Webinar Alert: International Scan on Reducing Congestion and Funding Transportation Using Variable Road Pricing: Findings and Recommendations

April 13, 2010 at 12:21 pm

Wednesday, June 9, 2010 1:00 PM – 2:30 PM EDT

In December 2009, an international scan was conducted to identify new ideas and practical, workable models for integrating variable road pricing approaches into state, local, and regional policies, programs, and practices.  Scan team members interacted with host city and country experts from Stockholm, Sweden, London, England, Singapore, Germany, the Czech Republic, and the Netherlands. Specifically, the scan team explored the political, institutional, and technical factors that contributed to the successful implementation of road pricing and, in some cases, to their rejection.

Panelists will present the findings of the scan and will address the potential for road pricing to be a part of a sustainable twenty-first century transportation system.  The scan was conducted under the auspices of the International Technology Scanning Program, which is conducted by the Federal Highway Administration in cooperation with the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials and the National Cooperative Highway Research Program.

Session presenters:

  • Robert Arnold, Federal Highway Administration
  • Vance Smith, Georgia Department of Transportation
  • Patrick DeCorla-Souza, Federal Highway Administration

Moderated by: John Doan, SRF Consulting  (Questions may be posed any time during the Webinar, and are answered at the end of the session).

Registration: Participants must register 24 hours in advance. There is no fee for Chairs of TRB Standing Committees, Sections, or Groups.  There is also no fee for employees of TRB Sponsors: http://bit.ly/9tduwj. TRB Sponsors: Please use your work email to register for the session. Others must pay $99 per site.

There may be situations where a webinar may need to be rescheduled due to unforeseen events.  If a webinar needs to be rescheduled, TRB will contact you via email to provide information about rescheduling the session.

Problems signing in? Contact Reggie Gillum at rgillum@nas.edu or 202-334-2382.

Click here to register.

American road traffic fatalities fall to record low since 1950s; Alarming Numbers of Road Traffic Deaths Around The World Remains A Concern

March 11, 2010 at 7:28 pm

(Sources: Next Generation HealthCare via Good; Infrastructurist)

Incidents like 9-11 bring to people’s mind the dangers of man made disasters, and the enormity of the problem gets magnified with the loss of lives resulting from such incidents.  But how many of us realize that here in the US we lose many more lives on our nation’s roads every year due to automobile accidents?  If you have not grasped the enormity of the problem we are facing in our roads, it the rough equivalent of 12 times the losses we suffered in that one incident  — that would be roughly 34,000 lives were lost in the US roads in 2009 alone, according to a new report released by NHTSA. In the decades past the problem was even worse and the transportation agencies at all levels – Federal, State and Local have been actively engaged in combating this problem.  The silver lining in this grey cloud is that the numbers are dropping steadily in the past the years, at least in the US.   Thanks in large part to the continued efforts of the governments in making our roads safer and also to the auto manufacturers who have made the vehicles stronger and smarter, we can now continue to see a reduction in the years ahead.  Here are some interesting numbers from this NHTSA estimates:

  • A decline in highway deaths of  8.9% from 2008 to 2009
  • The lowest fatality rate–1.16 deaths for every 100 million vehicle miles traveled–on record
  • The lowest overall number of deaths–33,963–since 1954
  • 15 straight quarters of decline in the number of overall roadway deaths

Unfortunately, the same cannot be said about the rest of the world.  Pretty much every country on this blue planet has been a victim of this problem and many of them counter massive, tragic losses every year that have only continued to climb up.   The losses are steeper in many of the developing countries and under-developed countries, where the poor infrastructure and lack of enforcement & driver education are compounding the problems.  Especially in countries like China and India, where the growing economies have fueled a significant spike in the number of vehicles on road, the governments are struggling to keep pace with the surging demand for roads and other surface transportation infrastructure. The graphical depiction below, courtesy of  Next Generation Healthcare, clearly demonstrates the enormous problem we are facing around the world.  It shows how many deaths there are from road traffic accidents in different parts of the world and the numbers are alarming.

Road Traffic Accident Statistics

Click to enlarge the image

Quoting the numbers from the NHTSA estimate for 2009 motor vehicle traffic fatalities, Ray LaHood – the Secretary of the US Department of Transportation, noted on his blog that he is extremely encouraged by the significant drop in fatalities on American roads but at the same time he is disturbed by the fact that “we are still talking about nearly 34,000 preventable deaths a year. There are still too many people dying in traffic accidents every year. Just too many.”

On 2 March 2010 governments around the world took the historic decision to increase action to address the road safety crisis over the next ten years. The UN General Assembly resolution proclaiming a Decade of Action for Road Safety 2011-2020 (A/64/L.44/Rev.1) was tabled by the Government of the Russian Federation and cosponsored by more than 90 countries. WHO welcomes this proclamation which seeks to save lives by halting the increasing trends in road traffic deaths and injuries world-wide.  A draft Plan for the Decade, which was prepared by WHO with support from members of the UN Road Safety Collaboration, is now open to all stakeholders for comments. Visit the Collaboration’s web site at http://www.who.int/roadsafety.

Some nuggets of information for you that will make you gasp (courtesy of World Health Organization’s report on road safety titled The Decade of Action for Road Safety 2011-2020):

  • Over 3000 people die on the world’s roads every day.
  • Tens of millions of people are injured or disabled every year.  Nearly 1.3 million people are killed each year. If trends continue unabated deaths will rise to an estimated 2.4 million a year by 2030.
  • Between 20 and 30 million sustain non-fatal injuries.
  • It’s predicted that by 2030, the amount of people who are killed in road traffic accidents will rise to fifth in the leading causes of death around the world. Currently it is in ninth place.

Hopefully, with improved funding and targeted attention towards issues like distracted driving and drunk driving, we can expect a decrease in this trend.   Oh if are wondering how you personally contribute towardsaddressing the problem — Leave your keys behind and take transit systems (buses, trains, etc) if you can.   If you have the proper infrastructure, you can consider walking or biking to places instead of driving. Next time when you drive your car/ motorcycle/bicycle ,  remember that you are not just driving for your own safety but also also for those of others who share that road with you.  At the end of the day, there is only so much the goverments can do to keep is safe and we the citizens have to realize that they have a very important and personal role to play in keeping our roads safe.  Let’s do it!

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Federal Transit Administration Scathing Audit Report Slams DC Metro Rail Safetyety

March 5, 2010 at 11:31 am
IMG_3834.jpg
Image by Kurt Raschke via Flickr

The Washington Post’s Coverage: A federal investigation has identified pervasive flaws in rail safety at Metro and severe inadequacies in the agency responsible for oversight. Findings released Thursday call for widespread changes in how the nation’s second-busiest subway system is supervised and managed.

The sternly worded report, prepared by the Federal Transit Administration and presented Thursday to Washington area members of Congress, was the first in-depth look at Metro’s safety program, FTA Administrator Peter Rogoff said. It revealed deep-rooted deficiencies at the transit agency and its independent oversight committee, highlighting vulnerabilities in the systems that are supposed to safeguard passengers and workers, he said.

Rogoff said the safety performance of the Washington system was worse than others of similar size. He said the findings were a symptom of a much deeper problem, extending from executive leadership down to the most junior employee, and he urged the incoming Metro general manager to use the report as a “road map” for the “overarching safety problem.” Click here to read the Washington Post article.

The FTA’s audit resulted in 21 findings and recommendations: 11 findings and recommendations for TOC and 10 findings and recommendations to WMATA.

I have to agree with this excerpt from a post by David Alpert on one of my favorite local blogs – Greater Greater Washington:

The most disappointing piece to me is why it took press attention and FTA oversight to identify, explain, and fix these issues. WMATA could have formulated and publicized its own report explaining how the safety structure was deficient and suggesting ways it would fix them on its own. It didn’t. After the Post discovered and publicized the lapses, WMATA’s statements instead nitpicked specific wording from TOC Chair Eric Madison to try to claim there wasn’t a problem at all.

WMATA needs to own up to these things, not just respond to the FTA’s report and have meetings but actually start coming clean to riders. There are undoubtedly some points the FTA missed; WMATA should proactively suggest those as well. As for the TOC, they have a solemn responsibility to ensure safety, and should take whatever steps necessary without regret, whether that’s breaking procedure and going directly to top managers or the Board, or talking to the press and shouting from the rooftops when something is wrong.

Summary List of Findings and Recommendations

Findings to the Tri-State Oversight Committee (TOC):

  1. Assess the level of resources necessary from each jurisdiction (District of Columbia, Maryland and Virginia) to meet TOC’s responsibilities. Use the results of this assessment to establish resource commitments from each jurisdiction to TOC for the next three calendar years. Resources should be committed and onboard before the beginning of the next Federal audit cycle.
  2. Evaluate the technical and professional skills that TOC representatives need to effectively carry out their oversight duties.  To the extent that TOC representatives do not currently possess these skills, ensure training is provided as soon as practicable to each TOC member.
  3. Determine the best method to respond quickly and professionally, as WMATA safety situations arise and require coordinated action.  Consider whether full-time TOC positions can be vested with decision-making authority to act in specific safety situations with WMATA.
  4. Identify and formalize a mechanism to ensure that critical unresolved WMATA safety concerns identified by TOC members are elevated to the highest levels of each TOC jurisdictional agency and WMATA for immediate action.
  5. Require WMATA to complete a timely, thorough, and competent review and update of WMATA’s Safety Rules and Procedures Manual.  This review and update must reflect actual current practices and needed improvements identified by TOC and by FTA in this audit report.
  6. Require WMATA to develop (and TOC to review and approve) an internal WMATA safety audit recovery plan for calendar year 2010 and calendar year 2011. Before WMATA develops this plan, TOC should sponsor a meeting with WMATA’s Safety Department, Quality Department, and Executive Leadership Team to explain the internal safety audit program requirements and TOC’s expectations regarding WMATA’s internal safety audit recovery plan.
  7. Require WMATA to develop a recovery plan to complete all open accident investigations following procedures established in TOC’s Program Standard, WMATA’s System Safety Program Plan and WMATA’s Accident Investigation Procedures.
  8. Document the Corrective Action Plan Technical Review process in TOC’s Program Standard and Procedures and WMATA’s System Safety Program Plan.
  9. Work with WMATA to ensure that there is a process in place for evaluating Corrective Action Plans (CAP) alternatives that may be necessary as a result of capital and operating program resource limitations.
  10. Require WMATA to develop and implement a comprehensive and system-wide hazard management program (as required by 49 CFR Part 659.31).
  11. Require WMATA to strictly adhere to the annual certification of compliance with its System Safety Program Plan (as specified in 49 CFR 659.43), including identifying areas where WMATA is not in compliance with its System Safety Program Plan as well as specific actions WMATA is taking to achieve compliance.

Recommendations to the Washington Metropolitan Area Transit Authority (WMATA):

  1. Conduct an assessment to identify the resources and expertise necessary for the Safety Department to carry out the activities specified in WMATA’s System Safety Program Plan and Safety Rules and Procedures Manual.
  2. Use the results of the assessment to ensure adequate staffing levels and expertise within the Safety Department.
  3. Increase the Safety Department’s access to operating and maintenance information and reports to ensure that this information is being analyzed for potential impacts on the safety of WMATA.
  4. Develop an internal process to require the communication of safety-related information across all WMATA departments, including the impacts of budget reductions and resource constraints on the performance of safety-related maintenance activities and requirements.
  5. Define and implement the process for the top Safety Department position to communicate safety priorities to the General Manager in a timely and consistent manner.
  6. Identify the technical skills required to perform system-wide hazard analysis (as required in 49 CFR Part 659 and TOC’s Program Standard). To the extent that WMATA Safety Department staff does not currently possess the needed skills, provide training as soon as practicable.
  7. Update the WMATA System Safety Program Plan (specifically Procedure #2.1/0 and Section 6) to develop a hazard management process that ensures that all WMATA departments participate in an on-going manner.
  8. Institute a process to ensure that changes in operating rules are analyzed for safety impacts before system-wide implementation. For example, WMATA engineering bulletins are “field tested” before full implementation.
  9. Finalize the right-of-way protection rules, develop training to implement the new rules and ensure all right-of-way employees and contractors receive this training before accessing the right-of-way.
  10. Implement the configuration management program described in the WMATA System Safety Program Plan.

You can read the oral statement of the FTA Administrator to the congress here.  Below is a copy of the report, which is also available for download at the FTA website.

Editor’s Note: Being a regular user of the system to get around the city, it is a bit scary to read about such safety deficiencies in the system.  Hope they get it all fixed and make the riders feel comfortable about getting on the trains.   Apart from the safety issues identified, I’d like to add that there is a glaring lack of customer service mentality among some of the Metro train operators.  Often these train operators fail to realize that they are hired and paid to provide a SERVICE to  the customer who pays through his nose (and also risking his life in certain instances).  I am still trying to figure out after almost 8 years why do the operators close the darn doors in such a hurry when there is a flood of people waiting to get in and a flood of people trying to get out at the same time.   It is a perennial melee of sorts on the platforms during the rush hours and  on game days when our local sports teams play at home.  Do these operators even realize that by waiting one extra minute on the platforms at such crowded/high-volume stations will immensely help in getting more customers on the train?  And by doing that they don’t have to run half-empty trains and puzzled looking passengers left shaking their heads while waiting for the next train? Oh well, it is a culture that needs to change and I hope it happens with the change in management.   Here is one of my personal experiences with the Metro that elicited an apology from WMATA.
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MUST SEE! Amazingly calm police officer handles an irate speeding driver

February 5, 2010 at 2:17 pm

(Source: Court TV via Ridelust.com)

You probably heard many stories about crazy people behind the wheel and tough looking  police officers who handle these people effectively (in many cases with guns drawn, or on hot pursuits with sirens blazing, which makes for good TV) ensuring the safety of the traveling public on our roads..  But here comes a completely different, stereotype shattering officer who epitomizes patience while dealing with his irate customer who gets pulled over for speeding..

Shot from his police vehicle’s dash cam, in this video State Trooper. Stephen Murray looks like the most patient man on earth, and probably the best in the history of law enforcement (as ridelust puts it).  Trooper Murray kept his cool and poise while that nut case driver went nuclear and unleashes a verbal tirade, loaded with a barrage of F bombs..And the funny thing is that he stands there politely without showing any reaction, and that gets the driver at fault even more mad..Boy, this is some fun to watch!

I wonder how the situation would have turned if the officer put his hand on the weapon holster?  Amazing, the driver didn’t get into much trouble and went away with a speeding ticket after unloading so many F-bombs and behaving badly with the officer!  Easily Qualifies for MUST SEE title. Great job, Trooper Murray.

Investigation finds serious air safety violations; Sec. Ray Lahood punches back citing FAA’s strong record

February 2, 2010 at 7:08 pm

(Sources: USAToday.com;  Secretary LaHood’s Fast Lane Blog)

Today’s edition of  USATODAY featured a lengthy article in its “Travel” section that raises alarming questions over the safety of our nation’s aviation system, which is considered to be one of the safest in the world.   Here is an excerpt from the USAToday article, which throws some staggering numbers that will leave you worried the next time you think about packing your bags for a business trip or a personal vacation to some exotic place.

During the past six years, millions of passengers have been on at least 65,000 U.S. airline flights that shouldn’t have taken off because planes weren’t properly maintained, a six-month USA TODAY investigation has found.

The investigation — which included an analysis of government fines against airlines for maintenance violations and penalty letters sent to them that were obtained through the Freedom of Information Act — reveals that substandard repairs, unqualified mechanics and lax oversight by airlines and the Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) are not unusual.

“Many repairs are not being done or done properly, and too many flights are leaving the ground in what the FAA calls ‘unairworthy,’ or unsafe, condition,” says John Goglia, a former airline mechanic who was a National Transportation Safety Board (NTSB) member from 1995 to 2004.

Airlines contract about 70% of their maintenance work to repair shops in the USA and abroad, where mistakes can be made by untrained and ill-equipped personnel, the Department of Transportation’s inspector general says. Airlines also disregard FAA inspectors’ findings to keep planes flying, defer necessary repairs beyond permissible time frames, use unapproved parts and perform their own sloppy maintenance work, according to FAA documents.

Though many maintenance problems go undetected, the FAA levied $28.2 million in fines and proposed fines against 25 U.S. airlines for maintenance violations that occurred during the past six years. In many cases, planes operated for months before the FAA found maintenance deficiencies. In some cases, airlines continued to fly planes after the FAA found deficiencies in them.

The 65,000 flights that took off when they shouldn’t have represent a fraction of the 63.8 million flights that all U.S. airlines flew during the past six years. The FAA doesn’t always document how many times planes with maintenance problems have flown.

Peeved by the allegation/accusation, the man in charge of everything transportation in the USofA, USDOT Secretary Ray LaHood jumped on his blog to offer a nice rebuttal and assurance that his agency is simply not standing by and defended the steps taken by FAA to avert serious aviation disasters resulting from shoddy practices.  He called out the USAToday’s allegations “patently absurd” and strongly defended the FAA’s certification process that ensures the quality of work done foreign maintenance shops.  Here is an extract of the the Secretary’s blog post on this topic:

Contrary to the assertion in USA Today, we are not allowing flights to leave the ground in “unsafe condition.”

It’s a bit ironic when you consider that only yesterday we announced a $2.5 million fine against American Eagle for using incorrect takeoff weights.

And when we do find a maintenance violation, even that does not mean an aircraft is unsafe to fly.

Of course, we want all maintenance violations corrected to maintain the level of safety in the system, and we work vigilantly to make sure they are. But airplanes are complex machines built with checks and redundancies to maintain safety. I’ve been doing a lot of flying over the past year, and not once have I doubted the safety of my aircraft. Not once.

Sec. LaHood concludes his blog post by saying “Look, it’s very simple. When planes are unsafe, they are grounded. When airlines are not operating to the highest levels of safety, they are subject to stiff fines. The only thing Administrator Babbitt and the entire FAA can be accused of is working aggressively to make sure airlines comply with our rigorous safety standards. End of story. Click here to read Secretary LaHood’s entire blog post and here for the FAA Press Release that proposes nearly $2.5 Million penalty against American Eagle Airlines for unsafe operation of flights (for failure to ensure the weight of baggage was properly calculated).

Back in October 2009, Transportgooru published an article titled “Blues in the Sky: NPR’s in-depth coverage shows how airlines cut costs by going aborad for service/repairs that profiled a similar investigation conducted by NPR.  The NPR investigation focused on the faulty maintenance of aircraft.   The airlines’ outsourcing of maintenance jobs to foreign destinations to cut costs where workers with limited experience work on fixing the aircraft was at the heart of this piece.   It might be worth revisiting that NPR article to see some of the some issues highlighted in this USAToday article.

Do you think the USDOT/FAA is doing a good job in keeping our skies safe?  Register your thoughts below.

Take that, all you tardy aviators! USDOT slams precedent-setting fines on three airlines responsible for tarmac delays

November 24, 2009 at 7:54 pm

(Source: NPR)

The government is imposing fines for the first time against airlines for stranding passengers on an airport tarmac, the Department of Transportation said Tuesday.

The department said it has levied a precedent-setting $175,000 in fines against three airlines for their role in the stranding of passengers overnight in a plane at Rochester, Minn., on Aug. 8.

For those unaware of the issue, here is a wonderful write-up , courtesy of Wall Street Journal Blog, that gives you a good understanding of the incident that prompted this Fed action and a breakdown of the DOT penalties for each of the involved parties.

Flight 2816 from Houston to Minneapolis was diverted to Rochester at 12:30 a.m. and passengers were held onboard until 6:15 a.m., when they were finally allowed into a terminal, DOT said. ExpressJet, which operated the flight on behalf of Continental, had contacted Mesaba, the only airline with ground handling at Rochester, before the plane landed. Mesaba agreed to provide ground services. But shortly after the flight arrived, a Mesaba employee told the flight’s captain passengers couldn’t deplane because there were no Transportation Security Administration screeners on duty. That didn’t matter—TSA rules don’t prohibit people from deplaning without screeners on duty.

DOT fined Continental and ExpressJet $100,000 for engaging in unfair and deceptive trade practices because they violated Continental’s customer service commitment, which promises that passengers will be allowed off a plane after it has been sitting for three hours. Mesaba was fined $75,000 for an unfair and deceptive practice when it provided inaccurate information to ExpressJet about deplaning passengers from Flight 2816, the DOT said.

Continental and ExpressJet, which each were fined $50,000, both said in statements that they agreed to the DOT’s consent order to avoid costly litigation. They both noted that ExpressJet had worked throughout the night to deplane passengers but was blocked by Mesaba. Mesaba said in a statement it believes it “operated in good faith by providing voluntary ground handling assistance to ExpressJet,’’ but is re-evaluating policies and procedures because of the event.

“I hope that this sends a signal to the rest of the airline industry that we expect airlines to respect the rights of air travelers,” Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood said in a statement. “We will also use what we have learned from this investigation to strengthen protections for airline passengers subjected to long tarmac delays.”

Secretary LaHood followed-up on this issue with a blog post, expressing his support for the passengers: “Look, this is just no way to treat passengers, customers, or anyone. You can’t strand people overnight without access to the basics. It’s not right; it’s against the rules.”

Click here to read the entire article.

Transportgooru Musings: Thank you, Secratary LaHood.  Your actions reaffirm that our Government is  indeed “for the people, by the people, of the people.” Interesting enough, the NPR story also notes that the department’s action comes at a time when the Congress is weighing legislation that places a three-hour cap on how long airlines can keep passengers waiting on tarmacs before they have to offer them the opportunity to deplane or return to a gate. The measure would give a flight’s captain the authority to extend the wait an additional half hour if it appears that clearance to takeoff is near. As one would expect, the Air Transport Association (ATA), which represents major airlines, is opposing this measure.  According to the ATA,  a three-hour limit could create more problems than it alleviates by increasing the number of flights that are canceled and leaving passengers stuck at airports trying to make new travel arrangements.

How is that the European airlines are able to successfully operate without encountering such problems?  I’ve not seen anyone from an European airline complaining about the EU regulations (at least after it had become a law).  The European Union, which caps the acceptable delay at 2 hrs,  has successfully enacted the Passenger Bill of Rights that has some reasonable points that tells you how much they care about a passenger stuck in a metal tube with no access to basic necessities such as food. The following summary of the EU law, courtesy of Airsafe.com, gives you a good idea of what the European value system looks like:

Delays and Cancellations for European Union Related Flights

In most, but not all, cases involving a delay or cancellation of a flight, a passenger is entitled to compensation under European Parliament Regulation (EC) 261/2004 for delayed and cancelled flights. There are three levels of compensation:

  • in the event of long delays (two hours or more, depending on the distance of the flight), passengers must in every case be offered free meals and refreshments plus two free telephone calls, telex or fax messages, or emails;
  • if the time of departure is deferred until the next day, passengers must also be offered hotel accommodation and transport between the airport and the place of accommodation;
  • when the delay is five hours or longer, passengers may opt for reimbursement of the full cost of the ticket together with, when relevant, a return flight to the first point of departure.

This regulation applies to all airline flights departing from an EU airport or to any airline licensed in the EU if that flight is departing from an airport outside the EU to a destination at an airport in an EU member state.

Delays and Cancellations for Other International Flights

While the EU has some regulations that specifically deal with EU related international flights, there are no requirements to compensate passengers on most other international flights that are delayed or cancelled.

The most relevant international treaty is the 1999 Montreal Convention, an international agreement signed by the U.S. and many other countries. There is no specific language in this agreement that obligates the airline to compensate passengers in the event of a flight delay or flight cancellation. As would be the case with domestic U.S. flights, review your airline’s policies to see what compensation, if any, that the airline may provide.

Overbooking and Involuntary Bumping on U.S. Airlines

U.S. airlines are allowed to overbook flights to allow for “no-show” passengers. However, if passengers are involuntarily bumped, airlines are required to do ask for volunteers to give up their seats in exchange for compensation. Most involuntarily bumped passengers are subject to the following minimum compensation schedule:

  • There is no compensation if alternative transportation gets the passenger to the destination within one hour of the original scheduled arrival.
  • The equivalent of the passenger’s one way fare up to a maximum of $400 for substitute domestic flights that arrive between one and two hours after the original scheduled arrival time or for substitute international flights that arrive between one and four hours after the original scheduled arrival time.
  • If the substitute transportation is scheduled to get you to your destination more than two hours later (four hours internationally), or if the airline does not make any substitute travel arrangements for you, the compensation doubles to a maximum of $800.

There are exceptions to these rules. This minimum compensation schedule does not apply to charter flights, to scheduled flights operated with planes that hold 30 or fewer passengers, or to international flights inbound to the United States. If a passenger can’t be accommodated to their satisfaction, they may be eligible to request a refund for the remaining part of the trip, even if the trip were on an otherwise nonrefundable ticket.

Denied Boarding Compensation in the European Community

If you are bumped from a flight and your flight was either departing from an EU country, or if you were on an airline registered in the EU and your flight departed outside the EU for a destination within the EU, you would have the following rights:

  • Reimbursement of the cost of the ticket within seven days or a return flight to the first point of departure or re-routing to the final destination;.
  • Refreshments, meals, hotel accommodation, transport between the airport and place of accommodation, two free telephone calls, telex or fax messages, or emails;
  • Compensation totalling:
    • – 250 euros for all flights of 1,500 kilometers or less;
    • – 400 euros for all flights within the European Community of more than 1,500 kilometers, and for all other flights between 1,500 and 3,500 kilometers;
    • – 600 euros for all other flights.

Note that in April 2008, the exchange rate was about $1.60 per euro.

Compensation for Downgrading in Service in the European Community
f an air carrier places a passenger in a class lower than that for which the ticket was purchased, the passenger must be reimbursed within seven days, as follows:

  • 30% of the price of the ticket for all flights of 1500 kilometers or less.
  • 50% of the price of the ticket for all intra-Community flights of more than 1500 kilometers, except flights between the European Community member states and the French overseas departments, and for all other flights between 1500 and 3500 kilometers.
  • 75% of the price of the ticket for all other flights, including flights between the European Community member states and the French overseas departments.

Wow!  Now that is what you call a “fair shake” for the average Joe Sixpack or the Jane Doe.   The TravelInsider.com has a  has already articulated strongly why we need a Passenger Bill of Rights with a  four part series, which can be found here.  Let me give you en extract of the summary and you will understand why we need this done!
If you buy a car, it comes with a warranty, plus the chances are your state has an auto lemon law, and there are various federal safety and other standards the car must also meet. If anything is not as advertised and promised, you have recourse.

But if you buy a first class airline ticket, costing $10,000 or more – as much as a small car – you have almost no rights at all, not even a guarantee that you’ll get a full first class experience.

If you buy a loaf of bread and it is stale, you can return it. The supermarket will be apologetic, won’t demand proof the bread is stale, and will either fully refund you the cost or give you a new loaf of bread in exchange. But if your seat is broken on a long flight, or if the airline doesn’t have your first choice of meal, or if anything else goes wrong with your flight experience, you’re unlikely to get a sympathetic hearing or fair compensation.

And if you complain about poor service, you run the risk of being accused of ‘air rage’, of being arrested, and possibly being banned from that airline for life.

We need an Airline Passenger Bill of Rights.

Now, after reading the EU regulation you might be left wondering why are our law makers still debating about this.  Don’t you think something like this should have been enacted long back? Hey, I am not the only one asking myself such a question and there is a boatload of citizens, actually plane loads, have already ganged up and working to get the congress to enact a passenger’s bill of rights. Wondering what can you as an individual and as a concerned citizen can do to make this happen? You can add your voice to the chorus by signing the petition here.  Or send a note to Secretary LaHood thanking him for this bold action.  Alternatively, you can write about it on your blog or send this article via a tweet to your network… Simply, JUST  DO SOMETHING but don’t sit on your derriere!

Lost and Found! Runaway school boy rides NYC subways for 11 days fearing scolding at home

November 24, 2009 at 1:14 pm

(Source: New York Times)

Day after day, night after night, Francisco Hernandez Jr. rode the subway. He had a MetroCard, $10 in his pocket and a book bag on his lap. As the human tide flowed and ebbed around him, he sat impassively, a gangly 13-year-old boy in glasses and a redAfter getting in trouble in class in Bensonhurst, Brooklyn, and fearing another scolding at home, he had sought refuge in the subway system. He removed the battery from his cellphone. “I didn’t want anyone to scream at me,” he said.

All told, Francisco disappeared for 11 days last month — a stretch he spent entirely in subway stations and on trains, he says, hurtling through four boroughs. And somehow he went undetected, despite a round-the-clock search by his panicked parents, relatives and family friends, the police and the Mexican Consulate.

Since Oct. 26, when a transit police officer found him in a Coney Island subway station, no one has been able to fully explain how a boy could vanish for so long in a busy train system dotted with surveillance cameras and fliers bearing his photograph. hoodie, speaking to no one.

Francisco told the paper that he spent his time on three subway lines, the D, F and 1, and would ride the trains until the last stop then hop on the next one going back the other way.  He ate whatever he could afford from subway newsstands, like potato chips and jellyrolls, then neatly folded the wrappers and saved them in his backpack, while drinking bottled water. He drank bottled water. He used the bathroom in the Stillwell Avenue station in Coney Island.

Otherwise, he says, he slipped into a kind of stupor, sleeping much of the time, his head on his book bag. “At some point I just stopped feeling anything,” he recalled.

Six days after Francisco’s disappearance, on Oct. 21, the case shifted from the police precinct to the Missing Persons Squad, and the search intensified. A police spokeswoman explained that a precinct must complete its preliminary investigation before the squad takes over. The squad’s focus then turned to the subway. Officers blanketed the system with their own signs, rode trains and briefed station attendants.

About 6 a.m. on Oct. 26, the police said, a transit officer stood on the D train platform at the Stillwell Avenue station studying a sign with Francisco’s photo. He turned and spotted a dirty, emaciated boy sitting in a stopped train. “He asked me if I was Francisco,” the boy recalled. “I said yes.”

Asked later how it felt to hear about the work that had gone into finding him, Francisco said he was not sure. “Sometimes I don’t know how I feel,” he said. “I don’t know how I express myself sometimes.”

Apart from leg cramps, he was all right physically, and returned to school a week later. But Ms. García said she was still trying to learn how to manage her son’s condition.

Click here to read the entire story.

American teenagers defy the advise! Still continuing to text while driving in alarming numbers

November 16, 2009 at 9:10 pm

(Source: Mashable; Washington Post; Pew Research Center)

Image Courtesy: Pew Research Center

The Pew Internet & American Life Project has just published the results of a study on distracted driving behavior amongst teenagers which shows that teens are aware of the dangers of texting while driving, but they choose to do it anyway.

After surveying 800 teens in 4 US cities over the summer of 2009, Pew estimates that 26% of all American teens 16-17 have texted while driving, and 43% have talked on a cell phone while driving.

Even more alarming is that 48% of teens 12-17 have witnessed someone else texting while driving, which points to an ambivalence and acceptance of the practice. The findings also indicate that even state laws prohibiting these activities may not be discouraging newly licensed drivers from using their mobile devices while behind the wheel.

Here are the major findings from the survey and focus groups (courtesy of Pew Research Center):

  • 75% of all American teens ages 12-17 own a cell phone, and 66% use their phones to send or receive text messages.
  • Older teens are more likely than younger teens to have cell phones and use text messaging; 82% of teens ages 16-17 have a cell phone and 76% of that cohort are cell phone texters.
  • One in three (34%) texting teens ages 16-17 say they have texted while driving. That translates into 26% of all American teens ages 16-17.
  • Half (52%) of cell-owning teens ages 16-17 say they have talked on a cell phone while driving. That translates into 43% of all American teens ages 16-17.
  • 48% of all teens ages 12-17 say they have been in a car when the driver was texting.
  • 40% say they have been in a car when the driver used a cell phone in a way that put themselves or others in danger.

The NHTSA said that 5,870 people died and an estimated 515,000 were injured last year in accidents that police attributed to distracted driving.

That number of fatalities last year was exactly half the number of people who died as a result of drunken driving. The actual number of distracted-driving deaths and injuries is probably much higher than the numbers show. There is nothing like the blood alcohol test to prove that someone was texting — phone records are not clear-cut proof and drivers who cause accidents are no more prone to admit they were texting than they are to say they are drunk.

At a conference he convened to discuss distracted driving, U.S. Transportation Secretary Ray LaHood stressed the importance of parents paying attention to the road to provide a positive example for their children.

The Pew research found that too few do.

“The frequency of teens reporting parent cellphone use behind the wheel in our focus groups was striking, and suggested, in many cases, that texting while driving is a family affair,” the report said.

Click here to read the entire research report in HTML.   Or you can alternatively download/read the report in the PDF format shown below.

Low Flying Pelican+Dropped Cellphone+Distracted Texan = $1.5M Bugatti Veyron drowned in 2ft of water

November 12, 2009 at 9:14 pm


Image Courtesy: Chris Paschenko @ The Daily News: Wrecker driver Gilbert Harrison, with MCH Towing, pulls a Bugatti Veyron, one of the world’s fastest production cars, from the water by the north frontage road of Interstate 45 near Omega Bay on Wednesday afternoon.

How do you drop ~$2m worth in a pond of water in a jiffy?  This is how they do it (at least one man did it successfully) in Texas.  Read along this twisted version of a Pelican Brief style thriller ( though no murder of human beings involved, it involves a very expensive &  rare automobile)..

A man blamed a low-flying pelican and a dropped cell phone for his veering his million-dollar sports car off a road and into a salt marsh near Galveston. The accident happened about 3 p.m. Wednesday on the frontage road of Interstate 45 northbound in La Marque, about 35 miles southeast of Houston.

The Lufkin, Texas, man told of driving his luxury, French-built Bugatti Veyron when the bird distracted him, said La Marque police Lt. Greg Gilchrist. The motorist dropped his cell phone, reached to pick it up and veered off the road and into the salt marsh. The car was half-submerged in the brine about 20 feet from the road when police arrived.

The story reported by Chris Paschenko @ The Galveston County Daily News has some interesting details. The man was uninjured after escaping the partially submerged Bugatti Veyron as it came to rest in about 2 feet of saltwater. The man, who refused to give his name, was looking at real estate in Galveston.

About 3 p.m. a low-flying pelican distracted him as he traveled north on Interstate 45 just south of the hurricane levee near Omega Bay. The man jerked the wheel, dropped his cell phone, and the car’s front tire left the frontage road and entered a muddy patch, which foiled his attempt to maneuver away from the lagoon. Chris’ report says Veyron’s powerful engine gurgled like an outboard motor for about 15 minutes before it died.

Web sources say Bugatti Veyron is one of 200 made and only one of about 15 in the United States. New models of the car – if you can get one – sell for about $2 million. It is too painful to watch this French beauty (though HQ-ed in Château St. Jean in Molsheim (Alsace, France), it is owned by the German car-manufacturer Volkswagen) towed out of the water like a dead wildebeest.
For those rich folks in big ol’ Texas, this is why y’all need to hang up and drive.  Quit playing around with cell phone and watching pelicans when you operate such fine machinery (or find a better excuse than a flying Pelican if you happen to dunk it in a pond).  Sec. LaHood should invite this gent to deliver the keynote speech at his next Distracted Driving Summit..

(Soureces: AP Via Google; The Galveston County Daily News; The Inquisitr)

French Evade Speed Traps With a Cayote! Coming soon to spy on unsuspecting American cops

November 11, 2009 at 8:09 pm

(Source: New York Times)

Car-to-car communication is a dream of traffic researchers. Radar, video and other sensors in a car would understand the environment around it and communicate such information as sudden braking, rainfall and speed to the receptors in other cars, enabling other drivers to avoid accidents and congestion.

High-tech car-to-car communication is already here in France, but the object is avoiding fines of 90 euros ($140) or more for speeding. Several companies have introduced devices that will alert drivers to the presence of mobile radar units set up by the police. One such device is made by Coyote, a French company, which plans to bring its product to the United States early next year.

Coyote’s best-selling model is the Mini Coyote. It costs around $225, which includes three months of service. After that, there’s a monthly charge of $15.  Business Wire says Coyote has already expanded to Italy, the United Kingdom, the Czech Republic and Belgium and will be available in the United States in January with its main service and an iCoyote application for iPhones.

The Mini Coyote is the size of a cellphone and fits on a car’s dashboard. When a subscriber to the system spots a mobile radar unit beside the road, the driver pushes a button on the device that sends a signal to a central computer giving the location and direction of travel being watched. Three seconds later, the computer sends a warning to all other subscribers within 12½ miles of the point.

Jean-Marc Van Laethem, chief executive for Coyote, started the company with a partner in 2006. Today, there are 250,000 subscribers in France.

Click here to read the entire article.

Transportgooru Musings: As rightly pointed out in the source article, I wonder how this product would compete against the ones that are already in the market place, especially those that are already doing what exactly the  Coyote is designed for.  One particularly popular application on the ever expanding iPhone market is the “Trapster“, also relies on the same principles (crowd sourcing) and has made serious inroads with roughly 50,000 downloads per day, ranking it the 2oth most popular application in the iPhone’s App store.  Even if Cayote starts todays, it still has a long way to go before catching up with Trapster and its ilk that have firmly established themselves.  Maybe it was a good sell in France and some European markets where there is little competition from SmartPhone market applications such as Trapster but in the US it will be a bloody battle before Cayote even makes a mark.  Me thinks, Cayote is a tad bit too late to enter the US market. Also, I think the days of walking into a store to buy a product that is exclusively designed to detect radar signals are fast coming to an end and the future of such “busting” applications are pointedly looking at mobile smartphone platforms such as the iPhone and Droid.  It would be interesting to see how the company takes that subscription-based business model from European markets and applies that to the US market.  That said, Cayote must have some compelling data that convinced them to make the product for sale at brick and motor stores. Let’s see how they do it in the days ahead…