the previous 15 years. The increased demand for space access is further spurring on private companies to develop more efficient reusable rocket launch systems.

Today’s space companies aren’t the first to set their sights on such a rocket. This great feat of engineering was originally achieved in 1993, when McDonald Douglass tested the Delta Clipper Experimental (DC-X), a prototype single-stage launch vehicle. NASA later canceled the project.

Now, it seems, the conditions are ripe once again to pick up where the DC-X left off. The private sector has started to take up this challenge, and the race is on to enhance all our lives with cheap space travel.

This future begins with the reusable rocket.

What does a reusable launch vehicle get us?

Imagine what life would be like if, after each trip to Grandma’s, we had to throw away the car. Even with the benefits of mass production, the cost to an individual would be prohibitive, especially if there exist reasonable alternatives like horses or walking. Only governments, extremely wealthy enthusiasts, could employ such automobiles or perhaps by a few skilled specialists who lived for the challenge.

This is pretty much the situation with current spacecraft technology. Not even the Space Shuttle program achieved the lofty goal of reliable reusability, although it tried very hard. The shuttle was such a complicated system that every time it returned to Earth, intense maintenance had to be performed and systems rebuilt or overhauled, making it three times as expensive as that of an expendable rocket. For example, a shuttle launch cost $450 million to $1.5 billion, compared with $110 million for a Russian Proton rocket with about the same lift capacity.

Truly reusable launch vehicles would significantly reduce the cost of getting material and people into orbit and enable new uses of space with far-reaching socioeconomic consequences that will ultimately reduce our impact on Earth’s environment, such as space-based energy collection, mining and manufacturing.

In order to get an idea of the savings, the retail price of a Falcon 9 rocket is around $60 million to build and launch (including fuel). Given its total lift capacity of 13,150 kilograms to low-Earth orbit, this translates into a price tag of about $400,000 to ferry a 90-kilogram (198-pound) person into space. But if you had to pay only for fuel, about $300,000 a launch, the price tag drops drastically to just $2,000 for the same person. That’s not far from the cost of flying from New York to Sydney, which makes a future family vacation to a Bigelow B330 Space Habitat a viable alternative to Disney World.

At the pace things are going, we project that within 10 years the space industry will achieve the goal of a fully reusable launch vehicle. Companies and municipalities, small and big, are all starting to look into ways of taking advantage of this complete disruption in, or better yet creation of, the commercial space market.

So our next question is this: what do we need to make the Millennium Falcon – that is, a single-stage-to-orbit completely reusable spacecraft – a reality?

A little physics can help us see exactly what needs to happen and exactly how far we are from this goal.

The Shuttle came close to being reusable, but it still required expendable rockets to get into space and significant maintenance after every use. Space Shuttle via www.shutterstock.com

Rocket Science 101

Space travel is all about speed. The old adage, “What goes up must come down,” is true only to a point. If you throw something up fast enough, it won’t come back down, it will have escaped Earth’s gravity. The question is exactly how fast is fast enough.

A simple application of Newtonian gravity theory tells us that if we achieve a speed of 11 kilometers per second – the equivalent of a plane flying 25,000 mph straight up – we are not going to fall back to Earth. Scientists and engineers refer to this speed, which depends on the physical properties of the Earth, as our planet’s escape velocity.

A rocket tries to achieve that speed by taking mass and throwing it out the back as fast as possible. Thanks to Newton’s third law – which states that for every action there is an equal and opposite reaction – this propels the rocket forward.

The ratio between the change in velocity needed to escape the Earth’s pull (known as delta-v) and the speed at which the rocket sends stuff out the back (exhaust velocity) is the most important number in rocket science. It determines how much mass needs to be expelled and how much energy is necessary to get to space. The smaller we can make the ratio, the better.

Private companies like SpaceX are democratizing space exploration. Reuters (Right)

In addition, the propellants and fuels are themselves massive, and the rocket needs to carry these things with itself, making it heaver and harder to accelerate.

Therefore, we need propellants and fuels with a high-energy content and low mass.

Now we can begin to appreciate the enormous feat of engineering that private companies and governments have achieved by not only launching a rocket but learning to land it as well.

The maximum achievable exhaust velocities for the rockets we’ve been using since the dawn of space travel are much less than the Earth’s escape velocity (about 4 km/s or 9,000 mph), forcing us to come up with ingenious and costly multistage launch techniques to get even a modest payload into space.

In summary, in order to leave the surface of the Earth with the grace and apparent effortlessness of the Millennium Falcon, we need to achieve speeds in excess of the escape velocity, 11 km/s. In order to do that without carrying a fuel tank that far exceeds the size of our ship, we need to achieve exhaust speeds significantly higher than the escape velocity, something not possible with the chemical fuels we use.

So where do we go from here?

So in order to make the Millennium Falcon a reality, we need a new type of fuel, as chemical-based engines are severely limiting.

Thanks to Albert Einstein, we know that there is energy stored in mass itself. Using his famous E = mc² equation, we know that exhaust speeds up to the speed of light are achievable, and way more than necessary to escape Earth’s gravity.

A sustainable exhaust speed of 1,000 km/s, less than 1 percent of the speed of light, would pretty much enable our dream ship. Its fuel-to-mass ratio would be about the same as that of your typical car.

The next question is how do we get access to the energy stored in the mass (fuel and propellant) sufficient to achieve those speeds? The answer lies in nuclear reactions or, better yet, matter-antimatter reactions. In short, we need to put a mass reactor, nuclear or matter-antimatter, on board our ship. Think of the Enterprise’s “warp core,” for all those Star Trek fans out there.

Nuclear rockets may seem farfetched, but various versions have already been proposed and prototypes have even been built. The Nuclear Engine for Rocket Vehicle Application (NERVA) project, a joint NASA-Atomic Energy Commission program, developed a flight-certified nuclear-based rocket engine that meets all the requirements for a manned mission to Mars.

What is interesting, and perhaps a little sad, is that this was done in 1968, over four decades ago! The NERVA engine achieved exhaust velocities pretty close to Earth’s escape velocity, around 10 km/s. The program was tied to NASA’s manned Mars exploration program and, since it was unable to justify the expense of going to Mars, was scrapped in 1972.

More recently, NASA has been developing electric propulsion systems that can generate large effective exhaust velocities that are limited only through the strength of the electric field. Effective exhaust velocities of 90 km/s are already achievable. However, this is just the propulsion part. The solar panels, batteries or fuel cells that are currently used as power sources for these engines limit their usefulness. Electricity generated from nuclear power could solve this problem.

Who needs Disney World? How about a trip to the International Space Station? ISS via www.shutterstock.com

Back to the future

With the renewed interest in space exploration and innovation, we challenge inventors and entrepreneurs to consider looking at advanced nuclear/antimatter-powered rocket systems. This could enable us to achieve the dream of a space car in our garages in half a century.

The key to all the recent advances in space exploration technology has been combining older proven technologies with modern computing capabilities, materials and fabrication processes. NASA’s push to get technologies into private hands will accelerate this process.

Back in 1972, we were at 1 percent of the needed exhaust speed. It’s not too much of a stretch to propose that, after 40 years of advances, we need only revisit the designs with fresh and entrepreneurial eyes to make it possible for a Han Solo – or, to be more contemporary, Rey Skywalker – to jump into the Falcon and speed off to somewhere far, far away.

Never mind SpaceX’s Falcon 9, where’s my Millennium Falcon? is republished with permission from The Conversation

The post The Privatization of Space is Happening appeared first on Economy Watch.

For the first time in close to a century, mankind may be about to give serious attention to a technology that has the potential to be a true game-changer in transportation.

For the first time in close to a century, mankind may be about to give serious attention to a technology that has the potential to be a true game-changer in transportation.

Elon Musk famously proposed the idea of the Hyperloop a few years ago, and suggested it could be a revolutionary method for travel based on available technology today. The Hyperloop has already created extreme controversy with skeptics citing everything from the cost of land in California to the substantial g-forces that would impact passengers being accelerated from 0 to 700+ miles per hour in a short span of time. Yet while there are reasons to be cautious about the technology, the Hyperloop should also be cheered as the continuation of a long tradition of American innovation and pushing the boundaries of the human experience.

Now Musk’s Hyperloop looks set to take its first tentative steps towards reality as a test version of the track is nearing the construction phase. This begs an interesting question – if the Hyperloop works, how big of a disruptive force would it be for the airline industry? The Hyperloop certainly has other (arguably simpler) market opportunities than moving people, such as disrupting the airfreight or trucking industry, but those are issues for another time. For today, it is useful to think about the impact of the Hyperloop on the airline industry.

In practice, a combination of ticket price and travel time will drive the Hyperloop’s ability to compete with airlines. Price, in turn, will be substantially impacted by energy costs for transporting passengers in the Hyperloop. The technology behind the actual test track of the Hyperloop is well proven, but not on the scale that Musk and others need to see for the Hyperloop to actually function. Instead, there are a few possible ways to power a Hyperloop capsule in theory.

The Hyperloop capsule represents something like a cross between the pneumatic tubes found at banks and hospitals today (and which once crossed miles of cities decades ago) and a maglev train. Determining exactly how much power a Hyperloop would require is tricky at this stage but it is also an important issue. One of the reasons that some previously new transportation ideas, like hovercraft, have never really gotten off the ground is their massive energy requirements.

So how much energy will it take to “shoot” a Hyperloop canister along the tube? The proposal from Musk originally envisioned a constant energy source in the form of a compressor rather than simple impulse acceleration (like a bullet). It’s not totally clear if the new test tracks will deviate from the original proposal or not, but assuming that the designers stick to roughly what Musk originally proposed, a 436 hp (325 KW) capsule motor would be required.

For comparison, trains’ locomotives frequently have around 4,000 horsepower, while a typical car often has around 150 hp. The biggest challenge here is how much friction the system will face from the air around it. In particular, the system needs to produce a large enough pressure in order to move the capsule along the track. The math behind the mechanics of moving the tube is a little complex, but a back of the envelope calculation based on Force, Pressure, Area and Ideal Gas law calculations suggest Musk’s estimates are reasonable.

Overall, the Hyperloop would use perhaps as little as 27 kW of power per passenger (assuming a very conservative 6 passengers per tube and a 30-minute travel time on the trip). The power requirement increases if the tube size increases of course, but on a per passenger basis that is relatively irrelevant. Essentially the math here suggests that a Hyperloop tube could move passengers for as little as a few dollars each in energy. The real issue that will determine feasibility then is the capital expenditure cost for the Hyperloop. More on that in a future article. 

Elon Musk’s Hyperloop Takes A Step Forward is republished with permission from Oilprice.com 

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A California-based service known as Uber, has become increasingly popular over the last several years, and has stood at the forefront of the so-called “sharing economy.” The service allows drivers to volunteer their services via a mobile application, and it has deeply cut into the taxi industry in cities Uber services.

A California-based service known as Uber, has become increasingly popular over the last several years, and has stood at the forefront of the so-called “sharing economy.” The service allows drivers to volunteer their services via a mobile application, and it has deeply cut into the taxi industry in cities Uber services.

However, the dazzling star of the sharing economy was dealt a major setback on Wednesday when the California Labor Commission ruled that the company must consider one of its drivers an employee. The ruling came in a case brought by Barbara Ann Berwick in which she sought approximately $4,000 in unpaid wages and expenses related to her work through Uber. The ruling issued earlier in June 2015 and was reported by the Christian Science Monitor. Uber has announced it plans to appeal the decision.

Since its launch in 2009, Uber has grown at a phenomenal rate. In just six short years, the company has grown to operate in 58 countries around the world, 300 cities, and amassed a company valuation of $40 billion ($2.8 billion of which is venture capital). In March 2015, the number of Uber cars on New York City streets surpassed the number of yellow taxis.

The company has a remarkable business model that leverages automation and mobile technology to keep operational costs remarkably low. Uber has just 1,000 employees, but more than 167,000 drivers that, until the California ruling, were all considered independent contractors. Drivers provide their own vehicles, set their own hours, and provide their own gas, while Uber merely acts as the middleman, connecting drivers with passengers and collecting a commission from fares.

However, the ruling found that Uber exerted too much control over its drivers, creating an employer-level of dominion over these workers. Its opinion noted that Uber involved itself in every aspect of its drivers’ operations, including maintaining specific parameters for vehicles driven, mobile devices used to access the service, and even terminating drivers if users rated their services too low.

The ruling calls into question many of the tenets of the so-called sharing economy. These businesses use models that allow individuals to use their own resources to make money through a regulated platform. Workers set their own schedule and, in some cases, their own rates.  However, the servicing company typically reaps most of the benefit with little effort or investment. Other well-known examples include Uber’s rival, Lyft and hotel-alternative service AirBNB. However, if those availing themselves of these services could become employees, it exposes the underlying company to enormous liability, administrative costs, and possible back taxes and other consequences of misidentified personnel. That could lead to a quick end to the sharing economy.

The California ruling is not the first black eye for Uber’s business mode. Last month, Florida’s Department of Economic Opportunity ruled that a Miami driver, whose vehicle was hit while working for Uber and taken out of commission, should receive unemployment compensation from Uber as an employee. Uber insists both of these cases are isolated and lack precedential value.

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Complaining about public transport might seem as English as moaning about the weather. Moreover, it is not very British to shout about success. Therefore, what follows might seem odd, but here it goes: Transport for London leads the way as an effective transport authority. There, said it. In addition, it does so by building popular and political consensus around the importance and urgency of transport investment. Systematically, the city reliant on Victorian suburban railways and a Georgian underground railway increases its fitness to cater to the demands of a growing 21st-century city.

Complaining about public transport might seem as English as moaning about the weather. Moreover, it is not very British to shout about success. Therefore, what follows might seem odd, but here it goes: Transport for London leads the way as an effective transport authority. There, said it. In addition, it does so by building popular and political consensus around the importance and urgency of transport investment. Systematically, the city reliant on Victorian suburban railways and a Georgian underground railway increases its fitness to cater to the demands of a growing 21st-century city.

Transport for London has succeeded by creating an integrated transport authority from the fragmented patchwork of services it has inherited piece by piece since 2000. Today, 30m journeys on TfL’s network happen every day. A testament to the TfL model is that both Sydney and Auckland adopted many aspects of it. Here are six lessons from its success that other cities can follow.

1. An integrated network

Under the iconic TfL brand, different public transport modes integrate to provide end-to-end services. Unlike other transport authorities, TfL also manages the main roads and streets in London, as part of which it is in charge of cycling, taxi and mini cab regulation, traffic signalling and congestion charging.

A testament to the successful integration of the different types of transport on offer is the significant growth in public transport usage, in particular bus services. Since 2003, the percentage of car users has dropped by ten points. In addition, the success of cycling policies and campaigners’ efforts reflects in the rapid increase in cycling uptake.

2. Easy to use

The transport system has become easy to use with the introduction of smart ticketing in the shape of the Oyster card in 2007 and cashless payment cards in 2014, allowing people to use their debit and credit cards.

By making data on their services openly available to app developers, many transport apps for London make the use of the network easy and accessible. Clear network maps at stations and street maps across the city make getting around easier and more hassle-free.

Since TfL was created in 2000, investment in the system has created a more reliable and safe system. For example, on London Underground reliability has improved significantly, with the excess journey time due to delays reduced by 40% since 2000. Clean and staffed stations create a safer and more welcoming environment for passengers to use.

3. Strong leadership

Key to TfL’s success is having a vocal and charismatic mayor to champion the transport agenda and secure political and financial support for it. The Mayor of London chairs the TfL board and currently spends £11bn – two-thirds of his annual budget – on transport via TfL. This is three times more than on policing and 21 times more than on the fire brigade. TfL’s revenues from fare and advertising cover only half its costs. To bridge the shortfall TfL relies on grants and borrowing. For these it is vital for TfL to drum up support across the political spectrum. Cross-party support ensures long-term funding security. It allows the transport authority to plan into the future and reduces the risk of projects stopping midway through.

As a directly elected, executive mayor, London’s incumbent holds significant power. He has both the mandate and authority to realise his vision for the city’s transport. Without it, policies such as the congestion-charging scheme in central London may not exist. The potential downside, however, is that more contentious projects (the Emirates-sponsored cable car and the garden bridge spring to mind), both celebrated by the incumbent mayor, Boris Johnson, and supported by TfL funds can also gain traction.

4. Unlocking potential

Transport is key to realising the mayor’s vision for London as a whole. With statutory responsibility for transport, land use, and economic development, the three are interdependent. Transport develops in a way that unlocks new development sites and facilitates the continued growth of the city’s industries.

The Olympics marked a shift in this thinking. TfL was no longer in the business of just transport service provision – instead, its role evolved to be part of wider mayoral objectives, whether to promote London as an attractive business centre, a liveable green city – or to tackle the housing crisis. By promoting its supportive role in the delivery of wider objectives, TfL becomes a key player in shaping London and strengthens its position for funding and involvement.

5. Thinking strategically

Transport for London’s role is a strategic planner rather than an operator. With the exception of London Underground, wholly owned and run by TfL, the network runs on a concession system: TfL plans and manages the network, while private companies run the service.

For example, Transport for London will stipulate a bus services’ route, frequency, and service hours. The private company will run the buses, employ the bus drivers, and supervise the depot for a fee. London will carry the revenue risk, the risk that fare income will not cover the cost of the service provision. By taking on that risk, TfL reduces the cost of the service provision. All buses, the Docklands Light Railway and the London Overground provide in this way.

Even though TfL does not run the service, TfL branding is on all concessions and worn by staff to present an integrated and recognisable network to the passenger.

6. Building on its successes

Transport for London seeks to take over more of the transport network within the Greater London boundary. Building on the success of the Olympics and London Overground, TfL is campaigning to take over more of the rail network in Greater London. A recent report indicates how much of the Greater London rail network TfL may take over:

In the immediate future TfL has set its sights on routes terminating outside the authority boundary in neighbouring counties of Kent and Surrey, southeast of London.

TfL’s London Overground provides a good model for further suburban rail takeovers. For just over £1 billion, a neglected urban railway infrastructure combined to create an orbital network. The route boasts high passenger satisfaction levels, which reflect the investment in clean, well-staffed, and safe stations fully integrated into the TfL transport network. Since TfL took over in 2007, passenger numbers have increased fivefold – from 2.5 million to 13.5 million.

There is clearly a lot to learn from TfL’s success.

Six things other cities can learn from Transport for London’s success is republished with permission from The Conversation

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The newest Mercedes autonomous car looks like a car on the outside but like a lounge on the inside, with four swivel seats facing each other in a multimedia bubble of padded leather and walnut veneer.

The F 015 ‘Luxury in Motion’ concept car unveiled at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas earlier this year is completely self-driving but still has a steering wheel and brake if you want to swivel around and drive it manually.

The newest Mercedes autonomous car looks like a car on the outside but like a lounge on the inside, with four swivel seats facing each other in a multimedia bubble of padded leather and walnut veneer.

The F 015 ‘Luxury in Motion’ concept car unveiled at the Consumer Electronics Show in Las Vegas earlier this year is completely self-driving but still has a steering wheel and brake if you want to swivel around and drive it manually.

Daimler, the maker of Mercedes and inventor of the original automobile, wants to be among the first to re-invent the car, CEO Dieter Zetsche said at the CES, which he says will become more than just a means of transport and will turn into a mobile living space.

German rival Audi, Tesla, Google and a number of other companies are working on their own versions of driverless cars, fulfilling the forecasts that they will be a reality on the roads perhaps as soon as the end of this decade.

In fact, all the technology needed for a self-driving car exists already. Current features like adaptive cruise control and self-parking preview what a fully autonomous car can do.

It is likelier to be legal and liability issues that slow down actual deployment. That and social acceptance of such a radical change could dampen the trend more than a lack of technology.

Tesla CEO Elon Musk said in a recent interview, however, that the change in thinking could be no different from the shift from elevators manned by operators to today’s completely automatic elevators.

There is little question that driverless cars will improve fuel economies not only because they smooth out the braking and accelerating of human drivers, but also because they improve traffic flow by finding optimal routes and mitigating congestion. The lower accident rate will mean fewer traffic jams from that cause as well.

In addition, there will be fewer cars on the road because a single driverless car per family can take both parents to work, drop the kids off at school, pick them up afterwards and obviate the need for the two or three-car family.

A recent study from the University of Michigan suggests, however, that overall fuel consumption could increase because the cars on the road will get a lot more use. But of course, that can be balanced out by greater reliance on non-fossil fuel energy to power the cars.

Stock market analysts are already talking about this evolution because investors looking at the big picture can put their money into the automakers and suppliers who are moving in this direction and who will have an important head start.

Along with Audi and Mercedes, BMW is on that list, as well as General Motors, Volvo and Toyota. Auto suppliers that are in this trend include TRW, Delphi, and Borg Warner in the U.S., as well as Europe’s Continental and Japan’s Denso.

This transformative automobile technology will be a game-changer for other industries as well, from software makers to suppliers of entertainment. As cars truly do become mobile living spaces, there will be new revenue streams as companies figure out ways to monetize the extra time people have in their cars (movies, music, games – the list goes on).

Car safety, but also cybersecurity – nobody wants to have their car hacked – are issues that need to be developed and tested.

Tesla’s Musk noted that driving in dense urban environments at intermediate speeds pose the greatest challenge for current technologies and these must test thoroughly before allowing driverless cars on the road.

But the self-driving car is coming to a showroom near you sooner than you think.

Driverless Cars Poised To Transform Automotive Industry is republished with permission from Oilprice.com

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The festive season is here: With Christmas and the New Year just around the corner, retailers have been reporting record-sales figures despite the fears over the economic outlook. Other than the retail front, how does the logistic market play a part in our festive season?

The festive season is here: With Christmas and the New Year just around the corner, retailers have been reporting record-sales figures despite the fears over the economic outlook. Other than the retail front, how does the logistic market play a part in our festive season?

What recession? U.S. holiday spending has hit the roof this season. According to comScore, Americans spent nearly $31 billion in online shopping alone this year, with similar record-spending figures during Thanksgiving and Halloween. 

But how does the transport industry fare during the shopping booms? Let’s take a look:

Related Infographic: ‘Tis The Seasonal Worker

Related: Black Friday: Bigger Crowds, Higher Sales, $52.4 Billion Spent

Related: The Halloween Economy: $2.52 Billion in Costumes, $2 Billion in Candy, $1.88 Billion in Decorations, $470 Million in Greeting Cards 

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The transportation industry, which involves carrying passengers and freight, is among the largest employers in the world. The major divisions of the transportation sector are:

The transportation industry, which involves carrying passengers and freight, is among the largest employers in the world. The major divisions of the transportation sector are:

• Infrastructure: This includes the construction and maintenance of roads, canals, terminals, stations, depots and seaports. The ownership of transportation infrastructure could be public or private.
   
• Vehicles: It includes the development of various modes of transportation –automobiles, trains, ships and aircrafts.
   
• Operations: This encompasses the methods by which vehicles are operated. It also includes their financing and legalities.
  

  Transportation Industry: History

  The primary mode of transportation in the early ages (after the invention of the wheel) was animal-driven carts. The Romans were the first to build paved roads. The development of cities across the world led to the growth of shipping. Some major historical inventions that shaped the modern transportation industry are:

  • Steamboat (1787)
  • Modern bicycles (1790)
  • Cable car (1871)
  • Automobiles (with internal combustion engines) (1885)
  • Aircraft (1903)
  • Modern helicopters (1940)
  • Supersonic jet flight (1947)
  • Bullet trains (1967)

  Transportation Industry: Demand and Supply Drivers

  Slow economic activity results in lower demand for freight and passenger transportation. According to the IATA, the air transport industry lost more than $4 billion amidst the 2008 global recession. Another major driver of the industry is cost, in terms of ticket prices and financing (demand) and factors of production (supply). Transportation activities heighten during the holiday seasons, impacting the performance of this industry.

  Transportation Industry: Major Players

  The major players of the transportation industry are:

  • Railways: The US has the biggest railway network (approximately 240,000 kms). Other countries with vast railway lines are Russia (154,000 kms) and Canada (72,961 kms).
     
  • Airways: The major airlines are British Airways, Lufthansa, Qantas, Cathay Pacific, Emirates, Air France-KLM and Southwest Airlines.
     
  • Shipping and logistics: The chief shipping companies are APM Maersk (TEU capacity: 2,031,886), Mediterranean Shipping Company (1,469,865) and CMA CGM Group (988,141).

  The transportation industry supports economic development by aiding the production and distribution of goods and services. Also, the industry assists in the propagation of ideas and knowledge by facilitating the movement of professionals.

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