Public/Mass Transport Thread

I went to Penang yesterday via bus, which is printed as Butterworth as the destination, which is on the mainland, but the bus actually made detour through the Penang island and dropped half of its passengers before returning there. I am aware that this is for economic reasons, since that a bus full of passengers is always preferable, but does long distance buses in other countries to the same?

Does 24-hour public transport a possibility in the future? I saw a notice that bus drivers are required to depart on-time thanks to some drivers depart early, leaving some passengers stuck with the last trip leaving early. Having such system will prevent this from happening.

Ten people were killed and at least 81 injured on Tuesday when two passenger trains collided head-on at high speed in remote countryside in southern Germany. One passenger was still missing, police said, and 18 of those injured were in a serious condition.

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.

Rescue workers at the site of a head-on collision between two commuter trains in southern Germany have uncovered two black boxes and are searching for a third. The transport minister, Alexander Dobrindt, said the black boxes would likely hold the key to the cause of the accident, which has killed at least nine people and injured scores more, 18 of whom are in a critical condition.

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.

Dobrindt said the accident investigation would focus in part on whether the cab signalling system with which both trains were fitted, called PZB90, were working. The system is meant to prevent collisions by triggering an alarm if two trains are on the same stretch of track, and was introduced across the German rail network after two trains crashed in Saxony Anhalt in January 2011, killing 10.

“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.

A spokesman for the train operator, TransDev, a French company, confirmed that a driving instructor together with an apprentice train driver had been travelling in the traction unit of one of the trains.

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 Mayoral challenge to extend the New Routemaster’s passenger-friendly design aspects to more of the capital’s bus fleet has seen Wrightbus come up with the SRM. It’s a NRM ‘lite’, built on established Volvo B5LH hybrid chassis. Tim Deakin reports from the launch.

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.

IN PARTS of New York city, if you know what to look for, you will find a vast and quasi-legal transport network operating in plain sight. It is made up of “dollar vans”, private 15-passenger vehicles that serve neighbourhoods lacking robust public transport. With an estimated 125,000 daily riders, they constitute a network larger than the bus systems in some big cities, including Dallas and Phoenix.

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.