Welcome to Makeshift Mobility
Tracking innovations in informal transportation
Welcome to Makeshift Mobility, a newsletter about innovations in informal transportation.
Silicon Valley unicorns get all the love but mobility innovations from the bottom up are making cities and the planet better for the people who use and who operate informal transport. (Especially the urban poor.) My hope is we can mobilize the world’s attention and resources to empower the transformation of makeshift mobility in our cities because…
Informal transportation is: 1) ubiquitous in the global south; 2) ignored in policy; 3) despised in planning; and, 4) represent probably the single greatest lever to decarbonizing the transportation sector.
What is informal transportation?
They come by many names: matatus, tro-tros, caminionetas, collectivos, jeepneys, autorickshaws, trisikads, minibuses, mega taxis, tuktuks, okadas, moto-dubs, etc. —two wheels, three wheels, or four; human powered or engine powered—informal transportation very likely moves and employs more people than all the city trains, buses, and taxis around the world. They provide mobility and livelihoods for mostly low income and the poor.
I’m Benjie de la Pena, I’m a strategist and design thinker and I work on urban development issues related to technology, sustainable transportation, and informal systems. In this newsletter, we’ll talk about how new approaches and technology are changing the way these services operate.
I’ll cover:
New Tech
Innovative Policies
New business/service models
New research
So, if you’re a transportation geek, a policy wonk, if you love cities, and if you want ethical, just, and sustainable innovations, subscribe to this newsletter.
Dear Mr. de la Pena.
Interesting...I got an email from Substack nudging me onto your newsletter.
And because Transportation is as close to my heart as anything I had a look.
And because this article was published on my birthday I must reply.
Long time ago I conceptualized how the transportation of the future should look like.
It should be fast, clean, safe cheap to build and cheap to run.
I'm afraid I outdone myself a little.
Because on to of that it has become an Infrastructure support system too supplying electricity internet TV/Phone with room to spare plus the transportation.
When I formed my Idea there were two technologies that stood out who tried to do the same as me some you should be familiar with.
1) Schienenzeppelin by German engineer Franz Kruckenberg
2) Aerotrain by French engineer Jean Bertin
They like me tried to combine aviation technology with rail technology.
However I studied the Ramjet and Scramjet technology and was able to incooperate them into my design to such a degree that the outcome is something truly special.
It has no moving parts and (theoretical) no limitations.
It simply is a mass transportation system faster than anything by creating absolute zero emissions forever.
I filed the patent(received) in 2008.
Here is my original website
www.zeroemissiontransportation.webs.com
Here are some linknotes
https://rj3sp.blogspot.com/2011/03/hypersonic-transportation-airstream.html
Here is an article from electric village
https://electricvillage.wordpress.com/2013/02/11/hs2-will-be-a-real-slowcoach/
Also in 2013 I introduced my technology at the "High Speed Rail Asia" conference in Kuala Lumpur with a somewhat rotten performance.
Now we are coming to Elon Musk "Hyperloop" which is really my Invention.
I claim that Elon Musk has stolen the Idea concept and technology from my website as early as 2010.
The dates on my legal documents (and the website links) outdate Elon Musk's by over 7 years.
What is more... the "Hyperloop" can never work it is purely designed to distract from the existenz of my Invention.
It is after all a bad copy with a concept that in unworkable to keep you sedated.
Ever since I filed my patent my life has been systematically destroyed even to the point that I was homeless for sometime.
Right now I have no income but I have a clear conciousness and I write from my heart all those things that happened to me because the world should know.
I think a Technology like that deserves a bit of financial backing especially when you have crooks pimps and liars like Richard Branson and Elon Musk making millions on what really is my technology without consent without even mentioning it, this is how scared they are of my technology.
So I can use all the help that I get especially financial backing.
If you could do something about that would be great.
Of course I have my own substack and I written about this baby too.
People suggested I should get paid by substack but this is not really why i am here.
I write because I feel that what I have to say has merrit and Truth and it is needed in these times.
I should have been a millionaire a long time ago instead they destroyed my life.
Money is not important my work is.
https://fritzfreud.substack.com/p/the-invention-the-illuminati-does?s=w
Benjie: I am also on Substack though I haven't been able to really get under way. I wanted to send you an article I wrote on the Turkish dolmush, which you seem to overlook. However I can find no email address for you and no way to send you a file. Do you really mean to suggest that you have all the information and no one else has anything to say? Surely not.