As cities replan their centres around people, not cars, they face resistance from suburban residents who see no alternative to using private motor vehicles. This piece for ITS International looks at examples from four European cities and asks whether they can keep the tides of traffic at bay.

A new report on the ethics of location data has interesting insights for transport.

The Bus Strategy regularly refers to demand responsive transport ensuring that the network runs in areas and at times where there are fewer passengers. Considering that DRT can be provided through private hire licensing or bus operator regulation, now is the time to think about how much of our network is provided through regular employment (with the safety framework it entails) and how much heavy lifting is done by gig economy workers.

What’s the block on mobility as a service in the UK? The problem is buses. But the solution may just have been published.

Antony de Heveningham examines the reasons for cuts to local bus services, and comes up with a novel culprit.

I live in a small, semi-rural town in the north of England. And I have just admitted to myself that I can’t quite do all the things I want to do without a car.

The Annual Survey of Mobility as a Service is now in its third year. Whatever your work in transport, either as a planner, providing public transport, bike share, car hire, leasing, payments, operational support, TRANStech please complete the survey to gauge how MaaS – and our hopes and fears for it – are developing.

I’ve watched the ebbing fortunes of the ‘bike share unicorns’ - notably ofo and Mobike - with concern over the past year. Their cheery growth, rapidly scattering thousands of orange and yellow bikes across UK cities seemed like a magic solution to get more people cycling without costing cities a fortune. But their equally rapid retraction holds lessons for all sorts of new mobility. 

My attention was drawn to an interesting piece of bike industry news from China today.

Chinese bike manufacturers are reporting significant drops in turnover as a result of bike share companies shrinking. Like, really significant – ofo supplier, the Shanghai Phoenix Enterprise (Group) Co Ltd, experienced a 55% drop in turnover and net income in the first six months of this year.

The announcement today that FirstGroup has reported a £356m loss along with change at the top of the transport group provoked me to recall three key statistics which stood out when researching this year's Annual Survey of Mobility as a Service.