Public transit

By contrast, the bicycle suiwives as basic transportation in the Netherlands and Germany because those nations have a social infrastructure built to make it possible. Those countries have a neighborhood-centered way of life, and the trip distances on a bicycle are often two or three kilometers or less. People cycle slowly out of politeness to others on the crowded streets. Public transit is also far better than in the United States. It is amusing to see a German commuter train station with virtually no auto parking available, but hundreds of bike parking spots. 

Transportation accounts for about one-fourth of the primary energy consumption in the United States. And unlike other sectors of the economy that can easily switch to cleaner natural gas or electricity, automobiles, trucks, nonroad vehicles, and buses are powered by internal-combustion engines burning petroleum products that produce carbon dioxide, carbon monoxide, nitrogen oxides, and hydrocarbons. Efforts are under way to accelerate the introduction of electric, fuel-cell, and hybrid (electric and fuel) vehicles to replace sonic of these vehicles in both the retail marketplace and in commercial, government, public transit, and private fleets. These vehicles dramatically reduce harmful pollutants and reduce carbon dioxide emissions by as much as 50 percent or more compared to gasoline-powered vehicles. 

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. 

Average Energy Intensity and Occupancy Rates for U.S. Public Transit Buses and Passenger Automobiles, 1970-1997. SOURCE Davis, 1999. 

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

Land use is the other key determinant of transit use. Public transit requires a concentration of trips in the same time and place. A concentration of residential and commercial land use, such as that typically... 

There has been an accelerated interest in polymer electrolyte fuel cells within the last few years, which has led to improvements in both cost and performance. Development has reached the point where motive power applications appear achievable at an acceptable cost for commercial markets. Noticeable accomplishments in the technology, which have been published, have been made at Ballard Power Systems. PEFC operation at ambient pressure has been validated for over 25,000 hours with a six-cell stack without forced air flow, humidification, or active cooling (17). Complete fuel cell systems have been demonstrated for a number of transportation applications including public transit buses and passenger automobiles. Recent development has focused on cost reduction and high volume manufacture for the catalyst, membranes, and bipolar plates. 

Santa Clara, California, 1992. Twelve thousand cubic meters of soil at a public transit company facility were contaminated with diesel fuel. Concentrations were reduced from 15,000 to 80 ppm, at a cost of 15/yd. ... 

Addressing the Fire Hazards of Alternative Fuels for Public Transit Buses Industrial Fire Safety (Part 1, September/October 1993 Part 2, January/ February 1994)... 

Commercial and public transportation heavily relies on human operators. There is growing evidence that sleep loss may play a large role in transportation accidents. A committee formed at the 1986 meeting of the Association of Professional Sleep Societies found that numerous performance failures leading to catastrophic events occur most often at times of day coincident with the temporal patterns of brain processes associated with sleep (3). In addition, an investigation in the Netherlands showed that the highest accident rate in public transit accidents occurred in bus drivers who began an early work shift (4). An assessment of the impact of sleep loss in commercial and public transportation is therefore needed. 

Portland could easily be called the City of Bridges - fourteen major bridges span the Willamette and Columbia rivers. Its high-tech businesses, activist community and emerald forests on the outskirts of downtown have brought it nicely into the 21st century. And with its healthy amount of open-space, a good public transit system and a compact downtown, Portland has protected itself from urban sprawl. 

GB 9672-1996 Hygiene standard for waiting rooms of public transit... 

Almost half of the two million people employed in New Deal programs worked in constructing roads and highways. During the 1930s, the total amount of surfaced roads doubled, to more than 1.3 million miles, while mass transportation languished. Public transit received only a tenth of the money that the Works Progress Administration spent on roads. 

East Grand Avenue South San Francisco, CA 94080 Fax 650-615-9639 E-mail hr corr.com Internet site fvith job bank www.cortherapeutics.com offers stock options, stock purchase plan, and public transit assistance... 

London Bombings (7 July 2005) Public Transit (Road and Rail) The 7 July 2005 London bombings were a series of coordinated terrorist bomb blasts that hit London s public transport system during the morning rush hour. Three bombs exploded on three London underground trains while a fourth bomb exploded on a bus. The bombings killed 52 commuters and the four suicide bombers, injured 700, and oaused a severe daylong disruption of the city s transport and mobile telecommunications infrastruoture. 

Madrid Spain Bombings (11 Maroh 2004) Public Transit (Rail) The 2004 Madrid train inoident oonsisted of a series of coordinated bombings against the Cercanlas (commuter train) on the morning of 11 Maroh 2004, killing 191 people and wounding approximately 2,000. 

Sarin Gas Attack on the Tokyo Subway (20 March 1995) Public Transit (Rail) The 20 March 1995 attack was an act of domestic terrorism in Japan perpetrated by members of Aum Shinrikyo (a Japanese religious cult). In five coordinated attacks, the conspirators released sarin gas on several lines of the Tokyo Metro, killing 12 people, severely injuring 50, and causing temporary vision problems for nearly a thousand others. 

In Canada, Shell uses HF RFID for its Easy Pay customer convenience program. In Hong Kong Octopns card is nsed in public transit service. In the Netherlands, the Trans Link System nses contact-less smart cards to offer contact-less ticket solntions. The World Cup in Germany used tickets embedded with HF tags (RMOROZ, 2004). 

One proposal focuses on a system known as Applications for the Environment Real-Time Information Synthesis (AERIS) that would help people make decisions about the best and most efficient mode of transportation to use for a particular trip. Under the proposal, AERIS would provide information comparing current travel times from one point to another depending on the mode of transportation. The information would be drawn from traffic data on highways and roads, public transit schedules, up-to-the-minute information on delays, and weather data. The system s interface might list a traveler s options by transportation mode, ranking the options by travel time, cost, or carbon footprint. These options could be viewed on a mobile device such as a cell phone. 

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