Put Knoogle to work here

We invite you to test our in-process Knoogle 1.1 combined search engine to view the results of a quick unified scan based on your selected key words, combing through more than five hundred carefully selected programs and sources that we view as leading the way in their work and competence in our heavily challenged sector world-wide.

• Click here: to go to Knoogle 1.1.

Defining New Mobility - Key words

What you have here are a suggestive net of terms and concerns which taken together differentiate the New Mobility approach from the traditional practices which are giving us so much difficulty in this hew and very different century.

Access, transport, cities, climate, health, carbon, resource balance, emergency, sustainability, choice, consistency, time management, economic viability, social justice, non-car majority, women, children, freight, transport avoidance, land use, demand management, eTransport, digital, sharing, slowth, slugging, full cost pricing, taxes, near term action, international, viral, information, at-hand, organic, complex adaptive systems, seamless.

• For more click here to Agenda home page (own window).

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Basic principles of this project

This project is defined by the following basic principles:

1. We are losing the climate war in a very big way - and we don't need to.

2. We are losing the fossil fuel, food, and resource wars-and we don't need to lose them either.

3. Transportation accounts for on the order of 20% of the climate problem -- more in the case of some of the others.

4. More than half of the world population today live in cities -- with more pouring in every day.

5. The vast majority of these people are poorly served by the existing transportation arrangements - and most the plans and projects in the pipeline offer zero prospect of the fundamental structural improvements that are needed.

6. A growing number of institutions and programs trying to make targeted contributions to deal with these challenges --some with fair resources and broad backing, most however working on bare bones budgets.

7. These programs and the people who make them up communicate with each other and collaborate with each other in a number of ways - but there is every reason to step up both by several orders of magnitude if we are to have a chance to rectify these fundamental planet and life threatening problems.

8. Communications and computer technologies offers the possibility to better network these programs, institutions and the people working with them - at low cost and very quickly.

9. The more unified, more deeply seated networking and sharing approach that would come out of these greatly heightened communications arrangements would improve their chances, individually and collectively, at getting to grips with the underlying challenges.

10. This project has the mission of opening up the dialogue that is needed to advance this very specific component of the sustainability agenda.

11. Dividend: This deepened and more universally accessible knowledge environment is for sure going to open up new project and service opportunities for entrepreneurs, both public, private and volunteer.

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The challenge

1. There is a huge amount of activity going on in this field around the world (new mobility and, unfortunately, old mobility too), though it is widely spread out, extremely varied in quality, quantity and focus, and at the present state of the art not really handy for consultation.

2. To use a common metaphor: we need to find ways to connect the silos.

3. But if one is to do anything at all in this area, we must have a firm understanding of how people go about accessing and putting all this to work in this fast-paced new century. How much detail do they need? How can we bring it to them in layers, tree like structures which give them a bit of information to get started but which then permit them to start to burrow into the topic without having to lose track of all that went before.

4. If we are looking for an analogy, what about the need for getting together to invent some kind of 21st century Dewey Decimal system to allow us to access the contents of our worldwide library.?

5. There is very definitely a "new tools" vector that is worthy of closest attention. Most of us today are working with what in fact is a pretty old tool set (Moore's Law still holds) -- but the fact is that there are amazing new communications and linking tools available/needed that we should be putting to work.

6. Certainly we need to include full access not only to web sites, news groups, blogs, print in its variations, past and planned events in our areas of interest, but also to films, videos, sound, and images, as well as to games and other learning and playing devices that can be useful to sharpen the mind and bring up new perspectives. And 21st century communications options (full range thereof). In all this, if we are looking for models we would be consummately dumb not at least to try to understand by analogy what a "Google", "Skype', "Wikipedia", and even "Facebook", "LinkedIn", "YouTube", etc. new tools approach to this might give.

7. As I see it, there is both an information and an education-communications function to be served in our field. We need better working links between the main players: public sector players, researchers, local government, public interest groups and industry. But we also need much tighter linkages and let's call it "cultural consonance" with the media, old and new.

8. One stark reality is that if you look down our first listing here, you will note that each of these groups is extremely busy and very focused. They have their mandates, schedules, and responsibilities to deliver - all putting tough claims on their time and resources to do anything else. So whatever we come up with is going to have to fit in this tight environment.

9. And unless someone can convince me to the contrary, I for one would be quite opposed to the idea of setting up some sort of one more staffed program for this. I see this as an open collaborative venture with everyone pitching in, and someone very smart and capable coming up with some new cross-cutting software link and search solutions.

10. Finally the sense of urgency. The transport sector accounts for on the order of 20% of all greenhouse gases. We have the means to reduce this contrition at least when it comes to transport in cities by several percent each year, but we are not doing it because we have not made the strong case that is needed to sway policy maker and public attention. This project could be a great help in this creating the necessary now concerns for change.

To conclude: This is an important topic and we have at least the intellectual means and the tools needed to start to deal with it. What is needed is the resources to get it started and then step by step advanced as shown to be necessary and useful.

You know what we really need? It's someone who is willing to step forward and take on the task of becoming the DARPA of New Mobility. To shepherd the amazing discovery of an information highway that this time will carry and connect both people and electrons.

Who is going to have the foresight to take the lead?

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Project origins - Opening statement

The concept of new mobility or sustainable transportation is gradually gaining credibility as an alternative strategy for the policy, development and management of city transport systems worldwide. Starting from a very different series of basic conditions, premises and priorities to the transportation policies and practices that largely dominated the 20th century, these new approaches are increasingly being supported by a wide variety of leading practitioners, authorities, and institutions -- public, private and participatory -- in many parts of the world.

Despite this undeniable progress however, this approach is still heavily outmatched in many cities and parts of the world, in part because it advocates different approaches which are often regarded with doubt or suspicion by more conservative interests.

Fortunately there are a growing number of programs and institutions in different parts of the world that understand and are leading the charge with these new approaches: strategies and measures which are far better matched with the very different, historically unique and highly stringent requirements of this new century. One of the goals of this first-stage project is simply to identify the leading groups and approaches. For this you will find our latest short-list if you click here.

The goal of this just-starting open collaborative project proposal is to attempt to initiate a constructive dialogue among the people and organizations around the world who know the problems and possibilities best, to see if we can come to some sort of creative vision of what if any best next steps might be.

These first stages are being taken in hand by the New Mobility Partnerships as a public contribution -- and in doing this we note the sense of high emergency associated with this project that is driven by not only the long understood needs for radical transportation reform in our cities, but also and above all by the utmost urgency of the climate issues and just behind them the ever more pressing problems of energy supply, security and prices. It is for these reasons that this project takes on particular urgency and importance.

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New Mobility Network - latest round of incoming contacts

As per 6 November 2008: This map, reporting the latest rounds of enquiries coming into the project website over the last week, provides a good visual illustration of where the action is on our topic. That great white swatch that sweeps from south to north from Africa and up through the Middle East and on to the former Soviet countries has to be troubling in this context. And certainly worth a thought or two if our problem is a planetary one.

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Workplan (in process)

Here you have a quick outline of steps taken and underway in the process of vetting this idea for eventual follow-up and action.

First steps - underway (2008)

The following offers a rough outline of the main steps taken and to be taken to move this from a round proposal/idea toward a more fully developed mature plan and initial operating demonstrations. Each of these steps is receiving daily attention and it can be expected that they will be both modified and developed extensively over the latter months of 2008.

1. Early 2008. Initial brainstorming discussions with partners of the New Mobility Agenda discussion group to define problems, barriers, and eventual paths for solutions
2. 12 June. First concept presentation - To Ann Arbor SMART Conference.
3. July: Creation of the first cut of this website and the first trial Knoogle 1.0 working model.
4. August: Systematically expanding listing of key groups/programs (to more toward a more complete collection of P2P key nodes, now numbering more than 200 in all)
5. September: Begin partnership with a team the Center for Advancing Research and Solutions for Society of the University of Michigan to expand and fine-tune database.
6. October: Launch Knoogle 1.1 to reflect expanded database and other refinements.

Next steps:

7. Winter 2008/2009: Initiate first round of contacts and discussions with identified groups, based mainly on information provided on website
8. Continue to develop and refine web site and PPT presentations
9. Work to define and test new tools toolkit candidates
10. Disseminate preliminary materials widely to seek counsel, suggestions and eventual collaboration.
11. Continue to extend master list of groups and programs to be contacted for their ideas and eventual collaboration in the problem-solving stages
12. Discuss formation of an informal core working group (provisionally 5-10 active collaborating groups)
13. Invite selected colleagues to join International Advisory Council
14. Discuss and decide about organization of the appropriate "discussion/exchange forum": the technology to be used for group discussions and exchanges (the simplest option would be to use either the New Mobility Cafe, to create another basically similar group dedicated specifically to the knowledge site, or possibly something else and quite different and much more powerful. This last of course being the most appropriate chose for a project like this.)
15. Late 2008: Present project to conference, workshops, media, etc. Incorporate feedback into key materials;
16. Start to initiate first linking steps - on limited trial basis first, then when proven extending it to all interested participating groups
17. Seek both short and longer term support, financial and other

This is the way that the process looks today (6 November 2008) and we can expect that it will alter quite quickly as work moves head. But at least this gives us an opening statement of intentions to get the ball rolling.

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