Autonomous transportation seminar at Florida Atlantic University

On 16th April I will be one of the presenters in a seminar about automated vehicles organised by Prof John Renne at Florida Atlantic University and held at the port of Palm Beach. I will talk about expectations and prospects of automated vehicles in freight transport, based on the research that Debbie Hopkins and myself are undertaking as part of the Centre on Innovation and Energy Demand. This won’t deal directly with the controversy around autonomous driving’s first first death of a fellow road user in Arizona, but I am sure this will come up in the discussion parts of the seminar.

More information about the seminar is available here.

Uber in London

Last week Transport for London (TfL) announced in what is widely see as a shock move that Uber’s license in London is not going to be extended for another five years beyond 30 September 2017. The decision and its aftermath have attracted extensive media coverage and propelled the comany once more into the midst of the public debate.

As Geoff Dudley, David Banister and myself have argued, the relation between TfL and Uber has been strenuous for quite some time, so TfL’s move is arguably less surprising than many commentators are making it to be. It is also important to appreciate that this is not (yet) the end of Uber’s presence in London. Uber will contest the decision in the courts, and TfL themselves have suggested that there is some room for negotiation. It will be interesting to see how the sage unfolds over the next couple of weeks, if not months.

I was interviewed by WIRED magazine about the developments in London two days ago. You can read the result here.

Uber in London article available for download

A paper on the introduction and regulation of Uber in London led by Geoff Dudley, with David Banister and myself as co-authors, is now published in The Political Quarterly. It is available for free download until mid-June. You can find the paper here. The article discusses the challenges that Uber’s disruptive innovation strategy has brought to various stakeholders in London, particularly taxi operators and TfL. It also discusses the prospects of Uber’s disruptive innovation strategy now the company is rapidly becoming an established player.

The paper is part of a research project on the governance of urban mobility transitions which focuses on Uber in London as a case.