TransportGooru

(Source: Tree Hugger)

Image Courtesy: Bombardier

Image Courtesy: Bombardier

Tree Hugger reports that the estimated $4 billion US (or 2.7 billion euros) is only part of China’s grand $300B dream. Another recent article on  TreeHugger outlined the grand plan to invest over $300 billion in high-speed rail through 2020, in a bid to speed ahead of the rest of the world’s train systems. Here are some excerpts from today’s interesting TreeHugger article.

The Chinese Ministry of Railways has announced that it will buy 80 “very high speed trains” from Bombardier’s Chinese joint ventre Bombardier Sifang to add to China’s fast-growing network of high-speed rail. The ZEFIRO 380 trains are both very efficient (more on that below) and very fast, and should help make transportation in China greener, especially if train trips displace plane trips.

The order is for 20 eight-car trainsets and 60 sixteen-car trainsets, for a total of 1,120 cars.

The ZEFIRO 380 has a maximum operating speed of 380 kilometers per hour (236 miles per hour) and is designed for efficiency:

The Bombardier press release notes ” The new trainsets will be an integral part of an evolving high speed rail capability in China, which is developing more than 6,000 km of new high speed lines to create one of the most advanced high speed rail networks in the world. The trains, with maximum operating speeds of 380 kph, are based on Bombardier’s next-generation ZEFIRO high speed rail technology, and powered by a highly energy efficientBOMBARDIER MITRAC propulsion and control system.

Image Courtesy: Bombardier

The ZEFIRO 380 trainsets will also incorporate Bombardier’s advanced ECO4 energy saving technologies to create best-in-class energy and operating efficiencies. Bombardier launched its ECO4 technology package in 2008 as part of an ongoing focus to extend rail’s position as the most sustainable form of transportation in the world. Bombardier is first in the industry to create a new formula for total train performance with a portfolio that can create substantial overall energy savings of up to 50%.”

The ZEFIRO 380 trains will be manufactured at Bombardier Sifang (Qingdao) Transportation production facilities in Qingdao, China. Engineering will take place in Qingdao and at Bombardier centers in Europe with project management and components provided from sites in Europe and China.

What the heck is USA doing?

If you are wondering what is the status of the US high-speed rail development program, here is your answer.  We are waaaaaaaay behind many of our counterparts that are already engaged in the HSR programs .  The Europeans (French with their TGVs  & Germans with their ICE trains) and the Japanese have been at the forefront of HSR for decades and have built excellent systems that are capable of traveling at ~250MPH speeds.  New comers such as Spain and China have blazed new paths and surged ahead of the US and have embarked on ambitious plans, backed by huge  government funding commitments.  Heck, even the oil-rich Saudi Arabia is forging ahead with its development of brand new HSR lines cutting across the sandy deserts connecting major cities.  Recently, the Russians also got on this track and have quickly sought Spain’s help in building their HSR lines.  While the rest of the world is surging ahead, the US Government is still wrangling over its plans of where to invest the $8Billion funding. The US HSR Association states “Our vision is for a 21^st century, 17,000 mile national high speed rail system built in 4 phases, for completion by 2030″.  Realistically speaking, this goal seems far fetched at this point, especially with the glacial pace of activity at the Federal level.

Click here to read the entire article. Also, click here to see more pictures of these new toys China is buying from Bombardier.

The art of drifting has gone a long way these days from Ametuer exhibits on an open stretch to a serious motor sport involving mega bucks and powerful cars. The internet has a gazillion videos showing serious drifters & wanna be drifters showing off their driving skills (or the lack of it, in some cases) .  But here is one that will make your jaw drop.   The dude behind the wheel is in absolute control, while drifting along effortlessly around corners and performing some Hollywood-esque stunts (fireworks included).   Shot in a warehouse setting inside the Port of Los Angeles, the film’s professional editing coupled with racy camera angles and ridiculous slow-motion shots make it worthy of a view.   Buckle up for ride that may toss you off the edge of your seat (Hat tip to Sakthi for sharing this awesome video).

Monday, September 28, 2009 – ISSN 1529-1057

(Source: Washington Post)

Image Courtesy: Flickr via Apture

They don’t make much sense, yet for one more fleeting season at least, they are the rage in certain circles. Sort of dumb and super hip: the twin characteristics of many things in life.

We are talking about a bicycle. A very special kind of road bicycle, called a fixed-gear bike, or fixie for short.

A fixie has one speed, which makes it difficult to pedal uphill. A classic fixie has no brakes, which makes it difficult to slow on the downhill. A fixie has no freewheel, the part that makes coasting possible. Instead, the chain directly drives the rotation of the rear wheel, which means the pedals always turn while the bike moves.

What else do they have going for them?

Well, fixies are impractical, perverse throwbacks to a time more than a century ago, before the invention of the derailleur and the Tour de France, when the bicycle chain and the pneumatic tube were novelties, and the high-wheel penny-farthing “ordinary” bicycle had just been eclipsed by the chain-driven “safety” bike.

And yet despite all that — or is it because of all that? — a fixie manages the neat trick of simultaneously communicating taste and rebellion.

Washington was a little behind the curve in adopting this fixie chic.  Some date the dawn of fixie chic to the 1986 movie “Quicksilver,” starring Kevin Bacon, which glorified fixie-riding messengers in New York.

Countercultural couriers and speed-demon messengers didn’t invent fixies. The inspiration was handed down to them by the obscure yet mighty gods of the velodrome, who race indoors on one-speed brakeless track bikes. Fixies take the track bike concept and relocate it to city streets.

A fixie map of Washington would center on a handful of neighborhoods. Your fixie is what gets you from your futon in Columbia Heights to your computer screen downtown, then on to peruse the produce and fiction in Logan and Dupont circles, finally delivering you to an outdoor table on U Street NW, a rope line on H Street NE or a bike polo match at Eastern Market. Fixies haven’t made it in a big way to the suburbs, and may never, for strictly topographical reasons. They aren’t good over long hilly distances.

Fixie riders also talk about achieving a sense of “flow” as they navigate streams of cars. They describe a kind of “dance” set to the rhythm of traffic lights. You can’t coast through life on a fixie.

The euphoric riding experience is achieved via the discipline of the fixie’s low technology. In zealous self-denial, a fixie rider experiences more with less. The reason you have to be super-aware of your surroundings and think ahead is because stopping can be a challenge. Fixie riders are like sharks, constant motion is an existential requirement.

Fixies are built for speed, but if you must slow down, one way to do it is to resist the pedal momentum with your leg muscles and knees. (Your poor knees.) Toe clips or cleats help you pull back on the pedals. A more dramatic recourse is the skip-stop, which involves leaning forward, hopping the rear wheel and locking one leg to start a skid when the rear wheel comes down. In the unlikely event your chain falls off, you will be a helpless, speeding missile with only a helmet for protection, if you wear one. Some do, some don’t.

To brake or not to brake is a debate within the fixie community to which conventional bikers can listen only with astonishment.

Riding without brakes gives an extra edge to the riding experience.

“It’s definitely more dangerous,” says David Waterman, 27, a high school math teacher locking his brakeless fixie one night outside the Black Cat on 14th Street, where seven of 15 bikes parked before the show are fixies. He prefers muscle power to skidding as a slowing strategy, because skidding wastes tires. But, he allows, “You look really cool when you skid.”

Click here to read the entire article.

(Source: New York Times)

Image Courtesy: American Van via Google Images

Crisscrossing the country, hundreds of thousands of long-haultruckers use computers in their cabs to get directions and stay in close contact with dispatchers, saving precious minutes that might otherwise be spent at the side of the road.

The trucking industry says these devices can be used safely, posing less of a distraction than BlackBerrys, iPhones and similar gadgets, and therefore should be exempted from legislation that would ban texting while driving.

“We think that’s overkill,” Clayton Boyce, spokesman for the American Trucking Associations, said of a federal bill that would force states to ban texting while driving if they want to keep receiving federal highway money.

The legislation will be discussed at a conference on distracted driving in Washington, starting Wednesday, organized by the Transportation Department.

The issues raised by truckers show the challenges facing advocates for tougher distracted-driving laws, given that so many Americans have grown accustomed to talking and texting behind the wheel.

The trucking industry has invested heavily in technology to wire vehicles. Satellite systems mounted on trucks let companies track drivers, send new orders, distribute companywide messages and transmit training exercises. Drivers can also use them to send and receive e-mail and browse the Internet.

After videotaping truckers behind the wheel, the Virginia Tech Transportation Institute found that those who used on-board computers faced a 10 times greater risk of crashing, nearly crashing or wandering from their lane than truckers who did not use those devices.

That figure is lower than the 23 times greater risk when truckers texted, compared with drivers simply focused on the road, according to the same study. However, the Virginia researchers said that truckers tend to use on-board computers more often than they text.

The study found that truckers using on-board computers take their eyes off the road for an average of four seconds, enough time at highway speeds to cover roughly the length of a football field.

Richard J. Hanowski, director of the Center for Truck and Bus Safety at the Virginia institute, said videotape monitoring of 200 truckers driving about three million miles showed many of them using the devices, even bypassing messages on the screen warning them not to use the devices while driving.

In recent years, fatalities caused by large trucks have risen slowly, despite many safety advances like air bags and antilock brakes, according to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration. In 2007, large trucks caused 4,808 deaths — or 12 percent of all driving-related fatalities — up from 4,777, or 11 percent, in 1997.

Beyond the dispatch computers, truckers said they relied heavily on an array of technologies to stay productive, entertained and connected on the road. Their cabs become like home offices, wired with CB radios, AM/FM and satellite radios, weather band radios, GPS devices, electrical outlets, laptops and even computer desks. And, of course, cellphones.

Click here to read the entire article.  Also, while you are on the NY Times page, don’t forget to try the awesome interactive graphic (which can be found embedded on the left hand panel of this NY Times article) to gauge  your distraction.  It does that by measuring how your reaction time is affected by external distractions in a nice little game.

Note:  Another New York Times article on this issue of driver distraction notes that the general public overwhelmingly supports the prohibition of text messagingwhile driving, the latest New York Times/CBS News Poll finds. Ninety percent of adults say sending a text message while driving should be illegal, and only 8 percent disagree.   More than 80 percent of every demographic group say sending text messages while driving should be illegal, but some are more adamant about such a prohibition than others. Parents, whether or not their children are adults, are more inclined to support a ban than people without children. Women are more in favor of outlawing the practice than men.  Click here to read more details on this interesting poll.

(Source: You Tube)

The Norwegian Motorcycle Union has made this hard-hitting PSA that aims to promote an awareness among car & truck drivers who often don’t look out for motorcyclists on the road.  Starting from the fact that 8 out of 10 collisions are caused by drivers that never see the motorcycle.  The “Motorcycle Accident Cause Factors and Identification of Countermeasures,” was a study conducted by the University of Southern California, with funds from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration, researcher Harry Hurt investigated nearly every aspect of 900 motorcycle accidents in the Los Angeles area. Additionally, Hurt and his staff analyzed 3,600 motorcycle traffic accident reports in the same geographic area.  Some of the study findings listed below, among a grand total of 53, are directly attributed to the negligence of motorists:

• Approximately three-fourths of the motorcycle accidents involved collision with another vehicle, which was most usually a passenger automobile.
• The failure of motorists to detect and recognize motorcycles in traffic is the predominating cause of motorcycle accidents. The driver of the other vehicle involved in collision with the motorcycle did not see the motorcycle before the collision, or did not see the motorcycle until too late to avoid the collision.

Location:

National Capital Planning Commission

401 9th St NW, 5th Floor

Washington, DC 20004

Date: 9/30/2009 from 6:00 pm – 8:00 pm

Hosted By: Coalition for Smarter Growth

RSVP by: September 30, 2009 at 3:00 pm

Bike Culture and Policies in Denmark

The cool factor of the bicycle has come a long way in the U.S., but nowhere is it as mainstream to bike in your suit and tie or your fashionable dress as it is in European cities like Copenhagen. Danish bike culture, often called “cycle chic”, is central to the Danes’ approach to sustainable living, and one of the key factors in their ability to remain energy independent.  This supportive culture combines with supportive transportation infrastructure to make biking the mode of choice for nearly one-third of local trips in Denmark, compared to just 1% of local trips in the United States. What have the Danish done to make biking a national habit?

Join us for a lecture and discussion with Mikael Colville-Andersen with an introduction by Andy Clarke. A film-maker, speaker and writer, Mr. Colville-Andersen has actively branded Copenhagen as the leading bike city in the world. Check out his two blogs: www.copenhagencyclechic.com andwww.copenhagenize.com.

Speakers:
Mikael Colville-Andersen, Copenhagenize.com
Andy Clarke, Executive Director, League of American Bicyclists
Eric Gilliland, Executive Director, WABA
Cheryl Cort, Policy Director, Coalition for Smarter Growth

Event sponsors:
Coalition for Smarter Growth, WABA, and League of American Bicyclists

(Source: Washington Post)

Forget about getting more money for Metro or whether to fire the general manager. The real issue is poor customer service: mysterious train halts, boarded-up escalators, rude station attendants.

That, at least, is the view of a bearded, 41-year-old former news reporter who writes the successful gadfly blog with the off-color title Unsuck DC Metro. He doesn’t want his name published, saying he’s received several threats over blog posts that embarrassed Metro employees. On that condition, however, he agreed to meet for lunch for his first full interview and discuss what he thinks ails Metro following the toughest three months in the transit system’s 33-year history.

The blogger, whose site is http://unsuckdcmetro.blogspot.com, bases his judgment partly on personal experience but mostly on the thousands of e-mails, comments, photographs and Twitter messages he’s received since he started in January. He gets more than 1,000 hits a day and has nearly 1,400 followers on Twitter — very near the approximately 1,650 following Metro’s own Twitter site.

General Manager John B. Catoe Jr., whose contract was just extended for three years, should pay attention. The bloggers have come to speak for Metro’s core customers and serve as a kind of collective conscience for the system.

To its credit, Metro responds to bloggers’ queries and, despite some understandable tensions, deals with them professionally. Other bloggers following Metro include Greater Greater Washington, Moving Momentarily, Why I Hate DC, Infosnack and DCist (along with such mainstream media blogs as The Post’s Get There, which features Dr. Gridlock).

Mr. Unsuck decided to blog after he changed jobs in November and began commuting regularly on the Orange Line. He was surprised when trains stopped regularly mid-trip and when, in his first week, he had to get off and wait three or four times when a train was suddenly taken out of service. Compared with foreign systems he knew, “I just felt there was something wrong with this one,” he said.

His blogging is part-time and unpaid. On slow days, he works on the blog for 20 minutes in the morning and 20 minutes after work. A lengthy posting might take several hours. The lunch I bought him (his share was $27.50) was the first material benefit he’d received.

Click here to read the entire article.

Note: Transportgooru congratulates fellow bloggers Greater Greater Washington, Moving Momentarily, Why I Hate DC, Infosnack and DCist for the great job they have done in getting the Metro to pay attention to the Metro riders’ issues.   If anything, the community is glad to have these platforms to share their agonizing commuter tales & Metro’s woeful performance/behavior.   Hat tip to all these bloggers for their community service!

Washington, DC is known as the power capital of the world. But on September 29 it’s going to be transformed to the CLEAN DIESEL POWER capital of the world.

Friday, September 25, 2009 – ISSN 1529-1057

AVIATION

1) Computers Can’t Replace Pilots – Yet, Say Experts

Link to article in Flight International:

http://www.flightglobal.com/articles/2009/09/24/332716/computers-cant-replace-pilots-yet-say-experts.html

ELECTRONIC TOLLING

2) Report Lauds Florida I-95 Toll Express Lanes

Link to article in The Miami Herald:

http://www.miamiherald.com/486/story/1250690.html

GPS / NAVIGATION

3) Launch of Russian Navigation Satellites Delayed Due to Glitch

Link to AP article:

http://www.businessweek.com/ap/financialnews/D9AUBPU00.htm

4) iPhone GPS App Market Heating Up

Link to article in Computerworld:

http://news.idg.no/cw/art.cfm?id=F2595D17-1A64-67EA-E4AFA4137F54131D

MARITIME

5) Norway Not Told About Nuclear Cargo

Authorities not notified when Russian vessel with nuclear waste passed Norway on its way from Poland to Murmansk.

Link to article on BarentsObserver:

http://www.barentsobserver.com/norway-not-told-about-nuclear-cargo.4636665-16176.html

OTHER

6) Insurer to Track Drivers by iPhone and BlackBerry

Link to Bloomberg News article:

http://www.boston.com/business/technology/articles/2009/09/25/insurer_to_track_drivers_by_iphone/

7) Mark IV Gets Court OK to Emerge from Bankruptcy

Link to article in The Buffalo News:

http://www.buffalonews.com/145/story/807028.html

SAFETY / SECURITY

8) US Lawmakers Weigh Next Move on Public Safety Spectrum

Link to article on CongressDaily:

http://www.nextgov.com/nextgov/ng_20090924_2932.php

9) Advocates Target Texting-While-Driving at Safety Summit

Link to article in the Dayton Daily News:

http://www.daytondailynews.com/blogs/content/shared-gen/blogs/dayton/ohiopolitics/entries/2009/09/25/advocates_target_textingwhiled.html

10) Strict Rules from Parents Lead to Safer-Driving Teens

Link to article in USA Today:

http://www.usatoday.com/money/autos/2009-09-24-safer-driving-teens_N.htm

SPACE

11) Missile-Tracking Satellites Launched on Demo Flight

Link to CNET News article:

http://news.cnet.com/8301-19514_3-10361665-239.html

TELEMATICS

12) eCall Creates New Possibilities for Telematics

Link to article in Integrated Solutions:

http://www.isminfo.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=1555&Itemid=110

VEHICLES

13) Crash Me if You Can

Link to column in The Sydney Morning Herald:

http://www.smh.com.au/drive/motor-news/crash-me-if-you-can-20090924-g3v3.html

News Releases

1) Volvo Cars on the Move Towards a Future Without Traffic Accidents

2) New Web Site for Amtrak Travelers in Virginia – AmtrakVirginia.com

3) Safety Advocates File Petition to Initiate US Action to Curb Use of Electronic Devices by Truck and Bus Drivers

4) Innovative Crop of Companies Plus Several New Programs and Awards Round Out DEMOfall 09

Upcoming Events

Clean Diesel Technology Showcase – September 29 – Washington, DC

http://www.dieselforum.org/news-center/press-releases/clean-diesel-power-ready-for-tomorrow-working-today

Friday Bonus

Alarm or no alarm, how comfortable would you be taking a nap on the subway?

http://www.6dsoftware.com/Subsnooze/Subsnooze_.html

Today in Transportation History

1959 **50^th anniversary** – The Goodyear blimp, Enterprise, the second Goodyear blimp with that name, made its final flight.

http://www.sandcastlevi.com/sea/enterprise/voych11b.htm

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Questions, comments about the TCN? Please write the editor, Bernie Wagenblast at i95berniew@aol.com.

© 2009 Bernie Wagenblast