[sustran] Re: What is xTransit? - Please comment

Lee Schipper schipper at wri.org
Tue Jan 3 04:25:47 JST 2006


Interesting.. and trivially, the plural of mutatu is watatu. The only 
think I remember frm Swahili.
Am sweating it out in an ounairconditioned lounge in Chennai awaiting my 
luftwaffe flight home!

Eric Britton wrote:

> This is just to encourage those of you who have a taste for this sort 
> of thing to go to our fine home page and click the slowly developing 
> xTransit links. No kidding. It’s the next big thing in sustainable 
> transport in cities. (And should have been a long time ago if we were 
> not so very locked into our old ways of looking at and dong things.)
>
> * What is xTransit? *
>
> The job of this page – which is placed here merely to get the 
> discussions and serious work going and with no pretensions of being in 
> any way definitive – is to rough out the main antecedents and eventual 
> raw materials and components of a well working xTransit system. It is 
> being posted at this point as part of the process of starting to 
> define and development useful materials and perspectives on this 
> important and as yet hugely underexploited mobility asset.
>
> If you want to see an example of the sort of thing that we are 
> targeting to provide under this heading, our World Carshare project at 
> http://worldcarshare.com is the best example that we can cite today.
>
> Please give us your comments and suggestions, both as to points of 
> details and more broadly.
>
> * What xTransit is not: *
>
> · ‘Normal cars’
>
> · Motorized two/three wheelers
>
> · Scheduled, fixed route transit service
>
> · Cycles
>
> · Walking, running, etc.
>
> * *
>
> * Antecedents/ways of getting around: *
>
> * *
>
> In any old order and just to get us going. What the following have in 
> common is that they all are, or could be, candidates for, group ride 
> services, more or less well articulated, more or less well supported 
> by SOA technology. For now we cluster these in groups of roughly like 
> concepts and operations:
>
> * Taxis * (even in the single client variant, as least as an antecedent)
>
> · Limousines
>
> · Group Taxis
>
> · Line Taxis
>
> · Maxicabs
>
> · Shared Taxis (also called, among many others: Matatu 
> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Matatu>, Gush Texi, Dolums, Collectivo, 
> Jeepney, Public light bus 
> <http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Public_light_bus>, etc.)
>
> · Shirut, Publicos, Molue, Bemo, Tro-tro, Poda-poda, Danfo . . . and more
>
> * Ride-sharing *
>
> · Lift-sharing (in UK also called carsharing. Watch out!)
>
> · Carpools
>
> · Vanpools
>
> · Buspools
>
> · Ride-matching
>
> · Hitchhiking
>
> * Shuttle buses *
>
> · Feeder services
>
> · Jitneys
>
> * Demand Responsive transport *
>
> · DRT
>
> · Dial a Ride
>
> · Dial a Bus
>
> · Taxi-Bus (Also Buxi, Busphone, Telebus, etc.)
>
> * Special Mobility Services *
>
> · Paratransit
>
> · E&H group transit
>
> · Färdtjänst
>
> * Goods/freight delivery *
>
> · Small package and message delivery
>
> · Grouped gods delivery/Clustering
>
>
>       * · * Freight Village
>
> · Teleshopping
>
> * The other half of the xTransit equation\the logistics link: *
>
> · IT/ICT
>
> · Central dispatching services
>
> · Internet/website information
>
> · Internet/website reservation/ordering
>
> · GPS
>
> · Mobile phones
>
> · Mobility centers
>
> * Some of the key issue areas that need attention: *
>
> · Financing: Who pays what
>
> · Role of fairbox
>
> · HOV priority
>
> · Barriers and regulations (incl. local ordinances)
>
> · Labor union (resistance)
>
> · Trade resistance (mainly from taxi operators)
>
> · Insurance, Liability
>
> · Safety
>
> · Privacy
>
>------------------------------------------------------------------------
>
>
>
>================================================================
>SUSTRAN-DISCUSS is a forum devoted to discussion of people-centred, equitable and sustainable transport with a focus on developing countries (the 'Global South'). Because of the history of the list, the main focus is on urban transport policy in Asia.
>

-- 
Lee Schipper, Ph.D., Director of Research
EMBARQ, the WRI Center for Transport and Environment
World Resources Institute
10 G St NW, Washington DC 20002 USA
Phone +1 202 729 7735; Fax +1 202 729 7775
http://www.embarq.wri.org




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