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Marc Scribner

@marcscribner.com

Transportation policy @reason.org. Covering infrastructure, planes, trains, and automobiles—especially when robots are involved. marcscribner.com

Posts Replies Media

Marc Scribner @marcscribner.com · 10/02/2025

My @reason.org colleague Bob Poole is in @wsj.com tomorrow arguing for converting air traffic control to a public utility. The rest of the world has moved in this direction since 1987. It’s long overdue for the U.S., where Bob developed this idea almost 50 years ago: www.wsj.com/opinion/how-...

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Marc Scribner @marcscribner.com · 10/01/2025

Good piece. Too many responses demonstrate that not enough professes congestion pricing proponents understand the point of congestion pricing. They’ve also apparently never seen a speed-flow diagram.

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Marc Scribner @marcscribner.com · 10/01/2025

The Biden DOT was noticeably less enthusiastic about automated driving than the Trump 45 or Obama DOTs due to its unprecedented deference to unions fearful of robot competition. The Trump DOT can revive federal AV policy—if it stays focused. My latest @reason.org: reason.org/transportati...

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Marc Scribner @marcscribner.com · 13/12/2024

Many people both nominally for and against port automation in the U.S. are mischaracterizing the issue. It isn’t about fully automating ports with robots; it’s about *partially automating*, especially container stacking, because land constraints mean ports need to densify yards.

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Marc Scribner @marcscribner.com · 07/12/2024

More bad news for high-speed rail fans. Japan is souring on international investments following large losses.

A government-appointed committee today urged a Japanese public-private fund to avoid joining greenfield high-speed rail (HSR) projects as an equity partner after the fund reported huge losses from overseas projects.

The Japan Overseas Infrastructure Investment Corporation for Transport & Urban Development, should not adopt a comprehensive role in HSR packages covering civil engineering, train tracks and railcar, according to a draft report by the committee comprising academic and business experts.

It is not viable to use a public-private fund to invest in long-term, large-sized overseas infrastructure projects in the early stages, as these are high-risk and do not offer a potential for earnings, the committee stated in the report.

Any equity investments in such projects in their early stages should lie outside the fund’s role, due to their high risk, the report stated.

The report follows JOIN's reporting a net loss of JPY 79.9bn (USD 517m) during the fiscal year ended March 2024, up from a loss of JPY 1.1bn a year earlier.

The huge loss was caused by its decision to book losses for infrastructure projects, such as the Houston-Dallas HSR project in the US, three urban redevelopment projects in Yangon city in Myanmar and four railway projects in Brazil, in line with accounting principles.

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Marc Scribner @marcscribner.com · 04/12/2024

In my latest @reason.org, I examine Japan's proposed "autoflow road" that's gotten some attention online. The engineering is cool, but the economics are much more dubious--especially when compared to ongoing road and rail vehicle automation efforts. reason.org/transportati...

A shrinking truck driver workforce and a new labor policy limiting driver hours have spawned a looming logistics crisis in Japan, known as the “2024 problem.” Japanese industry turned quickly to automation as a potential solution. The government, for its part, has been similarly investigating automated freight transportation, including new dedicated infrastructure and cargo vehicles that would constitute a new mode of surface transportation. Japan’s approach to its partially self-inflicted logistics problem can be contrasted with freight automation efforts in the United States, where developers of automated road and rail cargo vehicles plan to mostly leverage existing infrastructure.

In April 2024, the Japanese government ended an exemption on overtime hours for truck drivers. These stricter labor regulations coupled with a shrinking driver workforce have alarmed the broader business community that is dependent on reliable freight movements. In response to widespread concern that government policies have amplified a looming goods-movement crisis, Japan’s Ministry of Land, Infrastructure, Transport, and Tourism established a Study Group on Automated Logistics Roads that began meeting in Feb. 2024.

On Oct. 10, 2024, the Study Group published a market sounding survey (Microsoft Word document in Japanese) for the preferred project type. They envision a fully automated (including loading and unloading) cargo transportation system capable of moving 3.6-foot Type 11 pallets up to 5.9 feet tall that would be propelled by clean energy at 18 mph.

The automated logistics road must utilize existing road space between Tokyo and Osaka (e.g., highway medians on the Tomei Expressway, Shin-Tomei Expressway, Meishin Expressway, and Shin-Meishin Expressway). The 320-mile system should have at least eight stops (one for each prefecture between Tokyo and Osaka) and be able to handle between 120,000 and 140,000 tons of cargo per day.

The market sounding survey explicitly asked about contractor qualifications to develop the automated logistics road as a public-private partnership. The survey further suggested that a concession consortium should involve companies with expertise in infrastructure design-build, financing, vehicle manufacturing, system operation, toll collection, maintenance, and disaster recovery. Responses were due to the Study Group on Nov. 7.

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