Observations on transit in Italy

[Repost of a thread from Mastodon.Energy]

Recently back from a week in Tuscany and Rome, I have some #EV and #transit observations.

Since reading "Human Transit" by Jarrett Walker (@humantransit@mastodon.online) I have developed a fondness for well-executed transit. Perhaps the bar for good transit being quite low allows me to be easily impressed?

1. Apple Maps integration with Italian transit services and walking is very smooth.

Fresh from metro NY and CT, I was surprised at the depth of integration with Apple Maps and bus, rail and tram services. Not having used Italian transit before, I was trivially able to take a train from Rome to a random Tuscan Village with only two well-signposted changes.

Some trains have assigned seating, others do not. After our first train ride, where we mistakenly sat in the wrong seats, we quickly caught on. How hard is it to just learn how their seating works? Not hard, and especially not hard when the people are just so ... nice about it.

The fact that starting a walking route will allow you to pull out your phone every couple of blocks and not have to unlock it to see the next step on the route is very sensible.

It's very natural to cross the street, head to the pedestrian pathway, then pull out the phone for the next few blocks of directions. I was amazed at how accurate walking directions were, even for temporary road works.

The simple ease of asking Apple Maps how to get from one place to another on transit and having a choice of walk+bus or walk+tram or walk+bus+train (for a single itinerary) gives one pause to stop consider other ways of doing things.

We took a bus to far flung corner of Florence, then walked a couple of miles on an urban bikeway, then caught a tram to the airport where we rented a car. The phone did everything for us.

2. Service frequency

Wherever we went, there were buses or trams running every five or ten minutes. It felt, subjectively, that transit capacity was a big part of road traffic. At every traffic light, there were buses stopped, sometimes two or three. In Florence, the tram calmly rolls through the traffic, courtesy of priority. Surface trams are uniquely civilized, being at grade, but also sort of bus-like.

3. EV transit

I was hoping for lots of quiet electric buses, but it turns out the big iron is converting quite slowly. Our Italian taxi driver (ICE, FWIW) noted that the smaller buses have been the first to switch to pure EV, but the bigger buses (30+ capacity) that run alternative drivetrains are generally hybrids.

What is emerging quickly might be a better way of putting it, is Low Speed Vehicles. I'm talking about is EV runabouts (golf carts able to take driver + 4 or driver + 6).

I don't recall there being a Low Speed ICE transit segment in the past, so perhaps this is really just an entirely new segment that is emerging, perhaps even drawing traffic from the bus/tram routes as it does so. The sunny climate makes these things amazingly useful -- a gentle breeze in your hair as you trundle along the cobble streets of the Renaissance minus the exhaust fumes and noise leaves you needing only the gin and tonic (or Aperol Spritz in this case).

4. EV everything, it's like the early days of cellphones

We see these everywhere -- scooters, trikes, bikes, all manner of things with motors and batteries. It may be the Kodak moment for Piaggio and Vespa, in that they're either going to have to come up with EV versions of their classics, or be consigned to the museum where they keep the buggy whips. Surely that somewhat tubby rear end of the Vespa could be adapted to hide a chonky battery+motor assembly. Come on Italian people!

On the streets of Rome, it's either DGAF locals or tourists importing weird behaviours but there were a lot of two-up scooter riders. It's hard to imagine how unstable this configuration is, but it is. The scooters aren't really powered for two and the motors struggle to spin up while the riders jerk back and forth. I have no idea why more of these people don't crack their heads open on the rocky protrusions that festoon every Italian roadway.

Just like the early days of cellphones where people had to learn that yelling into their phones wasn't acceptable, we'll need to discover some new social conventions in the age of rented rolling things.

This crazy explosion of things on wheels with motors and batteries is both a delight to watch and an actual train smash taking place in real time. Scooters are shit! Wobbly and underpowered. One rock and you're on your face in the dirt! Bicycles are perfect in being the right platform for batteries and motors. So electric unicycle instead maybe? Ah who cares! We're in that glorious moment where people are just throwing spaghetti against the wall to see what sticks.

5. The weird, the odd and the ugly

To close, we saw some radical vehicles that would probably not be very safe on the roads of contemporary USA, filled as they are with Suburbans, F150s and Cybertrux. Newtonian physics is not in favour of small, efficient, lightweight vehicles on the streets of the USA.

First up is the incredibly charming single-seater Renault Twizy, whose roofline comes up to my armpit. The quintessential city vehicle, perhaps, but it's really just a glorified bicycle.

Man, just get a good electric bicycle and learn to dress for the elements. As a lifetime motorcyclist, I can tell you that rain suits are just not that hard to use. Cold? Long underwear. Cold and wet? Bad planning. Check the weather first mate! Honestly, a couple of extra steps and we'd all just be able to use bicycles. The Swedes and the Danes and the Finns and the Norwegians and now, sacré bleu, even the French are doing it! Mon Dieu!

Secondly, we have the Estrima Biro, one of those Smart Car variants that you can park sideways (to what end I ask myself). It's a two seater car-bicycle-thingie with a roof and plastic doors and windshield. A two-person bicycle.

Lastly, and my favourite for style and a hands down winner of the "Cars that give no hint as to which end is the front" category, the Citroen Ami.

Design-wise, the Ami channels the apocalypse while winking with optimism at you as it recedes (or approaches? who knows?)

The wild, oddball variety of things on wheels is a delight. I have long thought that EVs were an opportunity for car designers to reclaim their mantle of creative excellence, for wasn't car designer once an aspirational career once, like flight attendant, in the halcyon days of flight? Hopefully, with the engineering constraints of crankshafts and fuel pumps and gas tanks and exhaust systems removed, we'll see some genuine innovation.

I can't wait.