<html> <head> <META HTTP-EQUIV="Content-Type" CONTENT="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1"> <meta name=Generator content="Microsoft Word 10 (filtered)"> <style>  </style> </head> <body lang=EN-US link=blue vlink=purple> <div class=Section1> PS: Harsh criticism as this may seem, my goal here is a very positive one. Read on.   Boondoggle: Hate to say it John but to my mind this is but one more short-sighted interest-fed government-industry boondoggle: in short the winners are once again circling their wagons and gaily divvying up the accumulating spoils while the planet and the well being of ordinary people continue to come under grave attack every day as the establishment continues in all impunity to ignore the real bottom line. Which believe me is not “intelligent” transport systems.   Oops: The fact that such a program is further interest-driven by members of the academic community, who to my mind should have a far deeper understanding of the gravity of the situation we face in this sector and its many components and spin-offs, is, in its own way, quite grave. Dear academic colleagues. May I respectfully ask that you step back from this kind of thing until we have made at least some palpable progress on the terrible matters at hand. Your intellect, skills and energy are much needed on far more important things.   Syndrome: This is part of a larger syndrome to which we have collectively subscribed without quite realizing it. Namely, our sector has fallen victim to an egregious Cartesian tendency to parcelize the whole into many bits and pieces beyond the limits of any common sense (just look at the organigram of any ministry of transport to see how that works) and then sub-optimize this and that with gay abandon. Thus we have roads and streets that have been optimized through construction and yes! electronics for speed and throughput, when the communities around them have quite a different set of requirements. And what could be a better indication of this than our exchanges of yesterday on the subject of the New York times article 'Delays mire U.S. road project in Aceh ' look at Robert Cowherd’s telling comments on this in the morning mails here. (And BTW, can anyone think of a good name for this syndrome?)   Refocus: The fact is that we are now at a fork in the road, and if there is any one thing that can help us make a choice as to where we are now going to invest our energies and brilliance, it is to the following simple question which to my mind should stand first in line every time any public authority is going to use our hard earned taxpayer money (it’s ours, not theirs) to fund stuff that is going to shape the future. “What can be done via this line of action (in their case ITS) so that we can put those technologies to use in THE NEXT TWO TO THREE YEARS TO GET VISIBLE RESULTS AND PATTERNS OF POLICY AND PRACTICE THAT CAN BE REPLCIATED BROADLY AND AT LOW COST WORLD WIDE. And if your program is not structured to respond to this usefully, then out it goes. We can look at the long term when we have some breathing space. But this is not the situation in October 2006 and will not be surly for the remainder of this decade.   So off you go Department for Transport, Department of Trade and Industry and the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council and all your good friends from industry: redline your mandate along these lines and you have something really useful there. Keep us informed. We too are part of the solution. Work with us on it.   Eric Britton   PS2. Dear colleagues. Am I horribly wrong in this? If so it would not be the first time. So let me put it in front of our various peer groups here so that we can get different views on this.     <div style='border:none;border-bottom:solid windowtext 1.0pt;padding:0cm 0cm 1.0pt 0cm'>   </div>   A radical new approach to funding highly innovative and wide ranging research into key long term transport issues was announced yesterday by Minister for Transport Stephen Ladyman and Lord Sainsbury, DTI Minister for Science and Innovation, at the Intelligent Transport Systems World Congress in London.     The new approach to research is expected to result in far greater Advances than simply awarding funding to a single organisation. It will allow a small number of consortia with wide ranging expertise to work in collaboration to tackle some of the major transport challenges we face over the next decade.     The Department for Transport, Department of Trade and Industry and the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council will jointly provide Â£9 million of funding, with a further Â£3 million expected from industry itself.   The Future Intelligent Transport Systems initiative is intended to stimulate new ideas, concepts, products or services that will:   * Further improve safety on our roads by reducing collisions, casualties and deaths;   * Result in better, more reliable, accessible and safer public transport services;   * Lead to even greater efficiency in the road freight industry;   * Improve road network management; and,   * Provide better travel information, allowing travellers to make informed choices on how and when to travel.   Further details can be found within the call for Expressions of Interest to participate, which can be found at: <<a href="http://www.dti.gov.uk/innovation/tech-priorities-uk/innovation_platforms/page33795.html">http://www.dti.gov.uk/innovation/tech-priorities-uk/innovation_platforms/page33795.html</a>http://www.dti.gov.uk/innovation/tech-priorities-uk/innovation_platforms/page33795.html     Jon Maybury Innovation Platform Manager   Intelligent Transport Systems Department of Trade and Industry Office of Science and Innovation (OSI) 151 Buckingham Palace Road, London SW1W 9SS   Tel: 0207 215 1196 Mobile: 07810 558891 Home Office: 01252 819610 Email: <<a href="mailto:jon.maybury@dti.gsi.gov.uk">mailto:jon.maybury@dti.gsi.gov.uk</a>jon.maybury@dti.gsi.gov.uk Email (on the move): <<a href="mailto:jmaybury1@googlemail.com">mailto:jmaybury1@googlemail.com</a>jmaybury1@googlemail.com   Web: <<a href="http://www.dti.gov.uk/innovation/tech-priorities-uk/innovation_platfor">http://www.dti.gov.uk/innovation/tech-priorities-uk/innovation_platfor</a> ms/index.htmlhttp://www.dti.gov.uk/innovation/tech-priorities-uk/innov ation_platforms/index.html     </div> </body> </html>