Category: Mobility
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The race for rail-on-demand
Flexible railway systems can offer cheaper and faster transport in greater quantities. Their potential is most promising in freight handling.
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In the driver’s seat for high-speed trains
Even as concepts like Hyperloop emerge, European leadership is not in danger.
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Hyperloop: the doubts persist
Elon Musk’s dream of a train that can travel at 1,200 km/h faces serious unresolved engineering challenges.
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Hyperloop: why it can work
Recent tests have shown the viability of the futuristic train. But does this mean we will have a new mode of transportation any time soon?
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Rail safety: back in the spotlight
Trains are particularly safe. But IT bugs and problems with the signalling systems represent a constant security threat.
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Putting goods back on the tracks
Some smaller countries are showing how efficiency-enhancing innovations can begin to shift some goods transport away from lorries.
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Driverless trains: the difficult next step
Will autonomous locomotives one day operate outside urban areas?
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Electricity’s bright future
Petrol power helped shape the 20th century, but its decline may define the 21st. So how will the future of urban transport look?
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Going with the flow
The fight against congestion is getting some new tools: mobile phones and complex algorithms.
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Self-driving cars? Don’t hold your breath
Safely mimicking all foibles in software and hardware of driving will take at least another decade, if not longer.
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Urban Mobility: is Europe too timid?
There are bright ideas for how to make our cities more fluid, but they won’t do much good unless decision-makers show more vision and courage.
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Clearing congestion
It can be difficult to effect behavioural change in large cities, but Stockholm and London have shown that a well-conceived nudge will deliver results.
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Bikes are back
Cycling is healthy and good for the environment – so no wonder bicycle use in some European cities has doubled since the early 2000s.
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Too little, too much
To guarantee an uninterrupted flow of electricity, Europe must improve its storage capacity and build a super grid.
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A tank full of sunshine
Solar energy won’t fulfil its potential until the storage problem is solved. Here’s how.
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The high price of inaction
For more than 40 years – ever since the Great Oil Crisis of 1973 – scientists, governments and media have been warning that the world must reduce its dependence on fuels derived from hydrocarbons. Initially, the main worry was supply – would the world run out of oil and gas before we found alternatives? But…