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New buses boost Dubai’s public transport
Derek Baldwin, XPress
The first of Dubai’s newly built public buses reported for duty today with more accessible doorways, wider aisles and larger capacity.
The first new stretch bus measuring 18 meters long can carry up to 120 passengers, twice that of the traditional 12 metre bus, said Abdulla Yousef Al Ali, director of Public Buses Department. “We are receiving three to four new buses every day,” he said, toward an eventual complement of 1,200 public RTA buses by 2008 to cut down on growing traffic gridlock in the city.
The new stretch bus, however, was quickly denounced by reporters in a rolling press conference for having lousy air conditioning. ..
Yeo told reporters that the Mercedes bus model was tested in a heat tunnel in Germany for temperatures up to 50 C. A humidifier was put inside the bus model to simulate passengers and then the air conditioning was turned on. The test brought the temperature down to 24 C, a comfortable travelling zone for passengers.
In each bus, Yeo said Mercedes has also installed air conditioner fan units over each access door to create a “cold-air curtain” to prevent heat from the outside from invading the bus on each stop. In addition to new buses, the RTA has pledged to have 1,500 air conditioned bus stops by 2009.
(25 June 2007)
Trial with free public transport
Staff, Expatica
THE HAGUE – The government is starting a trial with free public transport for commuters at nine locations. The aim is to reduce the traffic congestion in these areas.
The ministry of Transport, Public Works and Water Management has confirmed a report on this in the AD on Monday. The trials are being held in the Utrecht region, at Schiphol, and in Amersfoort, Eindhoven, Enschede, Maastricht, Nijmegen, Waterland and Zwolle. Schiphol personnel for instance will be given a public transport pass for the route between their home and the airport instead of being reimbursed monthly for their travel expenses.
The trial projects cost about EUR 10 million. The ministry is paying half of this, the rest is financed by employers and provinces. If the trials prove successful state secretary Tineke Huizinga would like to offer free public transport to commuters at as many traffic bottleneck locations as possible. In a small scale trial project between Krimpen aan den IJssel and Rotterdam about 10 to 15 percent of commuters started using the bus. ..
(18 June 2007)
Security scheme for cyclists launched in Manchester
Environmental Transport Association
Transport authorities in Manchester have set up an innovative security scheme for cyclists, it has been announced.
For an outlay of £10, cyclists participating in the Bike Locker Users’ Club will gain access to more than 150 lockers in 30 locations across the country.
It is hoped that by providing the cyclists with the facilities they will be more encouraged to travel by bicycle for at least part of their journeys, and in particular when commuting to work. ..
(15 June 2007)
Firms turn up heat on SNP in bid to save trams
Jane Bradley, Edinburgh News Scotland
SOME of the Capital’s leading business and education institutions today urged the Scottish Executive not to scrap the trams project.
With just two days until MSPs are due to vote on the scheme, big names including Standard Life, Harvey Nichols and Edinburgh University increased the pressure on Alex Salmond’s SNP administration.
They said trams were vital to ensuring that Edinburgh’s economy continues to grow steadily and that the city is capable of keeping pace with its international rivals. ..
When it came to power, the SNP said it would save £1.1 billion by cancelling the trams and the Edinburgh Airport Rail Link. The party said it would use the money for other projects across Scotland – including funding for cleaner, greener buses in Edinburgh and the development of new bus routes in the city.
(25 June 2007)
See also Transport splits business groups.
More US commuters drive solo
Bina Venkataraman, The Christian Science Monitor
Global-warming warnings have not dissuaded Americans from driving to work alone. In fact, their numbers have been rising.
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Global warming may be the nation’s latest roadside attraction, but the American obsession with the carbon-spewing automobile still seems to be charging full speed ahead.
Seventy-seven percent of workers in the United States – more than 102 million people – drive alone to and from work, up from 1990, according to recently released US Census data, based on surveys conducted in 2005. This happened despite the fact that retail gasoline prices rose by 60 cents per gallon in that same 15-year period, controlling for inflation.
The news comes amid growing hype about going green, in an age when climate change has become as common a conversation topic as its quotidian counterpart, the weather. It could indicate that when it comes to transit, Americans talk the talk, but – put simply – aren’t walking.
“People don’t have flexibility to respond quickly to changes. And Americans have almost grown accustomed to seeing a three in front of the price of gasoline,” says Alan Pisarski, a transportation behavior analyst and author of the “Commuting in America” series. “There’s an immense benefit – whether it’s convenience or control – that people garner from driving alone.”
S. Usman Iqbal drives alone to his job in Boston, but says he’s not concerned about global warming. “People are really anxious to show they’re conscious about the environment and energy, but they’re really not that conscious about it,” says the medical researcher, speaking of people he has observed in the Boston area, where he’s lived for the past six years. “Their actions don’t follow their words.”
Sure enough, fuel-saving alternatives to the car commute are actually losing ground. Public transit use is slipping. Biking shows no gains. The share of Americans who carpool, the second most popular method of commuting, is also on a downward trend.
(25 June 2007)
Energy Bill Drives Home Efficiency Factor
Xiyun Yang, Washington Post
The Gianninis of Warren, Mich., are great believers in three things: their Chevy Avalanche, their GMC Envoy, and what Dennis Giannini, 47, calls “the great American ingenuity.”
“President Kennedy said we’d go to the moon,” he said. “There’s no reason we can’t make an SUV energy efficient.”
“We’re a smart country,” added his wife, Claudia, 45.
The Gianninis, like several other tourists visiting the White House yesterday, seemed unfazed by the new reality posed by the energy bill that was passed by the Senate late Thursday. If the bill clears the House and is signed into law, vehicles like theirs will have to get 35 miles to the gallon by 2020, compared with about 22.2 miles per gallon today.
Claude Ford, 39, from Manitowoc, Wis., takes his family camping with their Chevy Tahoe sport-utility vehicle and remains skeptical of any projected SUV demise. “I’m sure they’ll replace it with some amendment or make SUVs more efficient,” he said.
David Krischer, 53, of Los Angeles, said he has hopes that luxury cars, like his custom-ordered BMW 550 sedan, will soon be made to get better gasoline mileage. Until then, however, he is not ready to give his up.
“It eats up a lot of gas,” he said, sheepishly, “but we’re all hypocrites anyway.” He offers that he uses energy-saving light bulbs at his home.
(23 June 2007)
