January 2010 Newsletter

Dear IFRTT Forum subscriber,

the snow is fairly deep in the middle and northern parts of Sweden, this brightens up your day and you are able to listen to the different temperature and humidity dependant sounds from stepping on it, my favourite being the “potato-flour” squeal when compressed. Slowly, we get accustomed to telling ourselves that anything above minus 10 degrees centigrade is reasonably mild enough to get started in the morning to get to work and preferable to the plus 40 degrees reported from Melbourne.

This seems fairly analogous to the European transport policy debate, squeals have been heard in the past. The European Commission is later this year due to present the next White Paper on Transport Policy for the 2011 to 2020 period. Policy statements like this sometimes tend to crash with realities, but that is probably partly the intent. Unemployment rate is still increasing as well as most national budget deficits. This might imply a moderated debate on the pros and cons of different transport modes. Just as for the present weather conditions there has been too much of polarisation.

Which brings me to the HVTT11 road transport technology conference in Melbourne March 14-17, with great foresight named “Balancing Competing Needs”. The full programme is available at http://www.hvttconference.com/ In order to get the early bird reduced fee, register before the end of January.

Coming up next week at the News page of the conference website is an interview for Prime Mover magazine with prof. Alan McKinnon of Herriot-Watt University. Prof. McKinnon has been invited to present at the HVTT11.

Have a fruitful year,

Anders Lundström, IFRTT president