Opening this.
Speaking for myself and Switzerland, I've been using the railways and buses since long, even before I moved back to Switzerland from Germany. From what I know Swiss railways have a fairly good reputation as far as punctuality and service goes, and it also helps that one can use the same ticket for both bus and rail.
As for good intermodal travel, one thing that comes to mind is that the times to change from one line to another should neither be too long or too short.
"For a successful technology, reality must take precedence over public relations, for Nature cannot be fooled." - Richard FeynmanAs for Britain:
Long distance and inter-urban buses do here, perhaps not as much as they used to in order to compete with the car.
I know you'll find 24-hour bus (and even coach) operations on some routes in a few major cities. Most towns, however, finish about 21:00, leaving the field open for Taxis.
On another note, the London Underground doesn't run a 24-hour service due to maintenance requirements during the shut down, but other world underground systems do run 24/365. And about the on-time requirement, it can sometimes be a regulatory requirement for buses to leave on time if possible, as it is inconvenient for passengers further down the route.
And how are Kuala Lumpur's new ADL double deckers (Enviro 500) and single deckers (Enviro 200) doing?
edited 17th Jan '16 2:17:59 AM by Greenmantle
Keep Rolling OnI neither live or work in Kuala Lumpur, so I don't know. Sorry about that.
Most Malaysian buses stops at 22:00, though and taxis levies 50% surcharge from 00:00 to 06:00, something that I have learned the hard way.
For rails, inability to run 24/365 is understandable since that rail maintenance require operation shutdowns, but perhaps with sufficient technology it could be technically done with very sparse schedules (such as 2 or 3 hours per trip) in the future, something that Japan almost able to pull off (their rails shut down from 12am to 4pm).
The same ticket for both bus and rail? This is the first time I heard of this. How does it work if it doesn't involve monopoly?
At least you have taxis available all night. Where I live, they stop running at 10:00 PM. Which makes them pretty much worthless, since late-night is when people really need them, to get home from the bars when they've had a few too many.
And their pick-up service... ugh. I once needed to get from my home in Birdsboro, PA to Reading PA (8 miles away), and the Reading cabs wouldn't come to my house. They suggested that I call a cab from Pottstown (12 miles in the opposite direction) for the ride in.
Fortunately, I found a small-time limo service that was much more accommodating, and probably cheaper. So I use him whenever I need a ride now. To hell with the cab companies.
This Space Intentionally Left Blank.Well, if not for the memetically awful reputation of Malaysian taxi drivers. There has been a noticeably lack of sympathy for taxi drivers here protesting against Uber and GrabCar as a result.
@Greenmantle, I do live in KL, but I haven't seen any of the new ADL buses - the buses on the lines near my home and college mostly use MAN buses, and I'm unsure of whether the hop-on-hop-off buses are ADL product either. Admittedly I don't often take them due to payment being rather inconvenient when my Touch 'N Go card is in a state of existence similar to that of Russell's Teapot...
I have disagreed with her a lot, but comparing her to republicans and propagandists of dictatorships is really low. - An idiotLondon is actually looking to introduce 24 hour tubes on some routes on some days, but it's being delayed due to problems with the unions. Likewise the bus routes here are such that you can get around most of the city at night without to much trouble.
edited 17th Jan '16 10:10:01 AM by Silasw
Here's one of them◊. Either way, the Enviro 200 is the most common bus in Britain (although there's a new version out◊) and it's known in the US as the New Flyer Midi, who to be honest, don't seem to get it.
edited 17th Jan '16 10:58:09 AM by Greenmantle
Keep Rolling OnDespite my former flatmate's bitching and the claims that London public transit works much better, I still say that Warsaw doesn't have it that bad.
- Bus service, depending on the line, runs from 5:30 to 23:00 for daily lines, and then there are separate nighttime lines that go twice per hour all through the night. IIRC, all nighttime lines, or at least most of them, end their run at the Central Railway Station, so it is possible to get from one end of the city to another with just one transfer.
- There are worse public transit services, and more expensive ones as well, despite the fact that Warsaw is considered the most expensive city to live in. IIRC, tickets are more expensive in the Katowice metropolitan area (consisting of four large cities and fifteen smaller ones piled one on another), and the public transport of Wroclaw is memetically awful.
- Our subway system is a joke thirty years in the making. It consists of a line and a half, the completed line goes North-South, the half-line is supposed to go East-West, but after crossing under the river and passing the National Stadium station (that has an unused branch built for future development), it turns north and goes parallel to the river, ending at the next station, Vilnian Railway Station (a mall with a suburban train terminus, also a major tram and bus line hub). This year, another six stations will be built, three on the East side of the river (going northeast from the Vilnian Station), and three on the West one. This will, again, throw entire transit system and road traffic out of whack big time.
- The undeniable great feature of our subway system is that all the stations are accessible by wheelchairs. As opposed to some other places, like the Central Railway Station. An activist calling himself the Loony Wheelchair Dude is fighting the city over the shitty handicapped access issue for a decade or so.
- Oh, and the bus maintenance... It's kludgy enough to give OCD sufferers and safety inspectors a headache. Seriously, I've seen things on new buses fixed with parts from stuff that went out of service ten years ago, glass dividers replaced with laminated plywood from old Ikaruses, held in place with braces bashed from Ikarus handrail braces, chunks of flat iron and rivets. But since some passengers are complete pigs and yobs riding to a football match are even worse, this shouldn't surprise you.
- We also have a tram network. And, finally, most if not all trams have been replaced by low-floor jobs from a Polish manufacturer. Those things have AC. Some of the low-floor buses don't. Imagine how screwed you are if you need to take a bus on the line that is serviced by non-air-conditioned vehicles during the afternoon rush hour in the middle of summer. Consider what I said in the previous point.
edited 17th Jan '16 5:33:33 PM by NotSoBadassLongcoat
"what the complete, unabridged, 4k ultra HD fuck with bonus features" - Mark Von LewisVancouver has a pretty decent transit system. There are three SkyTrain lines (a fourth has been in the works, delayed for god-knows-how-long), and a huge bus network. I use it every weekday, and it's been reliable for me (bus comes every half hour, skytrain every ~10 minutes).
They switched over to a new fare system this past year or so; based on what I've heard, it... apparently has some kinks to work out (despite all of the planning that supposedly went into it). I have yet to encounter any issues, but that's probably because I'm a college student and unlimited transit access is included in my tuition fees.
edited 17th Jan '16 8:07:38 PM by Blueeyedrat
In Paris, the Metro shuts down a few hours every night (don't know the exact times), the suburban lines are open a little later and earlier (so less downtime), and there are dedicated night buses in Paris itself and the closer suburbs (if you're farther out, you're probably screwed at night and on weekends). Sometimes, the buses tend to bunch up on the busier lines (and they also tend to be packed) and it's not uncommon to have a problem on the metro or suburban lines (sometimes a passenger gets sick, sometimes there's a suspicious package, and sometimes it's a maintenance problem), but overall, it runs pretty well.
Best transport systems I've used are Japan, Hong Kong and Singapore. Philippines is really lagging behind so much that it's a major election issue for this year.
Reminds me of the stories about stray dogs in Moscow that ride the trains, and somehow know when their stop is.
Or Snoopy's lament: "The problem with living in a quiet neighborhood is that I have to take a bus all the way downtown just to chase cars."
edited 18th Jan '16 2:59:15 PM by pwiegle
This Space Intentionally Left Blank.Train Crash in Germany
Reuters: Ten dead, more than 80 injured in Bavaria train crash
The crash happened during the morning rush-hour about half way along a six-km (four-mile) stretch between the spa town of Bad Aibling and Kolbermoor in Bavaria, near to the border with Austria. Ambulances could not reach the site, which was heavily wooded with a steep hill on one side and a river on the other, so helicopters had to airlift people to nearby hospitals. Police said recovery operations with heavy machinery would be suspended overnight and restart at daybreak on Wednesday.
The trains had been carrying about 100 passengers, mainly commuters. Police said more people would have been travelling if it had not been a holiday week. Hundreds of emergency service workers, including mountain rescue teams, worked to save passengers at the crash site, where several derailed blue, yellow and grey train carriages lay on their side next to the track.
Transport Minister Alexander Dobrindt said the trains and track had been fitted with an automatic brake system that was introduced across Germany after 10 people died in 2011 near Magdeburg when a train driver drove through two red signals. "It's one of the biggest accidents we have had in the last few years," he said.
Germany's most serious post-war train accident occurred in 1998 when 101 people were killed near the northern town of Eschede after a high speed ICE train crashed.
Dobrindt said both trains on Tuesday must have been travelling at high speed entering a curve and the drivers had probably not seen each other. Police declined to comment on the cause of the crash. They appealed for people to donate blood.
Chancellor Angela Merkel expressed shock and sent her condolences to families of the victims. "I trust that the authorities responsible will do everything they can to clear up how this accident could happen," she said in a statement.
Dobrindt said an investigation had begun and that the priority was to find out whether the cause was a technical problem or human error.
The trains' operator, Meridian, is part of French passenger transport firm Transdev, which is jointly owned by state-owned bank CDC and water and waste firm Veolia. Transdev said in a statement that management and staff were terribly shocked by the "exceptionally serious accident" and that Chief Executive Jean-Marc Janaillac was at the scene.
State-owned Deutsche Bahn is responsible for the track, which has a speed limit of 100 km per hour. The company said the safety system had been checked last week.
The Guardian: Black boxes recovered from site of German train crash that killed nine
Speaking at a press conference in Bad Aibling, Bavaria, close to where the accident took place, Dobrindt described having visited the site shortly before.
“There’s a horrific picture to be seen there,” he said. “It was shocking to see how both trains had smashed into each other. One of the trains had bored into the other.”
He said the trains “must have been travelling at very high speed”, adding that the speed limit at that part of the track was 100 km/hour. The accident spot was on a curve in the track, he said, leading accident investigators to surmise that the drivers “did not have eye contact and neither had braked before they crashed into each other”. Both drivers of the trains, which were travelling on the single-track railway line, were among the dead.
“It should automatically prevent train collisions by forcing the trains to brake,” Dobrindt said. “We need to look at whether this happened or not.” He called the tragedy “one of the worst train accidents of recent years” and said it was a “difficult hour in the history of German train travel”.
Dobrindt praised the 500 rescue workers who took part in the rescue and salvage operations, saying that the fire brigade had reached the scene three minutes after receiving the alarm.
Rescue workers described how the operation was hampered by the relative inaccessibility of the crash site – sandwiched between a canal and a steep wooded incline.
Some victims were airlifted to local hospitals by a fleet of 15 rescue helicopters, or by boat along the canal. The most seriously injured were taken to hospitals in Munich, Bavaria’s main city.
The deputy police president, Robert Kopp, told the press conference the trains were carrying 150 passengers. He said it was “a lucky chance” that due to school holidays “considerably fewer people were in the trains than normal”. Two people remain unaccounted for.
Klaus-Dieter Josel, a representative of Germany’s national train operator, Deutsche Bahn, said there had never been any problems on the 23-mile (37km) stretch of track. Routine checks carried out last week found no cause for concern.
Dobrindt said he was in close contact with the German chancellor, Angela Merkel, and Bavaria’s prime minister, Horst Seehofer, who had “offered their sympathy and expressions of sadness and also thanked the rescue teams”.
Philippa Oldham, the head of transport at London’s Institution of Mechanical Engineers, said it was still too early to say what had caused the crash, but that the signalling system would be a main point of focus.
“Signalling systems should normally prevent two trains on the same track travelling in different directions … accident investigators will be examining whether there were any other technical or component causes like rail breakages, train defects or damage caused by vandalism that could have contributed to the accident,” she said.
A reminder about the operators:
- Transdev is a French-based international operator, with bus and rail operations all over the world, including the UK, US and Canada.
- Deutsche Bahn is Germany's state-owned rail operator. In this accident it serves — as EU Regulations mandate — as the infrastructure operator. It also operates overseas, owning bus and rail operator Arriva and several operations in its own right, including DB Schenker Rail (UK), formally EWS.
Well, DART here has been expanding pretty steadily for several years. This year they're building a new station over at UNT of Dallas, and previously they'd expanded up north to where another train system continues onto to Denton. I've only had to ride it a few times (don't actually live that close to the station) but the service seems to cut off before midnight during the weekday. This is probably inconvenient for a lot of people, considering many of the stops are right in Dallas itself.
The bus system seems pretty good, but I couldn't tell you from personal existence. In contrast, my sister's complained about how shitty and small the light rail is in Houston. Apparently money that was meant for that was redirected by Perry when he was still governor. (I can tell you that any expansion, however well needed, would massively disrupt traffic in downtown Houston.)
There was also serious speculation about a private company wanting to build a high speed rail between Dallas and Houston. They were in the research phase, which is probably going to last a while even if they manage to get anywhere with that.
edited 12th Feb '16 6:39:30 PM by AceofSpades
I don't understand why we don't have commuter rail service where I live. A century or so back, passenger trains used to run from Philadelphia to Reading, PA. The tracks are still there, albeit used only for freight trains nowadays. The local stations are mostly still there; some have been torn down while others were converted for business use.
But SEPTA rail only goes as far as Paoli. Commuter rail service all the way out to Reading would take a big load of traffic off the Sure-Kill Expressway. They've been talking about it for decades, but nothing ever gets done. I just don't understand...
This Space Intentionally Left Blank.Probably the auto and gas lobby have something to do with it.
Orlando just last year opened a small light rail service. We've had a bus system for ages, but it's generally terrible. The light rail line goes through downtown and is a shameless attempt to get people off of I-4, the major highway through downtown that's perpetually bumper to bumper. The light rail only has one train every half hour during rush hour, and one every two hours in the middle of the day — and it doesn't run nights, weekends or holidays at all. And it only goes through downtown; there's a single north/south line and that's it. It doesn't go to the theme parks (southwest of downtown) or the airport (southeast of downtown) or University of Central Florida (east of downtown, a campus with 60,000 students) or anywhere else.
The saddest part is that it's still an improvement. With any luck, the system will do well and it'll be expanded eventually.
edited 12th Feb '16 10:40:53 PM by NativeJovian
Really from Jupiter, but not an alien.More likely institutional inertia and a lack of funds within SEPTA, or even problems with getting line space from the freight operators.
edited 12th Feb '16 11:23:32 PM by Greenmantle
Keep Rolling OnOverall Germany isn't too bad, even though most people say it's a "car country" and people just love to complain about Deutsche Bahn (which admittedly has done some seriously stupid things under Hartmut Mehdorn, but you shouldn't have Hartmut Mehdorn lead your company...) And most light rail / tram / streetcar systems I know of in Germany don't shut down at night. Berlin U Bahn does, however...
Volvo B5LH Wrightbus SRM: SRM appears Wright on cue
Political pressure to take the New Routemaster’s (NRM) best bits and cost-effectively engineer them into a bus that retains the NRM’s visual appeal yet is also suited to life outside the capital saw its second result last week when Wrightbus launched the SRM. In many ways, it’s an NRM ‘lite’.
Unlike the bespoke NRM, the 10.6m, 66-seat SRM, with its big brother’s distinctive front aspect, glazed staircase and rounded design, is built on the widely-used Volvo B5LH chassis. It has a 5.1-litre D5K engine driving through a parallel hybrid system that incorporates batteries, an electric motor and an I-Shift automated manual gearbox.
“The Volvo chassis is exactly the same as the one we have bodied many hundreds of times already,” says Wrightbus MD – Sales and Customcare Ian Downie.
“We have matched a very successful underframe with our own iconic New Routemaster body, but in doing so we have minimised the number of new parts required, so that aftermarket support can be optimised.”
Visually, the SRM is largely an amalgam of the NRM and Wrightbus’ Gemini 3 double-deck body. At the front, barring Volvo-branded mud flaps, there is no obvious difference between the SRM and NRM; behind the centre door, the SRM is another beast entirely.
These differences, hopes Wrightbus, is what will deliver an appeal to London operators that, despite all its plus points, the NRM lacks. Gone are the NRM’s second staircase and third door, and instead the rear section of the SRM has much in common with the Gemini 3. It is here where most of the 24 components not already used on either the Gemini 3 or the NRM lie.
Both Ian and Transport for London (TfL)Managing Director Surface Transport Leon Daniels explain that the SRM has been born from a challenge from outgoing Mayor of London Boris Johnson.
Issued to all the major manufacturers, it calls for them to produce a next-generation bus that retains the NRM’s passenger-pleasing aspects, and the SRM will – like the similarly-conceived Alexander Dennis (ADL) Enviro400H City – be available to operators throughout the country in both two- and one-door form.
“We believe that the SRM has relevance outside London, and we are already talking to interested parties,” says Ian. “One of the many benefits of the SRM body is that it is suited to more than one platform, and we expect to make more announcements about that in due course.”
Tomorrow the world?
Wrightbus is already openly talking about mounting the SRM on its longitudinally-engined StreetDeck chassis, which hitherto has exclusively carried the Gemini 3 body.
That opens the door to a zero-emission SRM. In clarifying Wrightbus’ plans for an electric StreetDeck (routeone, News, 7 October 2015), Ian confirmed that three electric variants of the StreetDeck – including a ‘fast charging’ model – are planned. It is understood that the first may debut this year.
Wrightbus also does not rule out building the SRM body on Volvo’s diesel B5TL underframe, and an 11.3m variant could be offered if required.
There is also early talk of an export variant in time, should interest be received. As-yet undisclosed developments from Volvo will also be accommodated as part of the SRM in the future.
The first order received for the SRM is for six from RATPDev London as part of a 56-bus contract signed with Wrightbus; the remainder are Gemini 3-bodied B5LHs.
Three SRMs are already completed, and the six will enter service later in the year on London Sovereign service 13 between Golders Green and Aldwych. Total passenger capacity is not yet finalised.
Ian explains that there may be a “very small penalty” over a comparable Gemini 3-bodied B5LH, although TfL’s requirement of 87 will be met.
Think of the future
It is very early to be talking about the second lives of buses that are yet to enter service, but – like Optare with its Metrodecker – Wrightbus has taken into account at the design stage the eventual need to cascade buses elsewhere.
Leon explains that TfL’s preference is for operators to buy vehicles, and so all SRMs will be operator-owned. TfL does not plan to repeat the NRM arrangement, where it purchases them and leases them to operators, in the future, although he adds that such a set-up was economically necessary for the NRM.
“In general we would like the bus fleet to be owned by the private sector, and now is a really important time to arrive in the market with a spectacular new model,” he says.
Both Leon and the Mayor accept that a second life for the NRM outside the capital is unlikely, and that was one of the key considerations when challenging manufacturers to come up with a bus that harvests its best features but gives more later-life flexibility. As a consequence, Wrightbus has designed a kit to make removal of the centre door easy, making the bus suitable for later use elsewhere.
New RM’s future?
Where development of both the SRM and ADL’s Enviro400H City – along with any other products from manufacturers that take up the Mayor’s challenge – leaves the NRM after delivery of the recently-announced order for 195 is unclear. Telling is a comment from Leon, however, that key to the laid-down task is designing and delivering a bus that “succeeds the NRM.”
Commentary on the cost difference between the two Wrightbus models is being studiously avoided, short of Wrights Group Chairman and CEO Mark Nodder commenting that the SRM will be competitively priced – and if it is to compete in a market that is becoming rather congested, that’s vital. TfL is also careful to avoid mentioning that the Mayor’s challenge includes an element of reducing buses’ acquisition cost while retaining the NRM’s pluses, but there is heavy suggestion that NRM ‘lites’ such as the SRM and Enviro400H City may supersede the original in buying policy once all NR Ms are delivered.
Leon describes both the SRM and Enviro400H City as “next generation” buses. He adds that they are expected to move both air quality and fuel consumption on further, an important consideration and one key to the current Mayoral race.
The NRM’s passenger accommodation consistently receives the highest approval ratings from passengers, he says.
That’s one of the reasons for the condition that some of its interior design is incorporated into ‘next gen’ double-deckers, but it does not answer the question why TfL has not yet elected to continue the NRM programme beyond the recently-placed order for 195.
Regardless of this, there will be substantial orders for manufacturers to compete for in London, and it is understood that one existing lower-cost double-deck option has already found significant favour. Over the next two financial years 700 new double-deckers are required, and there is the possibility that ADL and Wrightbus may not be the only builders to take up the Mayor’s challenge.
The political landscape in the capital is also uncertain, and TfL is likely to be expected to reduce costs further once the new Mayor is elected in May. Both Wrightbus and ADL have boxed clever. By declaring from the start that provincial-spec variants of their new models will be available, political machinations in the capital have the potential to benefit operators outside it.
A photo of one of GO Transit's new ultra-low ADL Enviro 500.
Keep Rolling OnFrom The Economist: Entrepreneurial transit: George Washington’s bus - The flourishing, efficient, semi-legal trade in ferrying New Yorkers around
Full Article follows:
Van drivers, like all entrepreneurs, have recognised a market and met demand. Some shuttle between Chinese communities not connected directly by public transport: for example, Flushing in Queens, Manhattan’s Chinatown and Sunset Park in Brooklyn. Others serve Caribbean communities in Brooklyn and south-eastern Queens. The Utica and Flatbush Avenue corridors patrolled by the vans in Brooklyn are the borough’s busiest and third-busiest bus routes, respectively. These vans offer what New York City buses fail to provide: speed and reliability. They are also cheaper, at $2 per trip.
Eric Goldwyn, an urban planner, compared a week’s worth of ridership data from the B41 bus route along Flatbush Avenue with average travel times of dollar vans making the same trip. Buses took an hour with a standard deviation of 15 minutes, meaning that 68% of all rides lasted between 45 minutes and 75 minutes. That’s a big window. Vans took just 43 minutes with a standard deviation of five minutes.
New York City’s dollar vans trace their origins to 1980, when a massive public-transport strike sent customers looking for alternatives. Private vans surfaced to meet demand. The strike eventually ended, but the vans kept going. In 1993 the city took regulatory control over the industry and became responsible for licensing, inspections and insurance. In exchange for a licence to operate, drivers had to accept onerous legal requirements which few have complied with since.
Technically dollar vans can accept only pre-arranged calls and must maintain a passenger list. The idea was to protect yellow taxis’ street-hail privilege and, according to Mr Goldwyn, elbow the vans out of business. But vans are flexible and spontaneous by their very nature; the street-hail prohibition goes ignored. In Brooklyn drivers cruise up and down Utica and Flatbush Avenues, tapping their horn to attract fares. Passengers wave and jump in, and the vans keep on rolling. Without street hails there would be no business.
Dollar vans—even the 480 licensed ones—have been operating more or less illegally for decades. An estimated 500 more operate unlicensed. Lax enforcement means that the “pirates”, as they are called, have little incentive to go above board. “Why drive a name brand when you can drive a regular vehicle and make more money?” asks Winston Williams, whose struggle to pay insurance in the face of rogue competition forced him to shrink his fleet by 21 drivers. Several bills before the City Council attempt to close the gap between law and practice by allowing street hails and ramping up enforcement.
Dollar vans—nimble and reactive as they are—might teach the Metropolitan Transportation Authority (MTA) something about the needs and preferences of passengers. The vans are fast because they make fewer stops than buses, which tend to load and unload every two blocks. City buses are slowed down further by the lack of all-door boarding and well-enforced bus lanes. “There’s a serious degree of policy inattention to operating the bus system in an effective way,” says Jon Orcutt of TransitCentre, a research group. Investment is much lower than in the subway, which carries 5.7m riders daily and commands $14.2 billion from the MTA’s five-year capital plan. Buses, which carry 2.1m riders daily, get just $2 billion. As long as the city neglects its buses, dollar vans will be there to mind the gap.
edited 21st Aug '16 1:37:06 AM by Greenmantle
Keep Rolling OnFrom the European Politics thread, there is a discussion on Uber and the problems with it.
In my opinion, in my country Uber and Grabcar are the better options compared to taxi because our taxi service is admittedly very bad, but for some reason I never encounter a bad taxi driver. Our government even wants to legalize these services and a government official outright said that driving for these services are good for making secondary income. Now, I would like to know why this is not the case in other countries.
Since that a search on the topics doesn't yield a result, here's a thread to discuss the following:
Here's some opening for actual discussion:
edited 16th Jan '16 11:55:53 PM by murazrai