The promise that hydrogen cars would help reduce carbon dioxide emissions from the transport sector has been with us for a couple of decades. Readers may well have wondered what, like hoverboards, has…
Beautiful machines? Or deadly waste of time?
Flickr/RMhowie
I had always been obsessed with cars. To me, cars represented freedom, engineering excellence, modernity, technological brilliance, speed, fun and excitement. I still love cars but not like I used to…
Arriving at a station near you (if you’re in Taiwan).
jiadoldol/Flickr
Transport megaprojects tend to make rather gloomy reading. The prevailing opinion, at least among social scientists, is that all big infrastructure projects share three characteristics: they take longer…
An expanding population means more cars on the road than ever before. So how can maths help ease traffic congestion?
Mr. T in DC
Mathematics may not be the first thing your mind turns to when you are caught in a traffic jam. Yet mathematics holds the key to understanding how traffic congestion develops, and how to prevent it. Perhaps…
Speed is not enough, we need growth.
Gareth Fuller/PA
The International Monetary Fund’s annual report on the UK economy calls for the Chancellor to boost economic growth through investing in infrastructure. While the IMF is right to make this point, we must…
Playing politics with transport will only lead to a train wreck.
Flickr/awmalloy
The 2013-2014 Federal budget includes billions of dollars allocated to transport, including a new Melbourne rail tunnel. At the same time the Victorian State government has plans for a different tunnel…
Ah, the freedom of the open road!
Walter Parenteau
Although the national budget is now apparently $12 billion in debt, a welter of state governments are pressing the federal government for support to build new freeways. The Victorian Government has just…
Is this our transport future? If the regulatory and safety issues are ironed out, many more of us could be boarding personal mobility devices for short commutes.
Nelson Pavlosky
Whether we like it or not, there is a pecking order on the road. At the top, either high performance sports cars or the massive B-double freight trucks reign supreme. On the lower rungs, pedestrians and…
The European experience with high speed rail suggests there are trade-offs with aviation depending on the routes.
There is no doubt that the creation of a 1748-kilometre high-speed rail network connecting Brisbane, Sydney, Canberra, and Melbourne is an exciting endeavour. But given the large capital costs - $114 billion…
So high speed rail might be a good investment, in future. It just might also be the worst of the possible rail projects to fund at this moment in time.
AAP
Transport Minister Anthony Albanese today released the second phase report for Australia’s High Speed Rail Study. The AECOM report plots out a preferred route from Brisbane to Melbourne, predicts how many…
Overprotective policies constrain kids and teach them to value risk assessment over opportunity.
Sim Dawdler/Flickr
We take an “efficiency” approach to childhood and child-rearing in Australia. We want kids to grow up and become productive economic citizens without them deviating from identified pathways, and society…
Australia’s transport planners are better than most at dealing with disasters.
AAP Image/Supplied by SES, Samantha Cantwell
Transport access is essential for people to get to the goods and services they need in daily life. Never is that basic access more appreciated, and more desired, than when it’s taken away from us, such…
Almost 1.3 million people die each year on the world’s roads, making road accidents the ninth leading cause of death globally.
AAP/Joe Castro
We demand and expect our transport systems to to get us where we want, when we want to be there, and as fast as possible. We are, however, human beings with human bodies. And as with any other built system…
It’s time to take solar transport fuels a lot more seriously.
National Renewable Energy Lab
Many times in human history governments have tried to write policies based around future technologies and missed identifying the transformational keys. In the 1970s, for example, few if any horizon-scanning…
Cycling numbers are growing in the inner city, but falling on the outskirts.
yewenyi/Flickr
If you have heard comments from friends or colleagues that there seem to be a lot more cyclists these days, chances are that you live or work in the inner city of an Australian capital city. A new report…
Even Los Angelenos are taking the train.
Thomas Hawk
There is a major rail revival around the world, including light rail, metro rail, heavy rail, and high speed rail. At the same time car use has peaked and is in decline in most cities. However transport…
If you don’t deal with road transport, you’re really not dealing with emissions.
Rachel Wray
Much of the recent debate over Australia’s new Energy White Paper deals with climate change, the planned growth of Australia’s coal and gas exports, and the future of electricity sector. And although when…
London bike share has proved more successful than schemes in Australia, but focusing on infrastructure could help improve sharing here.
cat1788/Flickr
Bike share programs in Melbourne and Brisbane were much heralded by the governments that installed them. But they’ve proved far less popular than schemes overseas. Is Australian bike share doomed? Since…
Our lives and lifestyles depend on mobility of people and freight; are we ready to lose that?
Martin Wurt
Over the next 50 years the world will increasingly confront a dilemma. On the one hand, the global economy and local lifestyles depend on the mobility of people and goods. On the other, that mobility depends…
Australia must resolve numerous social, economic and environmental obstacles if it wants to reap the benefits of the Asian Century.
Image from www.shutterstock.com
Governments are forever immersed in the daily challenge of responding to what the former British Prime Minister Harold Macmillan once knowingly described as “events.” It was he who coined the resounding…