News story: New Foresight project to investigate the future of mobility

Updated: Added link to project page.

Technological developments and disruptive business models will have a significant impact on how people and goods move around the UK over the coming decades. The Government Office for Science’s new Foresight project will investigate how these issues will affect the transport of people and goods up to 2040.

Commenting on the project, Sir Mark Walport, Government Chief Scientific Adviser, said:

Understanding what the future of transport could hold is important for society and government.

Policy makers need to think about the longer term future of transport in order to make informed decisions today to shape the way people and goods move in the future.

The Foresight Future of Mobility project will help policy makers to think about the future of transport by providing the latest scientific evidence and tools.

The project is developing evidence in the following areas:

the interaction between people, technology and data
new transport business models
alternate transport futures

These areas will develop over the course of the project.

News story: New Foresight project to investigate the future of mobility

The project will explore the opportunities and implications arising from the future transport system in the UK.

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To anyone who grew up in the 1980s the Acorn BBC Microcomputer was the computer they used at school, a machine that gave countless Britons their first experience of computing and sold over 1.5 million units. Yet this iconic piece of computer hardware came about almost accidentally. With the world on the verge of a computer revolution in the early 1980s, the BBC were desperately searching the British electronic industry for a computer to accompany a new educational television series about computing. To a small company in Cambridge called Acorn Computers, having the BBC adopt their new computer as the BBC Computer was a deal that could transform the company into a major player. However, as Acorn designer Steve Furber recalls, there was one problem: they didn't actually have a new computer yet, and they had just a week to develop one…

Designing the Acorn BBC Microcomputer (C1379/078)

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