Arrest the driver or put him to bed? Neither. Arrester beds.

I was reading the other day the news from Greece and was sad to learn about a multi-vehicle crash in one of Greece’s major highways, that resulted in 4 people losing their life and more than 30 injured. The crash involved a heavy vehicle that crashed into a line of cars temporarily stopped at road works, resulting in a huge pileup. According to one of the eye witnesses the heavy vehicle, a prime mover – semi trailer combination, crashed at the vehicles at full speed and “was throwing the cars up in the air, like paper napkins”.

Egnatia odos one of the most modern motorways in Greece, and part of the Trans-European Networks, has a relatively good safety record, especially compared to the rest of the Greek motorway and highway system that is quite notorious for the level of fatalities. The driver, a Romanian national, driving a truck registered in Romania that transited through Greece, claimed that the truck’s braking systems failed and was driving without any breaks for more than 20 kms.

Just  a few days later, another similar type of crash, involving this time a truck and dog trailer combination occurred on one of Athens’s motorways. Again in a similar situation, the truck crashed into a number of cars ahead of it, ending up on top of the median concrete barrier. The driver claimed that the truck’s brakes failed and he drove on the median on purpose, so as to avoid crashing directly on the cars.

The investigations on both accidents will finally reveal the cause of the crash. Usually in most cases like these, more than one factor contributes to the unfortunate events. Road works traffic management, vehicle maintenance and compliance enforcement, use of seat-belts and availability of passive road safety features in cars are among the parameters that are examined. 

Driver fatigue is one of the factors that have a direct link to crashes especially with heavy vehicles where drivers are behind the wheel usually for more than 12 hours per day. There are a lot of ways to understand when you are experiencing driver's fatigue and a few ways to deal with it effectively, with the best being to pull over and go to bed.

The reported heavy vehicle brake failures though, made me think of a simple road safety installation that is quite common in Australia but not in Greece: Arrester beds or runaway truck ramps as they are else known. Described by Austroads as a containment facility, it is a road safety treatment designed  for cases of brake failure. They are long trenches filled with gravel designed to stop runaway trucks by drag and fiction. Emergency stopping beds, as they are also known in Queensland, they are usually located prior to or at the start of the tight turns with small radius like the one bellow.

Arrester bed, Cunningham Highway, QLD

Arrester beds are used on downhill road sections so it's not certain that they would be suitable for either of the crashes in Greece. They do have though, a proven record of effectiveness and should be examined in all roads that carry big volumes of heavy vehicle traffic.Maybe future research can indicate whether temporary arrester beds can be used in road works situations.  

Colorado, USA, Source: LetUbeU

World cup team logistics. Flights and heat in Brazil part 2 and final.

The first part of this blog post, was about the Soccerroo’s choice for a base camp in Brazil and how that did not have a negative effect in the team’s performance, something that can be suggested though for Spain.  

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Greece participated in a football World Cup for the third time in its history. This time, people responsible for organizing the team’s logistics were more professional and prepared than they were back in 1994 in USA when Greece first participated in a world cup. For the base camp, the coach and his associates picked Aracaju the capital of Sergipe.  This was the second most northern base camp of all participating teams. Only Ghana chose to stay at a city further north, in Maceio. Aracaju a seaside Brazilian city, is known as the city with the healthiest lifestyle in the country and a national example for its bike paths. During the world cup, it was hot and very humid.

Greece played the first match against Colombia in Belo Horizonte which was quite cool compared to other Brazilian cities of the same latitude. The 852 metres elevation of Belo Horizonte keeps the city cool, suppressing high maximum air temperatures experienced in nearby cities at lower altitudes.  Colombia, not only had a great team but they are also quite accustomed to the Tierra caliente climate. Greece traveled 1243 kms (as the crow flies) to go from Aracaju to Belo Horizonte while Colombia travelled only 755 kms from their base camp in Sao Paulo. 

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Japan, that was on the same group, chose to stay in Sao Paulo, where the climate is much cooler and there is also a big Japanese community. In their second game against Greece they had to travel 2322 Kms to Natal while Greece had to travel just 605 Kms. The climate in Natal is quite warm at humid during June and July and while Greece was playing with 10 players for more than half the game, they seemed more energetic and managed to get a valuable 0-0 draw that proved to be critical for Greece to advance to the next round.   

Ivory Coast was the fourth team in the group and they chose to stay in Sao Paulo as well. That meant that along with Japan they traveled the most kms between their camp and the host cities for the group matches. Ivory Coast traveled 6670 Kms and Japan 7172 kms. That is more than twice the distance that Greece (3152 kms) or Colombia (3338 kms) had to travel. The last and crucial match for Ivory Coast against Greece was played in Fortaleza at 17:00 local time. Greece traveled 816 Kms from Aracaju while Ivory Coast traveled almost three times more (2370). While the African players were considered superior in strength and speed, Greece managed to be competitive all the way till the last minute and scored the winning goal that allowed them to go through to the stage of 16.

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My conclusion for this group was that team logistics played some role here too. Greece benefited from their base camp choice while Japan and Ivory Coast did not, in fact they probably were hindered. 

Other notable failures in this world cup were Italy and the USA team. USA traveled the most kms of all 32 teams (8886) while Italy was close with 8458 kms. 

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While I was never a fan of the German team, it’s only fair to close this blog post with their accomplishment in this last Mundial. They were the most prepared and organized team in this competition, not only from an athletic point of view but also for the team logistics. They picked a relatively north location in Bahia and arranged for a fit for purpose, newly built just for them, base camp. Campo Bahia  a new resort constructed at an area with a climate similar to those where the team’s matches were played, included 14 two-storey housing units, a training pitch, team headquarters, and a fitness center. It has been reported that a German investor has helped to fund the £25 million project. Germany was one of the top five teams with the less kms traveled (fourth with just 2114) at the Group stage. Interestingly Argentina that also made it to the World Cup final was third with just 2086 kms.

Traffic and wildlife

A few days ago we went with the kids at Currumbin Wildlife Sanctuary to visit this great place and view up close Queensland wildlife. 

tree kangaroo

cassowary

And when we were admiring the tree kangaroos and the cassowary  I remembered how impressed I was when I first saw the wildlife warning signs.

kangaroo - camel -cassowary - wild horse - koala - wombat

And there are also the "care for our wildlife" information signs.

echidna - tree kangaroo - duck - small bird - possum - lizard

In Greece there is only one wildlife sign depicting a deer and it is representative of all wildlife animals even though there are only a few deers left; some in Mount Parnitha near Athens and more in Mount Rodopi near my former hometown Kavala. 

 

There is also a warning sign with a cow on it representing all livestock animals. 

This is similar to the livestock warning sign in QLD.

Unfortunately there is no sign depicting a bear which is the animal more endangered by road traffic in Greece. Just yesterday two young brown bears were killed in the road near Kastoria another northern Greek city that I love and have family at. 

Wildlife protection is one of the most important sectors in environmental protection and sustainable development. Sustainable mobility can play a big part in this cause not only by putting up signs to warn drivers for the presence of wildlife but mainly through planning and design of infrastructure that does not invade wildlife habitat and protects these sensitive ecosystems from collateral damage.

Keep left

Coming to Australia from Greece I had the problem to adjust to left side driving. Today about 66.1% of the world's people live in right-hand traffic countries and 33.9% in left-hand traffic countries. About72% of the world's total road distance carries traffic on the right, and 28% onthe left.

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It took me about a month to get comfortable on driving to the other side that I used to drive for 20 years. 

Australia drives on the left. The decision to drive on the left side of the road was made in the early 19th century in the early period of the British colony of New South Wales.

Keep left sign on the Great Ocean Road, Victoria

Thankfully roads in Australia are well signed, equipped also with pavement markings and lines making it real easy for the foreign driver to drive here. The most helpful sign is without doubt the KEEP LEFT sign.  

The sign is used near the start of a central island, median or similar device where traffic can physically pass on either side but it is necessary for all traffic on the particular approach to pass it on one side only.

The sign and the left arrow is also used in other occasions. It seems that the last days everywhere I go I find one of this in front of me.

Bermuda Road, Gold Coast

Q1 Gold Coast

Australia Fair Parking, Gold Coast

Gold Coast Highway

Gold Coast Highway

Victoria Bridge, Brisbane

Parking for disabled

At my work I try to do my best to help disabled people find a parking space that suits them in different parts of the city. Their problems are very well presented in this awarded short film from Greece :

My congratulations to the director Stamos Tsamis.

No parking odd sign.

While discussing parking restriction signs and regulations with my colleagues I realised that European parking signs are a lot different than those in Australia.

Take a look at some of the most common parking signs in Australia:

 

Here, parking signs are more like the USA signs:

In both countries you will find some differences between the different states (and territories).
But in Europe, parking signs are a lot different,. This is how the no parking and no standing sign look like.

Also there are some odd signs. Because of the mixed land uses in city centres and the narrow width road network there are the no parking on odd months and even months signs in Greece that look like this: