TransLiblog

Saving the social domain from the traffic domain: Hans Mondermann

2008-08-24T14:06:00.000-07:00

Tom Vanderbilt has an interview with Hans Mondermann in The Wilson Quarterly. Vanderbilt, is the author of "Traffic: why we drive the way we do" and in the book's Aknowledgements section he says that Mondermann's "words and spirit pervade this book."

Prof. Donald Shoup Interview: Part 2

2008-08-04T05:00:00.000-07:00

Photo courtesy of Prof. Shoup's homepage

Recently we interviewed Prof. Donald Shoup for a new feature on TransLiblog with some questions about his groundbreaking work in parking. This is the second half of that interview. The first half was published on this blog on 21 July 2008.

Prof. Shoup’s canonical work, The High Cost of Free Parking, is radically changing approaches to transportation in the academic world as well as industry. In this book, Prof. Shoup has argued for three fundamental parking principles- (1) implement a market-based pricing scheme for curbside parking that will insure a 15 percent vacancy rate, (2) eliminate parking stall requirements for new developments, and (3) reinvest the lion’s share of parking revenue locally. Prof. Shoup received his PhD in Economics from Yale University and is currently Professor of Urban Planning at UCLA, having formerly served as Chair of that department as well as Director of UCLA’s Institute of Transportation Studies. He has also worked with various governmental organizations to assist in the creation of new policies for parking and public investment.
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ITSL: You come from a background in Economics. What initiated your interest in the transportation, and parking specifically, coming from this background? What peculiarities about parking drew you in from an economic standpoint, and at what stage in your career did they begin to draw you in?

DS: In 1975 the California Department of Transportation commissioned Philip Vincent and me to write a report on "Equity in Financing the California Transportation Plan." I wrote one chapter on the equity implications of employer-paid parking, because it seemed unfair that most employers offer free parking to commuters who drive to work and nothing to commuters who walk, bike, or ride public transit to work. It also seemed unfair that the parking subsidies are exempt from income taxes. When I looked more closely, I saw that employer-paid parking increases solo driving to work and thus produces a raft of harmful side effects.

I concluded that employer-paid parking is not only unfair but also inefficient. Nevertheless, free parking is the most common fringe benefit offered to workers in the US, and 95 percent of American automobile commuters park free at work. Almost every commuter with a car will drive to work if there is free parking at work. Free parking thus helps explain why 91 percent of commuters drive to work, and why 93 percent of their vehicles have only one occupant. The annual cost of all the free parking spaces at work is about 1 percent of the gross national product. This money could be used to pay for other fringe benefits or for higher salaries, but drivers rarely think about the cost of parking at work, and might be surprised to learn that it has any cost at all.

Many solo drivers who park free at work would drive to work alone even if they had to pay for parking. But employer-paid parking is like a matching grant for commuting by car: employers pay for parking at work if commuters drive to work. This matching-grant feature of employer-paid parking invites additional commuters to drive to work alone. Some solo drivers who park free at work, for example, would carpool, ride public transit, walk, or bike to work if they had to pay for parking. Employer-paid parking therefore changes these commuters’ travel choices: they drive to work only because they can park free.

After writing about employer-paid parking for several years, I began to study other problems created by ubiquitous free parking and came to believe that better parking policies could produce enormous benefits for cities, the economy, and the environment. Since most other urban planners and economists had overlooked parking or thought it unimportant, there was plenty to discover.

ITSL: You note your performance-based curbside parking abides by the "Goldilocks Principle." This principle deems that the number of curbside parking vacancies should not be too big or too small, but instead "just right" (~15% vacancy). Prices are to be adjusted to meet the vacancy number, which in turn is useful to keep cars off the roads- improving congestion, greenhouse gasses, and lost time. While I know you've been asked before about the effects of your program on low-income individuals- one conceivable downside of market-based pricing for curbside parking, given the anticipated large increase in fees for parking, is that driving will become prohibitively expensive first for low-income individuals, while presumably high-income individuals will be less affected by price differences. Is this analysis correct?

DS: Charging market-rate prices for curb parking is economically efficient, and it may become politically feasible, but is it fair? Many people will initially say no, but they may change their minds after they think about it. After all, the complaint that charging for curb parking is unfair can be made against charging for almost anything. Motorists pay for most other costs of owning and operating a car (gasoline, tires, repairs, insurance, and the vehicle itself), but few see this as unjust. If people pay rent for housing, why shouldn’t drivers pay rent for parking?

To judge whether charging for curb parking is fair, we can compare it with the current alternative—off-street parking requirements that increase the prices of everything else. With off-street parking requirements, even households without cars pay for parking indirectly in the form of higher prices for everything they buy. In contrast, when curb spaces are priced at market rates, only parkers must absorb the cost. Charging for curb parking thus seem fairer than imposing off-street parking requirements, especially for those who are too poor to own a car. The 2001 National Household Travel Survey found that households with incomes less than $25,000 a year are nine times more likely not to own a car than households with incomes greater than $25,000 a year. Similarly, households living in a rented residence are six times more likely than homeowners not to own a car. Because cars are unequally distributed in the population, charging drivers for the curb parking they use is fairer than forcing everyone to pay for off-street parking whether they use it or not. Parking requirements take money from the poor to subsidize the better-off: drivers park without paying, while nondrivers pay without parking.

I am not saying we should pay more for parking. Off-street parking requirements force everyone, including the carless, to pay too much for parking indirectly. I am saying we should pay for parking directly. Cities can individualize—decollectivize—the cost of parking, so that we pay less for parking if we use less. While we all want to park free, we should not elevate this wish into a social judgment that charging for curb parking is unfair, especially when we compare it with the alternative—off-street parking requirements that impose a heavy burden even on those with the least ability to pay. Almost everyone will be better off by paying only for the parking they use and not paying the high costs that off-street parking requirements impose on everyone.

ITSL: Assuming market-based pricing does in fact push out low-income drivers first, are there policies that could reduce such a problem? Could the implementation of a graduated pricing scheme to reduce certain types of vehicles (e.g. SUVs, luxury vehicles, trucks, or whatever) be integrated into your program?

DS: To ensure equity in curb parking, cities can offer "lifeline" credits for lower-income households, similar to the existing lifeline pricing arrangements for electricity and telephone service. For example, cities may choose to give every low-income citizen a minimum parking credit without charge. These credits will guarantee at least a minimum level of access, and those who don’t own a car can use their credit to pay for parking when drivers offer them a ride. Because the city will charge for curb parking that was formerly free, the lifeline credits will not require a cash outlay. Instead, they will transfer income from those who own cars to those who don’t. Charging market prices for curb parking and offering lifeline credits to the poor is fairer than requiring off-street parking everywhere.

Cities can also give lifeline credits to help disabled drivers who need to park close to their destinations. By creating a few vacancies everywhere, market-priced curb parking will improve access for the disabled because able-bodied drivers will never "need" to park in spaces reserved for the disabled. Because business owners and residents in parking benefit districts will lose revenue whenever a driver misuses a disabled placard to park free at the curb, they will actively support strict tickets for this despicable behavior. As it is now, disabled placards are so widely misused, and detection of a violation is so difficult, the chance of getting a ticket is so low that even high fines for violations do not prevent misuse. In parts of Los Angeles, for example, so many disabled spaces are fraudulently occupied that legitimate users of disabled placards cannot find a parking space; that is, the share of disabled spaces that are illegally occupied approaches 100 percent! Ending the rancorous disputes about illegal parking in disabled spaces thus represents yet another advantage of charging the right price for curb parking and returning the revenue to neighborhoods.

ITSL: Do you see advances in Intelligent Transportation Systems as playing a role in your ideas regarding parking? While there have been some advances in ‘smart’ parking garages and in-vehicle metering, many new technologies seem to be in logistics and safety. Does a parking-based restructuring of transportation require new technologies or not? Could the restructuring be helped along by certain types of technologies like in-vehicle metering and GPS?

DS: Intelligent transportation technology is key to better parking management. The adage that "You can’t manage what you can’t measure" fits parking perfectly. And until recently, the technology for measuring the performance of curb parking was crude. From the user’s point of view, most American parking meters are identical to the original model invented in 1935: you put coins in the meter to buy a specific amount of time and risk getting a ticket if you return after your time expires. Early critics of the parking meter called it "just a combination of an alarm clock and a slot machine."

The problems with conventional parking meters are myriad. What if you have no change? What happens if your plans change and you can’t get back to your car in time? If your visit gets cut short, why can’t you get some money back? And, from a city’s point of view, how can managers adjust the rates for parking meters to keep pace with changes in demand? Few other payment systems improved as little as parking meters in the 20th century. Nevertheless, two advanced technologies—multispace parking meters and curb-space occupancy sensors—now make it much easier for users to pay for curb parking, and for cities to adjust prices to meet the demand.

Multispace meters accept payment by coins, bills, credit cards, smart cards, and cell phones. Drivers thus don’t need to carry exact change to feed the meters. The meters have computer capabilities that allow charging different prices by time of day or day of the week, thus responding to variations in parking demand. Parking officials can remotely reconfigure the price schedule in any neighborhood, and the new rates are sent wirelessly to all the meters in the neighborhood. Multispace meters can show information on a large, interactive graphic screen, so they can convey complex information. They can be multilingual, show graphics, and guide the user through transactions, displaying messages such as "Please insert your card other side up." Electronic technology produces records of parking occupancy on each block by time of day and day of the week. This information is useful to analyze usage patterns and set prices to manage the parking supply.

Occupancy sensors are another new technology that will greatly increase the ability to measure and manage curb parking. These occupancy sensors are embedded in the pavement and sense changes in the earth’s magnetic field when two tons of metal are parked above them. These occupancy sensors can give transportation managers real-time information on the occupancy status of every curb parking space in the city. This information will enable managers to adjust parking prices to respond to changes in demand.

With multispace parking meters and occupancy sensors, transportation managers will be able to adopt the "Goldilocks Principle" to set curb parking prices: the price is too high if many spaces are vacant and too low if no spaces are vacant. When about one space on each side of every block is usually vacant, the price is just right.

Because both parking meters and occupancy sensors can communicate with transportation managers in real time, the city will have full information on the number of occupied parking spaces on each block and the number of spaces that are being paid for. Enforcement officers can go directly to the blocks with many meter violations, rather than roam around looking for violations. With better enforcement, more drivers will also choose to pay for parking rather than risk a ticket. Paying for parking will thus come to resemble paying for everything else. You won’t pay for my parking, I won’t pay for yours, and no one will drive around hunting for free parking.

ITSL: You’ve noted in your work the importance of actually being able to apply your theories to real situations- for example, citing numerous situations where market-based pricing of curbside parking has been successfully employed. What are some of the advantages and disadvantages, in your mind, in the division of labor in transportation between academe and industry?

DS: The division of labor between academics and practitioners works best when both know what the other is doing, and appreciate the importance of what the other is doing. In California, we have developed several institutions that increase cooperation between academics, transportation staff, consultants, and elected officials. On of these institutions is Access magazine, published by the University of California Transportation Center. This journal invites academics to translate their research articles into shorter pieces intended for a wide audience. Access bridges the gap between academics and practitioners.

Another institution that does this is The Public Policy Program of UCLA’s Extension service that sponsors an annual conference at Lake Arrowhead to examine the interrelationships among transportation, land use, and the environment. This conference regularly attracts academics, elected officials, agency administrators, union leaders, business representatives, and environmental activists to discuss policy problems and propose potential solutions. I presented a preliminary version of my parking cash-out proposal at one of these conferences in 1988, and received valuable feedback in the form of questions and concerns from the politicians and employers who attended. I then revised the proposal to address these concerns, and summarized the research to support it. As a direct result of the cooperation and communication fostered by these conferences, the cash-out bill was eventually enacted in 1992 as Assembly Bill 2109. The bill was introduced by Assemblyman Richard Katz, Chairman of the Assembly Transportation Committee, whose chief aide, John Stevens, participated in the conference that debated the original cash-out proposal.

ITSL: The parking situations at various academic institutions provide a peculiar problem. In the Bay Area, colleges and universities like UC Berkeley and the City College of San Francisco are located in settings where faculty, staff, and students all vie for spots with the local residents in abutting neighborhoods. While residents dislike their curbside spots being occupied by the nearby university, they are also reluctant to give up free parking for their own use. Is your idea of reinvesting fees collected from curbside parking back into neighborhoods enough of an incentive to encourage residents to accept market-based parking fees in their neighborhoods?

DS: I hope so.
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HOT Lanes in the Bay Area

2008-07-24T12:22:00.000-07:00

Photo courtesy of johnmarkos.

The San Francisco Chronicle is reporting that the Metropolitan Transportation Commission (MTC) has approved a plan to allow solo drivers to pay a toll to drive in Bay Area carpool lanes, turning HOV (high occupancy vehicle) lanes into HOT (high occupancy toll) lanes. The article states:

The system would be phased in over nearly two decades, starting in late 2010 or early 2011, and the first pilot projects would open on two congested corridors: southbound Interstate 680 over the Sunol Grade and both directions of Interstate 580 between Livermore and the I-680 interchange, according to the Metropolitan Transportation Commission, a regional planning and funding agency, which is coordinating the plan.

Eventually, the toll-lane network would be expanded to cover nearly 800 of the region's 1,200 miles of freeway lanes.

The price of the tolls hasn't been decided, but it could start out at a couple of dimes per mile. Motorists would use FasTrak transponders to pay.

You can read more about MTC's proposal here.

Prof. Donald Shoup Interview: Part 1

2008-07-21T13:09:00.000-07:00

Photo courtesy of Prof. Shoup's homepage

Recently we interviewed Prof. Donald Shoup for a new feature on TransLiblog with some questions about his groundbreaking work in parking. This is the first half of that interview. The second half will be posted on 4 August 2008.

Prof. Shoup’s canonical work, The High Cost of Free Parking, is radically changing approaches to transportation in the academic world as well as industry. In this book, Prof. Shoup has argued for three fundamental parking principles- (1) implement a market-based pricing scheme for curbside parking that will ensure a 15 percent vacancy rate, (2) eliminate parking stall requirements for new developments, and (3) reinvest the lion’s share of parking revenue locally. Prof. Shoup received his PhD in Economics from Yale University and is currently Professor of Urban Planning at UCLA, having formerly served as Chair of that department as well as Director of UCLA’s Institute of Transportation Studies. He has also worked with various governmental organizations to assist in the creation of new policies for parking and public investment.
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ITSL: Market-based pricing of curbside parking is one of your more important contributions to the academic study of parking and is beginning to be adopted in different municipalities across the US. Another transportation topic that is currently very popular is congestion pricing for highways. What do you think is the source of the current trend toward transportation solutions based upon utilization pricing? Has utilization pricing always played a role in transportation through things like the fuel tax, or is the current movement fundamentally different?

DS: Pricing is becoming a popular solution to transportation problems in part because of the huge advances in pricing technology. Old fashioned single-space parking meters require drivers to carry exact change and decide in advance how long they want to park. Many drivers end up either paying for more time than they use, or not paying enough and risking a ticket. New technology, however, allows drivers to pay for curb parking without carrying exact change and without deciding in advance how long they want to park. Buying time at the curb can now be as convenient as any other of life’s daily transactions—no more complicated than buying a loaf of bread or a quart of milk.

The technology of collecting congestion tolls has also improved greatly, so most objections to transportation pricing are now political, not technological. I think the political key to generating political enthusiasm for performance-priced curb parking is to return at least a share of the meter revenue to pay for added public services in the metered neighborhoods. In Pasadena, CA, for example, after the city offered to spend all the meter revenue to pay for public investments in the Old Pasadena business district, the business and property owners quickly agreed to install meters because they saw that they would directly benefit from the revenue. The desire for public improvements soon outweighed the fear of driving customers away. Businesses and property owners began to see parking meters in a new light—as a source of revenue. They recommended the unusual policy of operating the meters until late in the evenings and on Sundays. The business and property owners bought into the proposal for parking meters because they were bought off with the resulting revenue.

Many transportation planners and economists agree that proper pricing is the best way, and perhaps the only way, to reduce congestion. And as Winston Churchill said, Americans will always do the right thing... after they've exhausted all the alternatives.

ITSL: Taking the first question into account, why do you suppose there is political and societal resistance to such an approach? Is this only a resistance to new and different ideas, or are there more robust arguments in place from detractors of market-based parking and congestion pricing?

DS: A generation ago, many planners and politicians opposed market solutions to public problems almost as a matter of principle, but even skeptics who still doubt the merits of market prices for other public services can in good conscience recommend charging them for parking. If cities underprice curb parking, they must require off-street parking everywhere—imposing enormous costs on the economy and the environment. Planners can and should regulate the quality of parking, but they should deregulate or limit its quantity. Instead of planning without prices, we can let prices do the planning.

No one wants to pay for parking—that will never change—but residents who benefit from the nonresidents’ payments for parking will begin to think like landlords, not tenants. Curb parking will come to be seen as a privilege, not a right. Once people understand that they will receive added public services paid for by curb parking, they begin to understand the rational arguments to charge performance prices—prices that vary to maintain about 85 percent occupancy—for curb parking. If cities continue to suck meter money out of neighborhoods and use it for general fund purposes, rational arguments about traffic congestion and the environment won’t convince many people that cities should charge performance prices for curb parking.

Suppose cities do return the meter revenues to pay for added public services on the metered streets. Then are there any robust arguments for free curb parking in areas where there is a parking shortage at the zero price? The only one I can think of is that performance pricing might be expensive to implement. But modern technology has greatly reduced the cost of collecting performance-based parking charges. Collection costs (both capital and operating) are usually less than 20 percent of the gross revenue even when parking charges are low. When meter rates rise to market levels, collection costs will be an even smaller share of the gross revenue. So I would conclude that all the objections to performance pricing are political, and that strategic use of the meter revenue can answer these political objections.

ITSL: One could analyze your approach to parking as a contribution to long-term sustainability in urban development. Is your approach, by feeding parking monies back into the community and by economically coaxing drivers into only taking trips they genuinely need to take, meant to be part of an effort to shift communities away from the current auto-centric model a more sustainable one? What do you take to be a sustainable urban model with regard to transportation?

DS: One of my basic research instincts is to look at cases where prices deviate greatly from costs, and to try to think of politically acceptable ways to bring the prices people pay into line with the cost they impose. In transportation, and especially in parking, the prices that drivers pay are often far below they costs they impose, and this underpricing leads to excessive driving.

Most proposals to restrain driving often suffer from their across-the-board nature. Because no one group benefits much more than another, the measures lack a natural constituency who will put time and money into advocating them. This is why I proposed the idea of Parking Benefit Districts, in which cities return meter revenue to pay for neighborhood public goods such as sidewalk repairs, underground wiring, and added police protection. These added public benefits for the residents can generate the necessary political support to charge for curb parking. Residents who receive the benefits can vote for their member of the city council, while most nonresidents who pay for parking in the neighborhood cannot. Politicians think politically, and in supporting a Parking Benefit District they will not have to break free from parochial, place-based concerns to adopt a reform that serves the wider public interest. By creating legitimate constituencies who enjoy selective public goods, Parking Benefit Districts rely on parochial, place-based concerns to provide the incentive for reform. The political support for these benefit districts will come from narrow self-interest, not ideological conviction, and no one needs to believe that charging market prices for curb parking is good transportation policy. In this case, residents who think locally and act locally will also be acting globally, whether they know it or not. Returning curb parking revenue to the metered neighborhoods makes sense at both the local and global levels. Getting the price of curb parking right will do a world of good.

ITSL: Historically speaking, why do people in our society expect free parking? Is it possible to wean people away from this expectation?

DS: When only the rich owned cars at the beginning of the 20th century, motorists simply parked their new cars at the curb where they had formerly tethered their horses and carriages. But when car ownership grew rapidly during the 1910s and 1920s, the parking problem developed. Curb parking remained free (the parking meter was not invented until 1935), but there were no longer enough spaces for everyone to park whenever and wherever they wanted. Drivers circled in vain looking for a vacant curb space, and their cars congested traffic. In the 1930s, cities began to require off-street parking in their zoning ordinances to deal with the parking shortage. This sounds like a good idea, and, in one sense, it was a good idea. Requiring all new buildings to provide ample on-site parking did solve one problem—the shortage of free curb parking—but the solution soon created new problems. People expected to park free, and urban planners began to assume that most people would travel everywhere by car, park on-site while they worked, shopped, or dined there, and then drive on to their next destination. Cities began to require each site to provide its own parking lot big enough to satisfy the expected peak demand for free parking, and most commercial buildings are now required to provide a parking lot bigger than the building itself. The required parking lot at a restaurant, for example, usually occupies at least three times as much land as the restaurant itself. Off-street parking requirements encourage everyone to drive wherever they go because they know they can usually park free when they get there: 87 percent of all trips in the U.S. are now made by personal motor vehicles, and only 1.5 percent by public transit.

So long as cities continue to require ample off-street parking at every site, people will never be weaned from expecting free parking. And unless cities begin to charge performance-based prices for curb parking, reducing or eliminating off-street parking requirements will not be politically possible. So I would argue that getting the price of curb parking right is a precondition to weaning people away from expecting free parking everywhere. Therefore, I would also argue that Parking Benefit Districts with revenue return to finance added local public services will create the political demand for more sensible parking prices.

ITSL: Does your work fit in with the New Urbanism, Smart Growth, and Transportation Oriented Development movements? In what ways does your approach differ from or cohere to these movements?

DS: I hope the advocates of New Urbanism, Smart Growth, and Transit Oriented Development will work to get parking right in new development. Most American cities put a floor under the parking supply to satisfy the peak demand for free parking, and then cap development density to limit vehicle trips. European cities, in contrast, often cap the number of parking spaces to avoid congesting the roads, and combine this strategy with a floor on allowed development density to encourage walking, cycling, and public transport. That is, Americans require parking and limit density, while Europeans require density and limit parking. The American policy looks exceptionally foolish when combined with complaints about traffic congestion and calls for Smart Growth.

A few American cities—Boston, New York, and San Francisco—do limit parking in their downtowns, but even these cities require parking everywhere else. If parking caps reduce vehicle trips, parking requirements surely increase them. If we want to reduce traffic congestion, energy consumption, and air pollution, the simplest and most productive single reform of American zoning would be to declare that all the existing off-street parking requirements are maximums rather than minimums, without changing any of the numbers, as the London Borough of Kensington and Chelsea did in 1995. From that point on we could let the market take care of parking, and let city planners take care of the many vital issues that really demand their attention.

ITSL: In The High Cost of Free Parking, you mention Thomas Kuhn’s work a number of times- particularly through his theories developed in The Structure of Scientific Revolutions. While the results of a parking-oriented approach to sustainability may converge with the efforts of planning movements like New Urbanism, the analysis of parking you provide is more revolutionary in terms of its conceptual break with traditional urban congestion analysis. Why is modifying city planning, as driven by economical considerations, more of a Copernican-style revolution than a modification by urban design principles?

DS: I think good economics and good design are complementary, and that bad economics in urban planning has led to bad design. As a profession, urban planning was once largely about urban design and arguably suffered from an absence of quantitative rigor. The profession has since compensated for its lack of quantitative analysis, but off-street parking requirements in zoning ordinances are an example of the pendulum having swung too far in the other direction, because most cities’ parking requirements give little consideration to aesthetics and city form. Most shopping centers with all the parking spaces that planners require become giant parking lots with a few buildings—not a good place to be a pedestrian. It undoubtedly meets the peak demand for free parking, but do planners really recommend this urban pattern? Parking profoundly affects the markets for both transportation and land, but is treated as an afterthought. Off-street parking requirements increase the cost of housing, subsidize cars, distort transportation choices, encourage sprawl, burden low-income households, damage the economy, and degrade the environment. Off-street parking requirements are a disease masquerading as a cure.

Supposing to require enough parking to meet the peak demand, urban planners focus almost exclusively on the ratio of parking spaces to floor area, and they neglect how all the required parking spaces affect urban design. Off-street parking requirements represent the triumph of quantity over quality in urban planning. Planners should stop requiring more parking spaces, and start requiring better parking design.

Parking spaces are an essential part of the transportation system, and they produce enormous benefits, but this does not mean that we need more parking spaces, or that parking should be free. When planners set minimum parking requirements, they do not define demand and supply the way economists do. For example, economists do not define the demand for food as the peak quantity of food consumed at free buffets where overweight diners eat until the last bite has zero value. Nor do economists, when asked for policy prescriptions, recommend that restaurants should be required to supply at least this quantity of free food no matter how much it costs. Yet planners do define parking demand as the peak number of spaces occupied at sites with free parking, and cities do require developers to supply at least this number of parking spaces, whatever the cost. Planning for parking is planning without prices. Getting the prices right in planning for parking will help architects design better buildings.
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ITSL wishes to thank Prof. Shoup for his thoughtful answers to these questions. Check back on 4 August 2008 for the second half of the interview.

San Francisco is for Pedestrians

2008-07-17T11:22:00.000-07:00

Photo courtesy of Thomas Hawk.
The SF Gate reports today that the website WalkScore.com has named San Francisco the country's most "walkable" city.

San Francisco scored an 86 out of 100, besting New York's 83 and Boston's 79. Seventeen of San Francisco's neighborhoods ranked 90 or above - considered a "walker's paradise" - including Chinatown, the Mission, Nob Hill and Haight-Ashbury.

"That says that San Francisco isn't just isolated pockets of walkability, but broad swaths," said Mike Mathieu, chairman and founder of Front Seat. "If you live and work in San Francisco, you know this. It means it's easier to get around, even with the hills."

The ability to conveniently travel by foot to services and jobs matters for a number of reasons. Studies show it means people get more exercise, drive fewer miles and consequently spend less on gas and produce fewer greenhouse emissions. Walkability also means there are people on the sidewalks, in stores and at restaurants, making neighborhoods livelier and, for many, more attractive.

"It's both healthy for the Earth and for humans to be able to walk to most of the places they need," said Kate White, executive director of the San Francisco office of the Urban Land Institute, a planning group. "Your carbon footprint is significantly lower than someone who has to drive everywhere ... and you're able to have real neighborhoods where you're not totally separated from your neighbors."

This report follows SFMTA's new Pedestrian Master Plan which aims to make the city more walkable, focusing on pedestrian safety and access to transit.

Biofuels cause food prices to soar

2008-07-03T21:16:00.000-07:00

Photo courtesy of The Guardian

A lead article in the Guardian reports that a leaked World Bank paper estimates that the price of basic foodstuffs has risen 75%, due to the diversion of basic crops to biofuel production. It seems that the report has remained unpublished to avoid embarrassing the U.S. government (President Bush has said that biofuel has caused the price of food to rise by only 3%) and for fear of getting the World Bank into political hot water.

The report identifies three main factors in this enormous price rise. A third of the US's corn and half of the EU's vegetable oil now goes to biofuel; farmers are being encouraged to set aside land for biofuel crops; and speculators have got in on the act.

The Guardian has posted the report on its website.

Hands on Driving.

2008-07-01T15:27:00.000-07:00

California legislation outlawing driving whilst holding a mobile phone went into effect today, as well as prohibiting drivers under the age of 18 from using any mobile phone device while operating a vehicle. The California DMV has a handy FAQ about the new legislation. The new law doesn't prohibit text messaging though, nor other distractions such as shaving or eating. Many have already derided the law as ignoring the real distraction behind mobile phone use in cars - talking on the phone.

A recent article entitled "A meta-analysis of the effects of cell phones on driver performance" examines research and literature about mobile phones and driving to asess their affect on traffic safety. Talking on the phone is only one in a list of many distractions which affect a driver's performance, yet most legislation has targeted mobile phone use exclusively.

Is it a conspiracy to get people to buy new phones with Blue Tooth or a pretext for drivers to be stopped and searched? Hopefully neither.

Amtrak's Busiest Month in History

2008-06-26T11:03:00.000-07:00

Last month Amtrak had its busiest month in its history. Nationwide ridership for May 2008 was up nearly 11%. For NPR's story, their reporter rode the Heartland Flyer, which travels between Oklahoma City, Oklahoma and Fort Worth, Texas. One rider on that train compared the price of a round trip ticket on Amtrak, $66, to the price for gas one-way in his truck -- $80. When this blogger checked on ticket availability for the Hearland Flyer for Friday morning, he found the train sold out.

Amtrak spokesman Mark Magliari says that half of the increase in ridership this year is due to the high price of fuel. As of today, Thursday, a seat in coach from Oklahoma City to Fort Worth, on Monday's train is $30.00. The trip of 200 miles in the most popular SUV in America, a Honda CR-V (22mpg), would cost $34.72 if you paid $3.82/gallon, the average price in Oklahoma City.

Photo from flickr user sheilaellen

Work Underway on Flying Car

2008-06-25T14:08:00.000-07:00

In 2005 Milner Motors started work on a roadable aircraft now called the Milner AirCar. According to March 2008 issue (Starting on page 80 of this 132 page pdf) of Aerospace Testing International, that same craft is being readied for NHTSA crash testing and James Milner believes that the roadable section already exceeds Federal Motor Vehicle Safety Standards (FMVSS) crashworthiness requirements and Federal Aviation Regulation requirements. The craft will carry 4 people and fly at 200 mph and reach an altitude of 25,000 feet. The aircraft engine should have 320bhp and the roading motor will be 40bhp and allow it to get up to 85 mph on the highway. The AirCar is expected to sell for around $450,000. The company will also be building a nonflying electric car of the same design.

A different approach to the flying car idea is Paul Moller's Skycar. Whereas the Milner craft will need to be driven to the airport for take-off, the Moller Skycar, being a vertical take-off and landing (VTOL)craft, will need no runway, and is not drivable as a conventional car at all. The Skycar is expected to have a top airspeed of 375 mph, reach 36,000 feet, and get you from location to location entirely by air. If you want one of the first 100 units, it will cost you around a million dollars. Moller has been working on developing a commercial VTOL craft for around forty years.

Images courtesy Milner Motors

Most and Least Fuel Efficient Cars

2008-06-18T14:40:00.000-07:00

With the price of regular gas in the U.S. typically over $4.50/gallon many people are looking for more fuel efficient cars. Fortunately, the Department of Energy and the EPA have compiled a list of fuel efficiency ratings at fueleconomy.gov.

Toyota Prius Hybrid, $29K ; 48 mpg city, 45 highway
Honda Civic Hybrid, $24K ; 40 mpg city, 45 highway
Smart ForTwo, $14K ; 33 mpg city, 41 highway
Toyota Yaris, $17K ; 29 mpg city, 36 highway
Mini Cooper manual, $19K ; 28 mpg city, 37 highway
Toyota Corrola, $23K ; 28 mpg city, 37 highway
Honda Fit, $19K ; 28 mpg city, 34 highway

Among the least fuel efficient vehicles you'll find:

SUV
Mercedes-Benz G 55 AMG 4WD, $112K ; 11 mpg city, 13 highway

Minivan
Toyota Sienna 4WD, $42K ; 16 mpg city, 21 highway

Small pickup truck
Ford Ranger 4WD, $26K ; 14 mpg city, 17 highway

2 Seater
Lamborghini Murcielago, $500K ; 8 mpg city, 13 highway

Prices based on common configurations found in the San Francisco Bay Area from Cars.com.

Find the cheapest gas in your area (within the U.S.) through AAA's website. After you've entered your zip code, click on AAA Gas Price Finder.

Bloomberg Takes It to the Streets!

2008-06-18T11:14:00.000-07:00

Photo courtesy of Flickr.com

The New York Times is reporting on a new experiment in New York City to have a "car-free zone" for three Saturdays in August. The article reports that

“If it works, we’ll certainly consider doing it again,” Mr. Bloomberg said, at a news conference in the East Village on Lafayette Street, which will be included in the route. “If not, we won’t. But we have never been afraid to try new ideas, especially the ones that have the potential to improve the quality of life

The area affected will be contained to Manhattan, from the hours of 7 a.m. to 1 p.m. Some detractors worry about the impact on business, while others speculate that increased foot traffic will compensate. Cyclists were, however, uniformly positive in their reactions.

Head Injuries on the Rise in Pennsylvania

2008-06-16T12:21:00.001-07:00

In 2003, Pennsylvania repealed its universal helmet law. If you're over 21 and you have more than two years' riding experience, you can now ride without a helmet in Pennsylvania. The authors of a paper to be published in the August 2008 issue of the American Journal of Public Health found a 32% increase in head injury deaths and a 42% increase in head injury-related hospitalizations in the two years after the helmet law was repealed -- and that's after taking into account the increase in motorcycle registrations. A University of Pittsburgh press release summarizes the finding of the report, "Changes in Motorcycle-Related Head Injury Deaths, Hospitalizations,and Hospital Charges Following Repeal of Pennsylvania’s Mandatory Motorcycle Helmet Law," was co-authored by Kristen J. Mertz and Harold B. Weiss of the Department of Neurological Surgery at the University of Pittsburgh.

According to an article in Hanover, PA's Evening Sun, 20 states have laws requiring all motorcycle riders to wear helmets, while 27 states have laws that require minors or passengers to wear head protection. Iowa, Illinois and New Hampshire have no helmet laws.

Hypermiling - Green alternative or just Cheap?

2008-06-10T09:13:00.000-07:00

Photo courtesy of Simply Marvelous.

There are many different responses to rising fuel prices- driving less, complaining more, using more fuel efficient vehicles, or making your current vehicle more fuel efficient. One group has taken common tips to for fuel efficiency to the extreme- Hypermiling.

Hypermilers have six core techniques:

First (and most important) step: Start recording your gas mileage. Easiest way? Use your trip odometer.

Do you drive aggressively and not know it?

How long are you sitting still at red lights?

Keeping moving in traffic congestion

Slowly accelerate after stops

Your cruise control saves gas

Both NPR and CNN have profiled Hypermilers recently, and it's clear that it's attractive to people as both a way to save money and to help cut down on emissions.

Record wingsuit flight over Galway Bay

2008-06-05T20:03:00.000-07:00

Image courtesy of Galway Advertiser.

Swiss wingsuit master Ueli Gegenschatz has broken the record for such flights. Jumping from a skydiving craft 14,760 feet over the Aran Islands in Galway Bay he flew unaided to the mainland, a distance of almost 11 miles. Aided by a tailwind he achieved a speed of 155 miles an hour, taking just 5 mins 45 sec to reach Connemara Regional Airport before parachuting to the ground.

(Another stunning picture of Gegenschatz directly over Inis Mór, Aran's largest island, can be seen on the BBC's report.)

Gasoline, a bargain still

2008-05-23T13:12:00.000-07:00

Image courtesy of Slate.com.

In a Slate.com article, "Gasoline is cheap", business correspondent Robert Bryce points out that the current price of gasoline in the US is only slightly higher than it was in 1922. British motorists pay $8.38 per gallon, while drivers in Turkey pay three times as much as their US counterparts. For those of us who cannot get over the shock of the $4 gallon of gas, a related article describes the Five Stages of Grief and gasoline prices in America

Go Green! Go Used!

2008-05-20T16:36:00.001-07:00

Photo courtesy of Parker's.

Wired published an article that might make you think about the next vehicle you purchase. Worried about greenhouse gas emissions and global warming? Leaning towards a hybrid because they're better for the environment? Wired breaks down the emissions produced by building a hybrid car versus those emitted by a sensible used vehicle:

If a new Prius were placed head-to-head with a used car, would the Prius win? Don't bet on it. Making a Prius consumes 113 million BTUs, according to sustainability engineer Pablo Päster. A single gallon of gas contains about 113,000 Btus, so Toyota's green wonder guzzles the equivalent of 1,000 gallons before it clocks its first mile. A used car, on the other hand, starts with a significant advantage: The first owner has already paid off its carbon debt. Buy a decade-old Toyota Tercel, which gets a respectable 35 mpg, and the Prius will have to drive 100,000 miles to catch up.

We're quite fond of the Daihatsu Charade, which looks like an egg and gets great mileage.

Is the Bay Area Ready for Congestion Pricing?

2008-05-13T15:42:00.000-07:00

Photo courtesy of Metropolitan Transportation Commission.

In August 2007, the US Department of Transportation’s Urban Partnership Program made $158.7 million available to the San Francisco County Transportation Authority to relieve traffic congestion . In order to receive the funds, SF hopes to introduce a variable toll on Doyle Drive, a connector to the Golden Gate Bridge. This would encourage drivers to switch to public transit or drive during less congested times of day.

Federal funds are at risk, however, as Marin and San Francisco argue about the fairness of tolls on the bridge and Doyle Drive. The board of directors of Golden Gate Bridge, Highway and Transportation District voted on May 9 to consider a congestion-based toll for the bridge but what impact that will have on Doyle Drive tolling remains to be seen. The SFCTA has issued a Toll Feasibility Fact Sheet that outlines how the electronic tolling would work.

The proposal is meeting from resistance from North Bay drivers who characterize it as an attempt by San Francisco to make them help pay for the rebuilding of outdated and seismically unsafe Doyle Drive. Others argue that this is a regional problem that needs to be addressed from that perspective. The public will be able to weigh in at a bridge district hearing July 11.

Laura Stonehill, a student in the dual-degree program in Transportation Engineering and City Planning at UC Berkeley, won First Prize in the American Planning Association’s Transportation Planning Division’s 2008 competition for her paper, Congestion Pricing on Doyle Drive . Congestion pricing in this context, she notes, would serve not only to reduce demand during peak traffic times but also to generate funds to reconstruct the connector to the Golden Gate Bridge. She recommends addressing concerns of North Bay residents, being open with the public about the pricing scheme and its objectives, and setting prices so that congestion is actually mitigated. The success of such a project is critical since it would be the first large-scale application of congestion pricing in the U.S.

Welcome to the Fast Lane

2008-04-29T12:30:00.000-07:00

Photo courtesy of Salon.com.

Have you heard the news? Transportation Secretary Mary Peters is the newest member of blogosphere with Welcome to the Fast Lane. Peters writes:

This new opportunity will allow me and others here at the Department to speak with you and engage in an earnest conversation about our nation’s transportation system…and, I hope, have a little fun while we’re doing it.

So go over there, subscribe to their RSS Feed, and let the U.S. Department of Transportation know your opinions!

14,218 Flights Over the U.S.

2008-04-29T08:45:00.000-07:00

Today's Astronomy Picture of the Day (APOD) is a computer generated animated depiction of airline flights over the United States from late night March 19th to early morning March 21st 2005. The work was created by artist Aaron Koblin based on data collected from the Federal Aviation Administration. In the movie, a frame of which is seen here, the bright blob towards the lower left is Hawaii, the bright blob just upper left of center is Southern California, and the lines comming into frame from upper right are trans Atlantic flights. Several different methods for displaying this same set of air traffic data can be seen in Koblin's YouTube video. For the entire month of March 2005 the Bureau of Transportation Statistics reports 996,240 revenue departures.

They might stop for this

2008-04-25T14:52:00.000-07:00

Saw this mentioned on the Environmental Design Library's site. An interesting concept for a crosswalk signal that no-one could possibly fail to notice, from the designer Hanyoung Lee. It's a virtual wall composed of plasma laser beams containing images of people crossing. It seems it would be good at controlling pedestrians too.

Image source: Yanko Design.

In-Vehicle Alcohol Detectors for the Masses

2008-04-15T13:13:00.000-07:00

The rate of repeat DWI offenses has been cut by over 40% in the U.S. and Canada by the use of ignition interlock devices. These are small, hand held breathalyzers that work in conjunction with an aftermarket ignition cut-off switch which allows a driver to start their car only if they pass their on-the-spot blood alcohol content test. 37 states now offer ignition interlocks as an alternative to license suspension for many DWI offenders.

The success of this program has prompted the Automotive Coalition for Traffic Safety and the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration to explore the feasibility of alcohol detection systems for all cars. Such a system would need to be, according to the newly launched Driver Alcohol Detection System for Safety website, "far less intrusive – they must not impede sober drivers from starting their vehicles. They would need to be capable of rapidly and accurately determining and measuring alcohol in the blood."

Sources: AutoWeek, 1 800 DWI LAWS.

Image: AutoWeek

Visualizing Bus Routes

2008-04-15T09:50:00.000-07:00

Photo courtesy of R. Justin Stewart.

The most classic and oft cited visualization of a transit network is probably Beck's original map of the London Underground. Minnesota based artist R. Justin Stewart has a new piece that maps out the route and schedule of a Minneapolis bus line from 2 a.m. to 2 p.m., with distance as the horizontal axis and time as the vertical. Definitely a new way to look at transit networks.

Via VisualComplexity.

Berkeley Lecturer Emeritus W. Homburger in BDP

2008-04-03T10:54:00.000-07:00

photo courtesy of ITS

W. Homburger's (Institute of Transportation Studies Lecturer Emeritus and former acting director) recent talk to the Berkeley City Commons Club was written up this week in the Berkeley Daily Planet. The topic concerned, among other things, the proposed Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) designed to ease traffic issues in the San Francisco Bay Area's East Bay (most notably, for Berkeley residents, eliminating a lane on Telegraph Avenue for BRT operations). Homburger is skeptical of this project, noting that, despite his general support for some associated measures,

AC Transit wants to spend capital funds, which is money with a ribbon-cutting at the end. [...] When’s the last time you saw a ribbon-cutting for maintaining a building?

Homburger goes on to explain that more robust support from local citizens is necessary for the proper implementation of such a system. He is not without his critics, however. A blog entitled Friends of BRT Blog has written a recent post criticizing some of Prof. Homburger's thoughts on BRT in the East Bay (which came in the form of another article in BDP). Charles Siegel, of the Berkeley-based Preservation Institute, explains in the blog post that

Homburger claims that "loss of a pair of lanes on Telegraph will increase congestion and the anger of residents on parallel streets where backups are already formidable." In reality, the BRT project would actually reduce, not increase, the number of cars entering the neighborhood.

For example, AC Transit analysis forecasts that the number of vehicles traffic crossing a line just north of Ashby Avenue stretching from Sacramento Street to College Avenue during the afternoon peak hour in 2025 would be 15,400 without BRT and 14,900 with BRT - a decrease of 500 cars. In addition, AC Transit could provide traffic calming devices to protect residents of streets near the BRT line.

Of course the East Bay BRT project is still in its planning stages, so no commitment has been made one way or another by AC Transit on the matter. Information on the proposal can be found here.

-J. Chipman

Peak Oil and the Future of Transportation

2008-03-27T09:48:00.000-07:00

photograph courtesy of flickr

The current issue of Cal Transit's Transit America serial has an interesting article on the issue of peak oil (here on p 7, in PDF). The article, written by the mayor of Huntington Beach, California, Debbie Cook, opens with the following:

Core to all U.S. transportation planning is the assumption that oil will always be abundant and cheap. This premise continues to dominate every regional transportation plan in the country and drives our auto-centric development patterns. But what if this assumption is wrong? What if we are near the peak of world oil production? It then follows that our assumptions on construction costs, gas tax revenues, travel and aviation demand, mode choice, and growth patterns are also wrong. It would mean that our fossil fuel-based energy future is in jeopardy and that we are not prepared.

Cook then goes on to provide some quantitative metrics indicating that the global community is indeed already in such a situation. Peak Oil, Cook explains, will yield a problem for transportation energy of a magnitude such that the United States' federal government will have to initiate policies to strongly militate against potential catastrophe.

A more passionately articulated position can be found in J.H. Kunstler, whose website can be found here. His book, The Long Emergency, speculates on this potential catastrophe and demonstrates to readers just how deep runs the modern world's dependence on oil as an energy resource.

-J. Chipman

Open Skies

2008-03-24T14:49:00.000-07:00

This Sunday -- March 30, 2008 -- the Open Skies agreement between the United States and the European Union will take effect. The liberalization process has been in the works for over 15 years and currently involves more than 120 bilateral agreements. And this one between the U.S. and the E.U. has probably the greatest potential for economic impact. With this agreement, U.S. and E.U. airlines will be able to choose their own routes and set their own fares as they choose. Before Open Skies, scheduled air carriers were subject to any and all restrictions placed on them by the countries to which they flew. Governments of any country allowing international flights were required only to adhere to regulations set forth in the original Chicago Convention, which in 1944 led to the establishment of the International Civil Aviation Organization. The current edition (7MB pdf) of this convention, which Open Skies will augment, provided basic guidelines such as:

"The contracting States recognize that every State has complete and exclusive sovereignty over the airspace above its territory."
"No state aircraft of a contracting State shall fly over the territory of another State or land thereon without authorization by special agreement or otherwise, and in accordance with terms thereof."
"No scheduled international air service may be operated over or into the territory of a contracting State, except with the special permission or other authorization of that State, and in accordance with the terms of such permission or authorization."

It is the purview of Open Skies to allow airlines to fully compete in a free market. Whether or not this will benefit air travelers remains to be seen.

Image: KLM Cargo

Transit Oriented Book Lending

2008-03-17T09:45:00.000-07:00

Have you ever gotten to the train station and discovered that you forgot to bring a book to read on your morning commute? Well if your commute starts at BART's Pittsburg-Bay Point station, that will soon be no problem. Simply go to the library book vending machine and check out any one of 400 titles available. The Contra Costa County library system, with grants from the California State Library and the Bay Area Library and Information System, will be installing Bokomaten book vending machines -- made by Distec AB of Sweden -- in three area BART stations. Hold your library card up to the machine to allow it to scan the barcode, browse through the inventory of titles displayed on the screen, select your book and about 20 seconds later out pops a real hard-copy volume in a plastic case which you then return to your local Contra Costa County branch library before the end of the three week loan period. See the machine in action: search for "Bokomaten" at http://www.youtube.com.

Thanks to S.D. Tannenbaum for the heads-up.

Photo courtesy San Jose Mercury News.

The Greening of San Francisco Taxis

2008-03-10T10:57:00.000-07:00

All of San Francisco's taxicabs will be greener by 2011. On March 6 mayor Gavin Newsom signed a bill that will authorize a $7.50 surcharge to the "gate cap" in order to facilitate purchase of low emission vehicles. Previously, taxi company owners were allowed to charge their drivers a maximum of $91.50 per 10 hour shift for the use of the cabs. This bill will increase that amount by $7.50. All new cabs must already be hybrids or run on compressed natural gase (CNG).
According to one taxi driver, quoted on priuschat.com, "new taxi medallions issued in San Francisco must be [for] hybrid or alt fuel taxis."

CW Nevius reports on the impact the bill will have on cab drivers. "I am running my ass off for $150 a day," says Bud Hazelkorn of the United Taxicab Workers, "Sometimes you don't make that until 11 or 11:30 in the morning."

The bill also requires taxi companies to reduce average per vehicle greenhouse gas emissions by 20% by 2012. City supervisors expect to achieve zero gross greenhouse gas emissions by 2020 by permitting only zero emission vehicles in the taxi fleets.

Photo courtesy Athan R. at yelp.com

$31 Million In Valuables Missing From Luggage

2008-03-05T20:43:00.000-08:00

A Fox News affiliate in Kansas City has gained access to a Transportation Security Administration database which reveals that $31 million worth of valuables has gone missing from luggage at American airports over the past three years. Due to heightened security theft of luggage from baggage carousels is down dramatically in recent years, but total luggage theft is up. It is believed that the majority of stolen items are being taken by baggage handlers employed by the airlines and even by TSA workers. One former baggage handler in Kansas City said that the when luggage is in the baggage hold area waiting to be loaded onto the plane it's particularly susceptible to theft. "You will have one person down there and all they are doing is transferring bags to different carts. It only takes one person. So you would just be in a room by yourself." The Kansas City reporters tell us that the airports with the worst record luggage security include LAX, with over 2,300 complaints, Newark, Miami, JFK, and Seattle.

As Cory Doctorow points out in his Boing Boing post, the stolen goods were "pilfered in transit after the TSA inaugurated its no-locks policy on checked bags."

Image courtesy proidee.co.uk

Indians view their automotive future

2008-02-27T10:04:00.000-08:00

An interesting report on the future of the automobile in India comes from the University of Michigan Transportation Research Institute (UMTRI). Produced in cooperation with IBM's Institute for Business Value.

Image from The Hindu newspaper

$51.66/Mile to Operate Zero Emission Busses

2008-02-26T09:53:00.000-08:00

A few years ago three transit agencies in California set out to evaluate hydrogen fuel cell busses. The results are in for Valley Transit Authority's trial and the fuel cell busses are surprisingly expensive. They've been costing the VTA $51.66 per mile to fuel, maintain and operate as opposed to $1.61 per mile for conventional diesel busses. ZEBs typically needed servicing after 1,100 miles, while diesel buses went about 6,000 miles between servicings. There's also a difference in purchase price: $2.5 million for the Zero Emission Busses versus $400,000 for diesel.

The California phase of the study is sponsored in part by the Department of Energy, and includes AC Transit, The VTA, and Coachella Valley's SunLine Transit Agency.

Image courtesy VTA

Volkswagen Sponsors New Research Center

2008-02-25T13:01:00.000-08:00

Volkswagen has given $5.75 million to Stanford for the creation of a new research center to be run by Sebastian Thrun, director of the university's Aritficial Intelligence Lab and winner of the 2005 DARPA Challenge. The new center, to be named the Volkswagen Automotive Innovation Lab, will focus on improving automotive safety through robotics. In a speach Thursday night Thrun outlined the his plans for the new center, described here by Kristina Peterson in today's Mercury News.

Images courtesy of Stanford Univ.

They will know all about you

2008-02-22T16:31:00.000-08:00

The British government is preparing new legislation that would compel all travelers entering and traveling within the UK to provide up to 19 pieces of personal information. Including such items as cellphone and credit card numbers, the information will be held for thirteen years. Read all about it in today's Guardian.

It's all in the name of security. Britain already supplies such detailed information to the US government on its citizens who travel to the States. And to think that once upon a time all you needed to show on the train was a valid ticket.

(Photograph: Guardian)

The Motor Car Dumpy Book

2008-02-15T15:00:00.000-08:00

Images courtesy of Project Gutenberg

Project Gutenberg yesterday reseased an e-book version of T.W.H. Crosland's classic work of transportation related children's literature, The Motor Car Dumpy Book. First published in 1904, Crosland's 95 page book is a humorous look at the growing fad of automobile ownership. In 1903 there were only 8 motor vehicles registered in Great Britain (according to the Dept. of Environment, Transport and the Regions' Vehicle licensing statistics, 1997) and early motor cars were often the subject of ridicule and satire.

Project Gutenberg, now a wiki, was started in 1971 by Michael S. Hart in an effort to create, gather and distribute books in electronic form. Project Gutenberg is joined in recent years by such e-book distribution efforts as Google Books, Microsoft's Live Search Books and the Open Content Alliance.

Sorry Bicyclists- No San Rafael Bridge Trips Anytime Soon

2008-02-14T09:49:00.000-08:00

photo courtesy of wikicommons

The San Francisco Chronicle reports on Caltrans' recent rejection of a proposal by Bay Area bicyclists to open the Richmond-San Rafael Bridge to bike traffic. The ongoing tension between bicyclists and Caltrans has lasted for 30 years with the current proposal projected to cost US$55 million.

Caltrans officials said Wednesday that they will reject a consultant's recommendation that a movable barrier be installed on the upper deck of the bridge to permit bicycle and pedestrian access 21 hours a day on weekdays and all day on weekends. Caltrans views such an arrangement as unsafe.

The Marin County Bicycle Coalition was instrumental in getting the proposal to this point and worked with consultants for the rejected proposal. Caltrans has contended that the project isn't feasible given safety concerns.

London's New Congestion Pricing - A breath of fresh air?

2008-02-12T11:23:00.000-08:00

Photo courtesy of Team Crandall.
London Mayor Ken Livingstone first proposed a higher congestion surcharge based on a vehicle's CO2 emissions in 2006. Today the formal proposal was announced by Transport for London. Some of the key points include no fees for vehicles that emit less than 120g/km of CO2 and an extra £25 charge for vehicles that pollute more than 225g/km of CO2 or have engines over specified sizes. Smart cars are in! SUVs are out.

The BBC reports that the National Alliance Against Tolls responded, "This move is not based on logic but on the whipping up of prejudices against those who use these particular vehicles." The Tory candidate for London Mayor, Boris Johnson, said, "In effect, the mayor has just given the green light for richer people to buy smaller cars and enter the zone for free while families who struggle with one big car are left feeling the pinch."

Environmental groups applaud the action, naturally.

Subway Maps Compared

2008-02-11T09:49:00.000-08:00

The good folks at CTA Tattler bring our attention to a fascinating comparison of subway maps compiled by fakeisthenewreal.org. They present a collection of 35 subway maps from around the world shown side-by-side in the same scale. And radicalcartography.net serves up a scale comparison of North American subways.

If you can't get enough about maps in general, there's good map blog at The Map Room.

Parking Space a Pawn in Political Debate

2008-02-04T10:41:00.000-08:00

The city of Berkeley is using a parking space to voice their political opinions. An article by Judith Scherr in the Berkeley Daily Planet reports on the descision by the Berkeley City Councl to grant free use of a parking space for four hours a week to protesters of the Berkeley office of the U.S. Marine recruiting center. Councilmember Gordon Wozniak was a voice of opposition to this use of the parking space saying that it “is showing favoritism to one side of the argument.”

Proposition 91- What's it all about?

2008-02-04T09:54:00.000-08:00

Photo courtesy of Mess of Pottage.

Are you ready for Super Tuesday? Don't forget the state propositions, especially the one about transportation funding- Prop. 91. The official summary from the California Attorney General is:

Increases stability of state funding for highways, streets, and roads and may decrease stability of state funding for public transit. May reduce stability of certain local funds for public transit.

Our friends at the IGS Library provide an even handed look at the proposed legislation. The League of Women Voters also provide a summary of the proposition.

As the IGS Library guide notes:

Proponents of transportation funding protection have declared that the success of Prop. 1A in November, 2006, makes Prop. 91 irrelevant. They urge voters to reject the proposal. There is no official argument for Proposition 1A. However, the Southern California Transit Advocates have come out in favor of the measure. They claim that the legislature still took funds for non-transportation purposes after the passage of Prop. 1A and Prop. 1B , a transportation infrastructure expansion proposal also passed in 2006. The SCTA believes that prop. 91 will close a loophole that the legislature and governor have exploited.

What does it all mean? Well, apparently that Prop. 91 isn't needed any more that Prop 1A is working. The San Francisco Chronicle examines the sordid tale of Prop. 91, trying to flesh out what's going on.

Happy voting!

History of PATH in IEEE

2008-01-31T12:37:00.000-08:00

For those with access to IEEE Intelligent Transportation Systems online, PATH researcher Steven Shladover has written a 20 year retrospective of the organization. The abstract reads thusly:

The California Partners for Advanced Transit and Highways (PATH) Program was founded in 1986, as the first research program in North America focused on the subject now known as intelligent transportation systems (ITS). This paper reviews the history of the founding of PATH and of the national ITS program in the U.S., providing perspective on the changes that have occurred during the past 20 years.

Schladover explains well the significance of 20 years for the booming ITS field and some of the generational shifts that have occurred since its inception.

AC Transit's Van Hool débacle

2008-01-31T10:12:00.001-08:00

AC Transit (Alameda County, California) in recent years has eliminated bus routes (from 157 to 93), raised fares (to $1.75 local without a transfer, with a plan to raise fares to $2) and increased taxes for county residents all to facilitate the purchase of Belgian made buses against the advice of experts and to the detriment of riders and the agency's own drivers. A recent article by Robert Gammon in the East Bay Express details the saga of AC Transit administration's extraordinary expenditure on Van Hool busses. The agency has recently spent $97.2M in public funds on 236 buses, which one AC Transit driver describes as, "the worst buses we have."

The reasons given for purchasing the Van Hools are the low floors and the extra set of doors, both of which facilitate boarding and leaving the bus. With the low floors, however, come sections of seating on raised platforms which have resulted in a post-boarding injury rate 100% higher on those buses. The third set of doors requires a shorter wheelbase which results in a much bouncier rider -- especialy for passengers sitting behind the rear wheels -- so AC Transit is now ordering some new Van Hools to be custom made with a longer wheelbase and only two sets of doors ... just like the old domestic buses.

In the second part of this two part story, Gammon tells us that to purchase the Van Hools AC Transit has spent over $1 million on employee trips to Western Europe and paid for a bus inspector to live near Antwerp for over five years, at more than $500,000 -- including $2,637 a month for his auto allowance -- on top his $121k annual salary. Since 2001 general manager Rick Fernandez, who earns $260k/yr., has made seven trips to Europe at taxpayers' expense totaling $22,983. During that period, 2001 through 2007, AC Transit employees filled out 163 travel vouchers for trips to Europe for a total of $947,238. And AC Transit has just increased the meal allowance from $50 to $134 per day.

No Free Rides

2008-01-29T09:38:00.000-08:00

Photo courtesy of Charles Haynes.

Today the SF Gate reports that there will be no free rides on Muni any time soon. They write:

"It's not something that we plan to pursue at this time," said Stuart Sunshine, the mayor's top transportation aide.

Newsom asked transit officials in March to study a no-fare system, saying at the time, "If it could happen here, it could happen anywhere." His suggestion was aimed at luring people out of their cars to reduce air pollution and traffic.

The consulting team hired by the city, led by Sharon Greene & Associates, looked at what happened when other jurisdictions adopted free transit programs. In larger cities, such as Austin, Texas, Trenton, N.J., and Denver, ridership increased by nearly 50 percent.

If that happened to Muni, which now provides nearly 700,000 trips on an average day, the annual operating and maintenance costs would rise by nearly $69 million. Muni's annual budget is about $670 million.

While it is an interesting idea, and lots of people would love it, it doesn't appear to be feasible at this time. Somehow I doubt this is the last of the idea though.

Next-Gen Aviation - Coming sooner than later?

2008-01-29T09:03:00.000-08:00

Photo courtesy of ITT

The poor conditions of our air traffic control towers is nothing new. People have been talking about the next generation of aviation for quite some time, but Aviation Week reports that Next-Gen systems might be closer than before:

Better late than never -- even if never was never really an option -- regulators are moving to define and accelerate the shift toward surveillance and navigation based on satellite systems. The United States is further along on the surveillance part, known as Automatic Dependent Surveillance - Broadcast (ADS-B) Out, with FAA's proposed rule (O&M, Nov. 2007, p. 19), while Europe's SESAR (Single European Sky ATM Research) group is further advanced on datalink communications. Both Europe and the U.S. clearly are moving toward the same goal, although the pace and emphasis during the transition to next-generation traffic management still must be worked out.

The article goes on to describe a number of factors pressuring the industry to switch over. As oil prices continue to rise and more people are starting to worry about carbon emissions and global warming, any Next-Gen system should increase system efficiency and reduce fuel costs and flight times.

Listen To Your Flight Attendant

2008-01-29T08:08:00.000-08:00

George Bibel, author of Beyond the Black Box: The Forensics of Airplane Crashes, wrote an editorial in the New York Times in which he reminds us of some very good reasons to listen to our flight attendants as they explain the in-flight emergency and evacuation procedures. Some interesting statistics Bibel brings up, lest you think that there is no hope of getting out of a plane crash alive; the vast majority of passengers involved in airline accidents do survive. For instance, a crash landing at Heathrow last week resulted in only 13 injuries among 152 passengers. Even routine measures like keeping your seatbelt buckled during turbulence can keep passengers from getting injured as the plane suddenly drops a couple hundred feet.

ITSL's new cataloging intern

2008-01-25T13:58:00.000-08:00

Our technical services section has a new hand on deck. Matt Schmitz, a second-year student at San Jose State University School of Library and Information Science, is with us for three months as a cataloging intern. Matt’s input will be welcome indeed in helping us catalog the ceaseless flow of technical reports, government publications, conference proceedings and foreign-language publications in print, on CD, and online. Matt intends to become a professional cataloger, and after experiencing cataloging at its toughest here in the Transportation Library, he'll be well able for anything that comes his way in future.

Is Too Much Ethanol a Bad Thing?

2008-01-23T09:08:00.000-08:00

Biofuels, such as corn ethanol which typically makes up 10% of gasoline in the U.S., have for years been considered an environmentally sound alternative to dependence foreign oil. Regan Suzuki of the U.N.'s Food and Agriculture Organization says, however, that an increase in ethonol production for many countries is causing an increase in the price of corn and other crops and may lead to water shortages and land use problems. Dan Kammen, a physicist at UC Berkeley is quoted by NPR as saying that production of ethanol "does not take more energy than you get out of the amount of ethanol. So it's a net good if you grow ethanol and use it." Jerry Taylor and Peter Van Doren of the CATO Institue, on the other hand, have a different take on the benefits of corn ethanol.

Switchgrass: The Fuel of the Future?

2008-01-14T13:23:00.000-08:00

The results of a five year study by the USDA conducted on farms in Nebraska and North and South Dakota show that switchgrass (Panicum virgatum) can deliver more than five times the amount of energy used to farm it. For comparison, corn, which is currently the biofuel crop of choice in the U.S. delivers only 25% more energy than is used to farm it. However, in a March 2005 paper David Pimentel and Tad Patzek report that corn based ethonol is produced at a 29% energy deficit.

Switchgrass, which is native to North America, is a permanent crop, meaning that it does not need to be replanted every year like most commercial crops. And because the switchgrass fields are not tilled under every year, the crop is effective at permanently storing the CO2 it takes out of the atmosphere.

One might wonder why all commercially produced ethonol is still being made with corn. For starters, there are no commercial cellulosic biorefineries to process the switchgrass, although the Department of Energy is contributing funding for the construction of six such refineries. Also, corn farming is heavily subsidised in the U.S., with the Farm Bill distributing an average of $5.1 billion per year to corn farmers.

Flying Car Sells for $131K

2008-01-14T09:08:00.001-08:00

The winning bid for the Sky Commuter prototype which sold on ebay this morning was $131,700.00. This vehicle is the only one remaining of the three which were built by Boeing in the 1980s at their Arlington, Washington facility, the other two having been scrapped when the $6 million Sky Commuter project was dismatled. The one seen here was saved from the scrapyard because it was not onsite at the time. Its sister ships have actually gotten off the ground -- about 10 feet off the ground, although this one is not flyable. The other two prototypes were damaged during testing and the original electric motors on this one were replaced with less powerful motors to prevent its getting off the ground. A former employee of Payne Aerospace writes, "ALL the flight tests were crash failures. They had overcome many issues but could not get away from power/rate/control issues. Years of testing, never a safe mode flight."

Semiotics Meets The World of Transportation

2008-01-09T11:00:00.000-08:00

A new, quite interesting dissertation out of our UC Davis Institute of Transportation Studies offers an analysis of the semiotics of Hybrid Electric Vehicles (HEV). Perhaps a foreign concept to those outside the humanities, semiotics is the study of signs and sign processing by humans. Semiotics is relevant to HEVs, author R. Heffner argues, as the perceived image of the HEV, its sign, is a relevant factor in its appeal to consumers. In Heffner's summary, he writes:

This study addresses the relationship between image and car purchases. Image, defined as the associations linked to a product or brand name [...] is often cited as influential in automobile purchases. But relatively little research has been conducted into what image is or why it is important to consumers. [...] The objective [of this study] was to understand how buyers of HEVs perceived the image of their vehicles, and the role image played in buyers' purchase decisions.

Using a data set consisting of a number of interviews with HEV buyers, Heffner analyzes the significance of the symbolic power of HEVs (perceived as being bother environmentally sound and economically prudent) in customers' purchasing decisions. Heffner also draws explicitly from philosophers like Ferdinand de Saussure and Roland Barthes and implicitly from the American pragmatist C.S. Peirce's semeiotics (and here).

The First Trainspotter

2008-01-09T10:59:00.000-08:00

The BBC reports that a new exhibit at the British National Railway Museum has documents from the first known Trainspotter. The museum is showing a letter written by 14-year old John Backhouse of County Durham to his sister in 1825 that describes a steam locomotive.

It was a very grand sight to see such a mass of people moving on the road from Stockton to Darlington, 600 people were said to be in, on and about the wagons and coaches! And the engine drew not less that 90 tons!!!!!

There was an excellent dinner prepared at Stockton for the railway gentry. I could tell you a great many more particulars but suppose that you are tired of it by this time.

Trainspotting saw it's heyday in the 1930s and steady decline since the 1960s when rail was superseded as the dominant mode for transporting goods and people.

A Natural Way to Clear a Runway

2008-01-08T16:26:00.001-08:00

Wildlife activity close to runways often compromises airport safety. While airports have tried traps, poison and ultrasound to scare off pesky animals, the southern Italian port town of Bari is about to try something different. Its airport has been plagued by foxes hunting the swarms of mice and rabbits abounding in the airfield at dawn and dusk. It seems that foxes are terrified by large birds of prey, so a young golden eagle has been trained to scare them away from the runway areas. The eagle, called Cheyenne, will commence her patrols in a few weeks' time.

Mitsubishi Builds World's Tallest Elevator-Tester

2008-01-04T11:56:00.000-08:00

Mitsubishi Electric has just opened its new elevator testing facility. Solae, the 567 foot tall tower located in Inazawa, Japan, is purportedly the world's tallest elevator tester. For comparison, the Otis testing tower in Bristol, Connecticut, has a 300 foot shaft. The Mitsubishi facility was built primarily for testing the new generation of high speed elevators. Currently the world's fastest elevators are in the Taipei 101 tower and travel from the ground floor to the observation deck on the 89th floor at 3314 ft. per minute (37.66 mph).

Fast elevators can be problematic, however, as atmospheric pressure changes too rapidly. The express elevators to the observation deck in the Sears Tower had to be slowed from 9.0 meters per second (20.13 mph) to 8.0 mps (17.9 mph) after a visitor's eardrum ruptured (see Mega high-rise elevators in Elevator World). To combat this problem, new high speed elevators are using pressure control systems to make the pressure change more steady and gradual.

Several new ultra-tall skyscrapers are planned or currently being built. The tallest currently under construction is the Burj Dubai and its express elevators, traveling at 18 meters per second (40.26 mph) will be even faster than those in the Taipei 101. And elevators in these tall skyscrapers will need to transport ever larger numbers of passengers to more destinations. This can lead to logistical challenges, so "smart" elevators are being developed. If you happen to be in downtown Manhattan, you can ride one. These smart elevators have no buttons inside for floor selection. Instead, you key in your destination outside the elevators and a display panel tells you which elevator to wait for. The software determines the most efficient elevator/passenger combinations.

California Sues the Fed!

2008-01-03T10:45:00.000-08:00

Some information today on California's suit against the EPA from NYTimes and breitbart.com. The case has been brought by Gov. Schwarzenegger due to a waiver requested by the state of the federal government to make more stringent its greenhouse gas emissions standards. The EPA rejected the waiver on grounds that new federal standards would be "more efficient" than California's proposed standards and that, contrary to the state's claim, no state is more greatly affected than another in terms of the effects of global warming.

Gov. Schwarzenegger made the following statement concerning the waiver rejection:

It is unconscionable that the federal government is keeping California and 19 other states from adopting these standards.

and

They are ignoring the will of millions of people who want their government to take action in the fight against global warming. That's why, at the very first legal opportunity, we're suing to reverse the US EPA's wrong decision.

Who knew Arnold kept a pair of birkenstocks and a hemp necklace in his closet?

World's First Ship Tunnel

2007-12-17T09:56:00.001-08:00

According to Reuters, Kystverket, the Norwegian Coastal Administration has approved plans for the world's first shipping tunnel. Likely to cost around $310 million, the tunnel would span 1,700 metres (5,577 feet) across the base of the Stad peninsula. The tunnel is to be located well inland where the openings would be sheltered from the raging storms of the North Sea.

The Norwegian Ministry of Fisheries and Coastal affairs could present the plan to parliament in 2009.

GPS Gets Handy

2007-12-14T15:22:00.000-08:00

The Global Positioning System is becoming woven more and more into everyday life, and we could be on the brink of an explosion of new applications. GPS receivers are becoming lighter, more portable, more versatile and cheaper. Consequently they are moving off the dashboard and into the hands and pockets of pedestrians. An article in the current Economist outlines the rapid developments in portable GPS receivers and their uses.

UPS Logistics

2007-12-13T13:14:00.000-08:00

A post not wholly irrelevant to the holidays- NYTimes is currently reporting on logistics software being implemented by UPS. One major factor, the article explains, is the near-elimination of those costly, wasteful left-hand turn signals. The author explains:

Last year, according to Heather Robinson, a U.P.S. spokeswoman, the software helped the company shave 28.5 million miles off its delivery routes, which has resulted in savings of roughly three million gallons of gas and has reduced CO2 emissions by 31,000 metric tons. So what can Brown do for you? We can’t speak to how good or bad they are in the parcel-delivery world, but they won’t be clogging up the left-hand lane while they do their business.

Fast food - they mean it

2007-12-13T12:15:00.000-08:00

You now get just 45 minutes to scoff your stuff at UK branches of MacDonalds. Surveillance cameras in the parking lots of drive-thru branches record license plates and the duration of one's stay. Stay for more than 45 minutes and a private enforcement agency will send a fine of £125 (yes, pounds sterling; about $250.) Stubborn types who refuse to pay up quickly find that the amount increases the longer they hold out. Read more in the UK's Guardian.

(But how can it take 45 minutes to put away a burger and fries? They must be doing something else in those parking lots. Blogging, maybe.)

Wired's Best & Worst Airport to Rail Connections

2007-12-10T14:13:00.000-08:00

Alexander Lew compiled lists of the best and worst cities for airport to rail connections. The five best:
5. Chicago O'Hare for its connection to the Blue Line
4. Tokyo's Narita airport connections to its Narita Express and Keisei Skyliner trains.
3. London's Heathrow airport's BAA Heathrow Express.
2. Paris Charles de Gaulle's connections to the TGV.
1. And the most convenient is Hong Kong's Airport Express.

Unfortunate travelers may find themselves having to rely on public transportation at the following airports:
4. New York's JFK
3. Shanghai Pudong PVG
2. San Francisco SFO
1. Los Angeles LAX

Cool Traffic Modeling Program Says "Yes" to Congestion Pricing

2007-12-03T11:06:00.000-08:00

SF City Planner, Billy Charleton, is interviewed on KQED Radio as he describes using SF Champ 3.0, an unusually sophisicated traffic modelling program which contains census data on 750,000 SF residents. In each scenario he runs, the simulation shows that traffic congestion is reduced with the introduction of congestion pricing. Critics of congestion pricing, however, point to London which charges about $16 to enter downtown during business hours. There, retail sales have declined since congestion pricing started.

Asha Weinstein Agrawal, of San Jose State's Dept. of Urban & Regional Planning, conducted a survey of 2700 California residents. 63 percent of respondents say that people with less fuel efficient vehicles should pay higher vehicle registration fees. This leads Agrawal to believe that people would be amenable to congestion pricing.

Travelling for the Holidays?

2007-11-20T15:34:00.000-08:00

(Photo courtesy of Näystin on Flickr.)

Do you have to travel for the holidays? Will your plans include driving to the airport to fly across the country? If so, John Van Horn at Parking Today's blog has offered up some airport parking tips:

Take a cab or limo to the airport -- At the cost to park of $20 a day, if you are going more than four days, its probably cheaper to take a cab, both ways.

Have a friend drop them off or pick them up.

Reserve a space on line -- virtually all airports are represented at a number of sites -- Key in "Parking" on Google and see what pops up.

Simply drive to the airport and park in an available space. My spies tell me that at virtually all airports there is parking available. It may not be the most convenient, but its there. Off airport parking is available, too. But its probably important to plan ahead and be sure you can find those little lots around the corner and down the block.

Airport hotels are offering park/sleep/fly packages that let you come a day early, leave your car, stay overnight, and be well rested for your flight.

Of course most won't take this advice, and most main stream media won't print it. All those "one flight a decade" folks will jam the airport at the last minute, have far too much luggage, complain about just about everything, and actually be the cause of most late flights.

Cynic? Nope, just experienced.

The best solution - have Thanksgiving at your house and let the family come there.

Having Thanksgiving come to you can be convenient, though we here at the library understand that some people are going to travel in the next day or so to see relatives and eat lots of food.

There have been many developments in airport parking recently. Susan Shaheen of ITS Davis published a paper in 2005 entitled Smart Parking Management Field Test: A Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) District Parking Demonstration that explored using smart parking at BART stations and airports to increase efficiency.

Van Horn's list neglects the possible role of transit in getting travelers to their destination. As a recent BTS special report, Making Connections: Intermodal Links in the Public Transportation System, highlights- more and more airports are being serviced by transit agencies. You can avoid the parking lot all together and ride the bus or the train, saving yourself a headache.

Whatever your plans are for this holiday, be safe and have fun!

Time Change Leads To Accidents

2007-11-19T10:52:00.000-08:00

The Toronto Star reports police in that city last monday kicked off their week-long "Smart Ped - Be Bright At Night" program in order to boost pedestrian and automobile safety. Similar safety campaigns held every November in Toronto are scheduled to coincide with the end of daylight savings time when police report a significant rise in the number of pedestrian/automobile collisions. Sgt. Allan Finlay explains that pedestrians and drivers haven't adjusted to the dark commute home.

Risk Compensation Rumble

2007-11-15T12:22:00.000-08:00

The recent issue of "Status Report" (42:10, pp 6-8) from the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety has a polemical article against "risk compensation" approaches to safety restraint legislation. In the article, "Risk Compensation Theory Keeps Popping Up Where It's Wholly Irrelevant," authors argue that the introduction of new safety features does not inherently alter driving behaviors for the worse. It is noted that, in response to a recent article on risk compensation in the statistical analysis journal "Significance,"

To believe [risk compensation concerning safety restraints in automobiles] you'd have to believe that people have a certain tolerance for risk and that their levels of risk are regulated by a homeostatic mechanism so that, if forced to "consume" more safety than they voluntarily would choose, people will balance the safety increase by taking more risk. It's a stretch, isn't it? (p 6)

The article being argued against, "Seat Belt Laws- Repeal Them?" (pdf format, requires subscription) is written by a professor emeritus from the geography department of UCL, John Adams. Prof. Adams explains that

"the evidence with respect to seat belts suggests that the law had no effect on total fatalities but was associated with a redistribution of danger from car occupants to pedestrians and cyclists. (p 89)

Finally, an article in Accident Analysis and Prevention presents some quantitative research on the matter (found here, in pdf and subscription required).

11 Most Bicycle Friendly Cities

2007-11-13T08:57:00.000-08:00

Wired Magazine reports that Virgin Vacations has put together a list of the 11 most bicycle friendly cities in the world.

Amsterdam, Netherlands : see their Bike Dispenser
Portland, Oregon : see a New York Times article on bicycle-friendly Portland
Copenhagen, Denmark : see the Streetsblog Notes on biclycling in Copenhagen
Boulder, Colorado : see the City of Boulder's bicycling transportation resources page
Davis, California : see the League of American Bicyclists' extensive article on what makes Davis bicycle friendly
Sandnes, Norway : see Marco Zanussi's profile on Sandnes Byke City (pdf)
Trondheim, Norway : see the Trondheim bicycle hill-assist in action on YouTube
San Francisco, California : get the 511 on bicycling in San Francisco
Berlin, Germany : read the CBS News report on Berlin's bicycling boom
Barcelona, Spain : see the Barcelona bicycling resources guide
Basel, Switzerland : see stats and history of bicycling in Basel

The eleven cities were chosen based on "The Five Es" -- criteria drawn up by the League of American Bicyclists

ENGINEERING : facilities for accommodation of cyclists
EDUCATION : provision of funds for teaching safe cycling
ENCOURAGEMENT : how the community promotes and encourages bicycling
ENFORCEMENT : do bicycling laws exist and are they enforced
EVALUATION & PLANNING : is there a bicycle master plan

Transportation Seminar and Cookie Time 9 November: A Macroscopic Approach to Urban Traffic

2007-11-08T13:15:00.000-08:00

This week's talk, given by CEE PhD student Nikolas Geroliminis (CV in pdf format), approaches a description of vehicular movement in urban areas on a macroscopic scale. Geroliminis has formed his conclusions using both simulation and real data from metropolitan areas (here is a link to a 4-hour simulation by Geroliminis and Prof. Daganzo). Here is the abstract:

Various theories have been proposed to describe vehicular traffic movement in cities on an aggregate level. They fall short to create a macroscopic model with variable inputs and outputs that could describe a rush hour dynamically. My dissertation work shows that a Macroscopic Fundamental Diagram (MFD) relating production (the product of average flow and network length) and accumulation (the product of average density and network length) exists for neighborhoods of cities in the order of 5-10km2. It also demonstrates that conditional on accumulation large networks behave predictably and independently of their Origin-Destination tables. These results are based on analysis using simulation of large scale city networks and real data from urban metropolitan areas. The real experiment uses a combination of fixed detectors and floating vehicle probes as sensors. The analysis also reveals a fixed relation between the space-mean flows on the whole network and the trip completion rates, which dynamically measure accessibility. This work also demonstrates that the dynamics of the rush hour can be predicted quite accurately without the knowledge of disaggregated data. This MFD is applied to develop perimeter control strategies based on neighborhood accumulation and speeds and improve accessibility without the uncertainty inherent in today’s forecast-based approaches. The looking-for-parking phenomenon that extends the average trip length is also integrated in the dynamics of the rush hour

The seminar will be in 240 Bechtel at 4:00 and will be preceded by Cookie Time in the ITS Library (4th Floor McLaughlin) at 3:30. Please Note: Cookie Time will still be held regardless of other ITS closures for Veterans' Day

New SWARM Report Does Not Concern Honey

2007-11-08T12:37:00.000-08:00

A new study out of Portland State University ITS (TRB paper found here in doc format) discusses the efficacy of the System-Wide Adaptive Ramp Metering (SWARM) system in the Portland, Oregon area. SWARM replaces older fixed-rate metering systems that remain static regardless of the prevailing traffic conditions. This means SWARM should be sensitive to both regular fluctuations as well as non-recurrent changes. Wikipedia has a reasonable sketch of ramp metering here. Here is the abstract:

A System-Wide Adaptive Ramp Metering (SWARM) system is being implemented in the Portland metropolitan area, replacing the previous pre-timed ramp-metering system. SWARM has been deployed on six major corridors and operates during the morning and afternoon peak hours. This study entails a “before” and “after” evaluation of the benefit of the new SWARM system as compared to the pre-timed system using the existing data, surveillance and communications infrastructure. In particular, the objective of this study is to quantify the system-wide benefits in terms of savings in delay, emissions and fuel consumption, and safety improvements on and off the freeway due to the implementation of the SWARM system. A pilot study was conducted for two weeks on a 7-mile freeway corridor in an attempt to develop a strategic design for the future regional-level study. This paper discusses the selection process of the study corridor, experimental design, and the results that were obtained from the pilot study.

Caltrans has also implemented such a system (pdf format) in the Los Angeles area in 2000 and earlier (in pdf, see pages 12-13 for an overview of the Irvine SWARM).

Menus Online!

2007-11-05T08:47:00.001-08:00

Northwestern University's Library has announced today the launch of a Web site of 381 airline menus from the 1950s to the present, at http://digital.library.northwestern.edu/tranmenus, reproduced in their entirety in high resolution. The "Clug Calypso" menu pictured at right is from a 1968 Air Canada flight to the Bahamas.

According to Northwestern's Wendy Leopold,

In 1966, a passenger flying BOAC economy class from London to Tel Aviv enjoyed a lunch of foie gras, fresh Scotch salmon, salad, cheese, fruit and coffee, followed by afternoon tea. And one had only to ask for a complimentary Martini -- sweet or dry -- and free in-flight cigarettes in plain or filter tip.

TWA travelers flying first class from London to Chicago that year chose their cocktails, whiskies, highballs or champagne from a menu in the form of a scroll that doubled as a souvenir. Their dinner of curried squab chicken or Maine lobster Newburg began with fresh Malossol caviar, and was capped off with assorted French cheeses, pastries or ice creams. Diners with less rarified tastes could substitute a hot dog and malted milk.

Major EIS collection now searchable in TRIS

2007-11-01T11:19:00.001-07:00

The Northwestern University Transportation Library (NUTL) has provided the Transportation Research Board (TRB) with more than 19,000 Environmental Impact Statement (EIS) bibliographic records for the Transportation Research Information Services (TRIS) database, creating one of the world’s largest publicly accessible collections of environmental impact statements.

NUTL's EIS collection includes about 80 percent of all the EISs issued by US federal agencies since 1969 and is the largest EIS collection in the United States. It has more than 19,150 titles, including draft statements, final reports, findings of no significant impact, records of decisions, supplementary reports, and maps. A small EIS collection from state departments of transportation and non-US government agencies is also maintained.

The TRIS database is the largest and most comprehensive bibliographic resource on transportation information. TRIS is produced and maintained by the Transportation Research Board of the National Academies with sponsorship by State DOTs, the various administrations at the U.S. Department of Transportation, and other sponsors of TRB's core technical activities.

EIS volumes found in TRIS can be borrowed by contacting NUTL's Interlibrary Loan unit.

Meet FlexZipcar

2007-10-31T11:06:00.000-07:00

The carshare business continues to burgeon, with over thirty companies operating across the USA by now. Possible good news for members of Flexcar and Zipcar is today's announcement that the two organizations are to merge. The new company will operate under the Zipcar brand. More information at the Zipcar press page.

Minnesota Selects New Bridge Design

2007-10-29T09:46:00.000-07:00

After Minnesota DOT's selection of a new design for the I-35W bridge, NPR's David Malakoff brings our attention to an interesting 2003* ASCE paper by Wardhana and Hadipriono which analyzed over 500 bridge failures in the U.S. and determined that most are caused by floods. Malakoff has also compiled a list of notable bridge disasters (find more bridge disasters here). From just our current decade we have:

2007: A truck packed with passengers and merchandise overloads a bridge in the West Africa's Republic of Guinea, causing it to collapse, killing 65 people.
2006: Bridge collapse in Quebec, Canada kills five.
2005: A flood washes away a rail bridge in India, killing 114.
2005: A highway bridge under construction in southern Spain collapses, killing six.
2002: A barge hits a 500-foot section of a bridge spanning the Arkansas River in Webbers Falls, causing it to collapse, killing 14 people.
2001: A bridge collapses in Lisbon, Portugal, causing a tour bus to plunge into a river, killing more than 50.

* Malakoff cites the study as "2005," but your humble blogger believes this to be a typo.

Transportation Seminar and Cookie Time 25 October: Smart Parking

2007-10-25T13:37:00.000-07:00

Ohh Hello! Please join us in the ITS Library this Friday at 3:30 for our weekly 'Cookie Time.' This week our lecture, beginning at 4:00, is called "Transit-Based Smart Parking in the U.S.: An Evaluation of the San Francisco Bay Area Field Test" and is presented by Dr. Susan Shaheen of UC Berkeley as well as ITS Davis' Transportation Sustainability Research Center (TSRC).

Rising demand for parking at suburban transit stations, such as the Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) District in California, necessitates strategies to manage traveler demand. To better manage parking supply, researchers implemented a smart parking field test at the Rockridge BART station from 2004 to 2006 to evaluate the effects of smart parking technologies (changeable message signs (CMSs), Internet reservations and billing, mobile phone and personal digital assistant communications, and a wireless parking lot counting system) on transit ridership and response to service pricing. Researchers employed expert interviews, Internet surveys, focus groups, and parking reservation data to conduct this analysis. This presentation provides an overview of the project, behavioral effects of the field test, and lessons learned.

The talk will be held in 240 Bechtel as usual.

Criminals, the Clean Air Act, and Cognition

2007-10-25T13:15:00.000-07:00

Slashdot points to a New York Times article addressing a possible link between the decrease in violent crimes in the 1990s and the Clean Air Act. This link has been investigated in a recent paper by Amherst College professor Jessica Wolpaw Reyes in her paper "Environmental Policy as Social Policy? The Impact of Childhood Lead Exposure on Crime." The Times article discusses Reyes findings:

After moving out of an old townhouse in Boston when her first child was born in 2000, Reyes started looking into the effects of lead poisoning. She learned that even low levels of lead can cause brain damage that makes children less intelligent and, in some cases, more impulsive and aggressive. She also discovered that the main source of lead in the air and water had not been paint but rather leaded gasoline — until it was phased out in the 1970s and ’80s by the Clean Air Act, which took blood levels of lead for all Americans down to a fraction of what they had been. “Putting the two together,” she says, “it seemed that this big change in people’s exposure to lead might have led to some big changes in behavior.

In other news, violence is up among the 5-12 year old suburban child demographic.

Walking on air

2007-10-24T16:46:00.001-07:00

How do you like being able to walk over a busy road, or to cross a river at a convenient location, or even to traverse a deep canyon on a springy (but safe) bridge span? Slate.com has a slide-show essay featuring some beautiful footbridges.

Green Aviation Fuel on the Horizon

2007-10-22T07:36:00.000-07:00

News@Princeton is reporting today that a Princeton University research team is working on developing an environmentally friendly jet fuel. The team, led by Professor Fred Dryer will creade a jet fuel combustion simulator with funding from the U.S. Air Force, and a grant from NetJets will study development of near-zero net greenhouse gas emission jet fuels.

TSA Trouble!

2007-10-18T12:21:00.000-07:00

USA Today is today reporting on a recent report from the TSA describing the state of the United States' airport screening. There are good omens for advocates of privatization:

At Chicago O'Hare International Airport, screeners missed about 60% of hidden bomb materials that were packed in everyday carry-ons — including toiletry kits, briefcases and CD players. San Francisco International Airport screeners, who work for a private company instead of the TSA, missed about 20% of the bombs, the report shows. The TSA ran about 70 tests at Los Angeles, 75 at Chicago and 145 at San Francisco.

Maybe this will excite ol' Kip into the voyeuristic project hinted at a week earlier in the same newspaper.

Greenhouse Gasses: Are They All Ours?

2007-10-15T07:39:00.000-07:00

According to California state law, carbon emissions must be cut to 80 percent below 1990 levels by 2050. As of yet we have had no way to determine how much of California's pollution originates within the state, nor any way to determine how much of the local pollution is generated by combustion or by rotting vegitation. Now two scientists from Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory are beginning a unique experiment to monitor greenhouse gasses above San Francisco from Sutro Tower.

New life for old shipping containers

2007-10-13T13:06:00.000-07:00

The great English DJ John Peel once considered buying a used shipping container for underground storage of some of his vast record collection. (Instead he adopted a more conventional storage solution.) Other uses of old containers have recently emerged, including use as market stalls and housing. Links to many such projects can be found at Shipping Container Architecture.

The image (from boingboing) shows student housing in Amsterdam, constructed from containers.

Airbus A380

2007-10-13T12:54:00.000-07:00

The Economist has a briefing on the Airbus A380, the giant passenger aircraft from Europe that seems set to upset current patterns of air travel. These things will soon be landing regularly at San Francisco International Airport.

(Image from the Economist)

Transportation Seminar and Cookie Time 12 October: Newtons and Neural Networks

2007-10-11T14:15:00.000-07:00

This weeks talk, upon our 3:30 'Cookie Time,' is presented by PATH researcher Xiao-Yun Lu. The paper has something to do with logit models, mathematics, and neural networks. I'll let the abstract do the talking:

This seminar is to discuss the representability of discrete logit-type models including multinomial logit and nested logit model from a mathematical approach instead of a statistical approach by Prof. D. McFadden. It is shown that the logit-type models can be reconstructed from mathematical approximation theory with sigmoidal functions widely used in Neural Network modeling without the basic assumptions such as IIA and iid, and the distribution (or density) function of the unobserved portion of utility. This explains mathematically why logit-type models can approximate the choice probability function to some accuracy. It is hoped that this may suggest the way to improve the accuracy in model specification for logit type models.

Please come by for some snacks beforehand.

DREAMLIKE DREAMLINER DISASTER CONTINUES!!!

2007-10-11T12:39:00.000-07:00

Both NPR and the prestigious New York Times are reporting today on the new six month delay for Boeing's new 787 'Dreamliner' aircraft. Boeing's original announcement is here. This new delay supplements a host of other concerns, as outlined in the Times article:

Earlier this year, Boeing warned that a worldwide shortage of fasteners that hold the plane’s fuselage, wing and tail sections together was slowing down assembly of the first test aircraft. Last month, the company said that in addition to the fastener shortage, Boeing and its production partners had run into unanticipated snags involving the availability of certain specialized parts for the plane as well as the programming of its flight-control software. Mike Bair, general manager of the 787 program, conceded at the time that these problems had added “increased risk” that there would be delivery delays.

Could Dan Rather's spurious reporting record on George Bush's sterling past finally be vindicated through his predicted failure of the Dreamliner's fuselage?

Chilean Commuters Sue Over Transit System

2007-10-09T07:40:00.000-07:00

Local transit in the Chilean city of Santiago underwent a major overhaul in the past year. The 3,000 private bus companies that competed for passengers over the past 17 years have been consolidated into just 10 companies under the new transit system, Transantiago. The new system add hours to the average commute time and has cost thousands of people their jobs as a result of getting them to work late. President Michele Bachelet has issued a formal apology to the people of Santiago for the debacle of Transantiago. Kirsten Sehnbruch, a scholar at Berkeley's Center for Latin American Studies, explores the implications of Transantiago for Bachelet's presidency in a recent paper.

Founder of Ryanair passes on

2007-10-05T14:59:00.000-07:00

The career of Irish airline tycoon Tony Ryan, founder of the low-cost passenger airline Ryanair is recounted in an obituary in London's Independent newspaper. Probably Ireland's most successful entrepreneur, Ryan revolutionized the European airline industry and made his country an important player in commercial aviation.

I'm From the Future

2007-10-04T15:49:00.000-07:00

An article today from the Washington Post describes a new infrared system for applications in High Occupancy Toll (HOT) lanes. It explains that

The lanes are billed as the salvation of the suffering commuter. Solo drivers will be able to buy their way around congestion, while carpoolers will ride free. But the lanes' success hinges on finding a way to differentiate between paying and nonpaying customers without stopping every vehicle to count heads.

The system automagically detects the number of passengers in passing vehicles by bouncing infrared waves off of their skin. This marks a departure from computer vision-based approaches for detection in similar circumstances (for example, automated pedestrian detection).

Identifying Research Needs

2007-10-03T13:32:00.000-07:00

The Transportation Research Board (TRB) has announced the availability of a new database designed to help researchers in the transportation community identify where their expertise and resources are most needed. The Research Needs Statements (RNS) Database serves as a central location for the storing, searching, and sharing of approximately transportation research needs statements that have been prepared and approved by 125 of TRB’s technical activities standing committees. Information in the database can be accessed in two ways, either by browsing through subject categories or committees, or by searching in an “advance search” format and specifying a title, index terms, committee, or subject category. Check out the RNS Database to learn how you might be able to more effectively contribute to research.

Bus Rapid Transit explained

2007-10-02T15:17:00.000-07:00

The proposed East Bay Bus Rapid Transit program has attracted much comment in the local media, some of it ill-informed or hostile. (Why are so many people in "progressive" Berkeley scared of change and opposed to making life better for non-drivers?)

Wolf Homburger, a professor emeritus at ITS Berkeley, brings some measured judgment to this imbroglio, explaining how BRT works and what it entails for the region in Commentary: An Analysis of Bus Rapid Transit in the Berkeley Daily Planet.

(Image from AC Transit)

How parking raises the cost on everything

2007-10-02T14:50:00.000-07:00

Critical thinking about the national obsession with providing parking space for private vehicles has been going on for several years, and is now beginning to attract attention beyond the academic world. An article in Salon.com, We Paved Paradise, reports on the findings of several city planning experts, including ITS UCLA's Donald Shoup, author of "The high cost of free parking."

(Image from Salon.com)

2007 Hybrid Truck Users Forum

2007-10-01T07:58:00.000-07:00

PACCAR and Eaton Corporation hosted this year's Hybrid Truck Users Forum which took place at Seattle's Qwest Field Event Center on September 20th and 21st. According to Peterbilt's General Manager and PACCAR Vice President, Bill Jackson, "Our medium duty hybrid vehicles currently in operation throughout North America are performing extremely well, with customers reporting a significant savings in fuel economy of up to 40 percent." The fuel economy of heavy-duty hybrids is expected to reach 7% on the road and up to 90% at idle.
CALSTART, the event's organizer, describes the HTUF as "a national, multi-year, user-driven program to assist the commercialization of heavy-duty hybrid technologies."

The "ITSL Roadshow"

2007-09-30T19:52:00.000-07:00

The week of September 24 saw members of the ITS Library take to the road to spread the word. First off was Kendra Levine, visiting ITS Irvine on Tuesday the 25th to speak about the Library and its outreach services, followed next day by a visit to ITS UCLA to address new students at its Fall Orientation. While in the neighborhood she called in on our friend Matt Barrett, director of the MTA Library in downtown Los Angeles.

Meanwhile on Wednesday the 26th, John Gallwey traveled to speak at the Fall Orientation for new graduate students at ITS Davis. Recent circumstances had deprived him of a car so he journeyed by train. This proved so pleasant that he resolved, after years of driving between the Bay Area and Davis, to use this mode for future trips.

Lastly and by no means least, Library Director Rita Evans was in Sacramento on Thursday the 27th to speak at the Informational Resources For Transportation Research workshop at Caltrans headquarters. Her co-presenters at this program for Caltrans engineers were Susan Haake, director of the Caltrans Library and Laura Melendy, director of the ITS Technology Transfer Program.

Catch a ride in a Cybercar

2007-09-26T11:05:00.000-07:00

Tired of driving the same old way? Want a new form of mobility that bridges the gap between an automobile and public transportation? Can you envision yourself in a cybercar? See what the Europeans are doing ... and will it ever catch on in the U.S.?

Germany Greenlights Maglev

2007-09-25T07:44:00.000-07:00

Germany's rail operator, Deutsche Bahn, and the state of Bavaria have signed an agreement with Transrapid -- a consortium of Siemens and ThyssenKrupp -- to build a magnetic levitation railway. The new maglev, the first regular maglev service outside of China, is estimated to cost $2.6 billion.

38 Gallons of Fuel Wasted Sitting In Traffic

2007-09-24T09:15:00.000-07:00

That's the nationwide average -- 38 gallons -- of wasted fuel per driver stuck in traffic each year. This is according to the Texas Transportation Institute's recently released 2007 Annual Urban Mobility Report. The average for San Jose drivers is 54 gallons per year. The study's authors, Tim Lomax and David Schrank, estimate that traffic congestion cost the U.S. $78 billion annually from 4.2 billion hours in lost productivity and 2.9 billion gallons of wasted fuel.

Transportation Seminar and Cookie Time: Freeway Congestion is Not So Good

2007-09-21T10:47:00.000-07:00

After this week's Cookie Time, from 3:30 to 4:00 in the ITS Library, the Transportation Seminar will commence in the Bechtel Engineering Center, Room 240. We will be regaled this week with a talk, Freeway Congestion, Ramp Metering, and Tolls, given by Prof. Pravin Varaiya. The abstract-

The Cell Transmission Model of a freeway with multiple origins and destinations is used to compare four schemes to reduce freeway congestion: (R) ramp control only; (T) one lane is tolled and ramps are uncontrolled; (B) bottlenecks are tolled and ramps are uncontrolled; (RB) ramps are controlled and bottlenecks are tolled. In the base case no ramps are metered and there are no tolls. It is found that (T) is inefficient and likely to leave all travelers worse off than in the base case; (R), (B) and (RB) can achieve efficient freeway utilization; (B) can eliminate queues, but has adverse spatial and equity side effects; (RB) minimizes these side effects. (RB) is likely to be much less costly to implement and maintain than (T) or (B).

Prof. Varaiya holds the Nortel Networks Distinguished Professorship in our very own Department of Electrical Engineering and Computer Sciences. Having previously taught also in the Department of Economics and heading the PATH program, he currently studies communication networks, transportation, and hybrid systems. If you miss this talk you will definitely look like a sucker.

Rather Than Dream, Rather Says Dreamliner a Disaster

2007-09-20T13:42:00.000-07:00

Dan Rather is making a splash this week with an expose on the composite materials used in the fuselage of the new Boeing Dreamliner due out in 2008. Rather explains in the article that

One of the selling points of the new 787 is lower maintenance costs. Because the composite airframe won't corrode or rust, Boeing says the maintenance costs will be cut by thirty percent. They also say that detailed visual inspections on a periodic basis should be sufficient to detect serious damage to the composite material.

In a move questioning the embattled Rather, 'Wired Blog' contributor Aaron Rowe submits this criticism (found here)

While there is a lot of weight behind the argument that composite materials are not as well-studied as aircraft aluminum, the reasoning behind the flurry of recent articles may be faulty. First off, if a plane crashes, the composite frame will definitely not be the only source of toxic fumes. Second, high performance composites have been used in fighter aircraft and for years. Sports cars, race cars, and train cars made from composite materials have endured fantastic crashes. Claims that the impact toughness of carbon fiber is inadequate may be premature.

Rather's supremely ridiculous speculations on the military career of President and Commander-in-Chief George W. Bush may have prompted some of Rowe's questions about the reporter's legitimacy. In a move highlighting Rowe's journalistic prowess, he cites a manufacturer of composite planes who says that there is "no reason to believe that composites cannot be made every bit as strong as aluminum." Everyone knows that the most reliable source on a product is the one who stands to make the greatest profit from its sale.

Parking for Desperate Housewives

2007-09-19T07:10:00.000-07:00

Some people don't like the idea of parking in spaces marked "Parking for Desperate Housewives." A new form of advertising is spreading across Southern California parking lots and my soon be making money for parking lot owners all over the country.

FasTrak is the fastest ... not always

2007-09-17T08:35:00.000-07:00

SF Chronicle sleuths Phillip Matier and Andrew Ross uncover a shocking truth behind the FasTrak-only lanes at Bay Area toll plazas. The success of the FasTrak program -- up to 4000 new users per day -- has led to some backups rivaling the combo FasTrak/Cash lanes.

“Shared Space” – Can roads be safer without traffic signals?

2007-09-14T10:37:00.000-07:00

According to a recent article from Reuters, the town of Bohmte, Germany, will abandon its usage of traffic lights and stop signs in its downtown area in an attempt to improve road safety. Bohmte is not alone in its efforts. The “Shared Space” concept, developed by Hans Monderman, a Dutch traffic specialist, is being fulfilled in seven pilot projects across the Netherlands, Denmark, Germany, the U.K., and Belgium. In the U.S., officials in West Palm Beach, Florida, have been successful in slowing down traffic and reducing accidents by also following the concept.

The Shared Space philosophy embraces the goal of creating more space for human beings by allowing motorists and pedestrians to share equal rights of way. Wide boulevards previously designed to only accommodate motor vehicles are being converted into narrow streets with widened sidewalks.

Monderman touches upon his somewhat radical approach to traffic calming where he explains that roads that may appear to be more dangerous are in fact safer.

An entry in Wikipedia further discusses the objectives, practice, and the pros and cons of a traffic engineering philosophy that suggests that pedestrians and drivers can indeed occupy road space in a more compatible manner. This unconventional approach to driving behavior, road design and road architecture, may one day make, at least in certain areas, traffic signs and signals obsolete.

U.S. Senate Approves of Some Things, Disapproves of Others

2007-09-13T10:13:00.000-07:00

Yesterday the United States Senate passed a transportation spending bill that will now be returned to the House of Representatives for approval. The bill was passed without a proposed waiver of Davis-Bacon Act, a law that requires fair wages for federally-funded public works projects, for bridge renovation projects. The bill has added US$1 billion for such projects in an amendment to an earlier version. Funding was also augmented for the I-35W bridge due to efforts by the junior senator from Minnesota.

50 Worst Cars of All Time

2007-09-13T08:29:00.000-07:00

LA Times columnist Dan Neil devotes special attention to each and every one of his fifty selections for the worst automobiles ever built in his article for Time.com.

Transportation Seminar and Cookie Hour: Big Rigs Gone Automatic

2007-09-12T09:20:00.000-07:00

This week's Transportation Seminar features ITS Berkeley alum, Dr. Jacob Tsao, who now teaches at Department of Industrial & Systems Engineering . He'll discuss current research in automated trailer steering. Triple trailer trucks, such as the one shown above, now operate in 20 states in the U.S. Problems with safety and inefficiency due to improper tracking can be reduced or eliminated with automated trailer steering. Improving Safety of Large-Truck Operations with Automated Trailer Steering For Fuel Efficiency,Emission Reduction and Productivity examines the fuel efficiency and sustainability of truck automation.

Energy and environmental concerns have led to much attention on fuel efficiency and sustainable development. A class of large trucks called “longer combination vehicles” (LCVs) currently operates on designated highways in 20 states of the US. Although they provide high fuel efficiency and productivity, they also pose safety and infrastructure hazards. A major source of such hazards is off-tracking – the phenomenon that the rear wheels of a truck do not follow the track of the front wheels. A major category of LCVs is the Triple, consisting of a tractor and three 28-foot trailers, and some Triples also suffer from continuous sideway sway while cruising on the highway. We propose the concept of automated trailer steering to overcome these problems. Vehicle-dynamics models and steering algorithms have been developed. Computer simulation suggests that off-tracking can be virtually eliminated; it also provides a clue for the reason of the continuous sway of some Triples. Systems issues about expanding current LCV operations will be discussed as well as a new mode of freight transportation enabled by automated trailer steering – Short Trailer Combination Vehicles (STCVs).

The Transportation Seminar will be in 240 Bechtel from 4:00-5:00 PM. Cookie Hour precedes the seminar in the ITS Library, 412 McLaughlin Hall, from 3:30-4:00 PM.

A New Way To Push Tin

2007-09-11T16:04:00.000-07:00

The Daily Cal reports that ITS Berkeley a grant from NASA to improve the nation's air traffic control system. From the article:

The campus Institute of Transportation Studies will receive $502,000 for each of two years to evaluate possible methods of relieving the nation’s overburdened aviation system.
Mark Hansen, professor of civil and environmental engineering, will be the principal investigator for the project, along with researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and University of Maryland, College Park.
Hansen said that currently air traffic controllers are often unable to predict exact arrival times of aircraft, leading to delays and causing aircraft to circle above airports because of traffic backup on the ground.
“We are studying a new case in which each airplane arrives at the airport at a specific time,” Hansen said.

There have been many criticisms of the current air traffic control system: It's out dated because they still use strips of paper (ACM, registration required). It's overburdened. Some also say the current system can be unsafe.

In response, the FAA has announced the launch of a GPS based air traffic control system. A GPS based system is certainly safer than a Buddhist based system.

Some new and old wonders

2007-09-11T09:45:00.000-07:00

The current issue of the Economist's Technology Quarterly contains some interesting items on innovations in transportation, including German research in small hovercraft, news of a sea-going automobile, and the story of the introduction of electric buses in London a century ago.

(Picture courtesy of The Economist)

BART: 35 Years of Service

2007-09-10T14:39:00.000-07:00

This week BART celebrates the 35th anniversary of their train service. What would the San Francisco Bay Area be like without BART? Smog ridden and painfully congested? BART has previously been named one of the Top 10 public works projects of the century as well as great planning disaster. Happy birthday, BART!