From BruunB at aol.com Fri Feb 1 01:56:03 2002 From: BruunB at aol.com (BruunB@aol.com) Date: Thu, 31 Jan 2002 11:56:03 EST Subject: [sustran] Re: The Private Provision of Public Transport Message-ID: <11f.afb9e09.298ad123@aol.com> I am familiar with some of Jonathon Richmond's writing. He can not be characterized as "non-ideological" and therefore "objective". He is right-wing in his political viewpoint. Much of the benefit of the privatization follows only if you share his values. I will be the first to admit that a dose of competition through contracting out could improve some of the big-city public transport operations in the US and elsewhere. I see it every day at my local agency SEPTA in Philadelphia, where nothing ever seems to improve. Even if the wages were about the same, competitive contracting would decrease the featherbedding and improve the manners of the large minority of rude employees who have contact with the public. On the other hand, the benefits from privatization are often just from cutting wages, which should be distinguished from other efficiency gains. Believing that driving wages as low as possible is good and disrespecting the right of workers to collective bargaining is not "non-ideological". Richmond listed 5 agencies in the US to discuss as positive examples of private contract operation. I know something about 4 of them, and want to add some additional considerations. Indianapolis has rock-bottom wages but also has by any standard one of the worst public transport offerrings of any major US city. Does he show equal concern for the skeletal service being offered as he does for the high "cost-efficiency"? Las Vegas may keep costs down on a per service hour basis, but service is quite slow, unreliable, and minimal for a city its size. A faster service would serve the community better. At the same time, the efficiency of the system would go up. Does Richmond advocate public policy to favor buses with bus lanes, signal priority, etc. if he is so concerned about efficiency? One could pay higher wages yet still operate as many kilometers every day. Again, San Diego's efficiency stems largely from low wages including the use of prisoners to clean vehicles. But it also stems from light rail lines that operate on separate rights-of-way and from operating truncated bus routes that connect to it. This kind of network is not possible when there is free-entry market and deregulation. While Richmond may be right that there is room to fill service gaps with locally run smaller buses, the UK experience shows that deregulation causes uncoordinated and unconnected services and consequently large overall ridership losses. The Los Angeles MTA, like SEPTA, is an example of big-city operations where well paid unionized workers have opposed efficiency increasing measures. But Foothills Transit, the contract operator that was awarded part of the previous MTA service area, in my opinion, is going too far in the other direction. It is a low wage operation in a very high cost of living area. Furthermore, there are often hidden costs of low-wage operations. In London, Transport for London has taken to supplementing wages of bus drivers of contract operators in order to slow down turnover, since staff have a hard time living on the going rate of 350 pounds per week. My experience is that many agencies in the US are incurring high training and administrative costs from very high turnover rates. When I say "low wages" I mean wages that are so low that people feel compelled to move on when they have a chance, since the income is too low to support a family. My point is that public transport should be more viewed as an engineered system that requires some public investments and coordinated services, and less viewed as merely vehicles operating in mixed traffic that consume too much subsidy because of "high wages" while ignoring community needs. Eric Bruun From BruunB at aol.com Fri Feb 1 01:56:03 2002 From: BruunB at aol.com (BruunB@aol.com) Date: Thu, 31 Jan 2002 11:56:03 EST Subject: [sustran] Re: The Private Provision of Public Transport Message-ID: <11f.afb9e09.298ad123@aol.com> I am familiar with some of Jonathon Richmond's writing. He can not be characterized as "non-ideological" and therefore "objective". He is right-wing in his political viewpoint. Much of the benefit of the privatization follows only if you share his values. I will be the first to admit that a dose of competition through contracting out could improve some of the big-city public transport operations in the US and elsewhere. I see it every day at my local agency SEPTA in Philadelphia, where nothing ever seems to improve. Even if the wages were about the same, competitive contracting would decrease the featherbedding and improve the manners of the large minority of rude employees who have contact with the public. On the other hand, the benefits from privatization are often just from cutting wages, which should be distinguished from other efficiency gains. Believing that driving wages as low as possible is good and disrespecting the right of workers to collective bargaining is not "non-ideological". Richmond listed 5 agencies in the US to discuss as positive examples of private contract operation. I know something about 4 of them, and want to add some additional considerations. Indianapolis has rock-bottom wages but also has by any standard one of the worst public transport offerrings of any major US city. Does he show equal concern for the skeletal service being offered as he does for the high "cost-efficiency"? Las Vegas may keep costs down on a per service hour basis, but service is quite slow, unreliable, and minimal for a city its size. A faster service would serve the community better. At the same time, the efficiency of the system would go up. Does Richmond advocate public policy to favor buses with bus lanes, signal priority, etc. if he is so concerned about efficiency? One could pay higher wages yet still operate as many kilometers every day. Again, San Diego's efficiency stems largely from low wages including the use of prisoners to clean vehicles. But it also stems from light rail lines that operate on separate rights-of-way and from operating truncated bus routes that connect to it. This kind of network is not possible when there is free-entry market and deregulation. While Richmond may be right that there is room to fill service gaps with locally run smaller buses, the UK experience shows that deregulation causes uncoordinated and unconnected services and consequently large overall ridership losses. The Los Angeles MTA, like SEPTA, is an example of big-city operations where well paid unionized workers have opposed efficiency increasing measures. But Foothills Transit, the contract operator that was awarded part of the previous MTA service area, in my opinion, is going too far in the other direction. It is a low wage operation in a very high cost of living area. Furthermore, there are often hidden costs of low-wage operations. In London, Transport for London has taken to supplementing wages of bus drivers of contract operators in order to slow down turnover, since staff have a hard time living on the going rate of 350 pounds per week. My experience is that many agencies in the US are incurring high training and administrative costs from very high turnover rates. When I say "low wages" I mean wages that are so low that people feel compelled to move on when they have a chance, since the income is too low to support a family. My point is that public transport should be more viewed as an engineered system that requires some public investments and coordinated services, and less viewed as merely vehicles operating in mixed traffic that consume too much subsidy because of "high wages" while ignoring community needs. Eric Bruun From geobpa at nus.edu.sg Fri Feb 1 10:19:16 2002 From: geobpa at nus.edu.sg (Paul Barter) Date: Fri, 1 Feb 2002 09:19:16 +0800 Subject: [sustran] FW: [cai-newsletter] CLEAN AIR INITIATIVE NEWS (Issue Number 1, J anuary 2002) Message-ID: <2C9E855D35B9D01198190020AFFBE8CB0F47C509@exs04.ex.nus.edu.sg> A new newsletter from the World Bank. Paul -----Original Message----- From: Clean Air Initiative [mailto:clean_air@worldbank.org] Sent: Friday, 1 February 2002 6:41 AM To: CAI Newsletter Subject: [cai-newsletter] CLEAN AIR INITIATIVE NEWS (Issue Number 1, January 2002) CLEAN AIR INITIATIVE NEWS (Issue Number 1, January 2002) Welcome to the first issue of Clean Air Initiative News! This e-newsletter will keep you updated on the Clean Air Initiative, including global and regional activities. What is the Clean Air Initiative? The Clean Air Initiative (CAI) is a partnership that advances innovative ways to improve air quality in cities around the world by sharing knowledge and experiences. The CAI is a global program currently active in four major regions of the world: Asia, Europe & Central Asia, Latin America, and Sub-Saharan Africa. We encourage your feedback! Please explore the website: http://www.worldbank.org/cleanair and give us your comments by sending an email: Clean_Air@worldbank.org To register for regular updates on the Initiative, including this newsletter, please complete our on-line registration form, available on the website: http://www.worldbank.org/cleanair ****************************************************** In this issue: 1. Global Communications a) Our Evolving Clean Air Initiative Website: Your Feedback Needed! b) Register to Receive Email Updates, Including this Newsletter c) Join the Discussion Forum and ListServs ------------------------------------------------------ 2. Asia (CAI-Asia) a) Urban Air Quality Management Distance Learning Course b) Upcoming Regional Workshops: Transport Planning, Demand Management and Air Quality; and Concluding Workshop on Reducing Vehicle Emissions c) Regional Workshop on Strengthening Inspection & Maintenance d) Regional Workshop on Reduction of Emissions from 2-3 Wheelers e) Join the Email-based CAI-Asia Discussion Group ------------------------------------------------------ 3. Europe and Central Asia (CAI-ECA) a) Launch Conference Report Available (English and Russian) ------------------------------------------------------ 4. Latin America (CAI-LAC) a) CAI-LAC wins DaimlerChrysler Environmental Leadership Award b) Urban Air Quality Management Distance Learning Course c) City-specific Workshop, S?o Paulo d) City Representatives Meeting, Buenos Aires e) CAI-LAC Progress Report Available (English, Spanish and Portuguese) f) InfoPool for Clean Transport Technologies ------------------------------------------------------ 5. Sub-Saharan Africa (CAI-Africa) a) Sub-regional Conference on Phase-out of Leaded Gasoline b) National Conference on Phase-out of Leaded Gasoline c) Dakar Conference Proceedings Available (English and French) ****************************************************** 1. Global Communications a) Our Evolving Clean Air Initiative Website: Your Feedback Needed! Our website is developing a new look! We invite you to explore the site, using the topic and region pulldown menus at the top of each page. See our calendar of events, register for updates, find updated information on air quality topics, and join our on-line or email discussions. We welcome your comments on content, navigation, and design of the site. Feedback received by February 15, 2002 will be used to make additional improvements to the site! We are continuing to add new content, and links to other websites, so let us hear from you. Visit the site at: http://www.worldbank.org/cleanair b) Register to Continue Receiving Updates (Including this E-newsletter) Please take a moment to register for our regional discussions and to continue receiving this newsletter. The registration form can be found on the website at: http://www.worldbank.org/cleanair or you can send a blank email to: join-cai-newsletter@lists.worldbank.org c) Join the Discussion Forum and ListServs The Clean Air Initiative Discussion Forum and ListServs aim to ensure open and free channels of communication for people and organizations working on or interested in improving air quality in cities around the world. The following discussions and ListServs are currently available and more will be added in the future based on user interests. You can access these discussions at: http://www.worldbank.org/cleanair/global/disforum/index.htm c-1) Hot Topics! We want to use the Clean Air Initiative website Discussion Forum as a platform to discuss "Hot Topics" - challenging issues in urban air quality management. Let us hear what YOU think are the Hot Topics. The discussions will be moderated, summarized, and made available on the website. If you do not want to have your suggestions posted on the website, please send an email to: Clean_Air@worldbank.org c-2) Open Discussion for CAI-Asia (ListServ) Share your ideas and experiences through email exchanges with others interested in CAI-Asia topics and issues. If you want to join the CAI-Asia discussion group, please send a blank e-mail to: join-cai-asia@lists.worldbank.org c-3) Discussion on Santiago Plan Give your feedback on the measures proposed by the Air Pollution Decontamination Plan for Santiago de Chile. You can also send us an email (if you don't want your comments posted on the website): Clean_Air@worldbank.org ****************************************************** 2. Asia (CAI-Asia) a) Urban Air Quality Management Distance Learning Course An Urban Air Quality Management course for practitioners and policy makers is being designed for Asian cities. The first offering of this course will be May-June, 2002. b) Upcoming Regional Workshops The regional workshop on Transport Planning, Demand Management and Air Quality (February 26-27, 2002) will be the fourth workshop organized by ADB's regional technical assistance project RETA 5937: Reducing Vehicle Emissions. For more information, visit: http://www.adb.org/Documents/Events/2002/RETA5937/Manila/ The regional workshop will be followed by the Concluding Workshop on Reducing Vehicle Emissions (February 28-March 1, 2002). For more information, visit: http://www.adb.org/Documents/Events/2002/RETA5937/Manila/final.asp Both workshops will take place at the Asian Development Bank (ADB) headquarters in Manila, Philippines. c) Regional Workshop on Strengthening Vehicle Inspection & Maintenance, Chongqing, China (November 7-9, 2001) Organized by ADB and SEPA and co-sponsored by CAI-Asia and US Asia Environment Partnership, this regional workshop aimed to provide a forum for discussion between stakeholders in Asia on ways to reduce emissions from vehicles, by strengthening vehicle inspection and maintenance regimes. A total of 117 participants represented 11 Asian countries and many international organizations and companies. The workshop program, copies of all presentations, the workshop synthesis, and list of participants are available at: http://www.adb.org/Documents/Events/2001/RETA5937/Chongqing/ d) Regional Workshop on Reduction of Vehicle Emissions from 2-3 Wheelers, Hanoi, Vietnam (September 5-7, 2001) The workshop was organized by the Asian Development Bank and Vietnam Register with the support of the World Bank and the U.S. Asia Environment Partnership through the Clean Air Initiative for Asian Cities (CAI-Asia). There were over 150 participants from more than 10 Asian cities and many international organizations and companies. The workshop discussed the action plan for controlling emissions from 2 or 3 wheelers in Asia. The workshop program, copies of all presentations, the workshop synthesis, and list of participants are available at: http://www.adb.org/Documents/Events/2001/RETA5937/Hanoi/ The second coordination meeting of the Initiative's Working Group was held immediately following the conference, on September 8. The CAI-Asia Charter and Business Plan 2002 were discussed and adopted at the meeting. These documents are posted on the CAI website: http://www.worldbank.org/cleanair/caiasia/ e) Join the Email-based CAI-Asia Discussion Group (ListServ) An email-based discussion (ListServ) has been established for those interested in topics relevant to CAI-Asia (also see section 1 on Global Communications). To join this email-based discussion, please send a blank e-mail to: join-cai-asia@lists.worldbank.org or sign up on the CAI website and click on the Discussion Space box. ****************************************************** 3. Europe and Central Asia (CAI-ECA) Efforts are underway to take the CAI-ECA forward from the very successful April 2001 Conference. a) Launch Conference Report Available The Conference report is now available in PDF format on the Clean Air Initiative website in both English and Russian: http://www.worldbank.org/cleanair/caieca/index.htm ****************************************************** 4. Latin America a) CAI-LAC wins DaimlerChrysler Environmental Leadership Award At a recent ceremony at DaimlerChrysler's US Headquarters, the Clean Air Initiative in Latin American Cities won the coveted Environmental Leadership Award in the "Extraordinary Efforts for the Environment/Extraordinary Environmental Responsibility" category. For full details, please see What's New on the website: http://www.worldbank.org/cleanair b) Urban Air Quality Management Distance Learning Course The third Urban Air Quality Management Distance Learning course will be offered May-June, 2002. c) City-specific Workshop, S?o Paulo, Brazil (December 12-14, 2001) This was the last workshop of Phase I of the Initiative in Latin America. Phase II commences in 2002. The key objectives of the workshop were to raise the level of awareness of the importance of air pollution in the metropolitan area, obtain technical and institutional support for the development of an action plan and identify municipal initiatives linking to work currently being undertaken by CETESB. The program consisted of panel discussions and mini-courses, with experiences from other Latin American cities presented and discussed. d) City Representatives Meeting, Buenos Aires (October 18-19, 2001) A meeting of city representatives was held in Buenos Aires on October 18, 2001, with a broader meeting of the CAI-LAC Steering Committee Working Group held on October 19. Both meetings focused on discussions of Phase II of the Initiative, including options for the transfer of the Technical Secretariat from the World Bank to a regional institution in 2002. e) CAI-LAC Progress Report Available The Clean Air Initiative in Latin American Cities Progress Report 2001 is available in PDF format on the CAI website in English, Portuguese, and Spanish: http://www.worldbank.org/cleanair/cailac/progress_rpts.htm f) InfoPool for Clean Transport Technologies The Information Pool provides comprehensive information on cleaner vehicle/fuel technologies for urban buses and trucks. It will be made available on the CAI website, and will be continuously updated. ****************************************************** 5. Sub-Saharan Africa (CAI-SSA) a) Sub-regional Conference on Phase-out of Leaded Gasoline, Benin (April 2002) The Ministry of Environment, Habitat and Urbanism of Benin requested support from the Clean Air Initiative to host a sub-regional conference (Benin, Niger, Nigeria, and Togo) on the phase-out of lead from gasoline. The conference will build on the outcomes of the recent national conference in Nigeria. b) National Conference on Phase-out of Leaded Gasoline, Nigeria (November 15-16, 2001) Nigerian stakeholders organized a national conference with a view to phasing out lead from gasoline by 2005. Nigeria is a key supplier of petroleum products to the region. c) Dakar Conference Proceedings Available The conference proceedings from the Dakar Regional Conference on the Phase-Out of Leaded Gasoline in Sub-Saharan Africa (June 26-28, 2001) have been published in both English and French. Presentations are available on the Clean Air Initiative website, or paper copies may be ordered on request by e-mail to: Clean_Air@worldbank.org ****************************************************** For more information on any of these news items, please send us an email at: Clean_Air@worldbank.org We look forward to hearing from you! =================================================== Clean Air Initiative 1818 H Street NW, J4-400 Washington, D.C. 20433, USA Fax: 1-202-676-0977/78 Email: Clean_Air@worldbank.org www.worldbank.org/cleanair =================================================== From kisansbc at vsnl.com Fri Feb 1 10:22:26 2002 From: kisansbc at vsnl.com (kisan mehta) Date: Fri, 1 Feb 2002 06:52:26 +0530 Subject: [sustran] Re: Capitalism, Communism and "Enronism" References: Message-ID: <001e01c1aabe$e86ab520$3226020a@im.eth.net> Dear Gaia, Sustran, Etoxic and other Colleagues, Here is the difference between Capitalism, Communism and "Enronism" explained in the simple down to earth language. Some of you have seen this earlier however it is worth having one more look. Priya Salvi and Kisan Mehta Subject: Fw: Capitalism, Communism and Enronism Financial Times; Jan 16, 2002 On the differences between capitalism, communism and "Enronism": Capitalism: You have two cows.You sell one and buy a bull. Your herd multiplies and the economy grows. You sell them and retire on the income. Communism: You have two cows. Your neighbours help take care of them and you all share the milk." "Enronism": You have two cows. You sell three of them to your publicly listed company, using letters of credit opened by your brother-in-law at the bank, then execute a debt/equity swap with an associated general offer so you get all four cows back, with a tax exemption for five cows. The milk rights of the six cows are transferred via an intermediary to a Cayman Island company secretly owned by the majority shareholder, who sells the rights to all seven cows back to your listed company. You hire Arthur Andersen to revise your books. The annual report says the company owns eight cows, with an option on one more. "The shortest distance between two towns is riding in a limo with the windows down." From bfinn at singnet.com.sg Fri Feb 1 12:56:21 2002 From: bfinn at singnet.com.sg (Brendan Finn) Date: Fri, 1 Feb 2002 11:56:21 +0800 Subject: [sustran] Re: The Private Provision of Public Transport References: <11f.afb9e09.298ad123@aol.com> Message-ID: <000b01c1aad4$861200c0$fbc315a5@bfinn> Some further thoughts on the mail of Eric Bruun on the topic of private provision of public transport. I would like to stimulate discussion and argument from people throughout the Sustrans community, especially in Asia where there is such diversity of situations and responses. I have avoided putting in examples to keep the e-mail reasonably short and focus on issues. A paper that I presented at TRB in Washington earlier this month covers some of the material, and I will e-mail it on request. 1) First, a warm thanks to Eric for getting to the kernel of the issue with practical examples, and challenging simplistic ideas that private provision of transport is best without defining what "best" actually means, and who are the beneficiaries. 2) After Jonathon Richmond posted his advert to Sustrans I visited his website and read his conclusions chapter. It's a reasonable read, since anyone familiar with the area can easily see where the supported facts end, and the opinion begins. Even though I don't agree with all his opinions, nothing wrong with him having them. The facts are useful and interesting. 3) Eric's key point is one that I have also encountered in researching regulatory frameworks and meeting transport authorities in developed countries over the last year. Where containing cost is the key motivation for competitive tendering or other forms of private participation in the transit market, then contracts are won on price (sometimes subject to certain defined operator competence and quality). Since labour accounts for 60-75% of total bus costs (depends on ratio of labour to capital costs, local economy, staffing levels) then the only way to win is drive down labour costs. And since it's an awful lot easier and quicker to just pay lower wages than to build productivity and quality, it's not surprising that competitions are won through shedding labour, shedding senior staff, cutting hourly rates and overtime, deskilling etc. Value-adding functions are stripped out along with other overheads, so the operating company reduces to being a unit of production. This situation lasts until : a) The economy picks up and the labour market shrinks. Then, there is either an upward pressure on labour rates or you cannot recruit and retain the quality of staff needed for bus services. Either the contract price goes up, or the quality suffers badly. b) The basis for competition is eliminated through domination, consolidation or collusion, and bid prices rise in the knowledge that there is little prospect of real competition. In four cities that I recently visited, bid prices have shown a big increase in the last year. 4) Some commentators will argue that the market always responds. My observations are that this is not the case in urban public transport. Once there is a dominant operator, or staking out of turf among the incumbents, there is no motivation for them to hurt each other competing for each other's core business, and they will quickly see off any newcomer. 5) The alternative approach is to make price just one of a number of criteria, thus reducing the focus on wage cutting, and instead concentrating on the qualities of potential bidders in terms of quality, market development, innovation, integration, stability, investment in mobile and human assets. This means that big public purse savings cannot be made up front, more modest savings can be achieved while keeping quality and stability. Transport authorities need to ask themselves, do they want cheap transit, or good transit ? 6) Incidentally, public provision is often beset by problems as well. Unresponsive, inefficient services at high public cost are often the result of unmotivated management and intransigent labour, and a lack of a clear vision of the role to be played by transit. Advocates of the public sector will have to admit that reforms and efficiency often only come as a result of actual competition - legal or illegal. 7) But what of cities in developing countries, or where the economy is weak or in turmoil ? Here, the public provision may be quite weak, and the private sector participation is necessary to meet the needs of the citizens. In some cases this is well structured, in others it is chaotic. Is the experience of the developed countries relevant for them ? Or indeed, what can developed countries with their protected markets learn from the diversity of private sector participation in countries they consider to be less developed ? 8) One thing is for sure. Private entities have no public sector motivations. They will by their nature seek profit at lowest cost and risk, will tend towards domination and monopolistic behaviour, and after an initial competitive phase will seek to secure their markets and minimise risk. They will not innovate unless they have to. Over time, they also tend towards inefficiency, and may require drastic reform to regain competitiveness. There is nothing wrong with engaging such entities for provision of public transport as long as their nature is understood, and the public purpose is assured through the transport authority by way of contract/franchise conditions and intervention mechanisms. Sorry for the length of this e-mail. I welcome any discussion or argument on these points. It would be useful to get the strands from different parts of Asia and South America, and see where this leads us. For the sake of the members of this discussion group, please remember that specific questions (or requests for my paper) can always be sent directly to me, rather than posted to the group as a whole. With best wishes, Brendan Finn. ______________________________________________________ Please note contact details as follows : Address : 28, Leonie Hill, #02-28 Leonie Towers, Singapore 239227 Mobile : +65.94332298 Tel : +65.7340260 Fax/Tel : +65.7340412 e-mail : bfinn@singnet.com.sg Website : http://www.europrojects.ie/etts ----- Original Message ----- From: To: ; Cc: ; ; ; Sent: 01 February 2002 00:56 Subject: [sustran] Re: The Private Provision of Public Transport > > I am familiar with some of Jonathon Richmond's writing. He can not be > characterized as "non-ideological" and therefore "objective". He is > right-wing in his political viewpoint. Much of the benefit of the > privatization follows only if you share his values. > > I will be the first to admit that a dose of competition through contracting > out could improve some of the big-city public transport operations in the US > and elsewhere. I see it every day at my local agency SEPTA in Philadelphia, > where nothing ever seems to improve. Even if the wages were about the same, > competitive contracting would decrease the featherbedding and improve the > manners of the large minority of rude employees who have contact with the > public. > > On the other hand, the benefits from privatization are often just from > cutting wages, which should be distinguished from other efficiency gains. > Believing that driving wages as low as possible is good and disrespecting the > right of workers to collective bargaining is not "non-ideological". Richmond > listed 5 agencies in the US to discuss as positive examples of private > contract operation. I know something about 4 of them, and want to add some > additional considerations. > > Indianapolis has rock-bottom wages but also has by any standard one of the > worst public transport offerrings of any major US city. Does he show equal > concern for the skeletal service being offered as he does for the high > "cost-efficiency"? > > Las Vegas may keep costs down on a per service hour basis, but service is > quite slow, unreliable, and minimal for a city its size. A faster service > would serve the community better. At the same time, the efficiency of the > system would go up. Does Richmond advocate public policy to favor buses with > bus lanes, signal priority, etc. if he is so concerned about efficiency? One > could pay higher wages yet still operate as many kilometers every day. > > Again, San Diego's efficiency stems largely from low wages including the use > of prisoners to clean vehicles. But it also stems from light rail lines that > operate on separate rights-of-way and from operating truncated bus routes > that connect to it. This kind of network is not possible when there is > free-entry market and deregulation. While Richmond may be right that there is > room to fill service gaps with locally run smaller buses, the UK experience > shows that deregulation causes uncoordinated and unconnected services and > consequently large overall ridership losses. > > The Los Angeles MTA, like SEPTA, is an example of big-city operations where > well paid unionized workers have opposed efficiency increasing measures. But > Foothills Transit, the contract operator that was awarded part of the > previous MTA service area, in my opinion, is going too far in the other > direction. It is a low wage operation in a very high cost of living area. > > Furthermore, there are often hidden costs of low-wage operations. In London, > Transport for London has taken to supplementing wages of bus drivers of > contract operators in order to slow down turnover, since staff have a hard > time living on the going rate of 350 pounds per week. My experience is that > many agencies in the US are incurring high training and administrative costs > from very high turnover rates. When I say "low wages" I mean wages that are > so low that people feel compelled to move on when they have a chance, since > the income is too low to support a family. > > My point is that public transport should be more viewed as an engineered > system that requires some public investments and coordinated services, and > less viewed as merely vehicles operating in mixed traffic that consume too > much subsidy because of "high wages" while ignoring community needs. > > Eric Bruun From townsend at central.murdoch.edu.au Fri Feb 1 14:53:51 2002 From: townsend at central.murdoch.edu.au (Craig Townsend) Date: Fri, 01 Feb 2002 13:53:51 +0800 Subject: [sustran] Re: The Private Provision of Public Transport In-Reply-To: <000b01c1aad4$861200c0$fbc315a5@bfinn> References: <11f.afb9e09.298ad123@aol.com> Message-ID: <5.0.2.1.0.20020201130112.00a0a7e0@central.murdoch.edu.au> I agree with virtually all of Eric and Brendan's insights. In response to one of Brendan's questions ("...what can developed countries with their protected markets learn from the diversity of private sector participation in countries they consider to be less developed?") I would like to (provocatively) answer not much! The substantial negative externalities resulting from highly competitive, responsive, and cheap motorized transport far outweigh the benefits. In order for cities in developed countries to achieve the level of abundant and cheap supply (which is also often low comfort and safety) of motorized "public" passenger transport found in cities of developing countries, many things would have to be thrown out the window (eg. public safety, traffic laws, air quality standards, minimum wages). So much quality of life would have to be "given away" in order to achieve more competitive and responsive urban passenger transport, that at the end of the day the net quality of life impact would be negative. In addition, the competition is mainly among the bus operators, while top officials and gangsters skim off payments which enhance elite power and privilege and contribute to large income inequalities and the overall poor quality of life! Nonetheless, the transition to a better quality public transport system is not without pitfalls. The removal of the minibuses in Kuala Lumpur in order to make way for the higher quality, less dangerous and less polluting LRTs (which are on their way to becoming publicly-owned) has created a lack of affordable and available public transport in many areas of the city. I would argue that it is a necessary transition, though. I suspect that many less lives are lost, air quality has improved ... As Eric points out, Richmond's examples of successful private transport in some US cities ignores the overall experience of a largely poor and captive passenger market in those cities. How do those people feel about the system? For reasons that are unclear to me from a quick read of his conclusions, Richmond is interested in private provision of public transport as an end in itself, not as a means of reaching a higher quality of life for most citizens. Best wishes, Craig >7) But what of cities in developing countries, or where the economy is weak >or in turmoil ? Here, the public provision may be quite weak, and the >private sector participation is necessary to meet the needs of the citizens. >In some cases this is well structured, in others it is chaotic. Is the >experience of the developed countries relevant for them ? Or indeed, what >can developed countries with their protected markets learn from the >diversity of private sector participation in countries they consider to be >less developed ? ________________________________________________ Craig Townsend Institute for Sustainability & Technology Policy Murdoch University South Street, Murdoch Perth, Western Australia 6150 tel: (61 8) 9360 6278 fax: (61 8) 9360 6421 email: townsend@central.murdoch.edu.au -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://list.jca.apc.org/manage/private/sustran-discuss/attachments/20020201/ef179562/attachment.htm From kisansbc at vsnl.com Fri Feb 1 14:29:32 2002 From: kisansbc at vsnl.com (kisan mehta) Date: Fri, 1 Feb 2002 10:59:32 +0530 Subject: [sustran] How Enviornment Friendly is Tourism? Message-ID: <001701c1aae5$261aae40$3226020a@im.eth.net> Dear Paul and Sustran Colleagues as well as our friends Bessie and Manitripathi, Copying below is an article published in the Mumbai edition of the Times of India on 30 Jan 2002. We are tutored that tourism is a clean practice for earning foreign exchange. The following would show that this is not true. Practically all developing (poor) countries are required to do everything to earn foreign exhange so that they can cover up a part of their uncontrolled imports come up following the working of the globalisation. Consumerism is being promoted at every stage at tremendous cost to generations yet unborn. Globalisation and free market access in practice! Best wishes. Priya Salvi and Kisan Mehta Article from the Times of india Thai beaches die in tourist invasion By Michael Sheridan BANGKOK: The Thai island made famous by The Beach has become so overrun by tourists since Leonardo DiCarpio and the film's cast and crew that officials are calling for it to be closed to visitors for up to two years to save its fragile ecosystem. The fate of Koh Phi Phi has become a symbol of threat to Thailand's outstanding natural beauty along a coastline that is increasingly threatened as developers rush to make quick profits at a heavy cost to the environment According to Colonel Sanit Meephan, commander of the local tourist police, Koh Phi Phi has been spoilt by pollution and hordes of visitors. He suggests that it be sealed off while the infrastructure is improved and the mess cleaned up. Predictably, his proposal has been opposed by the Tourism Authority of Thailand, which is mindful of the fact that tourists generate an estimated Pounds 160,000 a day in revenues on the island. "What about the residents who make their living from tourism? What about the operators, who invested in the island? And what about the country which is in need of foreign exchange," said the authority's deputy governor Juthamas Siriwan. The skewed balance between profit and preservation is turning into a potential tragedy for Thailand. Almost every week brings news of more devastation and uncontrolled building. One of the worst recent incidents occurred just 21 miles south of Koh Phi Phi, when a group of foreign divers found that fishermen using dynamite had all but destroyed two coral reefs, Hin Deang and Hin Muang, famed for their population of marine life, including manta rays and barracuda. The attack has angered dive tour operators, who say that the Thai authorities have just raised fees fivefold for tourists, with the excuse that the money is needed to pay for protection. Alastair Beveridge , president of the Phukety Dive Operators Club, says the charges mean that the Thai government will raise more than Pounds 300,000 in fees next year. "We don't mind handing over the money, and nor do our clients, but we want to see some evidence of where it is being spent," he said. On paper, Thailand has an excellent system of national parks covering many of the most delicate coastal and diving areas. But unbridled tourism, often aided and abetted by corrupt officials, has brought disaster to some areas. Environmental campaigners say that Coral Island, near Phuket, has been destroyed. The biggest blow came when a Thai tour operator took elephants onto the beach to give tourists rides across the shallow coral reefs. Large quantities of elephant urine and faeces, plus the weight of the beasts, rapidly destroyed coral that had taken 8,000 years to grow. "Thailand has a hundred conservation laws but a problem with law enforcement," said Dr Thon Thamrongnawasawat, an expert in fishery at Bangkok's Kasetsart University. Environmental campaigners also point to a lack of resources for emergencies. Last week, a huge oil slick from Panamian tanker was reported to be menacing beaches in the popular resorts of Rayong Bay, southeast of Bangkok. But even as local authorities try to balance their natural resources against demands for instant tourist revenues, the government is sending its own signals about development. Last week it was revealed that a government committee is working on a development plan for the unspoilt island of Koh Chang, which lies off the east coast towards Cambodia. ************ From hjk at rincon.net Fri Feb 1 20:33:26 2002 From: hjk at rincon.net (Harshad Kamdar) Date: Fri, 1 Feb 2002 17:03:26 +0530 Subject: [sustran] Mumba requires a new terminus for upcountry trains. In-Reply-To: <006a01c1a22f$cfa8e6c0$d96510ac@powersurfer.net> Message-ID: <004801c1ab14$438ffcd0$02c8c8c8@solar> On Jan 21 the above item was discussed in our group. While many of us in Bombay are opposing flyovers and roads over the sea to speed up traffic, one fundamental existing resource is being missed. Our long distance trains on the C. Rly, W. Rly & the newly formed Konkan Rly. are terminated in South Bombay at the Mumbai Central (W Rly.) and at CST (C. Rly.). These trains carry hardly 10% passengers, most of them getting out at earlier suburban stations. Thus these outstation trains occupy vital tracks which can be put to use for commuters. Where shall we then terminate upcountry trains ? There is a tract of 4 sq. kms of land between the Matunga & Matunga Road & Dadar Central & Western, belonging to the Indian Railways, which is used today for a C Rly Workshop and for various offices and Residential buildings & Recreation Club etc. These are not essential to be located on this prime land. These can be locted elsewhere and the land relesed can be used for locating both the terminii and will provide additional space for adequate parking and other essential services. While the major rehabilitation is planned local loop lines can be developed for trains from C Rly to W Rly and viceversa. The two lines released between Dadar and respective terminus can be used for these loop lines and trains from Western suburbs can proceed directly to CST and viceversa For the CST terminus, expansion can be developed at the former goods sheds at Carnac Bunder & Wadi bunder which are idling. One has to give a new thought to this proposal which has the potential of increasing train frequency on both railways to 2 mins. This will also reduce the hardship of passengers changing from one terminus to the other. As it is 80% of the passengers alight in the suburbs or at Dadar. It will also give space for additional trains in the peak morning evening traffic and ease commuter density on trains and overall encourage more motorists to use rail commutng Kanu H. J. Kamdar Prakruti & Save Bombay Commitee hjk@rincon.net -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://list.jca.apc.org/manage/private/sustran-discuss/attachments/20020201/f243922c/attachment.htm From jhk at ihe.nl Fri Feb 1 23:05:21 2002 From: jhk at ihe.nl (Jan Herman Koster) Date: Fri, 01 Feb 2002 14:05:21 +0000 Subject: [sustran] New Master's programme for developing country professionals Message-ID: <3C5AA0A1.E2A02082@ihe.nl> IHE Delft has launched a new Master's programme on Urban Infrastructure Engineering and Management, with an Urban Transport specialisation option. More information on www.ihe.nl. -- Jan Herman Koster Associate Professor Urban Transport Department of Municipal Infrastructure IHE Delft Phone: +31 (0)15 2151750 http://www.ihe.nl -------------- next part -------------- A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: jhk.vcf Type: text/x-vcard Size: 181 bytes Desc: Card for Jan Herman Koster Url : http://list.jca.apc.org/manage/private/sustran-discuss/attachments/20020201/2b56ee07/jhk.vcf From kisansbc at vsnl.com Sat Feb 2 16:00:25 2002 From: kisansbc at vsnl.com (kisan mehta) Date: Sat, 2 Feb 2002 12:30:25 +0530 Subject: [sustran] Re: Mumba requires a new terminus for upcountry trains. References: <004801c1ab14$438ffcd0$02c8c8c8@solar> Message-ID: <005901c1abb7$4a9aac20$3226020a@im.eth.net> Dear Sustran colleagues, Kanu Kamdar's suggestion for achieving sustainable mobility in Mumbai deserves serious consideration. Situation is that the user of the Island City is changing from housing to non-housing with the result that the pattern of long distance railway traffic has as well changed drastically. No need to start and terminate these trains in the crowded Island City. Tracks released can be utilised to more suburban trains. Suburban trains provide 6 million journeys and along with the public road service (4.5 million journeys) provide the maximum and affordable mobility. Faster and more frequent suburban trains help in reducing suffocating crowding in Mumbai. Let us hope that his suggestions are taken seriously by the authorities. Mumbai is now working on Mumbai Urban Transport Project. Augmentation and rationalising of public transport only can provide relief to Mumbai residents. Building roads without pavement and flyovers only increase the hardship of people. Best wishes. Priya Salvi and Kisan Mehta ----- Original Message ----- From: Harshad Kamdar To: sustran-discuss@jca.ax.apc.org Sent: Friday, February 01, 2002 5:03 PM Subject: [sustran] Mumba requires a new terminus for upcountry trains. On Jan 21 the above item was discussed in our group. While many of us in Bombay are opposing flyovers and roads over the sea to speed up traffic, one fundamental existing resource is being missed. Our long distance trains on the C. Rly, W. Rly & the newly formed Konkan Rly. are terminated in South Bombay at the Mumbai Central (W Rly.) and at CST (C. Rly.). These trains carry hardly 10% passengers, most of them getting out at earlier suburban stations. Thus these outstation trains occupy vital tracks which can be put to use for commuters. Where shall we then terminate upcountry trains ? There is a tract of 4 sq. kms of land between the Matunga & Matunga Road & Dadar Central & Western, belonging to the Indian Railways, which is used today for a C Rly Workshop and for various offices and Residential buildings & Recreation Club etc. These are not essential to be located on this prime land. These can be locted elsewhere and the land relesed can be used for locating both the terminii and will provide additional space for adequate parking and other essential services. While the major rehabilitation is planned local loop lines can be developed for trains from C Rly to W Rly and viceversa. The two lines released between Dadar and respective terminus can be used for these loop lines and trains from Western suburbs can proceed directly to CST and viceversa For the CST terminus, expansion can be developed at the former goods sheds at Carnac Bunder & Wadi bunder which are idling. One has to give a new thought to this proposal which has the potential of increasing train frequency on both railways to 2 mins. This will also reduce the hardship of passengers changing from one terminus to the other. As it is 80% of the passengers alight in the suburbs or at Dadar. It will also give space for additional trains in the peak morning evening traffic and ease commuter density on trains and overall encourage more motorists to use rail commutng Kanu H. J. Kamdar Prakruti & Save Bombay Commmitee hjk@rincon.net -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://list.jca.apc.org/manage/private/sustran-discuss/attachments/20020202/ea7e59a2/attachment.htm From hjk at rincon.net Fri Feb 1 19:41:03 2002 From: hjk at rincon.net (Harshad Kamdar) Date: Fri, 1 Feb 2002 16:11:03 +0530 Subject: [sustran] Cycle ways in London- Wel-come news reproduced from CE News of Nepal Message-ID: <004701c1ab0c$f262c100$02c8c8c8@solar> While at Sustran, we have been discussing about roads, here is a piece of welcome news from London. Our felicitations to the Mayor of London for the thoghts for fitter Londeners. In contrast in developing countries the thoughts are on faster traffic (Autos albeit) at the cost of footpaths as in Mumbai Kanu H.J.Kamdar Prakruti & Save Bombay Committee hjk@rincon.net London Puts Money for Cycling Showing that cycling is a top priority for the city, London's Mayor, Ken Livingstone, has allocated ?8 million for this transportation alternative in the city's budget for next year. "Too often the transport debate is focused on cars and trains. What about bikes and walking?" asked the Mayor. "I feel confident that if Londoners were to have safe and extensive cycling routes, they'd be more prepared to travel through their city on two wheels. The benefits are less congestion, less noise, less pollution and fitter Londoners." Mr. Livingstone said Transport for London was carrying out a fundamental review of how the money could be spent most effectively to improve cycling in the capital. Overall, the transport funding is set at ?120 million, an increase of ?10 million over last year. From bfinn at singnet.com.sg Mon Feb 4 10:02:47 2002 From: bfinn at singnet.com.sg (Brendan Finn) Date: Mon, 4 Feb 2002 09:02:47 +0800 Subject: [sustran] Re: The Private Provision of Public Transport References: <11f.afb9e09.298ad123@aol.com> <5.0.2.1.0.20020201130112.00a0a7e0@central.murdoch.edu.au> Message-ID: <002301c1ad17$bb5a60c0$f1d415a5@bfinn> There is a lot of validity in Craig's answer. In many developing countries, there is the combination of low cost labour (often exploiting themselves), many opportunities for gain, and slack enforcement. This is not what developed countries want. Nonetheless, throughout Asia and South America we see that the private sector provides extensive and sometimes innovative transport solutions. Just because the end result may look chaotic or rather grubby - compared to say, Amsterdam or Zurich which has the money to spend - doesn't mean that the people involved are incompetent or poorly organised. They work within (or sometimes outside!) the framework they are given, and the available resources. It is unlikely that paratransit entrepreneurs could simply walk into a European city and run profitable services to the demanded standard there. But perhaps there are valuable lessons to be learned from how they identify their markets, develop their business, manage their staff, maximise their resources. I would like to hear suggestions from the Sustrans community. Coming back to the original question, two areas which surely have applicability in the developed cities : a) The use of river and canal transport in Bangkok, which offers fast options to bypass the street traffic. b) Collective paratransit services in urban areas provide the 'intermediate transport' layer which is missing in developed cities where the transit is based on mass services - rail and big buses on fixed routes. Many car trips just cannot be made by public transport because the local links are missing. While the business model and the cost base may not be directly transferrable, the market knowledge and organisational techniques may be. With best wishes, Brendan Finn. ______________________________________________________ Please note contact details as follows : Address : 28, Leonie Hill, #02-28 Leonie Towers, Singapore 239227 Mobile : +65.94332298 Tel : +65.7340260 Fax/Tel : +65.7340412 e-mail : bfinn@singnet.com.sg Website : http://www.europrojects.ie/etts ----- Original Message ----- From: Craig Townsend To: sustran-discuss@jca.ax.apc.org Sent: 01 February 2002 13:53 Subject: [sustran] Re: The Private Provision of Public Transport I agree with virtually all of Eric and Brendan's insights. In response to one of Brendan's questions ("...what can developed countries with their protected markets learn from the diversity of private sector participation in countries they consider to be less developed?") I would like to (provocatively) answer not much! The substantial negative externalities resulting from highly competitive, responsive, and cheap motorized transport far outweigh the benefits. In order for cities in developed countries to achieve the level of abundant and cheap supply (which is also often low comfort and safety) of motorized "public" passenger transport found in cities of developing countries, many things would have to be thrown out the window (eg. public safety, traffic laws, air quality standards, minimum wages). So much quality of life would have to be "given away" in order to achieve more competitive and responsive urban passenger transport, that at the end of the day the net quality of life impact would be negative. In addition, the competition is mainly among the bus operators, while top officials and gangsters skim off payments which enhance elite power and privilege and contribute to large income inequalities and the overall poor quality of life! Nonetheless, the transition to a better quality public transport system is not without pitfalls. The removal of the minibuses in Kuala Lumpur in order to make way for the higher quality, less dangerous and less polluting LRTs (which are on their way to becoming publicly-owned) has created a lack of affordable and available public transport in many areas of the city. I would argue that it is a necessary transition, though. I suspect that many less lives are lost, air quality has improved ... As Eric points out, Richmond's examples of successful private transport in some US cities ignores the overall experience of a largely poor and captive passenger market in those cities. How do those people feel about the system? For reasons that are unclear to me from a quick read of his conclusions, Richmond is interested in private provision of public transport as an end in itself, not as a means of reaching a higher quality of life for most citizens. Best wishes, Craig 7) But what of cities in developing countries, or where the economy is weak or in turmoil ? Here, the public provision may be quite weak, and the private sector participation is necessary to meet the needs of the citizens. In some cases this is well structured, in others it is chaotic. Is the experience of the developed countries relevant for them ? Or indeed, what can developed countries with their protected markets learn from the diversity of private sector participation in countries they consider to be less developed ? ________________________________________________ Craig Townsend Institute for Sustainability & Technology Policy Murdoch University South Street, Murdoch Perth, Western Australia 6150 tel: (61 8) 9360 6278 fax: (61 8) 9360 6421 email: townsend@central.murdoch.edu.au -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://list.jca.apc.org/manage/private/sustran-discuss/attachments/20020204/d8a344cc/attachment.htm From townsend at central.murdoch.edu.au Tue Feb 5 11:39:21 2002 From: townsend at central.murdoch.edu.au (Craig Townsend) Date: Tue, 05 Feb 2002 10:39:21 +0800 Subject: [sustran] Re: The Private Provision of Public Transport In-Reply-To: <002301c1ad17$bb5a60c0$f1d415a5@bfinn> References: <11f.afb9e09.298ad123@aol.com> <5.0.2.1.0.20020201130112.00a0a7e0@central.murdoch.edu.au> Message-ID: <5.0.2.1.0.20020205094315.00a138f0@central.murdoch.edu.au> Brendan and Sustran (apologies to those not interested!) If you haven't already done so, I would suggest obtaining a copy of Cervero, Robert (2000) Informal Transport in the Developing World, Nairobi, United Nations Centre for Human Settlements (Habitat). One way of obtaining a copy is through the UNCHS publications. >Coming back to the original question, two areas which surely have >applicability in the developed cities : > >a) The use of river and canal transport in Bangkok, which offers fast >options to bypass the street traffic. > I agree that river and canal transport offers untapped potential for developed and developing cities. However, Bangkok certainly isn't a best practice. For much of the history of Bangkok, most movement was via waterway. However, the use of waterways has declined rapidly as extensive road building and rapid motorization began in the 1940s/50s. Due to difficulties in assembling land for rights of way required for road-based transport in such a dense city, and pressure from a number of sources to build roads, many of the canals were filled in and turned into roads. This practice continues, and the current governor who has no budget to spend on land acquisition has identified canals that can be used for expressway and rail rights of way (but the Thai government generally won't fund rail so just the roads will be built). Consultants from many developed nations have included improvement of water-based transport in most plans for Bangkok, but it is not viewed as a viable option by local people and officials. Some increases in water-based services were made in the 1990s, but they appear to have declined since the late 1990s. It is also extremely dangerous (30 students died when one pier collapsed a few years ago) and physically demanding to board and reach the boats, and if you are splashed by the water it can be very uncomfortable and dangerous as the canals and the river are also the city's sewerage system. There are few residential and commercial activities close to the waterways, so it is not really faster for most trips. >colective paratransit services in urban areas provide the 'intermediate >transport' layer which is missing in developed cities where the transit is >based on mass services - rail and big buses on fixed routes. Many car >trips just cannot be made by public transport because the local links are >missing. While the business model and the cost base may not be directly >transferrable, the market knowledge and organisational techniques may be. Again, I would question whether the "techniques" in developing cities are relevant to developed cities - can you give me examples of what you mean by market knowledge and organization techniques? (Maybe we should continue this discussion privately, Brendan) There are also successful examples of paratransit services in developed countries, including those "illegal" US services studied by Richmond. For example, TransLink, the transport authority for the Greater Vancouver region in Canada has a shared-ride custom transit system (HandyDART), operated by private agencies throughout the metropolitan area. The lift-equipped vans provide door-to-door transportation for mainly disabled and elderly customers with restricted mobility. http://www.translink.bc.ca ________________________________________________ Craig Townsend Institute for Sustainability & Technology Policy Murdoch University South Street, Murdoch Perth, Western Australia 6150 tel: (61 8) 9360 6278 fax: (61 8) 9360 6421 email: townsend@central.murdoch.edu.au -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://list.jca.apc.org/manage/private/sustran-discuss/attachments/20020205/dad84552/attachment.htm From geobpa at nus.edu.sg Wed Feb 6 14:14:49 2002 From: geobpa at nus.edu.sg (Paul Barter) Date: Wed, 6 Feb 2002 13:14:49 +0800 Subject: [sustran] FW: INDIA: OMISSIONS IN EMISSION STANDARDS Message-ID: <2C9E855D35B9D01198190020AFFBE8CB0F47C820@exs04.ex.nus.edu.sg> -----Original Message----- From: mkorbjuhn@worldbank.org [mailto:mkorbjuhn@worldbank.org] Sent: Tuesday, 5 February 2002 10:47 PM To: Clean Air Initiative -- Asia Subject: FYI: INDIA: OMISSIONS IN EMISSION STANDARDS FYI ------------------------ INDIA: OMISSIONS IN EMISSION STANDARDS Feb 05 01:11 - BSTN - RBB - Reuters Business Briefings Sunita Narain What do you say when a Cabinet minister - a reasonably vocal one at that - refuses to appear on television to take part in a panel discussion on a serious public policy issue? Ram Naik, the Union minister for petroleum and natural gas, and I were invited by a private television network to discuss the A R Mashelkar committee report on auto fuel policy. Naik first threw a fit. Then a compromise was worked out: he would first defend the report and then I could go on air to discuss its implications on public health and pollution control policies. Interestingly - and significantly - he did wait in the studio to hear my comments. The Mashelkar committee was set up by Naik days before the last deadline of the Supreme Court to phase out diesel buses in Delhi and replace these with compressed natural gas (CNG) vehicles was due. The deadline has been missed again - for the third time. And, again, the government has found a new excuse. This time, it proposes to go to court chanting the Mashelkar-mantra - that policy should be based on emission norms and not technology and multi-fuel options should be allowed. What could be more logical and reasonable? But such sagacity would need two qualifications. One, the prescribed fuel quality and auto emission norms would have to meet air quality targets. Two, if the air quality standards are not met and we have unhealthy air, someone would be held accountable and taken to task. In the US, for instance, the Clean Air Act lays down penalties that the federal government can impose on state governments when they fail to comply with air quality norms. We have nothing of the kind. Instead, we have heavily-polluted cities and governments that get away with slow murder. We can agree that norms should dictate policy, but only if the norms have any meaning on air quality. Mashelkar's road map for fuel quality would take us straight to hell. The strategy adopted by the committee is to make incremental gains - move from Euro II equivalent norms, which we have today in a few metros like Delhi, to Euro III by 2005. The rest of the country, irrespective of how polluted a particular city is, would move from Euro I to Euro III by 2010. The problem is that we introduced emission norms for vehicles very late. Till 1991 there were no norms and in 1996 the norms were Euro-0 - or emission standards poorer than the first set in Europe. It is only in 2000 that the country got emission norms equivalent to Euro I, which were introduced in Europe in 1992. Delhi was fortunate to get Euro II simply because the Supreme Court demanded that the norms should be advanced by five years - and the automobile and fuel companies had to deliver. But even this means that, on Delhi roads today, less than 18 per cent of the vehicles meet Euro I or Euro II norms. And as we can do little to get rid of the huge numbers of old vehicles on the roads, the only option is to phase in much better vehicles and fuel as fast as possible. It is for this reason that the slow and steady route is not an option for us. It is also well understood that the quantum jump in clean technology will come with the introduction of Euro IV norms, due in 2004 in Europe, as these are substantially more stringent. For instance, even as Euro III norms make soft adjustments - going from 500 ppm sulfur diesel in Euro II to 350 ppm sulfur diesel - it is Euro IV which leapfrogs to less than 50 ppm sulfur diesel which then allows diesel manufacturers to fit after-treatment devices like particulate traps to meet the stringent particulate emission standards. But leapfrogging needs guts, which the committee seems to have singularly lacked. The multi-fuel sermon is equally meaningless. Why would anyone disagree on using different fuels as long as the fuel is clean? But how can you devise a strategy for pollution control based on dirty existing fuel that we have in our cities. For instance, if the Delhi and Union governments renege on CNG, their gift to us would be to run buses on existing diesel fuel with Euro II-compliant vehicles - which only slightly better than what we have today. CNG, on the other hand, gives us Euro IV equivalent emissions as far as deadly particulates are concerned. What baffles me is why the minister would be so worried about engaging in a public debate. Many months ago, he had called environmentalists who ask for clean fuel "reactionary". We had then responded by calling him a dinosaur. But sadly his mindset has not become extinct. We can only hope one day it will. (c)2002 Business Standard Ltd. BUSINESS STANDARD 05/02/2002 P14 From geobpa at nus.edu.sg Wed Feb 6 14:51:10 2002 From: geobpa at nus.edu.sg (Paul Barter) Date: Wed, 6 Feb 2002 13:51:10 +0800 Subject: [sustran] Re: FW: INDIA: OMISSIONS IN EMISSION STANDARDS Message-ID: <2C9E855D35B9D01198190020AFFBE8CB0F47C828@exs04.ex.nus.edu.sg> And another, rather different perspective on the same issue from our own sustran-discuss participant, Prof Dinesh Mohan. Paul ------------------ The Times of India Editorial LEADER ARTICLE Fuel to the Fire DINESH MOHAN [ SUNDAY, JANUARY 13, 2002 12:10:12 AM ] THE Supreme Court has given some more time for bus operators in Delhi to convert all their buses to CNG. Meanwhile, the government of India constituted a high-powered committee chaired by R M Mashelkar, director-general, CSIR, to recommend an auto fuel policy for the country. The committee has submitted an interim report which suggests that we should specify performance standards and not specific technologies for pollution control. This is in keeping with policies followed by all civilised societies around the world that the basic principle of specifying standards is that they indicate the performance expected by a product but not specify the technology to be used. The reason is that specification of specific technologies ends up killing innovation and research for improvement in the future. On the other hand, when performance standards are specified, then manufacturers, researchers and operators compete with each other to provide the most efficient systems at the lowest costs for the same performance. If we specify a single technology then we get locked into a single system, find it difficult to change when better products become available and get controlled by lobbies in favour of that single technology. The Mashelkar report is just the first necessary - but not sufficient - step toward sensible policy-making. This is because dealing with technology and health in the public space is much more complex than we think. If your stress test shows that your heart muscles have become weak, you can panic and demand a single magic pill to solve all your problems. But your doctor will only laugh at your demand. Instead he will tell you to change your diet, do a set of prescribed exercises every day, alter your lifestyle, and take a set of medicines every day. In addition, he will also ask you to monitor your health status periodically and change your drugs accordingly. Tackling traffic flow, vehicular pollution and road accidents require the same level of scientific expertise, inter- disciplinary cooperation and long-term attention as any other public health problem. To solve problems of vehicular pollution we need to work from first principles. Quite obviously, the most long-lasting solution would be if people travelled less. Mixed land use helps. Homes, businesses, hospitals, schools, entertainment areas, all need to be intermixed in localities. This is happening more by default than policy in our cities. Vendors going from house to house selling things reduce trips; vegetable shops, dhobis, mochis, paan shops, and tandoor stands in neighbourhoods eliminate thousands of scooter and car trips. The second long-term solution is to encourage non-polluting modes of travel. There is only one - human-powered travel. We should be designing our streets so that walking, cycling and the use of rickshaws becomes safer and much more pleasant. If it were so, many more people would be using these modes, especially younger people. City planning experience from Beijing in China to Portland in the US suggests this is true. Street designs are available which show that segregated paths can be provided for bicycles and rickshaws on existing arterial roads in most cities. When you do this even the motorised traffic benefits, because friction reduces, flow becomes smoother and pollution reduces further. If walking and bicycling were safer, more children would not need to go to school by bus or in their parents' vehicles. Such policies would not only reduce pollution but also deaths and injuries due to traffic accidents. The third strategy is to make public transport affordable, convenient and safe. No Indian city has improved bus transport in the last decade. Urban buses are still following designs of the 1950s. The service is unreliable and unsafe especially for children, women and the elderly. However, recent developments in communication and computer technology have made it possible to optimise bus operations and provide customer-friendly services at very low cost. Modern urban buses have low floors - only 350 mm high from the road. These buses make entry and exit much safer and faster. None of these options is being planned for our cities. The fourth strategy is to reduce the pollution from vehicles. This is the only area where the government has taken some significant steps. Lead has been removed from petrol. This will conserve the health of millions of children. In Delhi, two-wheelers are sold petrol premixed with oil at pumps. This prevents bad and excess oil use and reduces pollution. The diesel being sold in Delhi is less polluting than before. Cars being sold in Delhi now follow more stringent pollution norms. Two-wheeler pollution standards in India are among the most stringent in the world and our two-wheeler manufacturers are doing a good job of meeting these standards by their R&D in this area. However, much more needs to be done. Such measures must not be Delhi-centric. They must apply all over the country. After all, according to the Central Pollution Control Board, Delhi is not the most polluted city in India. There are many which are more polluted. All policies, like drugs, have side-effects. Before prescribing a drug, you have to be certain that the side-effects are not worse than the disease. For example, our simple calculations show that all the effects of reducing pollution from buses would be nullified if only 10-15 per cent of bus users shift to using two-wheelers or cars. This shift would also increase congestion. Greater use of two-wheelers would also increase injuries due to accidents. Therefore, before we make new laws that might increase the cost of buses, we have to make arrangements for cross-subsidy of public transport. This follows from the polluter and user pays principle based on fair play. Since car users pollute the most, use the most road space and injure more people per person transported, they must pay for their comfort that harms others. Two-wheeler users come next and bus users a low third. A pollution and road tax paid by private vehicle users could help pay for better buses so that we avoid a migration from buses to two-wheelers and cars. It is quite clear that cleaner air will come at a price, and only if we have well-thought-out long-term policies. The future committees which deal with these issues would be well advised to consider all the complex issues, consider the side-effects and perform cost effectiveness studies before issuing edicts. If we don't do this, the air will not be cleaner and a lot of people will be affected adversely. (The author is a professor for transportation and safety at IIT, New Delhi) From Pguitink at worldbank.org Wed Feb 6 15:04:51 2002 From: Pguitink at worldbank.org (Pguitink@worldbank.org) Date: Wed, 6 Feb 2002 01:04:51 -0500 Subject: [sustran] Paulus A. Guitink/Person/World Bank is out of the office. Message-ID: I will be out of the office starting 02/06/2002 and will not return until 02/11/2002. For urgent matters, you may contact Ms. Allison Turner (ext. 473 0933), who will know how to contact me. If conditions allow so, I will be reading my emails and will respond to your messages as soon as possible. From townsend at central.murdoch.edu.au Thu Feb 7 10:51:47 2002 From: townsend at central.murdoch.edu.au (Craig Townsend) Date: Thu, 07 Feb 2002 09:51:47 +0800 Subject: [sustran] virus warning In-Reply-To: <2C9E855D35B9D01198190020AFFBE8CB0F47C820@exs04.ex.nus.edu. sg> Message-ID: <5.0.2.1.0.20020207095012.00a12b60@central.murdoch.edu.au> Sustran members- I just received a Sustran email with an attached file which has a virus. Do not open it! From geobpa at nus.edu.sg Thu Feb 7 14:47:21 2002 From: geobpa at nus.edu.sg (Paul Barter) Date: Thu, 7 Feb 2002 13:47:21 +0800 Subject: [sustran] Re: virus warning Message-ID: <2C9E855D35B9D01198190020AFFBE8CB0F47C902@exs04.ex.nus.edu.sg> Dear all Craig T said: > I just received a Sustran email with an attached file which > has a virus. Do not open it! Fortunately, I don't think the infected message that Craig received came directly via the sustran-discuss list. However, what has been happening intermittently recently is that certain sustran-discuss members have had their computers infected with viruses that use addresses (and often the subject lines) of messages found in their microsoft outlook inbox. Therefore, anyone who recently sent mail to the sustran-discuss list might then get an infected email attachment. I have tried to configure the sustran-discuss list to not handle attachments. I hope this will make it extremely difficult for a virus to propagate directly via the list. But there is no way for me to stop the problem described above. The only solution is for everyone to be EXTREMELY cautious about opening attachments - even when they are from someone you know and even if they have a plausible subject line and even if the attachment looks like an innocuous file type. AND keep your anti-virus software as up to date as you can. Hope this helps and reassures a little. I hope this does not discourage you all from using the list and participating. Paul (list manager) Paul From ecoplan.adsl at wanadoo.fr Thu Feb 7 17:07:02 2002 From: ecoplan.adsl at wanadoo.fr (Eric Britton) Date: Thu, 7 Feb 2002 09:07:02 +0100 Subject: [sustran] Re: virus warning In-Reply-To: <2C9E855D35B9D01198190020AFFBE8CB0F47C902@exs04.ex.nus.edu.sg> Message-ID: <001a01c1afae$6c9a5af0$6501a8c0@home> Craig mentions "The attachment name was images.pif and the virus was W32.Badtrans.gen@mm". This last is bad, if not fatal, news, but even if you have anti-virus protection it can sometimes slip through. Here is how it works: "This mass mailing worm attempts to send itself using Microsoft Outlook by replying to unread and read email messages. It also mails itself to email addresses found within files that exist on your system. It drops a keylogging trojan (detected as PWS-Hooker with the 4173 DATs, or greater) into the SYSTEM directory as KDLL.DLL. This trojan logs keystrokes for the purpose of stealing personal information (such as credit card and bank account numbers and passwords). This information is later emailed to the virus author(s)." Viruses are sheer paranoia -- until you get one, that is. Once you have it on your machine, your attitude matures rather rapidly. Here are two good sources for more: * McAfee - http://vil.nai.com/vil/content/v_99069.htm * Symantec - http://securityresponse.symantec.com/avcenter/venc/data/w32.badtrans.b@m m.removal.tool.html Sigh. From johnernst at asia.com Sat Feb 9 05:47:03 2002 From: johnernst at asia.com (John Ernst) Date: Fri, 08 Feb 2002 13:47:03 -0700 Subject: [sustran] NMT regulations Message-ID: <5.1.0.14.0.20020208133808.00a8ec60@popa.attglobal.net> ITDP's partners in Yogyakarta (part of Gadjah Mada University) are working on drafting new, more progressive regulations for non-motorized transport there. They are looking for data and sample regulations from countries that present a good example in this area. I think information in text format would be of interest to all on SUSTRAN-discuss. Attached files could be sent directly to UST Yogya . Thank-you for any help you might provide. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - John Ernst - Director, Asia Region ITDP - The Institute for Transport and Development Policy www.itdp.org 8 Sukhumvit Soi 49/9 Bangkok 10110 Thailand Tel +66 (2) 326-8727 Fax +1 (801) 365-5914 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - From levinep at earthlink.net Sun Feb 10 09:26:23 2002 From: levinep at earthlink.net (Esiah Levine) Date: Sat, 9 Feb 2002 19:26:23 -0500 Subject: [sustran] Re: NMT regulations Message-ID: <412002201002623166@earthlink.net> unsubscribe ----- Original Message ----- From: John Ernst To: sustran-discuss@jca.ax.apc.org Cc: Walter Hook ; Matteo Martignoni ; Shyam G. ; UST Yogya Sent: 2/9/2002 2:17:12 AM Subject: [sustran] NMT regulations ITDP's partners in Yogyakarta (part of Gadjah Mada University) are working on drafting new, more progressive regulations for non-motorized transport there. They are looking for data and sample regulations from countries that present a good example in this area. I think information in text format would be of interest to all on SUSTRAN-discuss. Attached files could be sent directly to UST Yogya ust_yogya@yahoo.com . Thank-you for any help you might provide. - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - John Ernst - Director, Asia Region ITDP - The Institute for Transport and Development Policy www.itdp.org 8 Sukhumvit Soi 49/9 Bangkok 10110 Thailand Tel +66 (2) 326-8727 Fax +1 (801) 365-5914 - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - --- Esiah Levine --- levinep@earthlink.net --- EarthLink: It's your Internet. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://list.jca.apc.org/manage/private/sustran-discuss/attachments/20020209/4f8a506c/attachment.htm From pascal at mail.gn.apc.org Mon Feb 11 04:52:18 2002 From: pascal at mail.gn.apc.org (Pascal Desmond) Date: Sun, 10 Feb 2002 19:52:18 +0000 Subject: [sustran] World Transport Policy & Practice -- 7.4 -- quarterly announcement Message-ID: <20020210195218.3372@relay.plus.net> Lancaster & Paris February 2002 World Transport Policy & Practice, a quarterly journal edited by Professor John Whitelegg, is available free of charge as Adobe Acrobat(TM) PDF files on the internet at [http://www.ecoplan.org/wtpp/wt_index.htm]. This will help it to reach a wider readership, encompassing advocates and activists as well as academics and advisers. Please REPLY to this message if you no longer wish to receive these quarterly announcements OR if you have received duplicates. We have just placed Volume 7, Number 4, 2001 on the internet at [http:// www.ecoplan.org/wtpp/wt_index.htm]. Please note that it is 5.6 MB. Alternatively, you may download a 300 kB image-free version. *** If you have difficulty in downloading the file, *** please contact [mailto:eric.britton@ecoplan.org] Eric recommends that you use MS Internet Explorer or Netscape 6.1 to access the website. Contents of Volume 7, Number 4, 2001: Editorial Rough Crossing The headloading?& footpath economy?- walking in Sub-Saharan Africa John Howe Pedestrian infrastructure in the city transport system: a case study of Delhi Geetam Tiwari Copenhagen on foot: thirty years of planning?& development Lars Gemzoe Making pedestrian facilities more usable?& safer for all Barbara McMillen Walking?& health: making the links Nick Cavill Prioritising policy?& practice to favour walking Mayer Hillman Unfulfilled aspirations: a review of the Select Committee Report on Walking in Towns and Cities in Britain Rodney Tolley A traveller in time: Understanding deterrents to walking to work Rachel Goodman Deconstructing the future: assessing new initiatives in transport, including demand management?& walking Ian Ker Increasing walking trips through TravelSmart? Individualised Marketing Bruce James?& Werner Br?g Locking in the pedestrian? The privatised streets of gated communities Matthew Burke?& Christian Sebaly The role of public policies in promoting the safety, convenience?& popularity of bicycling John Pucher Letter in response to the special issue on cycling, Volume 7, Number 3 (2001) John Street Author & Title Index to Volume 7, 2001 Notes for contributors World Transport Policy & Practice ISSN 1352-7614 Eco-Logica Ltd., 53 Derwent Road, LANCASTER, LA1 3ES. U.K. telephone +44 1524 63175 fax +44 1524 848340 Editor: Professor John Whitelegg [mailto:ecologic@gn.apc.org] Business Manager: Pascal Desmond [mailto:pascal@gn.apc.org] http://www.ecoplan.org/wtpp/wt_index.htm From levinep at earthlink.net Mon Feb 11 10:07:45 2002 From: levinep at earthlink.net (Esiah Levine) Date: Sun, 10 Feb 2002 20:7:45 -0500 Subject: [sustran] Re: World Transport Policy & Practice -- 7.4 -- quarterly announcement Message-ID: <412002211117458@earthlink.net> unsubscribe ----- Original Message ----- From: Pascal Desmond To: Setnet Sent: 2/10/2002 3:24:42 PM Subject: [sustran] World Transport Policy Practice -- 7.4 -- quarterly announcement Lancaster Paris February 2002 --- Esiah Levine --- levinep@earthlink.net --- EarthLink: It's your Internet. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://list.jca.apc.org/manage/private/sustran-discuss/attachments/20020210/e8e8223b/attachment.htm From geobpa at nus.edu.sg Mon Feb 11 10:48:04 2002 From: geobpa at nus.edu.sg (Paul Barter) Date: Mon, 11 Feb 2002 09:48:04 +0800 Subject: [sustran] How to leave the list Message-ID: <2C9E855D35B9D01198190020AFFBE8CB0F47CA82@exs04.ex.nus.edu.sg> Dear all Sorry about the recent administrative messages from Esiah Levine. I have now unzubbed him. The majordomo software is supposed to stop these things getting through to irritate you all but obviously is not 100% foolproof. For future reference for everyone, there are instructions on how to unzub in the header fields of every message from sustran-discuss. Alternatively, if you have any admin-related problem contact me at this email or via owner-sustran-discuss@jca.apc.org (and by the way, most lists follow the same format - 'owner' followed by the usual list address). Hope this helps, Paul From geobpa at nus.edu.sg Mon Feb 11 12:48:45 2002 From: geobpa at nus.edu.sg (Paul Barter) Date: Mon, 11 Feb 2002 11:48:45 +0800 Subject: [sustran] FW: COLOMBIA'S CAR FREE DAY Message-ID: <2C9E855D35B9D01198190020AFFBE8CB0F47CAAC@exs04.ex.nus.edu.sg> -----Original Message----- From: Oscar Edmundo Diaz [mailto:diazoe@latino.net.co] Sent: Saturday, 9 February 2002 12:28 AM To: Undisclosed-Recipient:@mx1po.jaring.my; Subject: COLOMBIA'S CAR FREE DAY Colombia's no-car day a success By Associated Press Feb 7, 2002 BOGOTA, Colombia (AP) - In a program that's set to spread to other countries, millions of Colombians hiked, biked, skated or took the bus to work during a car-free on Feb. 7, leaving the streets of this capital city eerily devoid of traffic jams. The weather, which has been sunny and crisp in recent days, did not cooperate with Bogota's "Day Without Cars." Roiling gray clouds dumped occasional rain showers on Bogota, which is perched 8,500 feet above sea level in an Andean plain. "The rain hasn't stopped people from participating," said Bogota Mayor Antanas Mockus, who pedaled over to the residence of the ambassador of Holland, Teunis Kamper, for a joint ride. Before the two set off together, a reporter asked Kamper if he had exercised to prepare for Thursday. "I'm Dutch," the beaming ambassador said. "I was practically born on a bike." Rifle-toting soldiers - part of enforced security to ward off stepped up rebel attacks in past weeks - watched packs of cyclists and people on inline skates weave past. "I thought I was at Venice Beach or something," said an American oil executive, who normally is chauffeured to work with a bodyguard, but who chose to walk on Thursday. One policeman watched with amusement as a novice inline skater had a hard landing on his rear, then helped the embarrassed man to his feet. Around midday, the sun broke through, the clouds lifting from emerald mountains on the edge of Bogota. It was the third straight year cars have been banned - with only buses and taxis permitted - for one day in this capital city of 7 million. The goal is to promote alternative transportation and reduce smog. Violators faced $25 fines. For the first time, two other Colombian cities, Cali and Valledupar, joined the event. "It's a good opportunity to take away stress and lower air pollution," said businessman Carlos Arturo Plaza, 48, as he rode a two-seat bicycle with his wife in Bogota. Municipal authorities from other countries came to Bogota to see the event, and were enthusiastic. "These people are generating a revolutionary change, and this is crossing borders," said Enrique Riera, the mayor of Asuncion, Paraguay. Mayor Alberto Gallardo of Ovalle, Chile, said his town planned to adopt a day without cars. Bike repairmen waited along paths and roads to fix flat tires and tighten loose screws. Bikes ranged from sleek 18-gear mountain bikes to ancient pedal pushers with peeling paint and bald tires. The day without cars is part of an improvement campaign that began in Bogota in the mid-1990s. It has seen the construction of 118 miles of bicycle paths - the most of any Latin American city, according to Mockus. Parks and sports centers have also bloomed throughout the city; uneven, pitted sidewalks have been replaced by broad, smooth sidewalks; rush-hour restrictions have dramatically cut traffic; and new restaurants and upscale shopping districts have cropped up. Best, Oscar Edmundo Diaz diazoe@latino.net.co From pascal at gn.apc.org Mon Feb 11 22:10:05 2002 From: pascal at gn.apc.org (Pascal Desmond) Date: Mon, 11 Feb 2002 13:10:05 +0000 Subject: [sustran] Re: How to leave the list In-Reply-To: <2C9E855D35B9D01198190020AFFBE8CB0F47CA82@exs04.ex.nus.edu.sg> References: <2C9E855D35B9D01198190020AFFBE8CB0F47CA82@exs04.ex.nus.edu.sg> Message-ID: <20020211131005.30034@relay.plus.net> Hello Paul Many thanks for that. I was about to refer him to you. -- Sl?n agus Beannacht [Irish for Take care and Best wishes] Pascal On Mon, Feb 11, 2002, Paul Barter wrote: >Dear all > >Sorry about the recent administrative messages from Esiah Levine. I have >now unzubbed him. The majordomo software is supposed to stop these things >getting through to irritate you all but obviously is not 100% foolproof > >For future reference for everyone, there are instructions on how to unzub in >the header fields of every message from sustran-discuss. > >Alternatively, if you have any admin-related problem contact me at this >email or via owner-sustran-discuss@jca.apc.org (and by the way, most lists >follow the same format - 'owner' followed by the usual list address). > >Hope this helps, > >Paul > > From kisansbc at vsnl.com Mon Feb 11 23:52:52 2002 From: kisansbc at vsnl.com (kisan mehta) Date: Mon, 11 Feb 2002 20:22:52 +0530 Subject: [sustran] Re: FW: COLOMBIA'S CAR FREE DAY References: <2C9E855D35B9D01198190020AFFBE8CB0F47CAAC@exs04.ex.nus.edu.sg> Message-ID: <004101c1b30b$c871d500$3226020a@im.eth.net> Dear Paul and Sustran Colleagues, Congratulations to the citizens of Colombia and Bogota. We were very happy to learn on Colombia's Car Free Day observed on 7 February 2002 in Bogota where citizens took to public buses, cycles, hiking, skating and of course walking leaving cars behind. That the unusal rains could not dampen citizens' willingness to sacrifice for improving the environment is a sure proof of the people's determination to protect the environment. Trend the world over and more so in the developing (poor) countries is for promoting motorisation. The authorities construct more and more roads at the cost and risk of the poor people. They are not worried about the pollution and traffic hazards that motorised traffic brings about, Multilateral funding agencies help in formulating traffic plans that give high priority to personal motor cars and provide funds for developing road infrastructure. The World Bank has actively helped the authorities to finalise Mumbai Urban Transport Project for supporting motorisation which will result in irreparable damage to the environment and road fatalities killing pedestrians. Six lane roads will have no pavements. The Bank is slated to provide about US $ 10 billion for the purpose in a city of 12 million where 65% of residents are condemned to living in slums. Mumbai has the highest road fatalities rate in the world but this does not concern the Bank. When will our authorities take lesson from the successful Bogota programmes for protecting the environment and providing safety on roads? Best wishes. Priya Salvi and Kisan Mehta ----- Original Message ----- From: Paul Barter To: Sent: Monday, February 11, 2002 9:18 AM Subject: [sustran] FW: COLOMBIA'S CAR FREE DAY > -----Original Message----- > From: Oscar Edmundo Diaz [mailto:diazoe@latino.net.co] > Sent: Saturday, 9 February 2002 12:28 AM > To: Undisclosed-Recipient:@mx1po.jaring.my; > Subject: COLOMBIA'S CAR FREE DAY From ecoplan.adsl at wanadoo.fr Tue Feb 12 00:01:29 2002 From: ecoplan.adsl at wanadoo.fr (Eric Britton) Date: Mon, 11 Feb 2002 16:01:29 +0100 Subject: [sustran] Re: FW: COLOMBIA'S CAR FREE DAY In-Reply-To: <004101c1b30b$c871d500$3226020a@im.eth.net> Message-ID: <005301c1b30c$fc57da80$6501a8c0@home> Dear Friends, You will find full details on all the on the United Nations Car Free Days Program site at http://www.uncfd.org. Click 2002 Events and then Colombia. There already is quite a body of useful information there (much of it in Spanish) and more will be added this week (much of which in English). There is also the question now of where to hold the NEXT United Nations Car Free Days regional program, and here is where the Sustran area might well come in. The goal will be to work with a single main host city (as we did this first time with Bogota), and then bring in the mayors and others from other major (and smaller) cities in the region to run something along these same lines. The hope is to do this in the months immediately ahead. Are any of you interested perhaps in getting involved in some way in this? If so, please get in touch. With all good wishes, ? Eric Britton? ? Senior International Advisor United Nations Car Free Days Program at http://www.uncfd.org ? The Commons __ technology, economy, society__ Le Frene, 8/10 rue Joseph Bara, 75006 Paris, France Day phone: +331 4326 1323 Mobile: +336 8096 7879 24 hour Fax/Voicemail hotline: +1 888 677-4866 http://ecoplan.org/?? IP Videoconference: 193.252.199.213 Email: ecoplan.adsl@wanadoo.fr?? URL www.ecoplan.org From geobpa at nus.edu.sg Tue Feb 12 11:36:56 2002 From: geobpa at nus.edu.sg (Paul Barter) Date: Tue, 12 Feb 2002 10:36:56 +0800 Subject: [sustran] Fwd: electric bicycles catch on in China Message-ID: <2C9E855D35B9D01198190020AFFBE8CB0F47CADD@exs04.ex.nus.edu.sg> Straits Times on-line http://straitstimes.asia1.com.sg/asia/story/0,1870,102354,00.html? FEB 12, 2002 Electric bicycles catch on in China It has become so popular that the authorities are having to decide about licensing the vehicle and collecting taxes By David Hsieh STRAITS TIMES CHINA BUREAU BEIJING - Handy, speedy and non-polluting electric bicycles are fast becoming a permanent fixture on the urban commuting scene. But traffic authorities are mulling over how to deal with problems created by the new motorised vehicles. A rare commodity a couple of years ago, sales of electric bicycles surged in China last year, topping 55,000 units in Beijing and 70,000 in Shanghai. Electric bikes, which may eventually replace 10 to 20 per cent of ordinary bicycles in China, are now coveted as one of the sandajian or the three most desirable consumer durables to own. The other two are high resolution television and mobile phones. Prices of these bikes range from 2,000 yuan (S$443) to as much as 3,900 yuan, a little steep but still affordable for most urban residents. While China's chambers of industry and commerce see electric bikes as a new tax cow, the traffic authorities worry about this new breed of vehicle that is 'neither a horse nor a donkey', meaning it is a cross between motorised and non-motorised bikes. Indeed, its hybrid status has generated much debate among manufacturers, scholars and traffic officials. At present, electric bikes are banned in central Wuhan and south-eastern Fuzhou but permitted and even encouraged in Shanghai, to replace the over 700,000 motorcycles currently in use. In Beijing, the traffic authorities have yet to issue licences pending a new by-law but there are no fines for owners who use them. Over the past year, Beijing lawmakers have submitted proposals to legalise the bikes. A couple of weeks ago, a conference was held in the capital to call for speedy action. Mr Wang Zhenwu, who commutes every day on his Tianjin-made Daan Ronald electric bike, is not worried that his bike is unlicensed. 'The cops do not bother me. Some are even envious. One said to me, 'just keep on riding; sooner or later, they will make a law and plates will be issued',' he said. Professor He Zuoxiu, a leading scientist and advocate of electric bicycles, argued that restrictions should be imposed on the speed limit. He suggested capping it at 24 kmh, going by the international standard. So, while faster than conventional bicycles, electric bikes can still be ridden in the bicycle lane. 'This way, it would not pose a big headache for the police,' he explained. He expects a new law to be introduced by the end of this year, if not before July. Another issue is the potential for secondary pollution produced in the disposal of lead batteries used on the bikes. But, manufacturers and retailers disagree. 'Lead batteries for cars pose a much bigger recycling problem than it would ever be for bicycles. All manufacturers have reached a covenant on battery recycling. So, this issue has been essentially resolved,' said Mr Deng Xin, General Manager of Shanghai Elite Electric Vehicles Co Ltd, a wholly-owned Singapore concern and the third largest maker in China. Copyright @ 2002 Singapore Press Holdings. All rights reserved. ----- Forwarded for the purpose of education and research From bfinn at singnet.com.sg Thu Feb 14 13:48:33 2002 From: bfinn at singnet.com.sg (Brendan Finn) Date: Thu, 14 Feb 2002 12:48:33 +0800 Subject: [sustran] Re: Canal transport in Bangkok References: <11f.afb9e09.298ad123@aol.com><5.0.2.1.0.20020201130112.00a0a7e0@central.murdoch.edu.au> <5.0.2.1.0.20020205094315.00a138f0@central.murdoch.edu.au> Message-ID: <000c01c1b512$ffbb7a80$12cb15a5@bfinn> In response to Craig's comments on river / canal transport in Bangkok, it might not be best practice, but it certainly is interesting practice. The services are well organised and effective, even if they could be tidied up somewhat. As I was in Bangkok earlier this week, I took the opportunity to look at the ferry operations along the Klong Saen Saeb (San Sap), which runs from the old city (near the Golden Mount temple) due east to the edge of the city. I did a simple boarding/alighting survey at Th. Phaya Thai beside the Ratchathewi BTS stop, measuring also total passengers and headways for one-hour periods in the morning and evening. Boats arrived at about 20/hour in each direction, carrying about 500 px/hour each way in the evening peak and over 800 px. downstream in the morning peak. >From a separate observation, I know that there is also a lot of boarding/alighting at the next upstream jetty at Th. Ratchadamri, so the total use of the khlong service is higher. While these figures don't put the boat services in the same league as rail, they compare favourably to a good bus route, and certainly have the potential for higher utilisation. Jetties are often sited at road bridges, allowing people to access the street-based transport services. As with all of Bangkok's transport services, planned integration (or even information about the options) would make a world of difference. Operations are slick, with excellent dwell time at jetties. This is, of course, achieved through nimble footwork and balance by passengers that would put the heart crossways on any western health and safety officer. As with crossing the street in Bangkok, you take it very seriously and as a result you don't get sloppy. Nonetheless, boat crews were more than willing to wait for slower, nervous or encumbered passengers, and to tie up the boat if necessary. Operating speed was good, and certainly faster than anything on the street. Passengers don't usually get splashed because there is a pull-up screen to provide protection. The one nasty safety issue I observed yesterday morning was where a mattress had been chucked in the canal and formed a floating hazard. It had fouled the propellers of one of the boats, and a crew member had to repeatedly go under the dirty water to cut it away. My original point was about what lessons can be learned, not about what is perfect. As a transport professional, I came away very impressed with what I saw, and felt that I had learned something. As a user, I liked it and found it faster, cheaper and more interesting than other options available. Where it suited my trip purpose I used it; and where it didn't, I used other modes. Hope this is of some interest or use. With best wishes. Brendan Finn. ______________________________________________________ Please note contact details as follows : Address : 28, Leonie Hill, #02-28 Leonie Towers, Singapore 239227 Mobile : +65.94332298 Tel : +65.7340260 Fax/Tel : +65.7340412 e-mail : bfinn@singnet.com.sg Website : http://www.europrojects.ie/etts ----- Original Message ----- From: Craig Townsend To: sustran-discuss@jca.ax.apc.org Sent: 05 February 2002 10:39 a) The use of river and canal transport in Bangkok, which offers fast options to bypass the street traffic. I agree that river and canal transport offers untapped potential for developed and developing cities. However, Bangkok certainly isn't a best practice. For much of the history of Bangkok, most movement was via waterway. However, the use of waterways has declined rapidly as extensive road building and rapid motorization began in the 1940s/50s. Due to difficulties in assembling land for rights of way required for road-based transport in such a dense city, and pressure from a number of sources to build roads, many of the canals were filled in and turned into roads. This practice continues, and the current governor who has no budget to spend on land acquisition has identified canals that can be used for expressway and rail rights of way (but the Thai government generally won't fund rail so just the roads will be built). Consultants from many developed nations have included improvement of water-based transport in most plans for Bangkok, but it is not viewed as a viable option by local people and officials. Some increases in water-based services were made in the 1990s, but they appear to have declined since the late 1990s. It is also extremely dangerous (30 students died when one pier collapsed a few years ago) and physically demanding to board and reach the boats, and if you are splashed by the water it can be very uncomfortable and dangerous as the canals and the river are also the city's sewerage system. There are few residential and commercial activities close to the waterways, so it is not really faster for most trips. -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://list.jca.apc.org/manage/private/sustran-discuss/attachments/20020214/7ca5dc2a/attachment.htm From howes at emirates.net.ae Thu Feb 14 23:42:31 2002 From: howes at emirates.net.ae (Alan P Howes) Date: Thu, 14 Feb 2002 18:42:31 +0400 Subject: [sustran] Re: Canal transport in Bangkok In-Reply-To: <000c01c1b512$ffbb7a80$12cb15a5@bfinn> References: <11f.afb9e09.298ad123@aol.com> <5.0.2.1.0.20020201130112.00a0a7e0@central.murdoch.edu.au> <5.0.2.1.0.20020205094315.00a138f0@central.murdoch.edu.au> <000c01c1b512$ffbb7a80$12cb15a5@bfinn> Message-ID: On Thu, 14 Feb 2002 12:48:33 +0800, Brendan Finn wrote to sustran-discuss@jca.ax.apc.org: >In response to Craig's comments on river / canal transport in Bangkok - which UIAVMM I don't seem to have received ... But I have them now. Here in Dubai the "abra"s (small open waterbuses) carry about 40,000 pax per day, on two short creek crossings at a fare of 50 fils (about 13 cents US). Privately operated, but licensed and regulated by ourselves. They are much the quickest way of crossing the creek. A third crossing is planned. -- Alan Howes, Special Transport Advisor, Dubai Municipality Public Transport Department Dubai, United Arab Emirates aphowes@dm.gov.ae - alaninthegulf@yahoo.co.uk (private) From ecoplan.adsl at wanadoo.fr Fri Feb 15 00:06:37 2002 From: ecoplan.adsl at wanadoo.fr (Eric Britton) Date: Thu, 14 Feb 2002 16:06:37 +0100 Subject: [sustran] Re: Canal transport in Bangkok In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <000e01c1b569$33450780$6501a8c0@home> Dear Alan, Do you think there is a chance in the world that someone in the political stratosphere in Dubai might be interested in taking the relay from Bogota and working with the United Nations Car Free Days Programme to organize a regional Car Free Day demonstration and Practicum there. If you are not familiar with the workings of this, you can see a bit on it at http://www.uncfd.org. Of course I realize that this is a long shot, but with the proper support it could be a very interesting one. With all good wishes, ? Eric Britton Chair of the Stockholm Partnerships Jury www.partnerships.stockholm.se/ ? The Commons __ technology, economy, society__ Le Frene, 8/10 rue Joseph Bara, 75006 Paris, France Day phone: +331 4326 1323 Mobile: +336 8096 7879 24 hour Fax/Voicemail hotline: +1 888 677-4866 http://ecoplan.org/?? IP Videoconference: 193.252.199.213 Email: ecoplan.adsl@wanadoo.fr?? URL www.ecoplan.org From howes at emirates.net.ae Fri Feb 15 20:08:56 2002 From: howes at emirates.net.ae (Alan P Howes) Date: Fri, 15 Feb 2002 15:08:56 +0400 Subject: [sustran] Re: Canal transport in Bangkok In-Reply-To: <000e01c1b569$33450780$6501a8c0@home> References: <000e01c1b569$33450780$6501a8c0@home> Message-ID: <47qp6uocdge8ndf54l1colosj4aqkpctue@4ax.com> I will have a look at the website (need to find what a Practicum is) - but I feel that it will be a few years (hopefully not too many) before Dubai is ready for a Car Free Day. On Thu, 14 Feb 2002 16:06:37 +0100, you wrote to sustran-discuss@jca.ax.apc.org: >Dear Alan, > >Do you think there is a chance in the world that someone in the >political stratosphere in Dubai might be interested in taking the relay >from Bogota and working with the United Nations Car Free Days Programme >to organize a regional Car Free Day demonstration and Practicum there. >If you are not familiar with the workings of this, you can see a bit on >it at http://www.uncfd.org. > >Of course I realize that this is a long shot, but with the proper >support it could be a very interesting one. > >With all good wishes, >? >Eric Britton >Chair of the Stockholm Partnerships Jury >www.partnerships.stockholm.se/ >? >The Commons __ technology, economy, society__ >Le Frene, 8/10 rue Joseph Bara, 75006 Paris, France >Day phone: +331 4326 1323 Mobile: +336 8096 7879 >24 hour Fax/Voicemail hotline: +1 888 677-4866 >http://ecoplan.org/?? IP Videoconference: 193.252.199.213 >Email: ecoplan.adsl@wanadoo.fr?? URL www.ecoplan.org > > -- Alan & Jacqui Howes, Dubai, UAE (Otherwise Perthshire, Scotland) alaninthegulf@yahoo.co.uk (Alan) cybermog57@yahoo.co.uk (Jacqui) http://www.users.zetnet.co.uk/alanhowes/ [Needs Updating!] From howes at emirates.net.ae Sun Feb 17 00:35:27 2002 From: howes at emirates.net.ae (Alan P Howes) Date: Sat, 16 Feb 2002 19:35:27 +0400 Subject: [sustran] Jitneys - copy of a posting to transit-prof Message-ID: <2qrs6uk5gv6b9k046mqm4pc07e886sot6p@4ax.com> [follow-up below] On Wed, 13 Feb 2002 08:12:20 +0400, Alan Patrick Howes wrote to "'Transit-Prof@yahoogroups.com'" : >In Riyadh (where I was for >three years), jitneys (known there as coasters) killed the regular bus >service - what was left got picked up by pick-ups (known locally, in Arabic, >as "wonayts", which I deduced meant 1.8!). Same in Jeddah. Here [Dubai] there is >much more regulation, but also our pricing is better - Riyadh and Jeddah had >2 riyal flat fares (about 53 cents US), while here our average fare is Dh. >1.42 (say 38 cents), while 43% of riders pay only Dh. 1 (27 cents). > >Of course, virtually none of the riders are GCC nationals (GCC - Gulf >Co-operation Council, sort of local EU - Saudi, Bahrain, Qatar, Kuwait, UAE, >Oman). Who rides Tel Aviv's buses? > >There is a fair bit more to say on this - I will post again later today from >home. My timescale stretched a bit. All (fully legal) public bus service in Saudi Arabia is operated by one parastatal (privately owned but publicly controlled) company, my former employer, SAPTCO. www.saptco.com.sa . Information below may be a year out of date. In Riyadh (pop. 3 million plus), there were about 35,000,000 bus riders a year back in 1982. That is now down to not much more than 1 million. The rest is on the jitneys, aka Coasters (after the Toyota minibuses of the same name). Same happened in Jeddah, something like it in Dammam / Al Khobar. (Atlases out, guys!) Only in Makkah (aka Mecca) is there still reasonable bus traffic - leastways there was when I left a year ago. But Makkah is special - it's where Hajj is going on just now, it gets a lot of fairly-low-income religious tourists, and there are some restrictions on smaller vehicles at some times of the year. (And along with other non-Muslims, I could never get past the bus garage - and yes, it's full of Osama look-alikes.) What happened in Riyadh is instructive. Despite the high ridership, there was a big subsidy requirement. This was partly due to the system (which only started in 1979) being largely US-designed, and Americans don't understand that transit doesn't _have_ to make a loss :-) (We don't lose money in Dubai, at least not much. And we pay back all our capital costs too!) There was also a top-heavy management and administative structure (or so I believe - I wasn't around until 1995). There was also some competition, from the aforesaid coasters and "wonayts", Japanese pick-ups which seem to be given away out here with packs of corn-flakes. They are good for carrying camels, or just about anything else. Some have a double cab. (Slight digression. A Saudi guy was taken to task for putting his wives in the back of the pick-up while he had the goats in the cab with him. Reason - the wives had the sense not to jump out!) Back in 1982 the buses charged 1 riyal flat fare (say a quarter). To compete, the coasters and wonayts had to do likewise. However, it was pretty tight for them at that fare, and they certainly couldn't replace their rolling stock. So what did the bus company do? They increased their fares. The competition immediately did likewise, and suddenly found they were making a profit. Coasters and wonayts blossomed. The bus company still wasn't in profit, particularly as its passengers rapidly deserted for the more frequent competitors. Things weren't helped when the Gulf War came along, and the buses were commandeered in order to be wrecked by US servicemen on the Iraqi front. So now ridership is down by around 95% from the peak. The 1,000 strong nationwide city bus fleet is grossly underused. Most of it is used on publicly-funded school runs. (Girls only, curb-to-curb service, the (male of course) driver has to have a chaperone.) These are barely profitable, and subject to being poached by other companies. There are just about seven lines left (there used to be around 20 I think), and frequencies are way down. There is heavy coaster competition on the well-trafficked inner two-thirds of all routes. The only place the buses are reasonably well used is on the outer ends of the route, where the coasters don't run. And on Fridays, when the coaster drivers take the day off. (One route was doing very well indeed on a Friday, with packed double-deckers every five minutes or so. But some fool of an accountant withdrew it, or at least cut it back heavily.) The line-haul routes use non-AC buses, although AC buses are available. Ask the maintenance staff why! The coasters are dirty, ramshackle, badly driven, badly maintained, and old. Strangely enough, they are petrol-driven, despite diesel now being about one-third the cost of gas. At the time they were bought both fuels cost the same, and the owners can't now afford to replace them. There is a ceiling on the number of licensed coasters, and they are only allowed to ply on one route - but they choose their own timetable. Their routes just about mirror transit routes. Any one (Saudi) person is only allowed to own one coaster, though he can get someone alse (often an Afghan) to drive it. I was repeatedly told that most coaster-owners were policemen, which would explain a lot. When I left the coaster guys were trying hard to get transit to put their fares up. The wonayts were strictly illegal altogether - but perhaps they were owned by policemen too. I tried valiantly, when I was there, to persuade the PTB to reduce the transit fares to 1 riyal again, at least on the inner end of the routes. And to actually run the services reliably, with AC buses. But with no success. At about the time I left, the Ar Riyadh Development Authority (ADA!) was trying to do something about city transit, perhaps a demonstration project or something. I must try to find out what, if anything, has happened. As already mentioned, things are much better here in Dubai. We do get borderline competition from minibuses operating "subscription" services for workers, and from pirate (totally unlicensed) taxis, and from Sharjah taxis. (Sharjah is the adjoining emirate. Sharjah taxis are allowed to bring passengers into Dubai, but not to pick up here. At least, not legally ...) We benefit from the recent "nationalisation" of all (legal) local taxis, with the inevitable expansion in bureaucracy and therefore prices. Also, just before I arrived, the carriage of passengers in (the back of) goods vehicles was banned. The police are a lot better here too - though they do ticket our buses for parking if they have to stop on-carriageway because of illegal parking in the bus bay! Well, I hope Marcos is still lurking and may find this useful, and I hope the rest of you at least get a laugh or two - think how fortunate you are! Come to think of it, I might as well post this on sustran-discuss, where it will blend in better. -- Alan & Jacqui Howes, Dubai, UAE (Otherwise Perthshire, Scotland) alaninthegulf@yahoo.co.uk (Alan) cybermog57@yahoo.co.uk (Jacqui) http://www.users.zetnet.co.uk/alanhowes/ [Needs Updating!] From howes at emirates.net.ae Mon Feb 18 23:19:06 2002 From: howes at emirates.net.ae (Alan P Howes) Date: Mon, 18 Feb 2002 18:19:06 +0400 Subject: [sustran] TDM in Perth, WA - 14% car-driver trip reduction Message-ID: The latest issue (to reach me) of the UK transport magazine LTT has an item on the above - also quotes 17% increase in PT trips, 61% cycling, 35% walking. Anyone interested in seeing it? I could scan it. I was particularly thinking of Todd Litman - not sure which list he's on. -- Alan & Jacqui Howes, Dubai, UAE (Otherwise Perthshire, Scotland) alaninthegulf@yahoo.co.uk (Alan) cybermog57@yahoo.co.uk (Jacqui) http://www.users.zetnet.co.uk/alanhowes/ [Needs Updating!] From tr_saranathan at hotmail.com Mon Feb 18 23:40:48 2002 From: tr_saranathan at hotmail.com (TR Saranathan) Date: Mon, 18 Feb 2002 14:40:48 +0000 Subject: [sustran] Re: TDM in Perth, WA - 14% car-driver trip reduction Message-ID: Dear Sir, Thanks for the info from Mr.Alan. Surely ,I would like to have the info. Saranathan >From: Alan P Howes >Reply-To: sustran-discuss@jca.ax.apc.org >To: sustran-discuss@jca.apc.org, transit-prof@yahoogroups.com >Subject: [sustran] TDM in Perth, WA - 14% car-driver trip reduction >Date: Mon, 18 Feb 2002 18:19:06 +0400 > >The latest issue (to reach me) of the UK transport magazine LTT has an >item on the above - also quotes 17% increase in PT trips, 61% cycling, >35% walking. > >Anyone interested in seeing it? I could scan it. > >I was particularly thinking of Todd Litman - not sure which list he's >on. >-- >Alan & Jacqui Howes, Dubai, UAE (Otherwise Perthshire, Scotland) >alaninthegulf@yahoo.co.uk (Alan) cybermog57@yahoo.co.uk (Jacqui) >http://www.users.zetnet.co.uk/alanhowes/ [Needs Updating!] _________________________________________________________________ Send and receive Hotmail on your mobile device: http://mobile.msn.com From smogs at ccsa.asn.au Tue Feb 19 07:34:29 2002 From: smogs at ccsa.asn.au (Ali Collins) Date: Tue, 19 Feb 2002 09:04:29 +1030 Subject: [sustran] Re: TDM in Perth, WA - 14% car-driver trip reduction References: Message-ID: <3C718175.9040400@ccsa.asn.au> Yes, that sounds really interesting... thanks ali Alan P Howes wrote: > The latest issue (to reach me) of the UK transport magazine LTT has an > item on the above - also quotes 17% increase in PT trips, 61% cycling, > 35% walking. > > Anyone interested in seeing it? I could scan it. > > I was particularly thinking of Todd Litman - not sure which list he's > on. > From cameron at iinet.net.au Tue Feb 19 09:49:55 2002 From: cameron at iinet.net.au (Iain Cameron) Date: Tue, 19 Feb 2002 08:49:55 +0800 Subject: [sustran] Re: TDM in Perth, WA - 14% car-driver trip reduction In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <3.0.6.32.20020219084955.007a3740@pop3.norton.antivirus> The brief note on Perth's increase in non passenger car traffic appears to be associated with a 'Travel Smart' program run by the State's Dept of Transport and program results from an inner Perth suburb, South Perth. The DoT's web site can be accessed through http://www.dot.wa.gov.au and its 'Travel Smart' site at http://www.travelsmart.transport.wa.gov.au. I hope this may assist in tracking down this information, if not, I could follow up at this end for you. Many kind regards At 06:19 PM 02/18/2002 +0400, you wrote: >The latest issue (to reach me) of the UK transport magazine LTT has an >item on the above - also quotes 17% increase in PT trips, 61% cycling, >35% walking. > >Anyone interested in seeing it? I could scan it. > >I was particularly thinking of Todd Litman - not sure which list he's >on. >-- >Alan & Jacqui Howes, Dubai, UAE (Otherwise Perthshire, Scotland) >alaninthegulf@yahoo.co.uk (Alan) cybermog57@yahoo.co.uk (Jacqui) >http://www.users.zetnet.co.uk/alanhowes/ [Needs Updating!] > > > Iain Cameron Institute for Sustainability and Technology Policy Murdoch University Murdoch 6150 WESTERN AUSTRALIA Home Address and Communication Details: 29 Knebworth Avenue HIGHGATE 6003 WESTERN AUSTRALIA Telephone home: 61 8 9227 8678 Fax home: 61 8 9227 1664 email: cameron@iinet.net.au From kisansbc at vsnl.com Tue Feb 19 10:24:42 2002 From: kisansbc at vsnl.com (kisan mehta) Date: Tue, 19 Feb 2002 06:54:42 +0530 Subject: [sustran] Re: TDM in Perth, WA - 14% car-driver trip reduction References: Message-ID: <000f01c1b8e4$3599a300$3226020a@im.eth.net> Dear SustranColleagues, Alan and Jacqui, Weare interested in getting full info. We are now up against Mumbai Urban Transport Project that the World Bank wants to support for promoting motorisation and increasing pollution.Thanks in advance. Best wishes. Kisan Mehta and Priya Salvi ----- Original Message ----- From: Alan P Howes To: ; Sent: Monday, February 18, 2002 7:49 PM Subject: [sustran] TDM in Perth, WA - 14% car-driver trip reduction The latest issue (to reach me) of the UK transport magazine LTT has an item on the above - also quotes 17% increase in PT trips, 61% cycling, 35% walking. Anyone interested in seeing it? I could scan it. I was particularly thinking of Todd Litman - not sure which list he's on. -- Alan & Jacqui Howes, Dubai, UAE (Otherwise Perthshire, Scotland) alaninthegulf@yahoo.co.uk (Alan) cybermog57@yahoo.co.uk (Jacqui) http://www.users.zetnet.co.uk/alanhowes/ [Needs Updating!] From geobpa at nus.edu.sg Tue Feb 19 12:24:54 2002 From: geobpa at nus.edu.sg (Paul Barter) Date: Tue, 19 Feb 2002 11:24:54 +0800 Subject: [sustran] FW: UN-HABITAT IN ACTION Message-ID: <2C9E855D35B9D01198190020AFFBE8CB0F47CDDA@exs04.ex.nus.edu.sg> -----Original Message----- From: owner-habdebate@unep.org [mailto:owner-habdebate@unep.org] On Behalf Of Ali Shabou Sent: Saturday, 16 February 2002 12:25 AM To: habdebate@unhabitat.org Subject: UN-HABITAT IN ACTION Dear colleagues and friends, I am very pleased to announce the issuance of the first issue of " UN-HABITAT in action" a monthly electronic news letter that will strive to bring UN-HABITAT closer to you through reports on current programmes activities, field operations, latest publications and reports and missions undertaken by various staff members. UN-HABITAT in action is another effort to inform our partners and various stakeholders about the operations and activities of UN-HABITAT. Please click the following link to visit: http://www.unhabitat.org/hb We would be glad to reflect our partners' activities if you could send us, electronically, your contributions with photographs latest by 25th of every month. Your views and contributions will be highly appreciated. Thank you and hope to see lots of your contributions for the February issue. Best wishes. ali ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ Ali Shabou, Chief, Information Services Section, Office of the Deputy Executive Director United Nations Human Settlements Programme, UN-HABITAT P.O.Box 30030 Nairobi, Kenya Tel: (254 2) 62-31-41 AND 62-31-20 (GMT +3) Fax: (254 2)62-42-65 Web site: http://www.unhabitat.org/ Email: Ali.Shabou@unhabitat.org ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ From Alan.Perkins at transport.sa.gov.au Tue Feb 19 13:22:51 2002 From: Alan.Perkins at transport.sa.gov.au (Perkins, Alan (TSA)) Date: Tue, 19 Feb 2002 14:52:51 +1030 Subject: [sustran] Re: TDM in Perth, WA - 14% car-driver trip reductio n Message-ID: Dear Sustran Colleagues and Kisan, The South Perth project is the most extensive of a number of Travel Behaviour Change projects that are being tested in Australia at present. Two techniques have been applied so far, but others are likely to be developed, given the enthusiasm for these approaches amongst the sustainable transport community here. The Perth TravelSmart project has been applied to a local government area of 35,000 people. The reported reductions in car use are for the whole of the government area (from which around 40% of households participated). One commentator has noted that if the reduction in car travel/energy/emissions proves over time to be half as good as the 14% achieved in South Perth, it will be an excellent outcome when compared with other travel demand management measures so far developed. The technique, called Individual Marketing (IndiMark(tm)), involves phone contact with all households in the area, identifying the proportion of respondents who would be interested in making some changes in travel behaviour, and supplying them with information - eg. public transport timetables, maps of cycling routes, information on local facilities. For a proportion of respondents there are follow-ups with household visits. In South Perth modest improvements were made to public transport infrastructure (eg. new bus stops including timetables, some additional evening services), but mostly there was reliance on people changing their behaviour. The contention of IndiMark is that minor changes in people's behaviour (eg. each family member replaces half a dozen car trips a month with walking/cycling/public transport trips) achieve significant cumulative reductions in total car travel. Another technique that has been applied in suburbs in Adelaide and Brisbane is called Travel Blending (Travel Blending?). It is based on the hypothesis that if people have an understanding of the aim of reducing the adverse impact of private motor vehicle use in relation to their own lives, they will be in a position to make the changes that best suit their own circumstances. The method of Travel Blending? involves participants completing seven day travel diaries to gain an understanding of their personal and household travel patterns. The diaries are analysed and the participants are provided with suggestions on how they individually and as a household might reduce their motor vehicle travel and increase the overall efficiency of their travel. These suggestions are supported by customized information (bus timetables, maps, cycle hire, guides to local services etc.) which will assist participants in implementing the suggestions. Participants are encouraged to complete a second seven day travel diary approximately a month after starting to make the changes so that changes can be measured and further feedback can be provided. The Travel Blending? and IndiMark(tm) approaches have the following features in common: ? They seek to fill the gap between raising people's awareness of the need to change and people actually changing their travel behaviour. ? They involve a degree of dialogue and information exchange with individuals and households. ? They are based on the concept that small changes in individual and household behaviour can produce a significant aggregate reduction in the adverse consequences of motor travel. Of particular interest to Sustraners may be the reported results of an application of Travel Blending in Santiago (was anyone on the SUSTRAN network involved in this?). A 17% reduction in car driver trips (as a proportion of participating and non-participating households combined) was achieved, with a 23% reduction in car driver kilometres and a 17% reduction in time spent travelling (info. provided by the proponents of Travel Blending, Steer Davies Gleave). More information can be obtained on-line about TravelSmart in Perth from a recent article in the current edition of World Transport Policy and Practice Vol 7 No 4, http://www.ecoplan.org/wtpp/ There is due to be a further article describing both IndiMark and Travel Blending in the next edition. The conclusions that I draw from these travel behaviour change initiatives are that people are prepared to make modest changes to travel behaviour away from car reliance (a) as their awareness of the adverse impacts of excessive car use rises, and (b) where they can see personal benefits such as having more time available, saving money on petrol, improving personal health and fitness. However, if these projects become widespread, they need to be supported by government policies - improved public transport services, local area traffic restraint etc. - rather than having governments adopting travel behaviour change programs as a cheap way of reducing congestion or meeting greenhouse abatement targets, without the associated shift in emphasis from car-orientated polcies to car restraint policies. Regards, Alan Perkins Dr Alan Perkins Adviser, Sustainable Transport and Planning Transport Policy Group Transport SA PO Box 1 Walkerville South Australia 5081 ph 61 (8) 8343 2436 fax 61 (8) 8343 2939 alan.perkins@transport.sa.gov.au -----Original Message----- From: kisan mehta [mailto:kisansbc@vsnl.com] Sent: Tuesday, 19 February 2002 11:55 AM To: sustran-discuss@jca.ax.apc.org; howes@emirates.net.ae Subject: [sustran] Re: TDM in Perth, WA - 14% car-driver trip reduction Dear SustranColleagues, Alan and Jacqui, Weare interested in getting full info. We are now up against Mumbai Urban Transport Project that the World Bank wants to support for promoting motorisation and increasing pollution.Thanks in advance. Best wishes. Kisan Mehta and Priya Salvi ----- Original Message ----- From: Alan P Howes To: ; Sent: Monday, February 18, 2002 7:49 PM Subject: [sustran] TDM in Perth, WA - 14% car-driver trip reduction The latest issue (to reach me) of the UK transport magazine LTT has an item on the above - also quotes 17% increase in PT trips, 61% cycling, 35% walking. Anyone interested in seeing it? I could scan it. I was particularly thinking of Todd Litman - not sure which list he's on. -- Alan & Jacqui Howes, Dubai, UAE (Otherwise Perthshire, Scotland) alaninthegulf@yahoo.co.uk (Alan) cybermog57@yahoo.co.uk (Jacqui) http://www.users.zetnet.co.uk/alanhowes/ [Needs Updating!] From sujit at vsnl.com Tue Feb 19 13:37:22 2002 From: sujit at vsnl.com (Sujit Patwardhan) Date: Tue, 19 Feb 2002 10:07:22 +0530 Subject: [sustran] Re: TDM in Perth, WA - 14% car-driver trip reduction In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <5.1.0.14.0.20020219100636.00ac5ec0@202.54.10.1> 19 February 2002 Yes please Alan, I am most interested. Thanks -- Sujit Patwardhan Parisar, Pune, India At 06:19 PM 2/18/02 +0400, you wrote: >The latest issue (to reach me) of the UK transport magazine LTT has an >item on the above - also quotes 17% increase in PT trips, 61% cycling, >35% walking. > >Anyone interested in seeing it? I could scan it. > >I was particularly thinking of Todd Litman - not sure which list he's >on. >-- >Alan & Jacqui Howes, Dubai, UAE (Otherwise Perthshire, Scotland) >alaninthegulf@yahoo.co.uk (Alan) cybermog57@yahoo.co.uk (Jacqui) >http://www.users.zetnet.co.uk/alanhowes/ [Needs Updating!] -- Sujit Patwardhan sujit@vsnl.com From APHOWES at dm.gov.ae Wed Feb 20 13:00:03 2002 From: APHOWES at dm.gov.ae (Alan Patrick Howes) Date: Wed, 20 Feb 2002 08:00:03 +0400 Subject: [sustran] RE: [Transit-Prof] Re: TDM in Perth, WA - 14% car-driver trip red uction Message-ID: Hi Steve - That's a pleasant surprise, I'm not sure I knew there was a transit-prof member in Australia. I have not yet been there myself, but have contacts and keep my eye on what goes on, and it seems to me that Australia (some states at least) has some useful experience to share on achieving some of the benefits of UK-style transport deregulation without "throwing the baby out with the bathwater". So please keep posting - though from your job title I suppose you may well not be a transit man. Yes, it is Travelsmart. I haven't fully read the article properly myself yet (hopefully this [long] weekend - it's Eid Al Adha, the feast of sacrifice - connected with Hajj). And I have only had a quick look at the Travelsmart website. So I don't know how much the article has to say that is new - seems IIRC to be mainly based on an interview with a German guy named Borg from the consultants who developed the individualised marketing technique. I will get the item scanned and send it off in the next few days - a lot of sustran-ers want to see it. (The quoted 14% decrease in car-driver trips must be from a pretty high base, surely? But I'm not yet clear how large a part of Perth they are talking about.) -- Alan P Howes, Special Transport Advisor, Dubai Municipality Public Transport Department aphowes@dm.gov.ae Tel: +971 4 286 1616 ext 214 Mobile: +971 50 5989661 > -----Original Message----- > From: stevepiotrowski [mailto:spiotrowski@transport.wa.gov.au] > Sent: Tuesday, February 19, 2002 5:30 AM > To: Transit-Prof@yahoogroups.com > Subject: [Transit-Prof] Re: TDM in Perth, WA - 14% car-driver > trip reduction > > > Hello Alan: > > I would be interested in seeing the article as well. > > I think you are referring to the 'Travelsmart' initiatives that are > ongoing in Perth. It is an individualised marketing program where > a large number of households in a targeted area are contacted and > provided with information about public transport, walking and cycling. > > The program has been successful so far, with a (reported) increase in > the number of walking, cycling and public transport trips in the > targeted areas which is very encouraging. However, it must > be kept in > mind that: > > 1. The percentage increases are off a low base; and > 2. There is no way of knowing if the results of the marketing will be > short-lived or not. Only time will tell. > > There are some in Perth who believe that Travelsmart is the answer to > our future transport mobility problems. The reality is that it is > moving us in the right direction, but only by a small amount. There > are a lot of other things that we need to be doing to achieve > our mode > split targets (like transit priority measures, and pricing policies > which reflect the true cost of driving a car). > > Regards, > Steve Piotrowski > Project Manager, > Future Perth Strategic Transport Evaluation > Perth, WA, Australia > spiotrowski@transport.wa.gov.au > > --- In Transit-Prof@y..., Alan P Howes wrote: > > The latest issue (to reach me) of the UK transport magazine LTT has > an > > item on the above - also quotes 17% increase in PT trips, 61% > cycling, > > 35% walking. > > > > Anyone interested in seeing it? I could scan it. > > > > I was particularly thinking of Todd Litman - not sure which list > he's > > on. > > -- > > Alan & Jacqui Howes, Dubai, UAE (Otherwise Perthshire, Scotland) > > alaninthegulf@y... (Alan) cybermog57@y... (Jacqui) > > http://www.users.zetnet.co.uk/alanhowes/ [Needs Updating!] > > > ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor > ---------------------~--> > Get your FREE credit report with a FREE CreditCheck > Monitoring Service trial > http://us.click.yahoo.com/ACHqaB/bQ8CAA/ySSFAA/j2LplB/TM > -------------------------------------------------------------- > -------~-> > > ------------------------------------------------------ > To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: > Transit-Prof-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com > > > > Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/ From geobpa at nus.edu.sg Wed Feb 20 21:06:40 2002 From: geobpa at nus.edu.sg (Paul Barter) Date: Wed, 20 Feb 2002 20:06:40 +0800 Subject: [sustran] FW: Lyari Expressway Message-ID: <2C9E855D35B9D01198190020AFFBE8CB0F47CF3C@exs04.ex.nus.edu.sg> A non-text attachment was scrubbed... Name: not available Type: text/plain Size: 7824 bytes Desc: not available Url : http://list.jca.apc.org/manage/private/sustran-discuss/attachments/20020220/8de245a1/attachment.txt -------------- next part -------------- An HTML attachment was scrubbed... URL: http://list.jca.apc.org/manage/private/sustran-discuss/attachments/20020220/8de245a1/attachment.htm From litman at vtpi.org Thu Feb 21 02:28:25 2002 From: litman at vtpi.org (Todd Litman) Date: Wed, 20 Feb 2002 09:28:25 -0800 Subject: [sustran] Re: TDM in Perth, WA - 14% car-driver trip reduction In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <3.0.5.32.20020220092825.00ef2d60@pop.islandnet.com> Dear Alan, Thanks for the information. We are familiar with the Perth project: It is included in the "TDM Marketing" (http://www.vtpi.org/tdm/tdm23.htm) and "Success Stories" (http://www.vtpi.org/tdm/tdm71.htm) chapter of our Online TDM Encyclopedia, which also include links to the project website. I'd be interested in seeing the article if it provides any new information. Best wishes, Todd Litman At 06:19 PM 2/18/02 +0400, you wrote: >The latest issue (to reach me) of the UK transport magazine LTT has an >item on the above - also quotes 17% increase in PT trips, 61% cycling, >35% walking. > >Anyone interested in seeing it? I could scan it. > >I was particularly thinking of Todd Litman - not sure which list he's >on. >-- >Alan & Jacqui Howes, Dubai, UAE (Otherwise Perthshire, Scotland) >alaninthegulf@yahoo.co.uk (Alan) cybermog57@yahoo.co.uk (Jacqui) >http://www.users.zetnet.co.uk/alanhowes/ [Needs Updating!] > > > Sincerely, Todd Litman, Director Victoria Transport Policy Institute "Efficiency - Equity - Clarity" 1250 Rudlin Street Victoria, BC, V8V 3R7, Canada Phone & Fax: 250-360-1560 E-mail: litman@vtpi.org Website: http://www.vtpi.org From BruunB at aol.com Thu Feb 21 06:22:47 2002 From: BruunB at aol.com (BruunB@aol.com) Date: Wed, 20 Feb 2002 16:22:47 EST Subject: [sustran] Re: individualized marketing Message-ID: <70.18262bcb.29a56da7@aol.com> The name of the company which does the individualized marketing is Socialdata of Munich, Germany. The person who was undoubtably the one interviewed is Dr. Werner Broeg. Eric Bruun From kirkb at start.com.au Thu Feb 21 09:31:35 2002 From: kirkb at start.com.au (kirk bendall) Date: Thu, 21 Feb 2002 10:31:35 +1000 Subject: [sustran] Re: Re: TDM in Perth, WA - 14% car-driver trip reduction Message-ID: Hello, fyi following the West Australian progrms success, Queensland and Victoria have started TravelSmart programs - see: http://www.sea.vic.gov.au/travelsmart/ http://www.transport.qld.gov.au/travelsmart regards, kirk Bendall Illawarra/Shoalhaven Transport Devlopment Officer +61 2 4221 2581 Original message from: Alan Patrick Howes > >Hi Steve - > >That's a pleasant surprise, I'm not sure I knew there was a transit-prof >member in Australia. I have not yet been there myself, but have contacts and >keep my eye on what goes on, and it seems to me that Australia (some states >at least) has some useful experience to share on achieving some of the >benefits of UK-style transport deregulation without "throwing the baby out >with the bathwater". So please keep posting - though from your job title I >suppose you may well not be a transit man. > >Yes, it is Travelsmart. I haven't fully read the article properly myself yet >(hopefully this [long] weekend - it's Eid Al Adha, the feast of sacrifice - >connected with Hajj). And I have only had a quick look at the Travelsmart >website. So I don't know how much the article has to say that is new - seems >IIRC to be mainly based on an interview with a German guy named Borg from >the consultants who developed the individualised marketing technique. > >I will get the item scanned and send it off in the next few days - a lot of >sustran-ers want to see it. > >(The quoted 14% decrease in car-driver trips must be from a pretty high >base, surely? But I'm not yet clear how large a part of Perth they are >talking about.) > >-- >Alan P Howes, Special Transport Advisor, > Dubai Municipality Public Transport Department >aphowes@dm.gov.ae >Tel: +971 4 286 1616 ext 214 >Mobile: +971 50 5989661 > > >> -----Original Message----- >> From: stevepiotrowski [mailto:spiotrowski@transport.wa.gov.au] >> Sent: Tuesday, February 19, 2002 5:30 AM >> To: Transit-Prof@yahoogroups.com >> Subject: [Transit-Prof] Re: TDM in Perth, WA - 14% car-driver >> trip reduction >> >> >> Hello Alan: >> >> I would be interested in seeing the article as well. >> >> I think you are referring to the 'Travelsmart' initiatives that are >> ongoing in Perth. It is an individualised marketing program where >> a large number of households in a targeted area are contacted and >> provided with information about public transport, walking and cycling. >> >> The program has been successful so far, with a (reported) increase in >> the number of walking, cycling and public transport trips in the >> targeted areas which is very encouraging. However, it must >> be kept in >> mind that: >> >> 1. The percentage increases are off a low base; and >> 2. There is no way of knowing if the results of the marketing will be >> short-lived or not. Only time will tell. >> >> There are some in Perth who believe that Travelsmart is the answer to >> our future transport mobility problems. The reality is that it is >> moving us in the right direction, but only by a small amount. There >> are a lot of other things that we need to be doing to achieve >> our mode >> split targets (like transit priority measures, and pricing policies >> which reflect the true cost of driving a car). >> >> Regards, >> Steve Piotrowski >> Project Manager, >> Future Perth Strategic Transport Evaluation >> Perth, WA, Australia >> spiotrowski@transport.wa.gov.au >> >> --- In Transit-Prof@y..., Alan P Howes wrote: >> > The latest issue (to reach me) of the UK transport magazine LTT has >> an >> > item on the above - also quotes 17% increase in PT trips, 61% >> cycling, >> > 35% walking. >> > >> > Anyone interested in seeing it? I could scan it. >> > >> > I was particularly thinking of Todd Litman - not sure which list >> he's >> > on. >> > -- >> > Alan & Jacqui Howes, Dubai, UAE (Otherwise Perthshire, Scotland) >> > alaninthegulf@y... (Alan) cybermog57@y... (Jacqui) >> > http://www.users.zetnet.co.uk/alanhowes/ [Needs Updating!] >> >> >> ------------------------ Yahoo! Groups Sponsor >> ---------------------~--> >> Get your FREE credit report with a FREE CreditCheck >> Monitoring Service trial >> http://us.click.yahoo.com/ACHqaB/bQ8CAA/ySSFAA/j2LplB/TM >> -------------------------------------------------------------- >> -------~-> >> >> ------------------------------------------------------ >> To unsubscribe from this group, send an email to: >> Transit-Prof-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.com >> >> >> >> Your use of Yahoo! Groups is subject to >http://docs.yahoo.com/info/terms/ > >. > __________________________________________________________________ Get your free Australian email account at http://www.start.com.au From litman at vtpi.org Thu Feb 21 10:57:13 2002 From: litman at vtpi.org (Todd Litman) Date: Wed, 20 Feb 2002 17:57:13 -0800 Subject: [sustran] Cities and Transportation: Choices and Consequences Message-ID: <3.0.5.32.20020220175713.00efa100@pop.islandnet.com> Dear Colleagues, I was lucky enough to be able to participate in the "Cities and Transportation: Choices and Consequences" conference in Vancouver, BC earlier this week, which brought together some leading international researchers concerned with transportation and land use policy. I'll summarize some highlights below. One speaker emphasized that transportation improvements, such as highway projects and increased transit service, tend to be politically easy but by themselves tend to be ineffective at solving most problems. As a result, they are vulnerable to criticism of cost inefficiency. Pricing and land use reforms can be highly effective at solving problems, but are politically difficult. So, either we continue implementing ineffective and costly solutions, or we overcome the political barriers to innovations such as pricing and smart growth development. As an example, Professor Martin Wach pointed that parking pricing has more influence on travel behavior than virtually any conceivable improvement in transit service quality. Charging for parking or Parking Cash Out reduces automobile trips by 10-20%, more than twice as much as huge transit investments being implemented in the Southern California region. He emphasized that without pricing, virtually all other transportation improvements are more costly, or to put it more positively, virtually any transportation improvement can become more effective and cost effective if implemented in conjunction with pricing strategies, such as road tolls, parking pricing and distance-based road charges. Professor Susan Handy showed land use factors that affect non-commute travel choices. Her data indicates that most households have considerable flexibility in travel choices for some types of trips. For example, most households perform several shopping trips each month, and can choose between shopping destinations that are close or farther away for some of these. Where walking/cycling conditions are good, households walk/cycle for more trips. Dr. Tony Graying described UK experience with bus transit reform, which was privitized throughout the country except in London 14 years ago. His research concludes that this policy experiment indicates that privitization tends to reduce subsidy costs but also reduces transit service quality, and therefore ridership. London was the only area in the UK that experienced growth in bus ridership, he argues, because public ownership allows better network planning and coordination, which was lost in other regions. His conclusion is that to make transit attractive relative to cars, it is important to retain control over transportation planning and transit service quality if privitization is implemented. He identified the following key elements of a bus transit strategy: * Planned network * Whole journey planning (land use accessibility, pedestrian/cycling conditions, driver courtesy, etc.) * Priority transit routes * Accessible vehicles * Good connections * Excellent information * Effective marketing * Affordable fares He described a really cool new interactive Internet based model that predicts the travel impacts of various transit policies, including changes in transit service, speed and price, and changes in the relative price of driving ("Virtual Learning Arcade - London Transport", http://vla.ifs.org.uk/models/mets22.html, Institute for Fiscal Studies, 2001). Although it is simple to use, it was developed with the help of Professor Phil Goodwin, a leading UK transportation economist, and is based on sophisticated, state-of-the-art modeling. Based on this analysis, Dr. Graying concludes that: * Reducing London Underground fares provides no benefits (since it is already operating at capacity). * Reducing bus fares provides modest net benefits (value for money). * Increasing bus service provides better net benefits. * Speeding bus service (through transit priority measures) provides excellent net benefits. * Congestion pricing also provides net economic benefits. In reference to implementing new approaches a leading Canadian transportation planner (Professor Richard Soberman) stated "What can't be done should not be defined by what hasen't been done", which I think is good advice for those of us interested in seeing new approaches tried. Sincerely, Todd Litman, Director Victoria Transport Policy Institute "Efficiency - Equity - Clarity" 1250 Rudlin Street Victoria, BC, V8V 3R7, Canada Phone & Fax: 250-360-1560 E-mail: litman@vtpi.org Website: http://www.vtpi.org From howes at emirates.net.ae Thu Feb 21 23:40:55 2002 From: howes at emirates.net.ae (Alan P Howes) Date: Thu, 21 Feb 2002 18:40:55 +0400 Subject: [sustran] Re: Cities and Transportation: Choices and Consequences In-Reply-To: <3.0.5.32.20020220175713.00efa100@pop.islandnet.com> References: <3.0.5.32.20020220175713.00efa100@pop.islandnet.com> Message-ID: You were indeed fortunate, Todd - sounds like a good conference, and many thanks for sharing what you learnt. My responses inserted in your text - On Wed, 20 Feb 2002 17:57:13 -0800, Todd Litman wrote to "Transit-Prof@yahoogroups.com" , "sustran-discuss@jca.ax.apc.org" : >As an example, Professor Martin Wach pointed that parking pricing has more >influence on travel behavior than virtually any conceivable improvement in >transit service quality. Charging for parking or Parking Cash Out reduces >automobile trips by 10-20%, more than twice as much as huge transit >investments being implemented in the Southern California region. He >emphasized that without pricing, virtually all other transportation >improvements are more costly, or to put it more positively, virtually any >transportation improvement can become more effective and cost effective if >implemented in conjunction with pricing strategies, such as road tolls, >parking pricing and distance-based road charges. Like I keep saying, sticks and carrots. But there seem to be few decision-makers who can see it that way. They seem to think that either the stick, or the carrot, will be enough. Can you please explain, Todd, "Parking Cash Out"? >Dr. Tony Graying described UK experience with bus transit reform, which was >privitized throughout the country except in London 14 years ago. I entirely agree with Dr Graying's conclusions, but should point out that bus transit in London is not exactly in public ownership. The operating companies (including the buses themselves) were privatised in the early 1990s - but crucially, there remains a strong element of planning, financing and control by the public authorities - Transport for London, aka London Transport. The bus services are operated under route contracts awarded after a tendering process. >His >research concludes that this policy experiment indicates that privitization >tends to reduce subsidy costs but also reduces transit service quality, and >therefore ridership. London was the only area in the UK that experienced >growth in bus ridership, he argues, because public ownership allows better >network planning and coordination, which was lost in other regions. His >conclusion is that to make transit attractive relative to cars, it is >important to retain control over transportation planning and transit >service quality if privitization is implemented. He identified the >following key elements of a bus transit strategy: >* Planned network >* Whole journey planning (land use accessibility, pedestrian/cycling >conditions, driver courtesy, etc.) >* Priority transit routes >* Accessible vehicles >* Good connections >* Excellent information >* Effective marketing >* Affordable fares > > >He described a really cool new interactive Internet based model that >predicts the travel impacts of various transit policies, including changes >in transit service, speed and price, and changes in the relative price of >driving ("Virtual Learning Arcade - London Transport", >http://vla.ifs.org.uk/models/mets22.html, Institute for Fiscal Studies, >2001). Although it is simple to use, it was developed with the help of >Professor Phil Goodwin, a leading UK transportation economist, and is based >on sophisticated, state-of-the-art modeling. Must look at that - Phil Goodwin is a man I respect >Based on this analysis, Dr. Graying concludes that: >* Reducing London Underground fares provides no benefits (since it is >already operating at capacity). >* Reducing bus fares provides modest net benefits (value for money). >* Increasing bus service provides better net benefits. >* Speeding bus service (through transit priority measures) provides >excellent net benefits. Oh yes! >* Congestion pricing also provides net economic benefits. Do you know, Todd, where I can get hold of Dr Graying's full text? -- Alan Howes, Dubai, UAE (Otherwise Perthshire, Scotland) alaninthegulf@yahoo.co.uk Professional website (Needs Updating!): http://www.users.zetnet.co.uk/alanhowes/ From howes at emirates.net.ae Thu Feb 21 23:41:03 2002 From: howes at emirates.net.ae (Alan P Howes) Date: Thu, 21 Feb 2002 18:41:03 +0400 Subject: [sustran] Re: TDM in Perth, WA - 14% car-driver trip reductio n In-Reply-To: References: Message-ID: <0hu97uknlsi1fmocfvk86eclc7i5i6odlc@4ax.com> There's some very interesting stuff being posted lately. I will try to get my Transportation Planning colleagues in Dubai interested. Trouble is, that they still think here that Transportation Planning = Road Planning. One specific wrt to Alan's Really Useful Posting below - can anyone tell me the price of motor fuel in Santiago? Here it is just about 23 cents US per litre, and other costs of running a car are very low - are Travel Blending or Individual marketing likely to make any headway in this context? (While there are a large number of South Asian labourers here on USD 135 per month or less, most people get double that or more.) [NB: Sems odd quoting gas prices in USD/litre - what's the international standard? The UAE is probably about the last place in the world to sell road fuel in Imperial (not US) gallons!] On Tue, 19 Feb 2002 14:52:51 +1030, "Perkins, Alan (TSA)" wrote to "'sustran-discuss@jca.ax.apc.org'" : > >Of particular interest to Sustraners may be the reported results of an >application of Travel Blending in Santiago (was anyone on the SUSTRAN >network involved in this?). A 17% reduction in car driver trips (as a >proportion of participating and non-participating households combined) was >achieved, with a 23% reduction in car driver kilometres and a 17% reduction >in time spent travelling (info. provided by the proponents of Travel >Blending, Steer Davies Gleave). -- Alan Howes, Dubai, UAE (Otherwise Perthshire, Scotland) alaninthegulf@yahoo.co.uk Professional website (Needs Updating!): http://www.users.zetnet.co.uk/alanhowes/ From howes at emirates.net.ae Thu Feb 21 23:41:02 2002 From: howes at emirates.net.ae (Alan P Howes) Date: Thu, 21 Feb 2002 18:41:02 +0400 Subject: [sustran] Care to try another Transport list? Message-ID: Can I encourage sustran-ers who are involved in Urban Public Transport to consider joining the transit-prof group - without of course diminishing their activity on sustran-discuss! A variety of transit issues and news items are discussed by the group. There is also sharing of transit planning and operational information. The group has just over 100 members, mainly from the United States and Canada, but also Australia, United Kingdom, Netherlands, United Arab Emirates, Malaysia, and several other countries. Though it has existed for several years, little has been done to promote it. However, we are now having a membership drive! To give a flavour, there are currently lively exchanges of views going on about flexibly routed bus services, transport for the disabled, and transit scheduling software. If anyone would like to try it out, the link below will take you to a signup page. It is very easy to unsubscribe, if you should decide that it is not for you. http://groups.yahoo.com/group/transit-prof/join Thank you for your consideration. Hope to "see" you on the list. [Of course, the only reason I am on sustran-discuss is that Paul saw my postings on yet another transport list!] -- Alan Howes, Dubai, UAE (Otherwise Perthshire, Scotland) alaninthegulf@yahoo.co.uk Professional website (Needs Updating!): http://www.users.zetnet.co.uk/alanhowes/ From litman at vtpi.org Fri Feb 22 00:26:41 2002 From: litman at vtpi.org (Todd Litman) Date: Thu, 21 Feb 2002 07:26:41 -0800 Subject: [sustran] Re: Cities and Transportation: Choices and Consequences In-Reply-To: References: <3.0.5.32.20020220175713.00efa100@pop.islandnet.com> <3.0.5.32.20020220175713.00efa100@pop.islandnet.com> Message-ID: <3.0.5.32.20020221072641.00fa5bb0@pop.islandnet.com> At 06:40 PM 2/21/02 +0400, you wrote: >You were indeed fortunate, Todd - sounds like a good conference, and >many thanks for sharing what you learnt. My responses inserted in your >text - > >>As an example, Professor Martin Wach pointed that parking pricing has more >>influence on travel behavior than virtually any conceivable improvement in >>transit service quality. Charging for parking or Parking Cash Out reduces >>automobile trips by 10-20%, more than twice as much as huge transit >>investments being implemented in the Southern California region. He >>emphasized that without pricing, virtually all other transportation >>improvements are more costly, or to put it more positively, virtually any >>transportation improvement can become more effective and cost effective if >>implemented in conjunction with pricing strategies, such as road tolls, >>parking pricing and distance-based road charges. > >Like I keep saying, sticks and carrots. But there seem to be few >decision-makers who can see it that way. They seem to think that >either the stick, or the carrot, will be enough. >Can you please explain, Todd, "Parking Cash Out"? See http://www.vtpi.org/tdm/tdm8.htm > >>Dr. Tony Graying described UK experience with bus transit reform, which was >>privitized throughout the country except in London 14 years ago. > >I entirely agree with Dr Graying's conclusions, but should point out >that bus transit in London is not exactly in public ownership. The >operating companies (including the buses themselves) were privatised >in the early 1990s - but crucially, there remains a strong element of >planning, financing and control by the public authorities - Transport >for London, aka London Transport. The bus services are operated under >route contracts awarded after a tendering process. > > >>His >>research concludes that this policy experiment indicates that privitization >>tends to reduce subsidy costs but also reduces transit service quality, and >>therefore ridership. London was the only area in the UK that experienced >>growth in bus ridership, he argues, because public ownership allows better >>network planning and coordination, which was lost in other regions. His >>conclusion is that to make transit attractive relative to cars, it is >>important to retain control over transportation planning and transit >>service quality if privitization is implemented. He identified the >>following key elements of a bus transit strategy: >>* Planned network >>* Whole journey planning (land use accessibility, pedestrian/cycling >>conditions, driver courtesy, etc.) >>* Priority transit routes >>* Accessible vehicles >>* Good connections >>* Excellent information >>* Effective marketing >>* Affordable fares >> >> >>He described a really cool new interactive Internet based model that >>predicts the travel impacts of various transit policies, including changes >>in transit service, speed and price, and changes in the relative price of >>driving ("Virtual Learning Arcade - London Transport", >>http://vla.ifs.org.uk/models/mets22.html, Institute for Fiscal Studies, >>2001). Although it is simple to use, it was developed with the help of >>Professor Phil Goodwin, a leading UK transportation economist, and is based >>on sophisticated, state-of-the-art modeling. > >Must look at that - Phil Goodwin is a man I respect Me too. He was at the conference, my first chance to meet him. >>Based on this analysis, Dr. Graying concludes that: >>* Reducing London Underground fares provides no benefits (since it is >>already operating at capacity). >>* Reducing bus fares provides modest net benefits (value for money). >>* Increasing bus service provides better net benefits. >>* Speeding bus service (through transit priority measures) provides >>excellent net benefits. > >Oh yes! > >>* Congestion pricing also provides net economic benefits. > >Do you know, Todd, where I can get hold of Dr Graying's full text? You can contact him at t.grayling@ippr.org.uk. The full reference to the METS documents are below. IFS, Virtual Learning Arcade - London Transport (http://vla.ifs.org.uk/models/mets22.html), Institute for Fiscal Studies (www.ifs.org.uk), 2001. For technical information on this model see Tackling Traffic Congestion: More about the METS Model, (www.bized.ac.uk/virtual/vla/transport/resource_pack/notes_mets.htm) and (www.bized.ac.uk/virtual/vla/transport/index.htm), and Tony Grayling and Stephen Glaister, A New Fares Contract for London, Institute for Public Policy Research (www.ippr.org.uk), ISBN 1 86030 100 2, 2000. Best wishes! Sincerely, Todd Litman, Director Victoria Transport Policy Institute "Efficiency - Equity - Clarity" 1250 Rudlin Street Victoria, BC, V8V 3R7, Canada Phone & Fax: 250-360-1560 E-mail: litman@vtpi.org Website: http://www.vtpi.org From Alan.Perkins at transport.sa.gov.au Fri Feb 22 15:18:15 2002 From: Alan.Perkins at transport.sa.gov.au (Perkins, Alan (TSA)) Date: Fri, 22 Feb 2002 16:48:15 +1030 Subject: [sustran] Re: TDM in Perth, WA - 14% car-driver trip reductio n Message-ID: Alan and Sustraners, I think that there is a long way to go to know how successful these approaches will prove to be in different parts of the world. Small-scale Travel Blending projects were tried in Leeds and Nottingham, but have not been reported on, and may not have been very successful. What we have learned here is that people's reasons for making travel behaviour changes may be varied. Time of course is a big issue for many two-worker Australian households with children. If spending a little time planning the household's travel pays off in more shared car trips and more trip chaining, and the neighbours can walk the children to school three mornings a week, the time and hassle savings may be sufficient justification. Is time an issue in Dubai? I guess, petrol in Australia is not expensive by western world standards (around US 50 cents per litre) and incomes are high, so money savings would not be a sufficient reason for most people to reduce car travel. In Santiago it may be that time is an issue because of congestion, and if public transport is extensive, people may be willing to leave the car at home for some trips - I don't know. It seems to me that the good thing is that the idea of travel behaviour change projects that cover all household travel is "out of the bag" and many versions may in due course be developed in response to local needs. If you want to know more specifically about Travel Blending contact Liz Ampt - l.ampt@sdgworld.net.au - at Steer Davies Gleave. She's run travel blending projects in Adelaide, Brisbane, Santiago, New Jersey and the UK examples so far. Regards, Alan Perkins Alan Perkins Adviser, Sustainable Transport and Planning Transport Policy Group Transport SA PO Box 1 Walkerville South Australia 5081 ph 61 (8) 8343 2436 fax 61 (8) 8343 2939 alan.perkins@transport.sa.gov.au -----Original Message----- From: Alan P Howes [mailto:howes@emirates.net.ae] Sent: Friday, 22 February 2002 1:11 AM To: sustran-discuss@jca.ax.apc.org Subject: [sustran] Re: TDM in Perth, WA - 14% car-driver trip reductio n There's some very interesting stuff being posted lately. I will try to get my Transportation Planning colleagues in Dubai interested. Trouble is, that they still think here that Transportation Planning = Road Planning. One specific wrt to Alan's Really Useful Posting below - can anyone tell me the price of motor fuel in Santiago? Here it is just about 23 cents US per litre, and other costs of running a car are very low - are Travel Blending or Individual marketing likely to make any headway in this context? (While there are a large number of South Asian labourers here on USD 135 per month or less, most people get double that or more.) [NB: Sems odd quoting gas prices in USD/litre - what's the international standard? The UAE is probably about the last place in the world to sell road fuel in Imperial (not US) gallons!] On Tue, 19 Feb 2002 14:52:51 +1030, "Perkins, Alan (TSA)" wrote to "'sustran-discuss@jca.ax.apc.org'" : > >Of particular interest to Sustraners may be the reported results of an >application of Travel Blending in Santiago (was anyone on the SUSTRAN >network involved in this?). A 17% reduction in car driver trips (as a >proportion of participating and non-participating households combined) was >achieved, with a 23% reduction in car driver kilometres and a 17% reduction >in time spent travelling (info. provided by the proponents of Travel >Blending, Steer Davies Gleave). -- Alan Howes, Dubai, UAE (Otherwise Perthshire, Scotland) alaninthegulf@yahoo.co.uk Professional website (Needs Updating!): http://www.users.zetnet.co.uk/alanhowes/ From howes at emirates.net.ae Fri Feb 22 21:08:02 2002 From: howes at emirates.net.ae (Alan P Howes) Date: Fri, 22 Feb 2002 16:08:02 +0400 Subject: [sustran] Re: TDM in Perth, WA - 14% car-driver trip reduction In-Reply-To: <0hu97uknlsi1fmocfvk86eclc7i5i6odlc@4ax.com> References: <0hu97uknlsi1fmocfvk86eclc7i5i6odlc@4ax.com> Message-ID: I have now scanned the article on TravelSmart (from UK mag LTT) that I referred to in a posting of Monday 18th, and sent it to all who expressed interest. If I have missed anyone, or anyone else wants it, please let me know. Unsurprisingly, there is lots more info available on the initiative. I don't know if the LTT article adds anything new - I haven't had time to read everything! More information at - www.travelsmart.transport.wa.gov.au - project website www.socialdata.com.au - consultant website [Todd Litman] It is included in the "TDM Marketing" (http://www.vtpi.org/tdm/tdm23.htm) and "Success Stories" (http://www.vtpi.org/tdm/tdm71.htm) chapter of our Online TDM Encyclopedia, which also include links to the project website. [Alan Perkins, TSA] More information can be obtained on-line about TravelSmart in Perth from a recent article in the current edition of World Transport Policy and Practice Vol 7 No 4, http://www.ecoplan.org/wtpp/ There is due to be a further article describing both IndiMark and Travel Blending in the next edition. [Kirk Bendall, Aus] fyi following the West Australian programs success, Queensland and Victoria have started TravelSmart programs - see: http://www.sea.vic.gov.au/travelsmart/ http://www.transport.qld.gov.au/travelsmart -- Alan Howes, Dubai, UAE (Otherwise Perthshire, Scotland) alaninthegulf@yahoo.co.uk Professional website (Needs Updating!): http://www.users.zetnet.co.uk/alanhowes/ From BruunB at aol.com Sat Feb 23 02:28:16 2002 From: BruunB at aol.com (BruunB@aol.com) Date: Fri, 22 Feb 2002 12:28:16 EST Subject: [sustran] Re: TDM in Perth, WA - 14% car-driver trip reduction Message-ID: <198.2aeb02b.29a7d9b0@aol.com> Alan I would appreciate a copy of the article. Thanks, Eric Bruun From kisansbc at vsnl.com Sat Feb 23 15:17:59 2002 From: kisansbc at vsnl.com (kisan mehta) Date: Sat, 23 Feb 2002 11:47:59 +0530 Subject: [sustran] World Bank supporting motorization at the cost of environment and pedestrian safety Message-ID: <000701c1bc31$d92cdd20$3226020a@im.eth.net> Dear Sustran Colleagues, The following article appeared in the Times of India, Mumbai edition of 19 Feb 2002 exposes the preference of the authorities for more carriageways by removing or reducing pavements. The World Bank is now busy extending loan to the Mumbai authorities for the MUTP which includes constructing of pavementless six lane carriageways in predominantly residential areas. One road abuts Powai Lake, a water source for Mumbai. After admitting that Mumbai has very high SPM levels and many of the roads of Mumbai do not have pavements the authorities with the World Bank backing have rejected outright a citizen proposal to allocate Rs 2 billion out of estimated cost of Rs 60 billion for constructing pavements. The Bank supports motorisation through road construction while paying lip service to environment protection and citizen convenience. ********************** A city is not civilised until it offers freedom to walk about, says architect By Vidyadhar Date Times News Network The way some people see it, the local residents opposition to the planned Pedder Road flyover is hindering Mumbai's traffic flow. That is not quite true, said Austrian architect, Peter Schreibmayer, who was in Mumbai recently. He said the trend around Europe is not only to halt construction of flyovers, but to actually reduce width of existing roads to discourage the flow of vehicular traffic. The result is that European cities and towns are far more livable than cities in the automobile-dominated U.S., he said. The width of roads is being reduced in various ways, including creating gardens on some portions. More streets are completely closed to cars. This has greatly enhanced civic life. About one-third of journeys in European cities are made on foot. Cities are not civilised until there is freedom to walk about, said Mr Schreibmayer, who was in Mumbai to deliver the keynote address at a conference on humane habitat. According to former minister of state for urban development and resident of Pedder Road for nearly 40 years, B.A. Desai the entire area from Haji Ali to Colaba should not tampered with because it has some of the finest buildings in the country, he said. He claimed that with the Bandra-Nariman Point freeway coming up, there would be little need for the Pedder Road flyover. What the area really needs is low-cost solutions, like proper footpaths and a more humane traffic management, said President of the Pedder Road Residents Association and former chairperson of the Mumbai Local History Society, Veena Singhal. Several people in the area have been injured in the last few years because of lack of proper footpaths and inadequate traffic management. Nalanda Building alone has seen two of its senior citizens, Pushpa Vakil, 57 and H. L. Dhruv, 68, die in road accidents. A college student Punit Kumar, was lucky to survive an injury some time ago. But Ramnik Shah, a resident in the neighbouring Jeweller Apartment, was killed in another incident. The municipal corporation's callousness towards pedestrians is inexcusable, environmentalist Kisan Mehta pointed out to a World Bank team during its recent visit to consider the Mumbai Urban Transport Project (MUTP). "It is hazardous to cross Pedder Road because very often signals are switched off, resulting in an endless flow of traffic," said president of Nalanda Cooperative Housing Society Amul Shah. During peak hours, pedestrians are confronted by vehicles coming from the wrong side as an additional lane is opened to vehicular traffic. The authorities should much rather seek low-cost, people-friendly solutions like improving public transport, said Ramesh Singhal, a company executive. Mr Singhal, who worked for several years in the U.K. recalled that even senior executives travelled to work by underground railway. They left their cars some distance away and used public transport to reach their offices. The municipal corporation is using double standards. It is not performing its basic task of constructing footpaths and is even destroying existing ones. Yet, it wants to acquire land to widen roads for cars, complained Mr Mehta. The latest move is to acquire a stretch of land belonging to St Stanislaus School in Bandra. This has met with strong opposition from citizens. ****************** Priya Salvi and Kisan Mehta From ganant at vsnl.com Sat Feb 23 15:33:40 2002 From: ganant at vsnl.com (ANANT) Date: Sat, 23 Feb 2002 12:03:40 +0530 Subject: [sustran] Re: World Bank supporting motorization at the cost of environment and pedestrian safety In-Reply-To: <000701c1bc31$d92cdd20$3226020a@im.eth.net> Message-ID: The malady that has struck Bombay now, earlier visited upon Madras. First, the Metropolitan Transport Corporation said it had no money to run additional bus services. "Automobilisation" resulted, as people adopted whatever means of transport they could, including hackney carriages called "fish carts" to meet the transport demand in a growing economy. Then the urban managers said the roads had simply become too small for the "growth" in vehicle population. "Off with the pavements" they said. Why should the pavements go ? "Because people don't use them" said the Mayor, M.K.Stalin. Unanswered question: why don't people use them ? Because they are taken over by encroachers, forcing people to walk on the road. So, now it is no pavements on many roads. Now, if you have to get from point A to B, you cannot walk, even if the distance is be covered on foot. You must take a vehicle or be ready to be knocked down ! And thus... more vehicles, more trips, more pollution !! What urban planning ! Pedestrians, unite. You have nothing to lose because you don't have anything anyway !! G.Ananthakrishnan, City Editor The Hindu, 859-860, Anna Salai Chennai, India Tel: + 91 44 8594373 Mobile + 91 98410 17175 Fax: + 91 44 8415325 -----Original Message----- From: owner-sustran-discuss@jca.ax.apc.org [mailto:owner-sustran-discuss@jca.ax.apc.org]On Behalf Of kisan mehta Sent: 23 February 2002 11:48 To: sustran-discuss Cc: saksena; Harshad Kamdar; vinita salvi; Sameer Akbar; MMRDA Subject: [sustran] World Bank supporting motorization at the cost of environment and pedestrian safety Dear Sustran Colleagues, The following article appeared in the Times of India, Mumbai edition of 19 Feb 2002 exposes the preference of the authorities for more carriageways by removing or reducing pavements. The World Bank is now busy extending loan to the Mumbai authorities for the MUTP which includes constructing of pavementless six lane carriageways in predominantly residential areas. One road abuts Powai Lake, a water source for Mumbai. After admitting that Mumbai has very high SPM levels and many of the roads of Mumbai do not have pavements the authorities with the World Bank backing have rejected outright a citizen proposal to allocate Rs 2 billion out of estimated cost of Rs 60 billion for constructing pavements. The Bank supports motorisation through road construction while paying lip service to environment protection and citizen convenience. ********************** A city is not civilised until it offers freedom to walk about, says architect By Vidyadhar Date Times News Network The way some people see it, the local residents opposition to the planned Pedder Road flyover is hindering Mumbai's traffic flow. That is not quite true, said Austrian architect, Peter Schreibmayer, who was in Mumbai recently. He said the trend around Europe is not only to halt construction of flyovers, but to actually reduce width of existing roads to discourage the flow of vehicular traffic. The result is that European cities and towns are far more livable than cities in the automobile-dominated U.S., he said. The width of roads is being reduced in various ways, including creating gardens on some portions. More streets are completely closed to cars. This has greatly enhanced civic life. About one-third of journeys in European cities are made on foot. Cities are not civilised until there is freedom to walk about, said Mr Schreibmayer, who was in Mumbai to deliver the keynote address at a conference on humane habitat. According to former minister of state for urban development and resident of Pedder Road for nearly 40 years, B.A. Desai the entire area from Haji Ali to Colaba should not tampered with because it has some of the finest buildings in the country, he said. He claimed that with the Bandra-Nariman Point freeway coming up, there would be little need for the Pedder Road flyover. What the area really needs is low-cost solutions, like proper footpaths and a more humane traffic management, said President of the Pedder Road Residents Association and former chairperson of the Mumbai Local History Society, Veena Singhal. Several people in the area have been injured in the last few years because of lack of proper footpaths and inadequate traffic management. Nalanda Building alone has seen two of its senior citizens, Pushpa Vakil, 57 and H. L. Dhruv, 68, die in road accidents. A college student Punit Kumar, was lucky to survive an injury some time ago. But Ramnik Shah, a resident in the neighbouring Jeweller Apartment, was killed in another incident. The municipal corporation's callousness towards pedestrians is inexcusable, environmentalist Kisan Mehta pointed out to a World Bank team during its recent visit to consider the Mumbai Urban Transport Project (MUTP). "It is hazardous to cross Pedder Road because very often signals are switched off, resulting in an endless flow of traffic," said president of Nalanda Cooperative Housing Society Amul Shah. During peak hours, pedestrians are confronted by vehicles coming from the wrong side as an additional lane is opened to vehicular traffic. The authorities should much rather seek low-cost, people-friendly solutions like improving public transport, said Ramesh Singhal, a company executive. Mr Singhal, who worked for several years in the U.K. recalled that even senior executives travelled to work by underground railway. They left their cars some distance away and used public transport to reach their offices. The municipal corporation is using double standards. It is not performing its basic task of constructing footpaths and is even destroying existing ones. Yet, it wants to acquire land to widen roads for cars, complained Mr Mehta. The latest move is to acquire a stretch of land belonging to St Stanislaus School in Bandra. This has met with strong opposition from citizens. ****************** Priya Salvi and Kisan Mehta From sujit at vsnl.com Sun Feb 24 00:41:51 2002 From: sujit at vsnl.com (Sujit Patwardhan) Date: Sat, 23 Feb 2002 21:11:51 +0530 Subject: [sustran] Bus Transport Message-ID: <5.1.0.14.0.20020223203543.00aaa730@202.54.10.1> 23 February 2002 Dear Sustran Friends, There is an interesting piece (please see the link below) http://www1.timesofindia.com/articleshow.asp?art_id=1800615 in today's Times of India, Mumbai edition (Saturday February 2002) in the Interview section, where Dr Geetam Tiwari makes convincing points in favour of a bus based public transport system for Indian cities. Unfortunately our decision makers continue ignoring this sane perspective. -- Sujit Patwardhan ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Sujit Patwardhan. PARISAR, Yamuna, ICS Colony, Ganeshkhind Road, Pune 411 007 Tel: 5537955 Email: sujit@vsnl.com ***************************************************************** In nature there are neither Rewards nor Punishments--- there are Consequences. ***************************************************************** From howes at emirates.net.ae Sun Feb 24 23:41:33 2002 From: howes at emirates.net.ae (Alan P Howes) Date: Sun, 24 Feb 2002 18:41:33 +0400 Subject: [sustran] Re: World Bank supporting motorization at the cost of environment and pedestrian safety In-Reply-To: <000701c1bc31$d92cdd20$3226020a@im.eth.net> References: <000701c1bc31$d92cdd20$3226020a@im.eth.net> Message-ID: "A city is not civilised until it offers freedom to walk about" - I like that. Few (in fact probably no) civilised cities in the Gulf then. Isn't it amazing how unwilling people are (even well-educated professionals) to learn from experience elsewhere. On Sat, 23 Feb 2002 11:47:59 +0530, kisan mehta wrote to sustran-discuss : >Dear Sustran Colleagues, > >The following article appeared in the Times of India, >Mumbai edition of 19 Feb 2002 exposes the preference >of the authorities for more carriageways by removing or reducing pavements. >The World Bank is now busy >extending loan to the Mumbai authorities for the MUTP >which includes constructing of pavementless six lane carriageways in >predominantly residential areas. One >road abuts Powai Lake, a water source for Mumbai. After admitting that >Mumbai has very high SPM >levels and many of the roads of Mumbai do not have >pavements the authorities with the World Bank >backing have rejected outright a citizen proposal to >allocate Rs 2 billion out of estimated cost of Rs 60 >billion for constructing pavements. The Bank supports motorisation through >road construction while paying lip >service to environment protection and citizen >convenience. >********************** >A city is not civilised until it offers freedom to walk about, >says architect >By Vidyadhar Date Times News Network > >The way some people see it, the local residents opposition >to the planned Pedder Road flyover is hindering Mumbai's >traffic flow. That is not quite true, said Austrian architect, >Peter Schreibmayer, who was in Mumbai recently. He >said the trend around Europe is not only to halt >construction of flyovers, but to actually reduce width of >existing roads to discourage the flow of vehicular traffic. > >The result is that European cities and towns are far more >livable than cities in the automobile-dominated U.S., he >said. The width of roads is being reduced in various ways, including >creating gardens on some portions. More >streets are completely closed to cars. This has greatly enhanced civic >life. About one-third of journeys in >European cities are made on foot. Cities are not civilised >until there is freedom to walk about, said Mr Schreibmayer, >who was in Mumbai to deliver the keynote address at a conference on humane >habitat. > >According to former minister of state for urban development >and resident of Pedder Road for nearly 40 years, B.A. >Desai the entire area from Haji Ali to Colaba should not tampered with >because it has some of the finest buildings >in the country, he said. He claimed that with the Bandra-Nariman Point >freeway coming up, there would be little >need for the Pedder Road flyover. What the area really >needs is low-cost solutions, like proper footpaths and a >more humane traffic management, said President of the >Pedder Road Residents Association and former >chairperson of the Mumbai Local History Society, Veena Singhal. > >Several people in the area have been injured in the last >few years because of lack of proper footpaths and >inadequate traffic management. Nalanda Building alone >has seen two of its senior citizens, Pushpa Vakil, 57 >and H. L. Dhruv, 68, die in road accidents. A college >student Punit Kumar, was lucky to survive an injury >some time ago. But Ramnik Shah, a resident in the neighbouring Jeweller >Apartment, was killed in another >incident. > >The municipal corporation's callousness towards >pedestrians is inexcusable, environmentalist >Kisan Mehta pointed out to a World Bank team during >its recent visit to consider the Mumbai Urban Transport >Project (MUTP). > >"It is hazardous to cross Pedder Road because very >often signals are switched off, resulting in an endless >flow of traffic," said president of Nalanda Cooperative >Housing Society Amul Shah. During peak hours, >pedestrians are confronted by vehicles coming from >the wrong side as an additional lane is opened to >vehicular traffic. > >The authorities should much rather seek low-cost, >people-friendly solutions like improving public transport, >said Ramesh Singhal, a company executive. Mr Singhal, >who worked for several years in the U.K. recalled that >even senior executives travelled to work by underground railway. They left >their cars some distance away and >used public transport to reach their offices. > >The municipal corporation is using double standards. It >is not performing its basic task of constructing footpaths >and is even destroying existing ones. Yet, it wants to >acquire land to widen roads for cars, complained Mr >Mehta. The latest move is to acquire a stretch of land belonging to St >Stanislaus School in Bandra. This has >met with strong opposition from citizens. > >****************** >Priya Salvi and Kisan Mehta -- Alan Howes, Dubai, UAE (Otherwise Perthshire, Scotland) alaninthegulf@yahoo.co.uk Professional website (Needs Updating!): http://www.users.zetnet.co.uk/alanhowes/ From APHOWES at dm.gov.ae Mon Feb 25 13:00:13 2002 From: APHOWES at dm.gov.ae (Alan Patrick Howes) Date: Mon, 25 Feb 2002 08:00:13 +0400 Subject: [sustran] Re: Bus Transport Message-ID: "Unfortunately our decision makers continue ignoring this sane perspective." - yes, here too! However, I was particularly interested by the last paragraphs of the item - "Has this [high capacity busway] system been successfully implemented elsewhere in the world? This system has been very successfully implemented in many Latin American, European and Asian cities. Curitiba in Brazil was the first to adopt it. It has also been introduced in Bogota in Columbia, Nagoya in Japan, Utrecht in Holland and Kunming in China. Bangalore will be the first city in India to adopt it." Bangalore doesn't get a mention anywhere els in the item. Can you tell us more? -- Alan P Howes, Special Transport Advisor, Dubai Municipality Public Transport Department aphowes@dm.gov.ae Tel: +971 4 286 1616 ext 214 Mobile: +971 50 5989661 -----Original Message----- From: Sujit Patwardhan [mailto:sujit@vsnl.com] Sent: Saturday, February 23, 2002 7:42 PM To: sustran-discuss@jca.ax.apc.org Subject: [sustran] Bus Transport 23 February 2002 Dear Sustran Friends, There is an interesting piece (please see the link below) http://www1.timesofindia.com/articleshow.asp?art_id=1800615 in today's Times of India, Mumbai edition (Saturday February 2002) in the Interview section, where Dr Geetam Tiwari makes convincing points in favour of a bus based public transport system for Indian cities. Unfortunately our decision makers continue ignoring this sane perspective. -- Sujit Patwardhan ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- --- Sujit Patwardhan. PARISAR, Yamuna, ICS Colony, Ganeshkhind Road, Pune 411 007 Tel: 5537955 Email: sujit@vsnl.com ***************************************************************** In nature there are neither Rewards nor Punishments--- there are Consequences. ***************************************************************** From geobpa at nus.edu.sg Mon Feb 25 14:27:36 2002 From: geobpa at nus.edu.sg (Paul Barter) Date: Mon, 25 Feb 2002 13:27:36 +0800 Subject: [sustran] FW: BOUNCE sustran-discuss@jca.ax.apc.org: Non-member submissi on from [dhingra ] Message-ID: <2C9E855D35B9D01198190020AFFBE8CB0F47D155@exs04.ex.nus.edu.sg> -----Original Message----- From: owner-sustran-discuss@jca.ax.apc.org [mailto:owner-sustran-discuss@jca.ax.apc.org] Sent: Sunday, 24 February 2002 4:35 PM To: sustran-discuss-approval@jca.apc.org Subject: BOUNCE sustran-discuss@jca.ax.apc.org: Non-member submission from [dhingra ] To: sustran-discuss@jca.ax.apc.org Subject: Re: [sustran] Bus Transport References: <5.1.0.14.0.20020223203543.00aaa730@202.54.10.1> Content-Type: text/plain; charset=us-ascii Content-Transfer-Encoding: 7bit Dear Sustran Friends, Let's not be misled by HCBS some ideas of which have been presented by Dr Geetam Tiwari. This HCBS discussed by her has been advocated for at least since 1982 in India at a seminar on Transportation Research at School of Planning & Arch New Delhi when a detailed presentation was made including it's design and technical aspects. What she is talking about is basically dedicated bus system may at grade or elevated one.The dedicated at grade bus lanes were recommended by the so-called Comprehensive Transportation study,1993 by W S Atkins for the central corridor in Mumbai.Inspite of the fact that WB funding/ loan is promised for part of MUTP-II, this has yet not been tried as yet.May be the insufficiency of the road width ,which is normally the case, could be the reason here.Any elevated dedicated rail/bus route , in the middle of the road,will be most welcome as it is cost-effective,particularly the electricity based rail sytem as it will be more sustainable and with much increased capacity and similar cost. One of the case study cited by her is of Nagoya which myself andmy colleague, Prof KVK Rao visited last August.For her information and info' of all of us, the key route and guided bus route systems of Nagoya are basically are guided by horizontal small wheels .Hopefully she is talking about the dedicated bus route system only otherewise it won't provide high capacity at all and will mislead us.One rail based system(skybus) is poised for implementation between Andheri and Ghatkopar in Mumbai soon. This has already appeared in the News papers. This is being given just to clarify dedicated at grade/elevated mass transportation( rail/road) systems vis-a-vis HCBS . sincerely * Dr S. L DHINGRA * * Prof. of TRANSP. SYSTEMS ENGG. (TSE) * * CIVIL ENGINEERING DEPARTMENT * * INDIAN INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY * * POWAI,BOMBAY-400 076,INDIA * * VOICE:091-022-5767329/01(OFF)/8329(RES) * * 5720001(RES) Private * * 5722545 EXTN 7329/7301(Off)* * 5726530 .. 7348(LAB) * * .. 8329(RES) * * FAX :091-022-5767302/5723480 * * GRAMS:TECHNOLOGY,BOMBY,INDIA * * TELEX:011-72313 IITB IN * * EMAIL:dhingra@civil.iitb.ac.in * * URL:http://www.civil.iitb.ac.in/ * * civil_people/faculty_dir/dhingra/ * * index.html * ******************************************** Sujit Patwardhan wrote: > 23 February 2002 > > Dear Sustran Friends, > There is an interesting piece (please see the link below) > http://www1.timesofindia.com/articleshow.asp?art_id=1800615 > in today's Times of India, Mumbai edition (Saturday February 2002) in > the Interview section, where Dr Geetam Tiwari makes convincing points > in favour of a bus based public transport system for Indian cities. > Unfortunately our decision makers continue ignoring this sane > perspective. > -- > Sujit Patwardhan > > ---------------------------------------------------------------------- > --------- > Sujit Patwardhan. > PARISAR, > Yamuna, ICS Colony, Ganeshkhind Road, Pune 411 007 > Tel: 5537955 > Email: sujit@vsnl.com > ***************************************************************** > In nature there are neither Rewards nor Punishments--- > there are Consequences. > ***************************************************************** From geobpa at nus.edu.sg Mon Feb 25 14:28:53 2002 From: geobpa at nus.edu.sg (Paul Barter) Date: Mon, 25 Feb 2002 13:28:53 +0800 Subject: [sustran] FW: BOUNCE sustran-discuss@jca.ax.apc.org: Non-member submissi on from ["John Whitelegg" ] Message-ID: <2C9E855D35B9D01198190020AFFBE8CB0F47D157@exs04.ex.nus.edu.sg> -----Original Message----- From: owner-sustran-discuss@jca.ax.apc.org [mailto:owner-sustran-discuss@jca.ax.apc.org] Sent: Sunday, 24 February 2002 10:07 AM To: sustran-discuss-approval@jca.apc.org Subject: BOUNCE sustran-discuss@jca.ax.apc.org: Non-member submission from ["John Whitelegg" ] From: "John Whitelegg" To: sustran-discuss@jca.ax.apc.org Subject: Re: [sustran] Re: TDM in Perth, WA - 14% car-driver trip reductio n Date: Sun, 24 Feb 2002 02:05:49 +0000 Mime-Version: 1.0 Content-Type: text/plain; format=flowed Message-ID: X-OriginalArrivalTime: 24 Feb 2002 02:05:49.0830 (UTC) FILETIME=[C7BFA260:01C1BCD7] Dear Sustran discussants, I've just returned from a 3 week, 6 state lecture tour of Australia. Travel Smart is fantastic in Perth and is growing in importance elsewhere. there is a really goood scheme in Brisbane. However please be cautious about all this. Australian cities are all embarking on massive freeway construction, suburbanistaion, sprwal etc and the generation of addtional traffic far outweighs the gains in TS. The authorities in Brisbane are especially gung-ho about billions of dollars of new highway capacity and rject totally the idea that new capacity will fuel the increase in traffic and short distance car trips. veruy best wishes John Whitelegg >From: "Perkins, Alan (TSA)" >Reply-To: sustran-discuss@jca.ax.apc.org >To: "'sustran-discuss@jca.ax.apc.org'" >Subject: [sustran] Re: TDM in Perth, WA - 14% car-driver trip reductio >n >Date: Fri, 22 Feb 2002 16:48:15 +1030 > >Alan and Sustraners, > >I think that there is a long way to go to know how successful these >approaches will prove to be in different parts of the world. >Small-scale Travel Blending projects were tried in Leeds and >Nottingham, but have not been reported on, and may not have been very >successful. What we have learned here is that people's reasons for >making travel behaviour changes may be varied. Time of course is a big >issue for many two-worker Australian households with children. If >spending a little time planning the household's travel pays off in more >shared car trips and more trip chaining, >and the neighbours can walk the children to school three mornings a week, >the time and hassle savings may be sufficient justification. Is time an >issue in Dubai? > >I guess, petrol in Australia is not expensive by western world >standards (around US 50 cents per litre) and incomes are high, so money >savings would not be a sufficient reason for most people to reduce car >travel. > >In Santiago it may be that time is an issue because of congestion, and >if public transport is extensive, people may be willing to leave the >car at home for some trips - I don't know. It seems to me that the >good thing is that the idea of travel behaviour change projects that >cover all household travel is "out of the bag" and many versions may in >due course be developed in response to local needs. > >If you want to know more specifically about Travel Blending contact Liz >Ampt >- l.ampt@sdgworld.net.au - at Steer Davies Gleave. She's run travel >blending projects in Adelaide, Brisbane, Santiago, New Jersey and the UK >examples so far. > >Regards, > >Alan Perkins > >Alan Perkins >Adviser, Sustainable Transport and Planning >Transport Policy Group >Transport SA >PO Box 1 >Walkerville >South Australia >5081 >ph 61 (8) 8343 2436 >fax 61 (8) 8343 2939 >alan.perkins@transport.sa.gov.au > > >-----Original Message----- >From: Alan P Howes [mailto:howes@emirates.net.ae] >Sent: Friday, 22 February 2002 1:11 AM >To: sustran-discuss@jca.ax.apc.org >Subject: [sustran] Re: TDM in Perth, WA - 14% car-driver trip reductio >n > > >There's some very interesting stuff being posted lately. I will try to >get my Transportation Planning colleagues in Dubai interested. Trouble >is, that they still think here that Transportation Planning = Road >Planning. > >One specific wrt to Alan's Really Useful Posting below - can anyone >tell me the price of motor fuel in Santiago? Here it is just about 23 >cents US per litre, and other costs of running a car are very low - are >Travel Blending or Individual marketing likely to make any headway in >this context? (While there are a large number of South Asian labourers >here on USD 135 per month or less, most people get double that or >more.) > >[NB: Sems odd quoting gas prices in USD/litre - what's the >international standard? The UAE is probably about the last place in the >world to sell road fuel in Imperial (not US) gallons!] > > >On Tue, 19 Feb 2002 14:52:51 +1030, "Perkins, Alan (TSA)" > wrote to >"'sustran-discuss@jca.ax.apc.org'" : > > > > > >Of particular interest to Sustraners may be the reported results of > >an application of Travel Blending in Santiago (was anyone on the > >SUSTRAN network involved in this?). A 17% reduction in car driver > >trips (as a proportion of participating and non-participating > >households combined) >was > >achieved, with a 23% reduction in car driver kilometres and a 17% >reduction > >in time spent travelling (info. provided by the proponents of Travel > >Blending, Steer Davies Gleave). > >-- >Alan Howes, Dubai, UAE (Otherwise Perthshire, Scotland) >alaninthegulf@yahoo.co.uk >Professional website (Needs Updating!): >http://www.users.zetnet.co.uk/alanhowes/ _________________________________________________________________ MSN Photos is the easiest way to share and print your photos: http://photos.msn.com/support/worldwide.aspx From sujit at vsnl.com Mon Feb 25 15:38:17 2002 From: sujit at vsnl.com (Sujit Patwardhan) Date: Mon, 25 Feb 2002 12:08:17 +0530 Subject: [sustran] Re: Bus Transport In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <5.1.0.14.0.20020225120208.00aa3ec0@202.54.10.1> 25 February 2002 Dear Alan, I too was surprised to see Bangalore on the list and am trying to get the details. Will share the information with the group... or perhaps Dinesh Mohan can kindly enlighten us ? -- Sujit At 08:00 AM 2/25/02 +0400, you wrote: >"Unfortunately our decision makers continue ignoring this sane perspective." >- >yes, here too! > >However, I was particularly interested by the last paragraphs of the item - > >"Has this [high capacity busway] system been successfully implemented >elsewhere in the world? > >This system has been very successfully implemented in many Latin American, >European and Asian cities. Curitiba in Brazil was the first to adopt it. It >has also been introduced in Bogota in Columbia, Nagoya in Japan, Utrecht in >Holland and Kunming in China. Bangalore will be the first city in India to >adopt it." > >Bangalore doesn't get a mention anywhere els in the item. Can you tell us >more? > >-- >Alan P Howes, Special Transport Advisor, > Dubai Municipality Public Transport Department >aphowes@dm.gov.ae >Tel: +971 4 286 1616 ext 214 >Mobile: +971 50 5989661 > > >-----Original Message----- >From: Sujit Patwardhan [mailto:sujit@vsnl.com] >Sent: Saturday, February 23, 2002 7:42 PM >To: sustran-discuss@jca.ax.apc.org >Subject: [sustran] Bus Transport > > >23 February 2002 > >Dear Sustran Friends, >There is an interesting piece (please see the link below) >http://www1.timesofindia.com/articleshow.asp?art_id=1800615 >in today's Times of India, Mumbai edition (Saturday February 2002) in the >Interview section, where Dr Geetam Tiwari makes convincing points in favour >of a bus based public transport system for Indian cities. Unfortunately our >decision makers continue ignoring this sane perspective. >-- >Sujit Patwardhan > > > > > >---------------------------------------------------------------------------- >--- >Sujit Patwardhan. >PARISAR, >Yamuna, ICS Colony, Ganeshkhind Road, Pune 411 007 >Tel: 5537955 >Email: sujit@vsnl.com >***************************************************************** >In nature there are neither Rewards nor Punishments--- >there are Consequences. >***************************************************************** From townsend at central.murdoch.edu.au Tue Feb 26 11:36:19 2002 From: townsend at central.murdoch.edu.au (Craig Townsend) Date: Tue, 26 Feb 2002 10:36:19 +0800 Subject: [sustran] Re: ] In-Reply-To: <2C9E855D35B9D01198190020AFFBE8CB0F47D157@exs04.ex.nus.edu. sg> Message-ID: <5.0.2.1.0.20020226102040.009fb9b0@central.murdoch.edu.au> I agree wholeheartedly with Prof. Whitelegg, and would urge caution to our colleagues in cities of developing Asian nations in following Australia. While TS is an excellent measure in the Perth context, in some sense it is an "add-on" (along with busways and segregated cycle lanes) to one of the most automobile dependent transportation systems in the world. If you tell your road engineers to follow the Perth example, they may ask you for a blank cheque! I would also like to add to Dr. Dhingra's comments. Busways may be successful in mid-size, mid-density "provincial" cities like Curitiba, Nagoya, and Kunming; but there are compelling technical and political reasons why Sao Paulo, Tokyo, and Shanghai have high capacity rail systems running along main corridors, and why these systems are all being expanded. While mobilizing finance for heavy rail systems may be a challenge, as India's economy expands, large and high density mega-cities such as Mumbai and Kolkata must have rail, bus, and NMT oriented transport systems. Best wishes, Craig Townsend >Dear Sustran discussants, > >I've just returned from a 3 week, 6 state lecture tour of Australia. Travel > >Smart is fantastic in Perth and is growing in importance elsewhere. there >is a really goood scheme in Brisbane. > >However please be cautious about all this. Australian cities are all >embarking on massive freeway construction, suburbanistaion, sprwal etc and >the generation of addtional traffic far outweighs the gains in TS. The >authorities in Brisbane are especially gung-ho about billions of dollars of >new highway capacity and rject totally the idea that new capacity will fuel >the increase in traffic and short distance car trips. > >veruy best wishes > >John Whitelegg >Dear Sustran Friends, > Let's not be misled by HCBS some ideas of which have >been presented by Dr Geetam Tiwari. > This HCBS discussed by her has been advocated for at least >since >1982 in India at a seminar on Transportation Research at School of >Planning & >Arch New Delhi when a detailed presentation was made including it's design >and technical aspects. What she is talking about is basically dedicated bus >system may at grade or elevated one.The dedicated at grade bus lanes were >recommended by the so-called Comprehensive Transportation study,1993 by W S >Atkins for the central corridor in Mumbai.Inspite of the fact that WB >funding/ loan is promised for part of MUTP-II, this has yet not been tried >as yet.May be the insufficiency of the road width ,which is normally the >case, could be the reason here.Any elevated dedicated rail/bus route , in >the middle of the road,will be most welcome as it is >cost-effective,particularly the electricity based rail sytem as it will be >more sustainable and with much increased capacity and similar cost. One of >the case study cited by her is of Nagoya which myself andmy colleague, Prof >KVK Rao visited last August.For her information and info' of all of us, >the key route and guided bus route systems of Nagoya are basically are From lfwright at usa.net Tue Feb 26 21:09:02 2002 From: lfwright at usa.net (Lloyd Wright) Date: Tue, 26 Feb 2002 07:09:02 EST Subject: [sustran] Re: Bus and rail Message-ID: <20020226120902.27055.qmail@cpdvg100.netaddress.usa.net> I think one has to be careful about saying that bus rapid transit is not appropriate in large and dense cities. Bogota has a population of 7 million people and 210 inhabitants per hectare. Its TransMilenio bus system delivers high quality, high-capacity transit quite well within this urban structure. TransMilenio is hitting around 27,000 passengers per hour per direction (pphd) using an innovative express lane system. Porto Alegre's bys system delivers 28,500 pphd peak using a single lane convoy technique. And Sao Paulo hits 35,000 pphd using passing lanes on its busway. There may be reasons to prefer rail over bus, but capacity is not so much the issue. In reality, I do not like to get into discussions pitting one form of transit against another since I prefer to be pro-transit regardless of the form. Actually, much of what we like about well-run metros, rail, and bus systems can be achieved with any of the options. Namely, efficient pre-board fare collection, dedicated right of ways, clean and safe stations, rapid boarding and alighting, and superior customer service. Whether these qualities are delivered on rubber tyres or a steel rail is sometimes less important than making sure that these issues are addressed (and sadly, most of the world's transit sytems do not). The reason high quality bus systems like those in Curitiba and Bogota deserve consideration is cost. Curitiba was built for $1.5 million per kilometer and the very deluxe Bogota system was built for $5.3 million per kilometer. The lowest cost light rail systems start at around $12 million per kilometer. Urban rail is typically in the range of $20 million to $30 million, and underground metros generally start at around $55 million and can be over $100 million per kilometer. Nevertheless, there are certainly times when rail is appropriate, but one should not discount high quality bus systems, especially if it is a trade-off between having one line versus an entire network for the city. Best regards, Lloyd Lloyd Wright Director, Latin America Institute for Transportation & Development Policy 115 West 30th Street, Suite 1205 New York, NY 10001 tel. +1 212 629 8001 fax +1 212 629 8033 email LFWright@usa.net web www.itdp.org Craig Townsend wrote: I agree wholeheartedly with Prof. Whitelegg, and would urge caution to our colleagues in cities of developing Asian nations in following Australia. While TS is an excellent measure in the Perth context, in some sense it is an "add-on" (along with busways and segregated cycle lanes) to one of the most automobile dependent transportation systems in the world. If you tell your road engineers to follow the Perth example, they may ask you for a blank cheque! I would also like to add to Dr. Dhingra's comments. Busways may be successful in mid-size, mid-density "provincial" cities like Curitiba, Nagoya, and Kunming; but there are compelling technical and political reasons why Sao Paulo, Tokyo, and Shanghai have high capacity rail systems running along main corridors, and why these systems are all being expanded. While mobilizing finance for heavy rail systems may be a challenge, as India's economy expands, large and high density mega-cities such as Mumbai and Kolkata must have rail, bus, and NMT oriented transport systems. Best wishes, Craig Townsend ____________________________________________________________________ Get free e-mail and a permanent address at http://www.amexmail.com/?A=1 From geobpa at nus.edu.sg Wed Feb 27 11:42:10 2002 From: geobpa at nus.edu.sg (Paul Barter) Date: Wed, 27 Feb 2002 10:42:10 +0800 Subject: [sustran] FW: NUS Architecture 2nd Great Asian Streets Symposium: Public Sp ace 2002 - 25 & 26 July 2002 (1st Call for Papers) Message-ID: <2C9E855D35B9D01198190020AFFBE8CB0F47D2B3@exs04.ex.nus.edu.sg> -----Original Message----- From: Tey Hong Yee Sent: Tuesday, 26 February, 2002 4:16 PM Subject: NUS Architecture 2nd Great Asian Streets Symposium: Public Space 2002 - 25 & 26 July 2002 (1st Call for Papers) Dear colleagues, students, associates & friends You are cordially invited to participate in our 2nd Great Asian Streets Symposium: Public Space 2002 on 25 & 26 July 2002, organised by the Centre for Advanced Studies in Architecture, Department of Architecture, School of Design and Environment, National University of Singapore. For details and registrations, please visit our Continuing Professional Development (CPD) website at <>. For enquiries, please contact Ms Emily Ong at tel: (65) 874 4881 or email: gass@nus.edu.sg For a list of our forthcoming events, please refer to . We look forward to seeing you! Centre for Advanced Studies in Architecture (CASA) Department of Architecture School of Design and Environment National University of Singapore www.arch.nus.edu.sg/casa From APHOWES at dm.gov.ae Wed Feb 27 12:41:38 2002 From: APHOWES at dm.gov.ae (Alan Patrick Howes) Date: Wed, 27 Feb 2002 07:41:38 +0400 Subject: [sustran] Re: Bus and rail Message-ID: That just about says it all, IMO. Apart from the fact (again IMO) that there is a particular problem about rail systems in less developed countries - particularly those experiencing rapid economic growth. In such countries, there tends to be far less certainty about future land use distribution, and intensities of residential and commercial development. Major developments may be built, or not built, virtually on a whim - totally different to the well-directed land use planning that is the case in Europe, and even, to a lesser extent, in North America (I think!). Planning and design horizons for rail are relatively long, and it can well happen that by the time a line is built, the assumptions on which it was planned have changed radically. In such a case you can hardly pick up the rails and put them elsewhere - a much more realistic option with a busway, where the capital investment per km. is much lower. All opinions are my own. -- Alan P Howes, Special Transport Advisor, Dubai Municipality Public Transport Department aphowes@dm.gov.ae Tel: +971 4 286 1616 ext 214 Mobile: +971 50 5989661 > -----Original Message----- > From: Lloyd Wright [mailto:lfwright@usa.net] > Sent: Tuesday, February 26, 2002 4:09 PM > To: sustran-discuss@jca.ax.apc.org > Subject: [sustran] Re: Bus and rail > > > I think one has to be careful about saying that bus rapid > transit is not > appropriate in large and dense cities. Bogota has a > population of 7 million > people and 210 inhabitants per hectare. Its TransMilenio bus > system delivers > high quality, high-capacity transit quite well within this > urban structure. > TransMilenio is hitting around 27,000 passengers per hour per > direction (pphd) > using an innovative express lane system. Porto Alegre's bys > system delivers > 28,500 pphd peak using a single lane convoy technique. And > Sao Paulo hits > 35,000 pphd using passing lanes on its busway. There may be > reasons to prefer > rail over bus, but capacity is not so much the issue. > > In reality, I do not like to get into discussions pitting one > form of transit > against another since I prefer to be pro-transit regardless > of the form. > Actually, much of what we like about well-run metros, rail, > and bus systems > can be achieved with any of the options. Namely, efficient > pre-board fare > collection, dedicated right of ways, clean and safe stations, > rapid boarding > and alighting, and superior customer service. Whether these > qualities are > delivered on rubber tyres or a steel rail is sometimes less > important than > making sure that these issues are addressed (and sadly, most > of the world's > transit sytems do not). > > The reason high quality bus systems like those in Curitiba > and Bogota deserve > consideration is cost. Curitiba was built for $1.5 million > per kilometer and > the very deluxe Bogota system was built for $5.3 million per > kilometer. The > lowest cost light rail systems start at around $12 million > per kilometer. > Urban rail is typically in the range of $20 million to $30 > million, and > underground metros generally start at around $55 million and > can be over $100 > million per kilometer. Nevertheless, there are certainly > times when rail is > appropriate, but one should not discount high quality bus > systems, especially > if it is a trade-off between having one line versus an entire > network for the > city. > > Best regards, > > Lloyd > > Lloyd Wright > Director, Latin America > Institute for Transportation & Development Policy > 115 West 30th Street, Suite 1205 > New York, NY 10001 > tel. +1 212 629 8001 > fax +1 212 629 8033 > email LFWright@usa.net > web www.itdp.org From dhingra at civil.iitb.ac.in Wed Feb 27 21:28:15 2002 From: dhingra at civil.iitb.ac.in (Prof S L Dhingra) Date: Wed, 27 Feb 2002 17:58:15 +0530 (IST) Subject: [sustran] Re: Bus and rail (fwd) Message-ID: Contd. Correction Please read "Population 8-10 millon or more" in place of population 80-100 million or more" in my earlier mail. ---------- Forwarded message ---------- Date: Tue, 26 Feb 2002 20:10:17 +0530 (IST) From: Prof S L Dhingra To: sustran-discuss@jca.ax.apc.org Subject: Re: [sustran] Re: Bus and rail I agree to the figures given by Lloyd Wright for for bus and rail systems. Whlie Dedicated bus may cost half of the dedicated elevated rail system for the capacity of 15000-30000 pphpd.Bus system is cost effective except for the air pollution.Of course one would be looking for capacity of 60000-80000 pphpd in the mega cities with population of 8-10 million or more will need high capacity transit. On Tue, 26 Feb 2002, Lloyd Wright wrote: > I think one has to be careful about saying that bus rapid transit is not > appropriate in large and dense cities. Bogota has a population of 7 million > people and 210 inhabitants per hectare. Its TransMilenio bus system delivers > high quality, high-capacity transit quite well within this urban structure. > TransMilenio is hitting around 27,000 passengers per hour per direction (pphd) > using an innovative express lane system. Porto Alegre's bys system delivers > 28,500 pphd peak using a single lane convoy technique. And Sao Paulo hits > 35,000 pphd using passing lanes on its busway. There may be reasons to prefer > rail over bus, but capacity is not so much the issue. > > In reality, I do not like to get into discussions pitting one form of transit > against another since I prefer to be pro-transit regardless of the form. > Actually, much of what we like about well-run metros, rail, and bus systems > can be achieved with any of the options. Namely, efficient pre-board fare > collection, dedicated right of ways, clean and safe stations, rapid boarding > and alighting, and superior customer service. Whether these qualities are > delivered on rubber tyres or a steel rail is sometimes less important than > making sure that these issues are addressed (and sadly, most of the world's > transit sytems do not). > > The reason high quality bus systems like those in Curitiba and Bogota deserve > consideration is cost. Curitiba was built for $1.5 million per kilometer and > the very deluxe Bogota system was built for $5.3 million per kilometer. The > lowest cost light rail systems start at around $12 million per kilometer. > Urban rail is typically in the range of $20 million to $30 million, and > underground metros generally start at around $55 million and can be over $100 > million per kilometer. Nevertheless, there are certainly times when rail is > appropriate, but one should not discount high quality bus systems, especially > if it is a trade-off between having one line versus an entire network for the > city. > > Best regards, > > Lloyd > > Lloyd Wright > Director, Latin America > Institute for Transportation & Development Policy > 115 West 30th Street, Suite 1205 > New York, NY 10001 > tel. +1 212 629 8001 > fax +1 212 629 8033 > email LFWright@usa.net > web www.itdp.org > > Craig Townsend wrote: > I agree wholeheartedly with Prof. Whitelegg, and would urge caution to our > colleagues in cities of developing Asian nations in following Australia. While > TS is an excellent measure in the Perth context, in some sense it is an > "add-on" (along with busways and segregated cycle lanes) to one of the most > automobile dependent transportation systems in the world. If you tell your > road engineers to follow the Perth example, they may ask you for a blank > cheque! > > I would also like to add to Dr. Dhingra's comments. Busways may be > successful in mid-size, mid-density "provincial" cities like Curitiba, > Nagoya, and Kunming; but there are compelling technical and political > reasons why Sao Paulo, Tokyo, and Shanghai have high capacity rail systems > running along main corridors, and why these systems are all being expanded. > While mobilizing finance for heavy rail systems may be a challenge, as > India's economy expands, large and high density mega-cities such as Mumbai and > Kolkata must have rail, bus, and NMT oriented transport systems. > > Best wishes, > > Craig Townsend > > > ____________________________________________________________________ > Get free e-mail and a permanent address at http://www.amexmail.com/?A=1 > -- With warm compliments, Sincerely, dhingra ***********end of message******************* * Dr S. L DHINGRA * * Prof. of TRANSP. SYSTEMS ENGG. (TSE) * * CIVIL ENGINEERING DEPARTMENT * * INDIAN INSTITUTE OF TECHNOLOGY * * POWAI,BOMBAY-400 076,INDIA * * VOICE:091-022-5767329/01(OFF)/8329(RES) * * 5720001(RES) Private * * 5722545 EXTN 7329/7301(Off)* * 5726530 .. 7348(LAB) * * .. 8329(RES) * * FAX :091-022-5767302/5723480 * * GRAMS:TECHNOLOGY,BOMBY,INDIA * * TELEX:011-72313 IITB IN * * EMAIL:dhingra@civil.iitb.ac.in * * URL:http://www.civil.iitb.ac.in/ * * civil_people/faculty_dir/dhingra/ * * index.html * ******************************************** From townsend at central.murdoch.edu.au Thu Feb 28 11:06:31 2002 From: townsend at central.murdoch.edu.au (Craig Townsend) Date: Thu, 28 Feb 2002 10:06:31 +0800 Subject: [sustran] Re: Bus and rail (fwd) In-Reply-To: Message-ID: <5.0.2.1.0.20020228094955.009fe6d0@central.murdoch.edu.au> Not including externalities and long term costs and benefits of operations, there are additional benefits to construction of rail. Supply of E & M equipment and steel contribute toward heavy industrialization and the provision of high skill, well paid jobs, and technological spin-offs: this has been done in Japan and more recently in Korea. The benefits are such that industrialized nations are willing to offer loans on very favourable terms in order to build rail systems in industrializing nations. Bangkok's subway is under construction with a loan from the Japan Bank for International Cooperation (formerly OECF) with an interest rate of 0.75% for 40 years and a 10 year grace period. I would be interested to know how the costs of capital for construction differ between rail and busway. Some of the comparisons being made appear to be between at-grade busways and elevated rail. I would suggest that this is an inappropriate comparison unless the rights of way required are really that different. How do the rights of way compare between busway systems in operation versus LRT systems in operation? I too don't like getting into discussions pitting one form of transit aganist another. As Lloyd suggests, the way around this is to state the values and objectives and then choose appropriate means of working toward those objectives. Thus, busways should be supported if they are part of a package of measures supporting public transport and non-motorized transport. However, they are being used as a "trojan horse" to make massive road building more politically palatable in some places. My concern for the enthusiasm over urban busways is not that they perform poorly, but that they are promoted as a means of facilitating an eventual shift to a road based, private, and motorized transport system. (I should have stated that assumption explicitly in my previous message.) Alan suggests that busways can be "picked up" and moved: I doubt that, but I would be interested to hear of specific cases. I suspect that they will be converted into road space for private vehicles in the future, which is why those of us concerned about sustainable transport should be wary of them in the first place! At 05:58 PM 27/02/02 +0530, you wrote: >Contd. > >Correction Please read "Population 8-10 millon or more" in place of >population 80-100 million or more" in my earlier mail. >---------- Forwarded message ---------- >Date: Tue, 26 Feb 2002 20:10:17 +0530 (IST) >From: Prof S L Dhingra >To: sustran-discuss@jca.ax.apc.org >Subject: Re: [sustran] Re: Bus and rail ________________________________________________ Craig Townsend Institute for Sustainability & Technology Policy Murdoch University South Street, Murdoch Perth, Western Australia 6150 tel: (61 8) 9360 6278 fax: (61 8) 9360 6421 email: townsend@central.murdoch.edu.au