The Perspective on the Transition’s Drive

All successful transitions in the history of mankind have been driven by well-being enhancement or the desire to achieve more with less effort. The transition from man-power to cattle-power and then machine-power, from shouting to landline and then mobile phones, from counting on fingers through to desktop calculators to computers, from buses to cars, you name it, they all stuck to the same rule. Most of them occurred naturally, driven by own accord and user satisfaction rather than subsidies, disincentives, or governmental interventions. Paradoxically people were always happy to pay more for their quality-of-life improvement.

This is just another manifestation of the Law of Least Resistance that governs the whole physical world. It’s the same reason why the water always flows downhill and objects never fall upwards. (unless they are “helped” to do so, but when the help ceases they return to their natural behaviour).

As the millennia changed, transportation policymakers decided it was time for this rule to change. They are now trying to determine humanity to reduce its well-being standards by trading the celerity, comfort, privacy, certainty, and life-simplicity provided by cars, for slower, less comfortable, crowded, less reliable, and the complicated routine and unpredictability of multimodal commuting. The only attractive ingredient in the equation is a smaller fare price, which becomes irrelevant if we factor in the value of the time we waste by choosing this option.

Then there are unpopular disincentives: road width reduction in order to make dedicated lanes for public transport and active travel, insanely high parking prices in busy areas, LEZ, ULEZ, etc.

Despite the well-intended, science-based and highly-moral reasoning behind this strategy, and 20 years of enormous amounts spent on subsidies, things in the real world are unfolding in the opposite direction. Emissions are still going up, Car use is on the rise, Bus use is in decline, and Congestion is going through the roof. And this is not necessarily because all people are unaware, ignorant, uncaring, or ill-intended. It’s the LAW of least effort. And no subsidy, no disincentive, not even altruistic thoughts about our children’s future will ever defy it.

The only natural and smooth way to get them out of their beloved cars and start travelling sustainably is to provide them with an eco-friendly alternative that is more convenient and meets or ideally exceeds their needs and quality-of-life standards. One that they’ll love more. In order to achieve that it needs to be faster, safer, more comfortable, less stressful, and more affordable. It also needs to be swiftly implementable and scalable worldwide, to prevent the Climate Tipping Points from occurring.

Nymbel ticks all these boxes, and one more on top. Given its energy/resource/space/time efficiency, it doesn’t need public financing for implementation or subsidies to operate. It is profitable, regenerative, and can be financed through traditional funders, just like any other healthy business out there.

All it needs is a little help to build the full-scale prototype and demonstrate those parameters.