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PS: Harsh criticism as this may seem, my goal here is a very positive one. Read
on.
Boondoggle: Hate to say it John but to my mind this is but one more
short-sighted interest-fed government-industry boondoggle: in short the winners
are once again circling their wagons and gaily divvying up the accumulating
spoils while the planet and the well being of ordinary people continue to come
under grave attack every day as the establishment continues in all impunity to
ignore the real bottom line. Which believe me is not “intelligent” transport
systems.
Oops: The fact that such a program is further interest-driven by members of the
academic community, who to my mind should have a far deeper understanding of the
gravity of the situation we face in this sector and its many components and
spin-offs, is, in its own way, quite grave. Dear academic colleagues. May I
respectfully ask that you step back from this kind of thing until we have made
at least some palpable progress on the terrible matters at hand. Your
intellect, skills and energy are much needed on far more important things.
Syndrome: This is part of a larger syndrome to which we have collectively
subscribed without quite realizing it. Namely, our sector has fallen victim to
an egregious Cartesian tendency to parcelize the whole into many bits and pieces
beyond the limits of any common sense (just look at the organigram of any
ministry of transport to see how that works) and then sub-optimize this and that
with gay abandon. Thus we have roads and streets that have been optimized
through construction and yes! electronics for speed and throughput, when the
communities around them have quite a different set of requirements. And what
could be a better indication of this than our exchanges of yesterday on the
subject of the New York times article 'Delays mire U.S. road project in Aceh '
look at Robert Cowherd’s telling comments on this in the morning mails here.
(And BTW, can anyone think of a good name for this syndrome?)
Refocus: The fact is that we are now at a fork in the road, and if there is any
one thing that can help us make a choice as to where we are now going to invest
our energies and brilliance, it is to the following simple question which to my
mind should stand first in line every time any public authority is going to use
our hard earned taxpayer money (it’s ours, not theirs) to fund stuff that is
going to shape the future. “What can be done via this line of action (in their
case ITS) so that we can put those technologies to use in THE NEXT TWO TO THREE
YEARS TO GET VISIBLE RESULTS AND PATTERNS OF POLICY AND PRACTICE THAT CAN BE
REPLCIATED BROADLY AND AT LOW COST WORLD WIDE. And if your program is not
structured to respond to this usefully, then out it goes. We can look at the
long term when we have some breathing space. But this is not the situation in
October 2006 and will not be surly for the remainder of this decade.
So off you go Department for Transport, Department of Trade and Industry and the
Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council and all your good friends
from industry: redline your mandate along these lines and you have something
really useful there. Keep us informed. We too are part of the solution. Work
with us on it.
Eric Britton
PS2. Dear colleagues. Am I horribly wrong in this? If so it would not be the
first time. So let me put it in front of our various peer groups here so that we
can get different views on this.
A radical new approach to funding highly innovative and wide ranging
research into key long term transport issues was announced yesterday by
Minister for Transport Stephen Ladyman and Lord Sainsbury, DTI Minister
for Science and Innovation, at the Intelligent Transport Systems World
Congress in London.
The new approach to research is expected to result in far greater
Advances than simply awarding funding to a single organisation. It will allow a
small number of consortia with wide ranging expertise to work in
collaboration to tackle some of the major transport challenges we face
over the next decade.
The Department for Transport, Department of Trade and Industry and the
Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council will jointly provide
£9 million of funding, with a further £3 million expected from industry
itself. The Future Intelligent Transport Systems initiative is intended to
stimulate new ideas, concepts, products or services that will:
* Further improve safety on our roads by reducing collisions, casualties
and deaths;
* Result in better, more reliable, accessible and safer public transport
services;
* Lead to even greater efficiency in the road freight industry;
* Improve road network management; and,
* Provide better travel information, allowing travellers to make informed
choices on how and when to travel.
Further details can be found within the call for Expressions of
Interest to participate, which can be found at:
<http://www.dti.gov.uk/innovation/tech-priorities-uk/innovation_platforms/page33
795.htmlhttp://www.dti.gov.uk/innovation/tech-priorities-uk/innovation_platforms
/page33795.html
Jon Maybury, Innovation Platform Manager
Intelligent Transport Systems
Department of Trade and Industry
Office of Science and Innovation (OSI)
151 Buckingham Palace Road,
London SW1W 9SS
Tel: 0207 215 1196
Email: <mailto:[log in to unmask]@dti.gsi.gov.uk
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