The use of public transport in coastal Australia : modes of travel to work and greenhouse emissions

Commuting to work is one of the most important and regular routines of transportation in towns and cities. From a geographic perspective, the length of people’s commute is influenced, to some degree, by the spatial separation of their home and workplace and the transport infrastructure. The rise of car ownership in Australia from the 1950s to the present was accompanied by a considerable decrease of public transport use. Currently there is an average of 1.4 persons per car in Australia, and private cars are involved in approximately 90% of the trips, and public transportation in only 10%. Increased personal mobility has fuelled the trend of decentralised housing development, mostly without a clear planning for local employment, or alternative means of transportation. Transport sector accounts for 14% of Australia’s net greenhouse gas emissions. Without further policy action, Australia’s emissions are projected to continue to increase. The Australian Federal Government and the new Department of Climate Change have recently published a set of maps showing that rising seas would submerge large parts of Victoria coastal region. Such event would lead to major disruption in planned urban growth areas in the next 50 years with broad scale inundation of dwellings, facilities and road networks. The Greater Geelong Region has well established infrastructure as a major urban centre and tourist destination and hence attracted the attention of federal and state governments in their quest for further development and population growth. As a result of its natural beauty and ecological sensitivity, scenarios for growth in the region are currently under scrutiny from local government as well as development agencies, scientists, and planners. This paper is part of a broad research in the relationship between transportation system, urban form, trip demand, and emissions, as a paramount in addressing the challenges presented by urban growth. Progressing from previous work focused on private cars, this present paper investigates the use of public transport as a mode for commuting in the Greater Geelong Region. Using a GIS based interaction model, it characterises the current use of the existing public transportation system, and also builds a scenario of increased use of the existing public transportation system, estimating potencial reductions in CO2 emissions. This study provides an improved understanding of the extent to which choices of transport mode and travel activity patterns, affect emissions in the context of regional networks. The results indicate that emissions from commuting by public transportation are significantly lower than those from commuting by private car, and emphasise that there are opportunities for large abatment in the greenhouse emissions from the transportation sector related to efforts in increasing the use of existing public transportation system.

School funding, public transport racism and the looming second-hand digital music battle

 SBS News radio interview with Amelia Johns about racism on public transport and the response of witnesses.

Why doesn't investment in public transport reduce urban traffic congestion?

Includes bibliography

El desarrollo del transporte público urbano en América Latina y el mundo = The development of urban public transport in Latin America and the world

Incluye Bibliografía

Bikeways and intermodality between bicycles and public transport

Analyses how the bicycle has evolved as a form of transport and outlines a bicycle traffic scheme. It provides examples showing that bicycles are a valid alternative to cars and can be integrated into a transport chain.

Public transport fares in Latin American cities: systems, values and problems

Although public transport has undergone a series of changes over the last few decades, fares are still strongly affecting the budget of low-income families. This is despite the fact that, with very few exceptions, public transport fares are one of the few prices still fixed by the government authorities. The introduction of integrated networks made up of trunk lines and feeder services is not guaranteed to reduce the cost for users. It would be possible to reduce fares if free transport provided by the authorities to various groups of citizens were financed by the authorities themselves, and not by other groups of passengers.

Developments in public-transport systems in the cities of Latin America

This edition of the FAL Bulletin looks at public-transport systems developed and proposed in Latin America in recent years, and seeks to conduct a critical analysis of the policies underlying those activities and their implications for urban development in Latin America.

Towards a new paradigm for urban public transport: the transmilenio case

The process of urbanization in Latin America presents new challenges for urban transport systems insofar as one of the priorities is to provide proper mobility for the increasing and complex interaction of communities.This edition of the Bulletin, prepared by Irma Chaparro, presents a summary of the recent study entitled Evaluación del impacto socio-económico del transporte urbano en la ciudad de Bogotá. El caso del sistema masivo de transporte, Transmilenio, LC/L 1786-P, October 2002, which considers the socioeconomic impact of the Transmilenio system in Bogotá. This system is part of an integrated transport strategy promoted by the District Authority over the period 1998-2001 and is an avant-garde solution to the difficult problem of transport in the city.

Contributions of ergonomics to the construction of bus drivers health and excellence in public transport and at work

This article is the product of research that analyzed the work of bus drivers of a public transportation company that is considered a benchmark reference in its field of operations, in which it strives to achieve operating excellence. Within this context, the authors sought to understand how such a company has managed to maintain a policy that is capable of reconciling quality public transport while also providing working conditions compatible with the professional development, comfort and health of its workers. Ergonomic work analysis and activity analysis were the guiding elements used in this study. Initial analyses indicate that the activity of drivers includes serving a population and providing mobility for it, which depends on driving the vehicle itself and on relationships with colleagues, users, pedestrians, drivers and others.

Pervasive multimedia guidance system for special needs passengers on public transport

[EN] This article presents a practical case of a pervasive multimedia guidance system for public transport passengers. In order to provide useful information to passengers, the system is capable of operating and adapting spontaneously to the different parts of a public transport network, using local data communication technologies. The multimedia data provided by the system are highly accessible, and adapt to the passengers' preferences, and are consequently suitable for special needs passengers. To this end, a paradigm of pervasive computing has been applied.

Interactive application in spanish sign language for a public transport environment

[ES] En este trabajo se presenta el diseño de una herramienta multimedia que traduce a la lengua de signos españolas los mensajes de avisos que puede proporcionar un sistema de megafonía. El objetivo del trabajo es proporcionar una herramienta que mejore la inclusión social de las personas con discapacidades auditivas. Con este propósito, se han seleccionado el entorno y los mensajes de audio habituales en un aeropuerto para desarrollar este proyecto piloto. Por último, los audios se han traducido a lengua de signos españolas sintetizando un avatar usando la técnica de animación de rotoscopía a partir de la grabación en vídeo de un traductor. Los resultados finales han sido evaluados por personas sordas.

Data sanitization in a clearing system for public transport operators

In this work we will discuss about a project started by the Emilia-Romagna Regional Government regarding the manage of the public transport. In particular we will perform a data mining analysis on the data-set of this project. After introducing the Weka software used to make our analysis, we will discover the most useful data mining techniques and algorithms; and we will show how these results can be used to violate the privacy of the same public transport operators. At the end, despite is off topic of this work, we will spend also a few words about how it's possible to prevent this kind of attack.

Analysis of house prices to assess economic impacts of new public transport infrastructure: Madrid metro line 12.

Transportation infrastructure is known to affect the value of real estate property by virtue of changes in accessibility. The impact of transportation facilities is highly localized as well, and it is possible that spillover effects result from the capitalization of accessibility. The objective of this study was to review the theoretical background related to spatial hedonic models and the opportunities that they provided to evaluate the effect of new transportation infrastructure. An empirical case study is presented: the Madrid Metro Line 12, known as Metrosur, in the region of Madrid, Spain. The effect of proximity to metro stations on housing prices was evaluated. The analysis took into account a host of variables, including structure, location, and neighborhood and made use of three modeling approaches: linear regression estimation with ordinary least squares, spatial error, and spatial lag. The results indicated that better accessibility to Metrosur stations had a positive impact on real estate values and that the effect was marked in cases in which a house was for sale. The results also showed the presence of submarkets, which were well defined by geographic boundaries, and transport fares, which implied that the economic benefits differed across municipalities.