Challenger Cities

Challenger Cities EP86: How the Robocars Meet the Curb with Bern Grush

Good new Challenger Cities episode today, all about autonomous vehicles and the bit that our guest, Bern Grush, thinks cities need to be thinking about more now. Like them or not, robotaxis are coming to cities. And for all the spectacular technology that helps cars drive themselves, the have some meaty challenges ahead. One of them being what happens when they interact with the curb. We've already seen how fleets of autonomous cars can create new forms of congestion, and we've seen tragic accidents come about as people open doors into the likes of passing cyclists. A few years ago I was involved in a project for a big tech firm looking at this, but it was rather quickly mothballed as big automotive clients shooed them away from it. The hardest part though was the orchestration layer between the operators of autonomous vehicles (think the ridehailing firms minus drivers) and deliveries that are seeking to move away from having a human at the wheel too. It effectively means redesigning who can stop where, when, for how long, and normally monetising it in the same way on-street parking is done today. So if you want to stop on a busy road to pickup/dropoff ... well you're going to pay for that. And you might be incentivised to do so somewhere quieter, or even let that tempt you towards public transport instead. We have finite space in urban areas, so we're going to need to be clever to make sure autonomous driving doesn't choke the city.

Challenger Cities EP85: Canada Needs a Railway Architect with Michael Schabas

Canada is, well might be, building a high speed train. At long last after 50 odd years of talking about doing so. But concerningly, there is much negative noise around the project as it seems it might not really be learning the lessons for how successful projects have been delivered elsewhere, and where projects for building fast trains have gone wrong. This podcast is with Michael Schabas, a Canadian, who knows all about how to make these projects successful. It's a really honest and open conversation about how to build HSR, what Canada is missing just now, and how we can hopefully influence Alto to ensure we actually learn from how it's been done elsewhere. If you like the idea of HSR, or even if you actually think it's a bad idea, well you should probably listen to this episode and get a feel for yourself. Michael's work is also available to be found here: https://www.highspeedrailcanada.com/p/all-canadian-hsr-studies.html [https://www.highspeedrailcanada.com/p/all-canadian-hsr-studies.html]

Challenger Cities EP84: The De-Risking Industrial Complex with Richard Fisher

Two risk-management cultures looking at each other across a table, each waiting for the other to move. That's rail's relationship with venture capital. Iain talks to Richard Fisher, founder of Future Travel Studio, about why nobody would fund his Dream Suite flatbed seat for trains, even after InnovateUK had backed it and operators had tested it. About rail's proposition gap, the incumbents who monetise complexity rather than solve it, and why every discipline in the chain can be doing its job correctly while the sector as a whole still can't move. Plus what a transatlantic venture studio is trying to build instead.

Challenger Cities EP83: A Little Piece of Switzerland in the Derbyshire Hills

This is a lovely episode with Thomas Ableman (a returning guest!) that is mostly about an amazing project he and a few volunteers recently secured funding to go and deliver called Mini Switzerland in the Derbyshire hills. We often hear about how it's not possible to deliver high quality public transport because there simply aren't enough people to make it worthwhile. That makes a lot of people feel quite clever in saying no to it. But then go an explain how Switzerland works then. If a nation that has some of the most challenging geography, and not particularly huge numbers of people, can deliver frequent, integrated, efficient and enjoyable transport to villages with as little as 300 people half-way up a mountain ... then I don't think we've got much excuse in the UK, US and Canada. We also talk quite a lot about trams, and how despite me really not being a fan of Andy Burnham, the fact a man that is probably best known for trams and yellow buses actually might make them an important topic for Westminster government to take more interest in.

Challenger Cities EP82: The Purpose is Not the Function with Sam Peart

One of the best people I met last year was Samantha Peart. We were in Copenhagen for a few days and of our fellows group, I have to say she asked the best questions. She’s also exceptionally good at getting you to question your assumptions or reflect on why you might think what you’re thinking. And that really comes through in this conversation, with real examples that have had a massive impact on projects and places. I’m such a fan of hers, that I even let her destroy the magic wand question. Because she makes an excellent point about it. So if you’re involved in any sort of urbanism, placemaking or infrastructure project. This really is one you need to have a listen to.