New year, new energy and new people.

The World of Sustainable Transportation is stronger than ever. Since last year we have seen a dramatic growth in interest from Universities in all over the world. It's amazing. Here are selected bits from last year's happenings:

Sweden

The University of Linkoping recently finished a study of how to find the best route forward in getting financing for the GTS Foundation. http://www.gtsfoundation.se/english/

Ångström Laboratories, a part of the Uppsala University, now have seven students under the leadership of grad student Hanna Jansson in researching possibilities and challenges of solar as main energy source for the planned Uppsala Podcar System. http://www.asc.angstrom.uu.se/en/


Hanna Jansson

Lund University and the LUMES program student Aurora Lindström (yes, my daughter), were instrumental in structuring the Solar Skyways Challenge for San Jose University together with Professor Burford Furman.
http://www.lumes.lu.se/

USA

The San Jose State University has launched the Solar Skyways Challenge, an impressive incentive to win the $10,000 prize to best team presentation of a high quality study in making a solar podcar system. The team has its own homepage: http://www.engr.sjsu.edu/smssv/team.html

The Challenge is presented here: http://www.inist.org/challenge/
The challenge is also one of the KATERVA nominees:
http://katerva.org/2012-nominees/solar-skyways/


UK

Professor Paul Newman of Oxford University is looking into the Robotics aspect of the ULTra system at Heathrow Airport.  This work is essential for understanding of the control systems and human-machine interface.
http://www.robots.ox.ac.uk/~mobile/wikisite/pmwiki/pmwiki.php?n=People.PMN


China

A "Personal Rapid Chair" video was recently posted on Youtube. It was developed by Hu Yingping at North China University of Technology:

This is just a very short list. The interest and understanding of the need for something better
than current transportation modes is getting really strong. I am sure we will have a very
exciting 2013.

Time to meet!

In a few weeks the core of people involved in promoting, discussing and analysing Podcar technology will meet in Berlin in conjunction with Innotrans 2012. Our meetings are held September 19-20 at the Technical University in Berlin, with speakers from Germany, UK, Sweden, Italy, Netherlands, USA and more.

Last years conference in Stockholm was a great event, and from what we see now, we will be almost a hundred people in Berlin!  Fantastic. As the icecaps melt, the price of oil rises and the cities becomes even more congested than before, the work people do to try and find better solutions for energy use, transportation and land development is more important than ever. I look forward to meet again, with new people from around the world attending. A special welcome to students in Sweden, USA, Netherlands and Germany that are keen on understanding the Podcar concept and carry it forward to new ideas and implementations.

For registration, go to The Conference Homepage

Dear Ms Hatt - What are you thinking?

Ms Anna Karin Hatt is a member of the same party as me - the Center party of Sweden. I have heard her in several debates over the year, and since she became minister of energy in Sweden I had hopes for more solar and less fossil fuels in government strategies. So what is Anna Karin thinking on these issues? A short excerpt from a question in the Swedish Parliament last week that I read at Kjell Alekletts blog::

Minister Hatt: "Regardless of where we live in Sweden we are dependent on efficient transport. What is important for me and the government is to take concrete measures and continue step by step to institute the Alliance’s energy and environmental policies so that by 2030 we can already have a vehicle fleet that is independent of fossil fuels. This will advantage both the Swedish economy and employment."

So, aren't those words nice you think? Well, I am not happy at all. Ms Hatt (inadvertedly?) rules out major change in the transportation paradigm as she focuses on existing technology - i.e. cars, buses, trains etc. It is a never ending story of not being able to think out of the box - a series of ministers and elected officials follows the same path in their thought processes. Ines Uusman, a former minister of IT in Sweden (as our current Ms Hatt is) said May 1996:

Minister Uusman: "Everyone talks about the internet but it is maybe passing and later the focus will be more specific"

Well Ines, Internet was a slightly bigger issue than you thought. So will the future mass transportation solutions be - much less cars, much more automation than Ms Hatt realizes. And the energy is the key - we don't need almost any fossil fuels at all, let's use the sun combined with intelligent storage such as hydro and other smart technologies. An old but still very valid video: