Nick Lester-Davis

Mist rising from Loch Ard

After two solid days of rain, a welcome dry spell on Loch Ard

It’s a scheme that seems to work well but is difficult politically. Good luck to those brave enough to follow through wherever they may be.

And for your next trick: get the ‘temporary’ removed, possibly after one or two extensions.

Just look at the numbers. To get all the passengers onto trains at Cannon Street during the pm peak you would need more than 300 scanners.

Metal detectors at train stations would ‘make life impossible’, says transport secretary Heidi Alexander says security review after Cambridgeshire train stabbings will consider all other options

I wondered how long it would be before a call for metal detectors surfaced It happened previously about 30 years ago and was considered un workable then (after lots of time and money spent) Justcas true now www.theguardian.com/uk-news/2025...

It’s amazing how many right wing parties think there are lots of votes to be won from pandering to drivers. Nearly all of them turn out to be wrong.

Indeed. Though the overwhelming majority of motorists manage this. Funny that.

I’m sure he’s right. But the ‘plus’ is doing a lot of heavy lifting.

This used to happen in the UK but the Tory government banned it as too unfair to motorists.

This is very interesting and so good to have. While I know you are interested in short term impacts, the medium term (~3 months plus) may look quite different.

Much lower labour costs give Chinese firms a big competitive advantage. That’s capitalism for you.

Even 10 years ago Daimler-Benz thought that Angela Merkel would save them from having to produce EVs. Clearly Ford thinks that Trump will do what Merkel wouldn’t.

"It's outrageous that councils should even consider stopping the huge subsidy that goes to drivers from non-car owning council tax payers by not charging the costs of providing parking."

A very still Loch Ard perfectly reflecting it’s surroundings

The mirror like reflection on Loch Ard on an admittedly not particularly pleasant day

And the problem in Scotland is that there are never any vacant parking places so people miss appointments.

It’s hardly new. Premium prices for residents’ permits for larger and more polluting cars have been in place in parts of London for some years

It might be appropriate in an area with very high pedestrian flows if an autonomous vehicle always gives way to a pedestrian in front and hence never moves. Thinking about places like Covent Garden.

Actually you may not need a sign provided you have another effective way of communicating the ban to operators.

They could, so long as (a) you could accurately define it as a class of vehicle; (b) there is an appropriate sign; and (c) you could justify the ban on traffic grounds.

All those countries which adopted the euro successfully managed a similar change. Some only in the last couple of years

The Mogridge Contention takes this one step further. Having observed that average door-to-door journey speeds by rail and road were the same where the road network was congested, he concluded that the only way to improve road speeds was to improve rail services.

A misty view of the sun rising over the loch

It might be the sea shore rather than just a small loch

How have they not realised that the ramps down will cause more disruption than at present. They have to be longer than the current up ramps as the tunnel will have to be deeper than the viaduct is high

But these alone are unlikely to generate sufficient traffic to make the system commercially worthwhile

Even VTOL flying taxis would find it enormously difficult to find landing places in cities

More than that. A friend in North Carolina has been bankrupted by a broken wrist despite having health insurance.

None of the ‘flying taxi’ developers have addressed the issue of where will they take off from or land. If you have to take a long taxi ride to get to your flying taxi it won’t be of any use.

Like hyperloop, flying taxis are just a version of snake oil

The economics of self-driving taxis Waymo is a case study in automation

So robotaxis lead to more taxi trips, more expensive taxi trips, switch from private car ownership and use. So a pretty niche market but moving in the right direction

The economics of self-driving taxis
economist.com/finance-and-...

And interesting to see that official traffic forecasts still showing increases of up to 50% by 2050