Somewhere over on the right hand side of the screen (if you're looking at this on a desktop, which statistically you're probably not) you will see "My Blog List" features a French blog called Transport Shaker.
This is a blog written by a French consultancy, Solucom. However, it's not the people that write it that interests me - I have no connection with them at all - it's the content.
They feature stories about innovative and exciting developments in the world of transport, with a particular emphasis on stuff that is a unusual, disruptive and off-the-wall, rather than the run-of-the-mill headline news stories that get reported right across the transport media.
Of course it's written in French, so unless you have a rudimentary knowledge of the language you might find it a bit frustrating, but it's well worth keeping an eye on even so. The blog is very attractively presented and features lots of pictures and diagrams so it's often possible to get a sense of what a story is about even if you can't follow every word.
Sometimes either the blog itself or the equally interesting Twitter feed links to content in English, and this article offering some revolutionary ideas that could radically alter the experience of air travel is an example that particularly caught my eye today.
In general I feel we are too insular in this country and reluctant to look across the Channel for ideas and inspiration. Yet there is a huge amount of innovation and excitement going on across the continent and especially in France at the moment, with giants such as Keolis and Transdev engaged in a supreme game of one-upmanship, continually upping the game with new and innovative projects.
Walking round the NEC this week, once I'd got over the excitement of the glorious Red Arrow coach, I was reminded that so much of what appears there each year is the same stuff that was there the year before, brought to you by the same old faces, and sometimes it is hard to find much that is truly exciting. My previous visits to European trade shows such as Transports Publics and Busworld (which is the week after next by the way - see you there?) have been a real eye-opener, offering a wealth of new ideas, innovation and inspiration. And yet a noticeable feature of both - especially Transports Publics - was the almost complete absence of UK delegates walking around.
So I make no apology for using this space to draw your attention to interesting material from around the world and Continental Europe in particular, and welcome any insights in return on things I may have missed.
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