Every serious question in this field reduces to a graph. Stops and links, depots and lanes, chargers and routes. The domain is a network before it is anything else, and the products that matter are the ones that model it well. Routing engines, scheduling systems, fleet telematics, demand modelling and open transit data all sit on that observation, and the sector generates far more data than it currently makes use of.

The campaigning side of this sector is enormous and fragmented. Cycling organisations, pedestrian safety groups, rail user associations, bus advocacy, road danger reduction, transit funding coalitions. Thousands of bodies, almost all nonprofits, almost all on this extension. What most of them lack is an identity that spans modes. Naming yourself for buses or bicycles wins you a constituency and loses you the argument that the whole system needs planning together.

Ask a research buyer which trade publications matter and you get a shrug and two suggestions. The information exists inside people’s heads and nowhere else. A directory would fix that: who publishes what, which outlets cover which sectors, which newsletters justify their subscription, which resellers carry which firms’ reports. Dull to describe, consulted constantly. The extension announces that intent. Reference material is what the .info was created to hold, and a visitor arriving at one expects to be informed rather than sold to, which is the right expectation for a directory to set.

English-language readers following the region have to read across a dozen outlets in several languages, and nobody is doing that collection well. Aggregation is a real opportunity and the extension suits it. On the .net the data and monitoring readings come forward: vessel tracking, incursion logging, transit statistics, and the aggregation of open-source reporting. All of it has a professional audience of analysts, insurers, shipping companies and supply chain teams who need to know what’s happening continuously.