Along for the Ride: Weekly Newsletter on AVs and Urbanism - Issue #13
Esteemed subscribers, welcome to another week of self-driving cars and urbanization.
Without further delay, here’s the round up:
Read of the Week
Ford, Uber and Lyft sign on to SharedStreets, a data platform to collaborate with cities to reduce congestion and air pollution (NACTO). With no irony, this week Uber also pays out $150M for a 2016 security breach which compromised personal data of 57M customers and drivers (CNBC).
Government and Policy
A never-published whitepaper on autonomous vehicles in San Francisco has been released by a former fellow working for the city via a Freedom of Information request (State Scoop).
London launched a Smart Mobility Living Lab in Greenwich and Stratford - backed with government and industry funding of £19 million (Smart Cities World).
Toronto considers road pricing once AVs hit the streets (Globe and Mail).
The Times is reporting that driverless cars have the potential to free up land for housing based on a study in Edinburgh (The Times).
Dublin gets their first driverless bus (Irish Examiner).
Japan and China have begun bilateral conversations to improve self-driving and other advanced tech in their countries (Japan Times).
Chandler, AZ offers visitors subsidized rides in their Waymo minivans - a first in self-driving. (AZ Big Media).
Industry
Forbes profiles PerceptIn, a startup working towards allowing users to design their own AV (Forbes).
Is Amazon the next major player in AVs? Some believe they could be given their interest in freight and delivery (The Street).
Renault imagines a future full of driverless freight and delivery pods (Dezeen).
Alibaba building a chip specifically for self-driving - and throwing a lot of energy into it (Engadget).
Forbes details Waymo’s key milestones (Forbes).
Lyft integrates with public transport in Santa Monica. (Tech Crunch).
Research and Academia
Bloomberg reports that in the last decade road fatalities in the US surged 46%. The NHSTA gave forward 11 recommendations to reduce this number - most of which emphasize the physical design of cars and streets. (Bloomberg).
New research this week looks at how self-driving can be designed for increased pedestrian safety. (Springwise).
A short list of adjacent industries which will be impacted by self driving. (CB Insights).
Opinion
This week on a prominent urban mobility podcast Anna Muesig of Gehl Architects talks about a recent trip to Detroit. Anna works closely with Ford’s Greenfield Labs and helps them think about how they envision future city building (Streetsblog).
The Canadian way of being has made it the perfect place for self-driving to take off (Globe and Mail).
Will Europe miss out on the automation revolution? (Forbes).
That’s all from me folks. Do you like this new format better? I really welcome any and all feedback.
Have a beautiful weekend friends.
Sarah
By Sarah Barnes
This weekly newsletter on cities, transportation and technology is curated weekly by Sarah Barnes, a transport nerd based in San Francisco, CA.
The newsletter encourages new conversations about advanced transportation technology, primarily autonomous vehicles, which focus on people, equity, design and the cities we want to (and need to) be building for the future.
If you don't want these updates anymore, please unsubscribe here.
If you were forwarded this newsletter and you like it, you can subscribe here.
Powered by Revue
San Francisco, CA