ESS Meridian
The newsroom of Early Solution Systems, and an outlet for the industries we serve.
Latest release October 30, 2026
Transdev's 2023 purchase of First Transit created the largest private operator of US public transportation. Agencies' leverage now sits in what they write into contracts.
ESS Meridian Desk, 1 min read
The ARC Prize Foundation's interactive benchmark is a reminder to test AI on the work you need done, not on general leaderboards.
Source: arxiv.org
Final bids for a nine-year MBTA contract arrived in September. The current Keolis contract has cost about $1 billion more than originally planned.
Source: wbur.org
What today's agent runtimes can do, how they are controlled, what benchmarks show and miss, and what a public agency should require before deploying one.
ESS Meridian Desk, 2 min read
Claude Code, Codex and Copilot all offer permission and sandbox controls, but they start from different defaults. Agencies should decide them rather than inherit them.
Source: developersdigest.tech
OSWorld, a leading benchmark for agents that operate computers, uses everyday applications. Agencies should test agents on their own systems before deploying them.
Source: os-world.github.io
US data-centre electricity use could nearly triple by 2028, while transit agencies wait years for depot power upgrades.
Source: publicpower.org
Industry and agency evidence agree: power upgrades and depot retrofits take longer than buying the buses.
Source: metro-magazine.com
New York's Access-A-Ride now carries about 50 percent more trips than before the pandemic, and its costs are projected to pass $1.2 billion a year by 2030.
Source: mta.info
Île-de-France Mobilités tendered RATP's bus network in 12 lots. RATP's own subsidiary won eight; an Italian operator won its first Paris contract.
Source: ratpgroup.com
Anthropic's revised Responsible Scaling Policy adds regular risk reports and acknowledges that capability thresholds are hard to apply. Buyers still need their own controls.
Source: anthropic.com
Research finds long, reasoning-style queries use many times the energy of typical ones, and that efficiency gains can offset much of it.
Source: rcrwireless.com
Congress reallocated about $205 million in unspent SMART funds in the FY2026 appropriations act. Existing grants continue; no new funding rounds will be issued.
Source: transportation.gov
A Deloitte study for Transport for London valued its free open data at up to £130 million a year for London's economy.
Source: tfl.gov.uk
ESS Meridian is the newsroom of Early Solution Systems and an outlet for the industries we serve. Inside ESS carries company announcements. Industry Watch covers AI and public transportation, drawing on research the Meridian desk collects every day. Every industry item is checked against its sources and approved by a named editor before it is published. The Library holds our papers and dossiers.