The Great Reset? Yes, please

I occasionally work with a young Fijian-Indian man who knows both Fijian and New Zealand culture very well, as he's grown up in both countries (he lives in New Zealand today). I was speaking with him the other day about his family's move to New Zealand. Amongst other things, what was of interest was his claim that life is a lot easier in Fiji, as compared to New Zealand. He told me Fijians would largely live off their land, as his family once did. His family lived simply and well in their warm and fertile country.

Yet, as we in the West believe, New Zealand is supposed to have a superior living standard because New Zealand is a much richer country, according to measured GDP per-capita.

But real living standards are ultimately existential - not consumption (as such). Sure, you make more money in New Zealand - but you also need more money. In New Zealand, like in the rest of the western world, we've made life curiously complicated and expensive and on many levels.

In my view if we are to have a great reset, in the positive meaning of the term, it will come from the most basic political question that too few ask, which is: "Where should the private and local economies begin, and where should the national economy end?"

One of the most powerful things centralised governments have done, to the end of dictating our complex lives, has been to make child-rearing costly and difficult by forcing institutional schooling (which is completely unnecessary, especially today). Of course, our lives are also heavily regulated on many levels beyond that, and we are now taxed at nearly 40%. 

You can't walk away from it - because central government is now the government. 

Most big government is not necessary. Government as we know it should not have the role of extraordinary dominance. We should not be so concerned with what Jacinda or Judith have to say and plan to do. National governments should not be as relevant to our lives as they are today, and we should not have to worry so much about what nightmare a couple of million voters might give us in the next election, etc. 

The solution, I believe, is to erect the private village as a critical option - and cultural foundation. 

Let the private village build itself in its own image, bottom up, and operate to its own philosophy. Let people make their own laws to live by, though within the boundaries of respecting property rights and human rights. That which is good will be duplicated - that which is poor will be abandoned. Experimental evolution can take care of the details. 

Never have we seen a better opportunity to do this, to find a new optimisation, than today. We are fast creating the live-anywhere economy as 50% (and growing) of the world can now work exclusively online, which may in turn make prosperous decentralised villages particularly easy to build and market. 

The online workforce removes the issue of the village, or locality, earning "foreign" exchange. Say half can work online - half can work local. No problem. It can be totally efficient.

Radical decentralisation could give us 'the great reset' we might want - if we choose it.

Note: I need to stress that I'm talking about simple living - not primitive living. I'm not suggesting we go back to grass skirts. I'm simply talking about adapting the operational character of our lives, so as to get rid of the incredible amount of over-complication we have thus far evolved in meeting our essential needs. A "reset" in the ideal meaning, means a total-system review towards a true modern optimisation. 

-Andrew Atkin

Making a good bus system in New Zealand

People think that buses are efficient, because they tend to possess a picture in mind of buses being jam-packed full of people, both sitting and standing. 

When well-loaded buses are of course efficient, at least if they're not stopping and starting too often. But buses only operate well-loaded occasionally. Most often they are terribly underloaded. A 50-seat bus (plus 20 more with standing room) can drive around most of the day with only 5 to 10 people on board, or less. The typical, average passenger loading of an urban bus is about 15% of the seating capacity.

So the idea is, would it make more sense to use shuttle vans (they are about 20% of the weight of a bus) to scoop up the low and scattered demand around to the city outskirts, and then have those vans operate as feeders to a core bus network, where the bus network then specialises to high transport demand, driving people to the CBD? 

Of course it would be more efficient, and the picture below gives the basic model.

-Note, if we used bus-only lanes and congestion-charging for the roads that buses use, then that also would greatly enhance efficiency. The buses would then have a minimal stop-and-go operation. Stop-and-go operation is the greatest efficiency killer in urban transport. It reduces capacity, increases fuel consumption, wears out the vehicles and lengthens travel times. The more 'express' we can be, the better.

Making it work:

For the public, organising transfers as required can be difficult and tedious, but in this context I believe it can be painless and efficient. However, we need to use technology...

The consumer should be able to download a simple app which allows them to type in their final destination, and the time they want to be there, and then have the app (using the GPS location function) tell them exactly what van or bus to catch, where and when, and what bus-stop to go to and how to get there. 

So, you basically create a "just follow me" function on their phones that removes the headaches and uncertainties from otherwise trying to work it all out.

This is a simple system to employ, because all you would necessarily need to add to the vans and buses is a cellphone which runs the active end of the app. 

In short, the system obtains real-time updates on a given vehicles location. Hence, any disruptions or late-runnings will be known to the server, and the passengers travel plans can then be immediately updated as required. It's just like when we make a wrong turn while using Google maps - it automatically redirects you so you can carry on daydreaming. 

Cost savings:

Watching a 10 to 15 tonne bus accelerate up a steep hill with almost no one in it is depressing, especially if you believe that anthropogenic global warming is a problem. We can do better, cheaper, and overall provide a superior service for the customer, in particular for local trips where a transfer is not required. Note, good shuttle-vans are faster and more comfortable than buses, and they can run down any road. Shuttle-vans are also much quieter of course, so the residential areas would appreciate the change.

Another possibility that I'm a fan of, to improve speed and efficiency, is to create concentration-point bus-stops. That is, allow people to pay a notably reduced fare in exchange for walking a bit further to a more commonly used bus-stop. If we can functionally make say 70% of existing bus-stops typically redundant, then that would improve efficiency considerably and reduce travel times - especially if it's complemented with congestion controls. Adaptive pricing could be done automatically with the electronic Snapper system, which is already GPS-integrated. All it takes is a software upgrade.

Who could drive this forward and run the experiment?

Probably not busing companies, because if they're heavily subsidised they will have little incentive to change - certainly not on this level, anyway. 

Probably all that would happen from a significant efficiency gain, for the busing companies, is the reduction of their subsidies so they would win nothing. Worse, they could lose out because my proposal would put maybe as much as 80% of their fleet out of work. 

So I would gather the change would be a question for city councils to consider, if anyone.

-You can see the problem with subsidies. They lead to all kinds of perverse incentives. Also, as soon as an organisation becomes subsidised it inescapably becomes political. Appearances begin to mean as much as realities - or more!

The future:

In time, the shuttle-vans in my model would be replaced with small driverless commuter cars, supporting the bus system. This is inevitable no matter what happens in the future.

The model I have proposed could be a good intermediate step for transferring to driverless public transport systems, over the coming years (see here).

-Andrew Atkin

Extra notes:

1. The 'just follow me' app also serves an important function in that it alerts people to their coming stop, on the bus. This makes it easier to relax and absorb yourself on your phone or other, because you're not then on constant alert to be sure you don't miss your stop.

2. The system I have suggested is also highly flexible. It can quickly adapt to any given evolving demand, and efficiently. 

If you're using the traditional system of buses only (no shuttle-vans), then adapting the system to changing demand means you're either stopping the service completely in certain areas, or retaining an inefficient service. Instead, you can efficiently mix between shuttle-vans and buses, as required. You should never get 'stuck' with an inefficient operation.

3. Another idea I'm a fan of is using retired people to run the shuttle-van service. Shuttle vans are very easy to drive, especially in low speed and low density areas. Retired people could maybe work for $10 an hour cash (government policy permitting) to top-up their pension, while keeping busy and socially engaged with some easy part-time work. Retired people are a largely wasted resource that could be put to excellent use, helping to run a good public transport system and keeping congestion under control.