Transportation Career Trends
New careers and new kinds of careers are appearing in the transportation sector as people, communities and businesses re-evaluate their transport needs. This section highlights some trends in designing and managing green transport options.
The drive of green entrepreneurs
Financial Times25-Sep-2008
By Rebecca Knight
Seth Riney is saving the planet one car journey at a time. As founder of PlanetTran, the livery service that uses only hybrid cars, Mr Riney operates a fleet of about 40 Toyota Priuses in Boston and San Francisco that boast an average fuel economy of 47 miles per gallon.
Mr Riney, pictured below, a former systems engineer, is a self-described "practical environmentalist". He knows the greenest way to get from place to place is to walk or cycle or take public transport. "But since there is a practical need for individuals and small groups to be moved around," he says, "you might as well do it as efficiently as possible."
The concept is resonating with an increasingly eco-conscious business community in Boston and the Bay Area, and has won him dozens of big accounts...
read moreHonda eyes EV as hydrogen infrastructure lags
Reuters, 1 October 2009 - Honda Motor is looking into developing pure electric vehicles because slow progress in setting up hydrogen fuelling stations could limit the sale of its fuel-cell vehicles, the head of Japan's No.2 automaker said.Honda has been a strong proponent of hydrogen fuel-cell vehicles as the most promising zero-emission alternative to today's combustion engine cars, dismissing plug-in electric cars as a short-range option that uses too many expensive batteries.
Ready for Takeoff
While the media and environmental activists have tended to focus on the auto industry over the past year, the air travel industry has been quietly evaluating ways to improve fuel efficiency and reduce emissions. Airlines can only raise ticket prices so high to compensate for rising fuel costs without losing customers, and the industry’s reputation as a climate change villain is an increasing threat to profits.
by Sara Stroud - 5.18.09
SAN FRANCISCO
Using wind power to sail the seas is certainly nothing new, but a San Francisco-based cruise company is using turbines, not sails, to help propel one of its vessels.
Alcatraz Cruises, in spring 2009, began ferrying passengers around San Francisco Bay on a hybrid boat that runs on wind, solar and diesel engine-generated power.
Transformational Trucks: Determining the Energy Efficiency Limits of a Class-8 Tractor-Trailer
Michael Ogburn, Laurie Ramroth, Amory B. Lovins
Rocky Mountain Institute, July 2008
ABSTRACT
Feasible technological improvements in vehicle efficiency, combined with "long combination vehicles" (which raise proivity by connecting multiple trailers), can potentially raise the tonmile effeciency of long-hall heavy tractor-trailers by a factor of about 2.5 with respect to a baseline of 130 ton-miles per gallon. Within existing technological and logistical constraints, these innovations (which don't include such further opportunities as hybrid-electric powertrains or auxiliary power units to displace idling) could thus cut the average fuel used to move each ton of freight by about 64 percent...
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Electrification Coalition sees plug-ins making up 25 percent of market by 2020
Sebastian Blanco, November 16, 2009. autobloggreen
A new Electrification Coalition was announced today with the backing of the CEOs from twelve companies. What's interesting about this group is that, among the leaders from electric vehicles companies and related start-ups – Coda Automotive, Coulomb Technolgies, A123 Systems, etc. – we find Nissan's Carlos Ghosn. Nissan is the only major OEM to participate in this coalition, which will promote "policies and actions that will facilitate the deployment of electric vehicles on a mass scale in order to combat the economic, environmental, and national security vulnerabilities caused by our nation's dependence on petroleum."