Mass transit

The urban mass transit industry (both rail and bus) has followed a slightly different course in the United States. Most transit systems use regulatory compliance. With the popularization of system safety tools in the engineering community over the last 20 years, system safety engineering is now being incorporated into the fixed 

When at conferences or meetings with engineers from other industries, ask them how they solve their particular safety problems. Don t associate only with people from your industry—leam from others. 

Have a company rep join one of the safety societies (e.g., the System Safety Society or the American Society of Safety Engineers), and see how safety is handled across different industries. 

The primary system safety tools being used are hazard analysis and fault tree analysis. However, the transit industry could very much benefit from more human factors safety analysis. Though the industry has used it before, it has never been applied to the same level of detail as it has in the commercial nuclear power industry or civil aviation. Even though quantitative human factors safety analysis is still controversial, it could prove useful in the transit industry. Some countries, such as Erance, have already started to look more deeply into this. 

Probabilistic risk assessment, again taken from the commercial nuclear industry, is another useful tool for the transit community. Because all transit systems and industries have to face public scrutiny, risk assessments are a very good way to communicate safety information to the public. 

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Flammability. PhenoHcs have inherently low flammabiHty and relatively low smoke generation. For this reason they are widely used in mass transit, tiinnel-building, and mining. Fiber glass-reinforced phenoHc composites are capable of attaining the 1990 U.S. Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) regulations for total heat release and peak heat release for aircraft interior facings (1,70). 

PhenoHc sheet-molding compound is seeing increased use in interior and exterior appHcations in mass transit. The trains in service on the English Channel tunnel have several panels made from phenoHc SMC which had to meet the strict European safety standards for fire and smoke generation. 

PVC—ABS and PVC—acryhc better processibihty and toughness than PVC, better fire retardancy than ABS or acryhc mass transit interiors, apphance housings 314,328 329,330... 

Commute 3 miles by walking, bicycling, or mass fransif. 40 miles in an energy-efficient automobile. If there are high-occupancy vehicle lanes, will make effort to carpool. 60 miles in a 14 mpg sports utility vehicle, and a disdain for mass transit, carpooling and high-occupancy vehicle lanes. 

Besides operational energy use, corporate decisions have an impact throughout society. One reason that per capita energy consumption in North America is much higher than in the rest of the world was the decision of corporate leaders to expand and relocate away from city centers and to major beltway loops in the suburbs. This necessitated more trucking and a workforce reliant on the private automobile instead of mass transit. In an era of tremendous job insecurity, even the most energy-conserving person... 

A major mass transit handicap is sprawling growth. Mass transit works most effectively in a hub and spoke manner, and the decentralization of urban areas makes it harder and harder to design effective mass transit. This mismatched segregation of home, work, and leisure—particularly in cities such as Houston, Atlanta, and Los Angeles— woiild require a long time to reverse. 

Higher incomes, higher automobile ownership, and a decline in the population and workplaces that can be sciwcd by mass transit has lead to the declining mass transit demand. Criticism of this shift toward the private automobile comes mainly because the individual driver receives the short-term benefits (privacy, comfort, speed, and convenience), while the negative social consequences (air pollution, traffic jams, and resource depletion) are shared by all. Moreover, if people drove less, and drove more-fuel-efficient vehicles, the positive national goal of less dependence on imported oil would be achieved. 

The primary inconvenience is the relative slowness and lack of comfort, especially during days of inclement weather. Many millions of Americans live gi eat distances from where they work. Some might consider bicycling five miles to work each day, but few live that near to work. The typical 20-or-30-mile commute makes bicycling an unrealistic option for most people. And for those who do live close to work, few are willing to brave the elements to bicycle year around. Ram, snow, ice, high winds, extreme cold, and extreme heat that are minor inconveniences in a vehicle become major inconveniences on a bicycle. Thus, for backup, bicycle riders usually must own a vehicle for had weather days, or have access to convenient mass transit. 

Eor specific applications, we can calculate the ratio of the measure of the goods or sendees provided to the energy input required. For example, in the transportation sector, energy efficiency is based on miles per gallon for personal vehicles, seat-miles per gallon for mass transit, and ton-miles per gallon for freight transportation. 

See also Diesel Fuel Mass Transit Railway Passenger Service Steam Engines Transportation, Freight Delivery and Trevithick, Richard. 

The term mass transit generally refers to passenger vehicles that are common carriers in urban areas, as distinct from intercity travel. The terms public transit or simply transit also are frequently used. The major types of public transit are bus (rubber-tired vehicles), rail (running on tracks), and ferryboat. Within each type there are several subcategories. 

In metropolitan areas adjacent to bodies of water, ferries can be used as mass transit—that is, providing frequent service useful for local travel. Geography limits feri-yboat use to a select group of cities. Twenty-one cities in the United States and its territories have transit ferryboat service. Another example is Vancouver s SeaBus, which provides very frequent shuttle service between the center city and North Vancouver. 

Table 1 shows the frequency distribution of U.S. mass transit service supplied (vehicle distance... 

The potential of mass transit to provide transportation sendees with low energy consumption relies on the high capacity of transit vehicles, since these vehicles have higher energy consumption per vehicle distance traveled compared to private motorized vehicles or nonmotorized modes. Therefore the occupancy rate of transit service is a key factor in determining its energy efficiency. This rate can be measured by the ratio of person distance traveled to vehicle distance traveled. 

Mass Transit Fossil Fuel Consumption by Fuel (thousands oi gallons). SOURCE American Public Transit Association, 2000. 

Between 1992 and 1998, alternative fuels increased from less than 1 percent to more than 5 percent of total mass transit fossil fuel consumption in the United States (see Table 4). The share of alternative fuel consumption that was CNG increased from 19 percent to 72 percent over the same period. 

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