Interesting transportation things

[fflint]

Some might find this interesting: due to a combination of one-time variables, it is entirely possible the Bay Area yesterday had the nation's busiest light rail system and third-busiest heavy rail system.

Due to the Giants' victory parade in downtown SF, BART had 568,061 exits and Muni Metro (light rail) had over 250,000 exits. Due to this week's storm surge, New York wasn't running trains yesterday. The most recent APTA report has DC and Chicago with higher average weekday riders on their heavy rail systems, Boston heavy rail at 540k and Boston light rail (which is normally the nation's busiest system) at 248k.

[M.K.]

Source: Hamburg Abendblatt

It says that even the Project in HH city to be cancelled from Altona, an Italian Company would like to build it from Hafencity till the future Garden Demonstration. Actually from Altona would be in middle river Elbe, where upto 70m high ships would cross that cables, it means, the pillars should have been some 100m high, as in Altona is not a big hill. Then now from Hafencity seems lower, where big ships do not pass below. Well, anyway the project is unnecessary for sure, but brings a parallel turistic transportation to the poor areas of city.

[M II A II R II K]

• Video Link

[M II A II R II K]

Swimming To Work In London?

Read More: http://thecityfix.com/blog/friday-fu...ork-in-london/

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The Lido Line, a proposed reinvention of the underused Regent’s Canal, would have commuters breast stroke, dog paddle and butterfly the 8.6-kilometer (about 5.3-miles) length of the waterway through the heart of central London. The Capital of the Britons, not known for its warm weather, would convert the waterway into an ice-speedway for skating commuters during the winter months.

- The design firm who proposed the Lido Line, Y/N Studio, came up second in Architizer Magazine’s “High Line for London” contest. The proposal was bested by a design for a “low line”, a repurposing of unused tunnels for pedestrians and gardens. The subterranean version of New York’s High Line is perhaps more Middle Earth than down to earth. While dreaming of the frigid, hour’s long swim to work, perhaps a real world alternative for us dreamers might just be the bike ride to work across one of London’s gorgeous – if not dreamy – robin’s egg blue cycle superhighways.

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[M II A II R II K]

Mathematicians suggest new way for aircraft boarding

Read More: http://www.sciencewa.net.au/topics/s...-boarding.html

RESEARCHERS from Curtin University and Beihang University in Beijing have come up with a new ‘third way’ to improve airplane boarding. Lead researcher Dr Tie-Qiao Tang said while modelling had previously been done on factors such as luggage congestion, routing, and takeoff runway scheduling, his study was the first to look at boarding. He said the area could help an industry under constant pressure to increase efficiency.

“Air passenger transportation in China has increased to 200 million in 2010 from less than 10 million in 1950. However, the increase of the supply of air transportation is much slower than that of its demand. Thus, in practice, certain conflicts between supply and demand often occur, leading to airline congestions, passenger-luggage congestions and mixed traffic problems,” Dr Tang said. He said researchers created models using pedestrian flow theory that compared three styles of boarding: random boarding; the current boarding system of assigned seating; and the new way that took into account passengers’ individual properties, such as maximum speed and luggage.

“Each passenger has their own individual properties. For example, each passenger’s luggage has a different attribution and thus has different influences on boarding behaviour; the time that the passenger’s ticket is checked at the gate is different; the time that the passenger deals with his or her carried luggage is different; seat conflicts have different effects on the passenger. Each passenger has a different optimal speed, maximum speed and safe distance.” Results showed random boarding was the most inefficient, with queue-jumping, aisle congestions and jams before the gate as well as between the gate desk and plane.

Boarding by assigned seating was better, but still inefficient, as only passengers in the front of the queue could board at their ‘maximum speed’ and seat conflicts occurred. However, the new third way – with seat numbers assigned based on the passenger’s optimal speed, the attributions of their carried luggage and tickets checked automatically using electronic equipment at the gate so as to avoid slowdowns in motion – was proven optimal, with no congestion, jams, overtaking, queue jumping, seat conflict or wasted time. While Dr Tang said no airline had yet agreed to put the theory into practice, he is open to collaborations to make the ‘third way’ a travel reality.

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[M II A II R II K]

This DIY Traffic Counter Could Change Everything About Transportation Planning

Read More: http://www.theatlanticcities.com/com...planning/3846/

Thanks to Nate Silver, the results of Tuesday’s elections are being widely viewed as an affirmation of data wonkery, proof that non-ideological number crunching leads to solid analysis of real-time situations. But the question remains: How do we get more of this good data? Not just about politics, but about the real-world problems that politics are supposed to solve?

- The little orange gizmo with a tube attached is called TrafficCOM (that’s COM for “community” and “computer”), and it allows users to measure the volume, rate, and speed of traffic on any street, then upload the data for immediate sharing. Khawarzad says he and Ullrich began developing TrafficCOM on a recent trip to Moscow, where sustainable transportation advocates had invited them to help figure out where that traffic-choked city could put bike lanes. Khawarzad says he realized that they needed solid data on traffic conditions to begin making recommendations, and the project began evolving from there. They received key support, in the form of a small stipend and some feedback, after being invited to participate in the recent San Franscisco Urban Prototyping Festival.

- Here’s how it works: You can buy a TrafficCOM device for $139 (traditional traffic-counting devices cost about a thousand bucks). That gets you a pre-assembled device that is ready to use out of the box. Follow instructions about where to set it up, and you can be counting traffic right away. When you’re done, connect to your computer with a USB cable and upload the data, which will be mapped on the TrafficCOM site. That data is then accessible to anyone who wants to use it, a key feature in the minds of TrafficCOM's creators. Khawarzad thinks his device will be useful for community groups, neighborhood associations, and advocacy organizations who are concerned about the impact of traffic on their streets and want to pursue solutions, but who have been frustrated by the impenetrability of the processes surrounding traffic planning.

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[Cirrus]

"Change everything about transportation planning"?

That's some serious hyperbole. More data is nice, but this changes basically nothing at all.

[Cirrus]

A guy named Constantine Hannaher made these Lego models of DC-area transit vehicles. Here's his website.

Metrorail:


VRE commuter rail:


MARC commuter rail:


WMATA local bus:


WMATA MetroExtra (express) bus:


Old style WMATA bus (retired paint scheme but you still see it a lot):


Fairfax Connector bus:


Arlington Transit bus:


Richmond Highway Express:

[vid]

Nice!

[M II A II R II K]

Tokyo: The World’s Most Uncomfortable Commute

http://www.slate.com/blogs/behold/20...hael_wolf.html

[vid]

I'm scared.

[M II A II R II K]

Contactless Power


• Video Link

[M II A II R II K]

Japan Is Working On A 300 MPH Floating Train

Read More: http://www.businessinsider.com/japan...-train-2012-11

The Central Japan Railway Co. (JR Tokai) yesterday unveiled a prototype it believes will bring faster train service than ever before to Japan. The Series Lo prototype is a magnetic levitation (maglev) train, floating above its track and moving forward thanks to powerful magnets, the Japanese newspaper The Ashai Shimbun reported.

- The first began operation in Shanghai in 2004, followed in 2005 by a Japanese system called Linimo, which runs at only 60 mph, 20 percent of the top speed the JR Tokai predicts for the new maglev train. Japan is already served by high-speed bullet trains, but maglev systems offer numerous advantages. As they are frictionless, they are faster and quieter than trains that use wheels, and are not impacted by bad weather.

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[M II A II R II K]

Could Twitter help urban planners improve transport networks?

Read More: http://www.guardian.co.uk/news/datab...sport-networks

Data-mapping expert Eric Fischer has used geolocated Tweets to find the most frequently travelled routes in US cities. Could this sort of data be used to plan transit systems in the future?

- If the volume of geo-tagged Tweets is used a proxy for traffic levels, urban planners could use this data to fine-tune existing transport networks and establish where new routes are needed. Fischer took millions of geolocated Tweets from across the world, cross-referenced them with data on known transport nodes, and used the results to plot the most heavily used routes in cities, countries and continents. He then created what are in effect transit cartograms, with the thickness of a road or other mass transport line corresponding to the volume of Tweets sent along its path.

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Full Series: http://www.flickr.com/photos/walking...th/6804680189/

Fischer created this map using data from over one million Tweet-based trips in August 2011. Advocates of HS2 may feel somewhat vindicated.






Using data from Twitter covering 60,000 trips, aggregated within a ten mile radius, Fischer created this map of Europe's transport network. He acknowledges that disproportionately high Twitter usage levels in England and the Netherlands has skewed the overall picture.






Broadway shows clearly as the most heavily used route, with subway networks also well-defined.






Trips across the bay and along the peninsula dominate, though aggregation radii make it difficult to know exactly which road or rail line was being used.






The Chicago map was made by plotting ten thousand Twitter-sourced points over an OpenStreetMap grid. Fischer points out that the thicker line heading to the southwest doesn't correspond to any major road or rail line.

[M II A II R II K]

We swim, run, and cycle to work. Why not jump?

http://www.salto.ee/fast-track/

Salto Architects’ 560-foot-long trampoline walkway, Fast Track, was built this summer as part of an emerging architecture festival called Archstoyanie. The six-year-old event is held in the small village of Nikola-Lenivets, a few hours outside of Moscow, that has recently blossomed as a center for land art.





















http://www.zundelcristea.com/project...t.html?lang=en

We propose an inflatable bridge equipped with giant trampolines, dedicated to the joyful release from gravity as one bounces above the river. Installed near the Bir-Hakeim Bridge, it is formed of inflatable modules, like giant life-preservers, 30 meters in diameter. In the central part of each ring, a trampoline mesh is stretched. The floating buoys, fabricated in PVC membrane, are attached together by cord to form a stable and self-supporting ensemble. Each module under tension - filled with 3700 cubic meters of air - develops in space with an arch-like form.

[Derek]

Honestly, that's probably the stupidest thing I've ever seen.

[Cirrus]

It looks fun, but not practical. Make it a park.

[electricron]

Originally Posted by M II A II R II K

We swim, run, and cycle to work. Why not jump?

http://www.salto.ee/fast-track/

Salto Architects’ 560-foot-long trampoline walkway, Fast Track, was built this summer as part of an emerging architecture festival called Archstoyanie. The six-year-old event is held in the small village of Nikola-Lenivets, a few hours outside of Moscow, that has recently blossomed as a center for land art.

We propose an inflatable bridge equipped with giant trampolines, dedicated to the joyful release from gravity as one bounces above the river. Installed near the Bir-Hakeim Bridge, it is formed of inflatable modules, like giant life-preservers, 30 meters in diameter. In the central part of each ring, a trampoline mesh is stretched. The floating buoys, fabricated in PVC membrane, are attached together by cord to form a stable and self-supporting ensemble. Each module under tension - filled with 3700 cubic meters of air - develops in space with an arch-like form.

The first lady wearing high heels, or the first mischievous boy carrying a pocket knife, and that bridge would deflate into floating debris. Bad idea.

[Derek]

Fun, until everybody starts flying over the edges into the water, or bumping heads with other people.

[pdxtex]

that tokyo subway scares me. i hear mostly alcohol induced horror stories from inlaws who go to japan frequently, wasted salary men the day after passed out in the middle of the platform, projectile barf....on that note, anyone remember a story about the last legal drinking car on some east coast commuter rail route? i forget the deal, but apparently is was an after work party everyday and the last of its kind....