Brett Ferrin, Vice President of Sales North America at Traffic Logix discusses the evolving and more complex nature of traffic safety management and gives insight into the many ways we can ensure safety on our roads for vehicle operators and other users. We discuss the implications of rapidly exploding amounts of data and the potential of artificial intelligence to revolutionize and upheave safety planning including driverless cars, generating new insights from data and changing human behaviour in general. Brett also reflects on his career and how several career changes have helped him gain a rich body of knowledge around traffic safety, planning and management.

Podcast Intro/Outro Song: Starsky by Alex Keren (Check out more of his tunes over on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/artist/5vZ3lENfDLjkln8scBJ8mW)

Chapters:
0:00 Intro
1:59 Guest Intro and Languages
7:10 Getting into traffic and Traffic Logix
10:23 The complexities of traffic
12:42 Vision Zero
16:38 Design with human behaviour in mind
23:43 Leveraging real-time data insights
25:03 NIMBY and the complexity of urban planning
30:49 Traffic Calming Measures
41:31 Future Challenges for Traffic Calming
43:35 Influence of AI on the transport system
49:21 A question of human control and freedom
52:25 When nothing changes, nothing changes
54:12 Brett's Future Trajectory
56:48 Q&A Start
57:15 What inspires you?
58:27 Key moment, book, event
1:02:49 If you had a magic wand?
1:04:34 Biggest challenge to date
1:07:57 Time Management
1:10:38 Advice for young professionals
1:12:31 Where can people find you?
1:13:48 Final Message
1:14:29 Outro

Detailed shownotes over at: petermbach.com/podcast for more in-depth information about each episode.
Join the community over at: linkedin.com/company/tgcpodcast and let's connect across the world!

Subscribe and listen to the podcast (and do please leave a review/rating) on Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts from.
Your subscription/follow will greatly help the show grow and reach a wider audience.

Hosted by Peter Marcus Bach (www.petermbach.com), follow me on:

• X (fomerly Twitter): @petermbach
• Instagram: @petermbach87
• Subscribe to my channel on YouTube: www.youtube.com/c/PeterMarcusBach/

To finish off 2024 and reflect on the 35 episodes of The Grand Challengers Podcast so far, here is a very special episode. Guests from across the show got to ask me a question of their choosing and I have compiled them into a special episode titled "Tables Turned". In this episode, we look into 22 questions relating to the origin story and plans for the podcast, what it has taught me, my life and career choices, me answering my own questions and advice I can offer. Join me in this beautiful moment of looking back on the past two years of the show and hear about the challenges and fun times that I have experienced!

The podcast will return in 2025 with brand new episodes, brand new guests and even some familiar faces! Until then, I hope you enjoyed the listening experience so far and that this episode perhaps awakens your curiosity to check out the collection of existing stories offered by many inspiring individuals across broad ranges of topics.

Podcast Intro/Outro Song: Astral Dance by Jimit (Check out more of Jimit's tunes over on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/artist/0hc1IxPxpmUgEIZGGUGrvm?si=z_uif82xQoqAqUy8KpB7JQ)

Chapters:
0:00 Preamble
0:21 Intro
1:36 Introducing the special episode
3:34 Why the podcast
5:28 The Ivory Tower
8:05 How long
9:37 Bloopers or not
11:54 A guest wishlist
15:41 An expanded guest wishlist
19:03 Effect of the podcast on oneself
21:24 How the podcast gives me hope
23:17 How have things changed across the production
26:41 Life and languages
28:43 Why Engineering, what else
37:22 Moving countries
41:18 Home is where the heart is
42:34 Staying in Switzerland
45:35 More general life advice
49:39 From my own PhD supervisor
51:25 My questions thrown back at me
51:45 If you had a magic wand?
54:09 Advice for young professionals
1:00:37 Wrap up - support the show
1:02:20 Outro

Detailed shownotes over at: petermbach.com/podcast for more in-depth information about each episode.
Join the community over at: linkedin.com/company/tgcpodcast and let's connect across the world!

Subscribe and listen to the podcast (and do please leave a review/rating) on Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts from.
Your subscription/follow will greatly help the show grow and reach a wider audience.

Hosted by Peter Marcus Bach (www.petermbach.com), follow me on:

• X (fomerly Twitter): @petermbach
• Instagram: @petermbach87
• Subscribe to my channel on YouTube: www.youtube.com/c/PeterMarcusBach/

Yannick Back, Research Fellow at the Unit of Environmental Engineering, Innsbruck University shares an alternative way of looking at planning for urban heat mitigation, which is the intrinsic link between water and energy fluxes. We discuss how Yannick has harnessed the power of remote sensing (both aerial and satellite data sets) and geographic information systems to develop new ways of assessing and mitigating urban heat in cities. We also hear Yannick's take on what is needed for alpine areas and the world to adapt to the challenges of climate change.

Podcast Intro/Outro Song: Starsky by Alex Keren (Check out more of his tunes over on Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/artist/5vZ3lENfDLjkln8scBJ8mW)

Chapters:
0:00 Intro
1:59 Guest Intro and Ice Hockey
5:16 Austria, not to be confused with Australia
11:46 Getting into urban heat
18:33 How a geographer integrates with engineers
26:41 The rapid fine-scale approach and thermal comfort
35:20 Adding computational fluid dynamics
38:59 Surface energy fluxes - an alternative perspective to heat
45:27 Is there a “magic” number for urban heat mitigation?
50:31 The essential ink between water and energy
54:07 Key future challenges for alpine regions
55:58 The global data availability question
58:37 Yannick’s future research plans
1:00:34 Urban climate models vs. data ubiquity
1:02:51 Q&A Start
1:03:13 What inspires you?
1:05:18 Key event, person, book
1:07:57 If you had a magic wand?
1:11:04 Biggest challenge in career to date
1:14:59 Time management
1:17:08 Advice for young researchers
1:17:52 Where can people reach you?
1:18:58 Final Message
1:21:39 Outro

Detailed shownotes over at: petermbach.com/podcast for more in-depth information about each episode.
Join the community over at: linkedin.com/company/tgcpodcast and let's connect across the world!

Subscribe and listen to the podcast (and do please leave a review/rating) on Spotify, Apple Music, YouTube or wherever you get your podcasts from.
Your subscription/follow will greatly help the show grow and reach a wider audience.

Hosted by Peter Marcus Bach (www.petermbach.com), follow me on:

• X (fomerly Twitter): @petermbach
• Instagram: @petermbach87
• Subscribe to my channel on YouTube: www.youtube.com/c/PeterMarcusBach/