U.A.E Fuel Deregulation and Some Implications

July 28 Update : U.A.E Fuel prices committee has released revised fuel prices for August 2015.

In what's most likely a watershed moment in the U.A.E economy, from August 2015 petrol prices will no longer stay regulated at $0.47/liter as has been the case for many years. Diesel prices will decrease. The decision is, as I see it, in line with several precursors steering the U.A.E towards a realistic existence amidst our 21st century issues. Let's take a look at some of these.

The U.A.E government's strategy for a "Green Economy", a vision launched in 2012, aims for a reduction in domestic consumption of oil by 7-10%, natural gas by 7-20% and electricity by 11-15% year on year through to 2030. An 18.4% CO2 emissions contribution from the transportation sector (2011 World Bank data) doesn't appear to support that vision.

The Dubai Strategic Plan 2015 had the Road and Transportation Authority (RTA) setting a target of 30% of the population using public transport in 2020, compared with 12% in 2010 (UAE State of Green Economy Report, 2014).

To cope with the ever-rising traffic volume and road congestion in Dubai, the Salik toll collection system was rolled out in 2007. In October 2013, car-pooling was legalized.

Lots of money was pumped into the vitalizing a metro and the tram system. Biodiesel was investigated for the public buses. In Abu Dhabi, a park and ride system was started whereby someone from the outskirts could park their car and take a shuttle into the interior of the city for free.

Charging stations were introduced in a move to build an infrastructure for electric vehicles.

A Dubai Bicycle Plan aims at providing 850km of bikeways in strategically located areas and other cycle tracks have already been developed for the sports minded.

The U.A.E GDP grew 27 times since the 1975, largely supported by oil and gas revenues. In a double whammy, $50/barrel oil price not only squeezes that share but also discourages the proliferation of renewable energy technologies. It gives an opportunity for everyone to sit up and take notice of the gorilla in the room - regulated pump prices. If you ask me, this has been long overdue.

What might some of the implications be from new fuel prices to be announced soon?

1) Firstly, people taking long trips are going to obviously going to think twice. Let us suppose gas price in U.A.E increases to $1/liter, a 113% increase. Driving a car with an average fuel efficiency of 25 mpg (9.4 L/100km, a figure representative of my 2 year old Mitsubishi), a round trip to :

a) Sharjah (22.08km away) and back would cost 4.2L of petrol and 4.2 x $1 = $4.2 = 15.79 AED versus 7.52 AED with current price of $0.47/L.

 

b) Abu Dhabi (152.4km away) and back would cost 28.66L of petrol and 28.66 x $1 = $28.66 = 107.76 AED versus 51.74 AED with current price of $0.47/L.

In both these cases, one can expect roughly the same % increase in travel costs as the 113% increase in fuel costs.

2) I see more people investing in GPS units (best "Ecoroute", that kind of thing) and utilizing smart driving services like apps, which give real time traffic information. Trip planning could take more prominence.

3) I hope this sets in motion a massive awareness for fuel efficient vehicles. It makes promise for vehicles such as the Toyota Prius, Nissan Leaf or the Tesla BEV's. It also makes promise for diesel cars. While their first costs might be a bit on the high side, the lifecycle operation costs of using a higher energy density fuel will be low.  I'd like to see these vehicles in U.A.E showrooms ASAP. A hybrid or a diesel should be choices that people can make without having to resort to importing. I'm a bit upset there has been a vacuum in the UAE so far for these models.

4) I hope it allows people to think about methods to economic driving as well.  Less displacement is really better. Turbos are not just for sportscars. Driving slower is good for your pocket. Lower engine RPM's are good. This has the benefit of reducing speeds on Dubai roads as well. And does a family of 2 really need a towering 4x4? An Aston Martin to go to Carrefour? How about a Toyota or a Kia for that purpose? Retailers and showrooms have got some work to do to in educating the masses about these things.

5) I suspect the fuel price hike will change the trend for people to clog up toll-free roads. The difference between money saved by avoidance relative to the extra fuel needed to go the longer toll-free distance will most likely vanish.

6) Bicycle commuting lanes on the roads? Anyone? I'd champion this any day. We'll have to wait and see if the RTA plans on introducing dedicated lanes on the roads so that those who don't wish to drive or take the public transpo have an option. While it's easy to say this, I imagine a single bicycle track, an artery, running from the innards of Deira all the way to Jebal Ali along the Sh. Zayed Road would be just awesome. It could have multiple take off points so people could divert to key locations along the way. I don't see this happening any time soon but I eagerly await a more comprehensive picture of the Dubai Canal works to see what we can expect come 2017-2018.

7) Status boosting is the itch to buy a gas guzzling V8 and a 4 digit number plate to go along so you look good at the water cooler in the office. Well, I for one do hope the fuel degregulation makes a strong attempt to demolish this trend because it borders on discourteousness to the rest of the economizing society.

8) What I would also like to see is a massive turnaround in the trucking fleet in the U.A.E. This is one of the other low hanging fuits for improvement in terms of fuel efficiency and emissions. To see clean stuff coming out of the tailpipe from a rickety Volvo or a people carrier is, I suspect, what many people would also like to see while driving on Sh. Zayed Road. It's about time people in the trucking fleet community started talking about EGR, SCR systems, clean combustion diesel, things of that nature. Educate the drivers as well, especially about proper tire pressures! Why? Because it eats into fuel efficiency!

I'd like to conclude that if you're one among the bunch looking for a vehicle in 2015/16, knock yourself out and go through this handy EPA dataset of vehicles listed according to fuel economy. While I hope there's a datasheet more representative of vehicles in the U.A.E, it should at the minimum give someone a clue about what is the state of the art in fuel economy numbers these days. Thanks.

Enchanted Objects : A Review

A few months ago, I imagined that the time might be ripe to read a book on the Internet of Things. So with a degree of satisfaction I just put down an interesting book called Enchanted Objects : Design, Human Desire and the Internet of Things. 

David Rose, the author, is a product of  MIT's Media Lab, long known for its research initiatives into innovative human machine interfaces, advanced sensor networks and sociable robots. He is an expert in tangible human interfaces which holds the promise that everyday objects that we take for granted can be designed with an engaging interface to digital information in a way that emotionally resonates with users. 

Shown on the cover of the book is an image that stroked my imagination, the possibility that an ordinary umbrella can be "enchanted" to where it would be able to weigh the chances of a rain and notify its user whether it was needed that day.

Rose starts the book with what he calls his recurring nightmare where years into the future, all our interactions with mundane objects are digitized and reduced into a thin black slab of glass. He then explores the user experience challenges in wearable and prosthetic "computers" and animistic robots that fail to captivate and are dull to interact with.

Moving in a counter trajectory to a screen based world where tablets and clunky wearable heads up displays clutter our world, Rose unravels his career fascination with the most natural, desirable, even invisible ways for human to interact with tools and objects without having to learn a new set of skills. His answer is essentially to take ordinary objects and augment them with a link to the internet and a bit of computation power to enrich the experience of using that object.

The book is littered with numerous imaginative ideas and prototypes which tugs at the heart of the human interface problem. Rose describes an alternative world that range from Ambient orbs, Energy Joules, Live Scribe pens to glowing medicine bottle caps , smart wallets and modular cloud connected cars with over-the-air updating. Designers might like the in-depth instruction that follows in how to design enchanted objects that targets fundamental human desires - six of them - omniscience, telepathy, safe keeping, immortality, teleportation and expression. The rest of the book is a guide on designing enchantment for human senses, human centered homes and human centered cities. 

To be the devil's advocate, I can't but wonder how much true progress will mankind make in a world full of enchantment? Will the promise deliver in solving our most fundamental problems? In a world where a billion people are starving and climate related changes threaten to havoc our peace of mind, the problem of designing better human interfaces don't show up high on the list of our priorities.

However, pressing questions make me sympathetic to some of Rose's appeals, particularly those crying for a dose of reality to the inevitability of smart phones.

For instance, just the other day, I discovered an app for a digital stethoscope on my friend's iPhone. The price of computation might be peanuts these days but it sounded a bit ludicrous to me that you could rely on a phone to reliably monitor your heart beat among the multiplicity of other tasks and background processes the iPhone could have been running at that time. 

The larger question is whether the technology in phones can displace our tools, purpose built artifacts that are designed to do one task and do it right. And who monitors the standards by which these apps are created? How are users informed about for example, the accuracy, precision and reproducibility about readings taken by digital apps? What are the credentials of these app makers? And who watches what users do with these apps? 

The book may have its faults but without visions like those of Rose, we miss asking and debating those vital questions that could potentially enhance and enliven our interactions with the world around us. There is hope that our tools can be made better in such a way that the tool itself can change our behavior to achieve greater goals.

Correlation Is Not Causation : Pornography and Rape in India

The rape scene in New Delhi might frighten the sock off any female wanting to visit India these days (forgive my pun). And the shock of a nation is not surprising. The number of rapes reported so far this year in India stands at 460+. Compared to 2012, statisticians say that figure has risen by more than double.

While rapes have risen, the population of India has also gone up as well. In 2012, India boasted 1.210 billion people. In 2013, that has gone up to 1.270 billion. So has the rape rate per x number of people really increased compared to last year while checking for population growth? And was 2012 a smaller year for rape because rapes weren't reported as much?

I'm a doubting Thomas by nature. It's always good to check your numbers.

Having said that, it is shameful and revolting to think that India is making waves in one particular area - child rape. Minors, even under the age of 10 are not spared by these criminals. The particularly disturbing nature of these crimes is that because victims are under aged,  they do not have ready access to report the incident. The police don't always care and in some cases will seek to bribe sources to shut them up.

So what's wrong? Are sexually repressed derelicts going bonkers all of a sudden? Rape isn't prosecuted strictly? Education is not enough? Children aren't monitored? Alcohol to blame? The police force ignores? Porn black market unregulated?

India is a country that is traditionally conservative in sexual matters. The caste system has given ground to a predominantly patriarchal society. Arranged child marriages still happen in many Indian communities with many rituals and festivities. Yet, sex has been thoroughly mystified for many years. Sex education is not widely existent like in other nations. Open discussion of sex is oh-so-taboo in families and schools. Hardcore pornography is outlawed. In states where censorship isn't so tight, filmmakers get away with softcore porn but essentially, the reel stops at the thighs or a scene rapidly changes when partners are seconds away from as much as a kiss. Sex crimes exist in this roughly painted, if not inaccurate, environment.

In the emotional whiplash after a rape, people are easily prone to pointing fingers at all sorts of reasons. In the latest horrific case of a 5 year old's rape in the capital, activists claim that there was strong correlation between the perpetrators watching pornography on their cell phones and their aggression to commit the crime. The link between porn and perversion is now seriously being investigated by the Indian Supreme Court.

So if the recent rape cases ignite the debate on whether we need to curb pornography, the hypothesis must be that there is a strong causal link between pornography and rape. As of writing this, I know that various studies have debunked this claim that one causes the other. An interesting Denmark based paper to read is linked here.

Regardless, we can make this a highly academic investigation involving Indian research subjects and seek to understand if the mechanism works in India. Here's one I recently dreamed up and I wonder if it can ever be practically done. Feel free to find faults.

The protocol : Take a large group of Indian derelicts with suspect background, put them in a room for months on end and pamper them with pornographic videos without suppression. The videos must have contain explicit content depicting scenes of "adult" female sex slaves satisfying every craving of their adult male masters. Rape, or intent to rape and mild violence is free for the viewing. Viewing can be done solo or in groups.

At the same time, gather another "control group" of derelicts with suspect background and bombard them with videos showing women's rights activists exposing the crude behind the scenes in brothels, porn business, modeling industries etc and how this is against the values of a family, a society and a country.  Show them anything and everything that seeks to portray sexual immorality in bad light. Teach them about diseases and cures, prevention and prohibition. Throw some religion in there as well, oh yeah that will do the trick!

After all this, give these guys a survey. Inform them that that they will be left into a conservative society that has no serious repercussions for committing crimes against women, where police are easy going and may even act in support of them even if they committed the crime. They are free to walk in gangs and do what they please as long as they don't cause uproar.

Openly ask them if this information would make a few of them want to consider committing a sexual crime against a female. Monitor the response of both the groups. Specifically which person responded yes to that?

What would you really find?

Perhaps the guys who watched porn for so long got addicted to it so much that they would want to try it in real. Or perhaps the people who weren't shown satiating porn to "get it out of their system" would be more prone to want to rape. I'll leave that to social scientists and crime busters to figure out because I frankly don't know the answer. I wish that it will be conclusive but I won't be surprised if isn't.

The diagnosis of rape and pornography as a cause for the issue is a highly controversial issue not just in India but globally. As humans, we seek to understand causes to crimes and in moral panic, anything and everything as a social cause for crime, especially rape, is bound to the table and inspected.

It is interesting to note that in the United States, any outcry that goes against the grain of the Amendments of the Constitution will not find an easy time gaining ground. The backlash against prohibition of guns has the same political basis as the backlash against pornography. The right to bear arms is a fundamental right of Americans. The right to free speech, liberty and privacy is also a fundamental right of Americans. Child pornography has been outlawed by all American states' standards, hence it does not enjoy First Amendment protection. Other types of pornography have received varying levels of inspection on a case by case basis.

Both Nixon and Reagan commissions tried to show that exposure to pornographic materials caused social violence.  Here, it is instructive for Indian lawmakers to study two reports produced under the two different American administrations : "Report of the Commission on Obscenity and Pornography" (RCOP) and the "Attorney General's Commission on Pornography" or the "Meese Report".

RCOP under the Nixon administration stated explicitly that there was "no evidence to date that exposure to explicit sexual materials plays a significant role in the causation of delinquent or criminal behavior among youths or adults." The report was of course dismissed by Nixon. The reasons had more to do with politics because Nixon was obviously nervous of losing conservative support.

On the other hand, the federally funded 1,960 page Meese Report supported the conservative view that consumers as well as participants of pornography are harmed and as a whole, porn represented a clear and present danger to American public health. It came under sharp criticism from upholders of the Constitution, the media and especially social scientists who ripped it apart mainly due to what appeared to be shoddy research behind its conclusions.

This has been somewhat the theme behind the pornography debate in the United States. Lawmakers of an administration with a conservative bias will tend to say one thing, those wanting to gain liberal support will say another and somewhere in between, the media, especially the multi-billion dollar porn industry will tend to sway decisions in their favor, well actually the multi-million dollars in taxes they pay will usually do the talking. Inadvertently, a few of the porn moguls will directly or indirectly have a hand in electing a President so there you go...its an endless chain. After all this, someone will revisit the topic again in 4 years!

In a popular paper titled 'Porn Up, Rape Down'. a North Western University Law Professor argued that when internet access and pornography increased, per capita rape declined. He found the relationship to be correct to within 95% confidence. Source.

While we step away from the United States to India, it is instructive to understand that reasons for or against prohibition are often politically motivated. Having said that, if our nation really wants to understand the link between porn and rape, I still think we need to make it a rational approach and make it locally sensible to implement.

Show us data that says there is a strong causal link between rape and pornography. Study other developed nations that have investigated causal links and what they have done. Study the possible parameters that could be included in this Pareto chart for rape in India. And then attack the low lying fruit first. Ours is a nation of 1 billion scientists, computer programmers and engineers. Surely we can take a rational approach to this issue?

I wish the media would stop inviting the people from the film industry and women's rights activists into a panel and make a circus on TV. It really won't solve a thing other than fueling fire for endless debate. Rather, give the issue to the right people and let them decide upon an objective strategy. I hope India can go in the right direction and decide upon something that makes sense for India. Let's hope for an end to child rape.