Final destination: Changi airport.

I just came back from a leisure trip to Singapore and it was very interesting to notice a few things about air travel. Generally air travel is something that transport planners and traffic engineers are often professionally involved. Planning and designing airports, forecasting air passenger traffic and coming up with solutions for trips between terminals are some of the areas that a transport planner or a traffic engineer may provide his/her services. Over the last decade there were many changes in this field with most of the changes relating to  airports.

Airports are starting to become more significant than ever with some of them starting to become a destination of their own. This appears to be one of the top emerging travel trends. Air travel security checks and changes in airlines charging systems require passengers to be at the airport a long time before their flight. Long distance travel and airline alliances affect also the average time passengers spend as stopover between destinations. Competition between airports and the drive for alternative revenue has made airports reinvent themselves and change dramatically what they offer to passengers.

Changi International airport is probably the leading example, having won 430 awards since 1981, including 30 'Best' awards in 2012. The variety of services and experiences offered to passengers is beyond expectation. And the even more amazing thing is that the vast majority of them are free of charge. Depending on how long your stay in the airport is you can surf the Internet either from Internet stations or with Wi-Fi, visit and enjoy a number of different gardens that include a fantastic butterfly garden, get foot massage at Foot and Calf Massage stations, play a wide selection of Xbox and Playstation games, catch a movie at a movie theater or even get a 2hour Singapore Tour. And I repeat all of the above are offered free of charge.

Art and architecture is another field that airports are concentrating. Changi airport makes the list for the world's most beautiful airports. You can find amazing art pieces throughout the terminals with the Kinetic Rain installation catching the eye.

On top of these offerings the airport takes quality control and benchmarking very seriously, with numerous touch screens located in every spot of provided services for passengers to give their quality ratings.

Source

 The contrast with Darwin International airport which was my stopover on the way to Singapore was disappointing. There isn't really much to compare but the locked electricity wall sockets were the highlight of the terminal along with the almost torn apart sofas.

Choosing a flight in the near future, will become more and more affected by issues like stopover time but it seems that in certain occasions people will choose to ignore that in order to visit and experience airports as destinations. World airport competition is fierce and Australian airports although not centrally staged as Changi, need to keep up realising that the old philosophy of airport design is now obsolete.

Roadside memorials - safety warnings or hazards?

I was reading the other day about the decision of Queensland Motorways, the private company that operates some of the most important highways in the state, to remove roadside crash memorials from the Gateway and Logan motorways.

Although Qld Motorways stated that they understand that is a difficult and sensitive issue and that they tried to contact families that are related to the memorials, they remained firm to their decision not to allow or tolerate such memorials from now on.

Roadside memorial for a victim of the Pacific Highway. Photo: Dallas Kilponen DAK

The main reason behind the decision as quoted by Qld Motorways was road safety:
"Parking and walking along the motorway to maintain, establish or visit a memorial is an extremely unsafe activity, particularly with traffic moving at speeds of 100km/h" and "Roadside memorials present a visual destruction to drivers and create the potential for physical objects to harm road users by shifting onto the road surface." 

That article reminded me of all the roadside memorials in Greece, one of the countries that unfortunately has a high number of road crashes and road fatalities. In Greece most roadside crash memorials are like small churches while here in Queensland are usually just crosses or even a bunch of flowers taped to a post, a guard rail or a tree. Members of the family of the person or the people that were killed at the road crash maintain the memorial and in the case of miniature churches in Greece this is something that happens frequently as they have a small oil lamp that they keep lit.

Source:  Miniature churches in Greece

In other countries they erect different type of monuments and in some occasions they install a road safety warning sign. In a  bicycle specific practice widely known as "ghost bikes" people install white bicycles at the crash site.

Source: Roadside memorial blog

Source: Wikipedia

In Australia there was a big rise in roadside memorials since the 1990's. There is even a dedicated site that lists most of the Australian roadside memorials but whithout  much information for Qld.

This is yet another traffic issue that is controversial. According to the families that erect and maintain those memorials, they do more to combat the road toll than expensive government campaigns or flashing billboards. "They make everyone out on the roads think and slow down, because they represent a real loss. It makes more of an impact".

And this actually has merit and that is why erecting roadside memorials is not always illegal. Some of the US states like Colorado, Massachusetts, and Wisconsin ban such memorials. Different US states and world countries have different regulations regarding the memorials.In Queenland, Transport and Main Roads has a policy that regulates roadside memorials. According to it roadside memorials should be contained within the following dimensions:

    height 750mm
    width 500mm
    depth 400mm (below ground level).

In the interest of the safety of other road users and the safety of persons installing memorials, there are a number of locations where the placement of memorials is restricted. Examples of locations where memorials are not permitted include:

    motorways and freeways
    traffic islands
    medians
    roundabouts
    where they may interfere with any traffic control devices.

I hope sooner than later vehicle technology advances, driver education and investment in road infrastructure will make roadside memorials obsolete and part of human history. Until that day, families taking care of the memorials need to be cautius so there is no need to duplicate them.  Regardless of state or private company regulations, roadside memorials will be there to remind us that driving a car, a bike or any short of vehicle comes with risks and dangers.

Segways on the footpaths.

It's really funny that now that I'm working with heavy vehicles and dealing everyday with road access to some of the largest vehicles in Australia like ABB quads, the smallest of transportation vehicles caught my attention.

I am talking about Segways in Brisbane and electric bikes/scooters in the Gold Coast.  Just recently Queensland government announced that from 1 August 2013, approved Personal Mobility Devices (PMD) can be used on road related areas such as footpaths, bike paths and shared paths. At the moment Segway is the only PMD that has been approved but other similar devices like gyro-stabilised electric unicycles can be approved and until then can only be operated on private property.

There are certain conditions under which Segways are allowed to operate in Queensland. Those include among others the use of helmet (no surprises there), give way to pedestrians and having a warning device as a bell or horn. There is a speed restriction of 12km/h and you shouldn't be driving past a "PMD prohibited" sign.

Queensland police has adopted Segways on a 3 month trial for use on Brisbane's South Bank and Cairn's Esplanade. Officers are actually allowed to reach 20k/h when chasing a bad guy.

This whole PMD issue is not really new to Qld and Australia since mobility scooters, motorised disability wheelchairs and electric bicycles were allowed to travel on road and on the footpath for quite some time now. These vehicles need to achieve specific performance based standards and are limited to 200 Watt of power where the new PMD's don't have that limit. Segway seems to have far more power than that.

Other countries around the world allow Segways on the streets and footpaths under various conditions and contrary to the urban myth the inventor of Segway didn't die riding one of his inventions. 

And then, the other day while driving back from the beach at Surfers Paradise I saw a bunch of teenagers lane filtering and even moving from the pavement to the footpath on electric scooters. Those vehicles looked a lot like regular scooters although I noticed that they had pedals. It appears that they are available for hire without a drivers licence and they have less than 200 Watts of power.

They reminded me of my first vehicle the Honda Camino which I used to drive to school everyday between the ages of 16 and 17 back in Kavala Greece before I replaced it with the at the time very popular "ducks" Yamaha Townmate. They both had 50cc petrol engines and you needed a special drivers license issued by Greek Police to drive them.

 
As I said in an older blog post, I believe that scooters and even Personal Mobility Devices can provide better alternatives to urban travel than the car. And while I don't think that we will see a lot of Segways in the next years travelling on our footpaths it is certainly an idea worth exploring.  

Moving around Perth.

I just returned from Perth where I attended the AITPM 2013 national conference. While I spent most of my days there attending the conference, I had a day and a half to visit the city centre, the beach and Fremantle.

Perth is a magnificent city that supports a high quality of life for its residents. Perth was ranked as the 9th most  liveable city in the world at the Economist Intelligence Unit's latest livability ranking. This ranking assesses living conditions in 140 cities around the world for 30 indicators across five broad categories: stability; healthcare; culture and environment; education; and infrastructure.Perth is the 4th Australian city in this ranking bellow Melbourne, Adelaide and Sydney and above Brisbane.

Focusing on mobility management, Perth ticked all the right boxes in terms of public transport, street calming and livable streets. I really liked the traffic calmed streets in the CBD, around the main pedestrian streets (or malls as they are called in Australia). The use of pavers for the surface of pedestrian crossings creates a pedestrian friendly street environment.

In Fremantle this idea goes a step further. Pedestrian streets and traffic calmed streets with street furniture and landscaping along with well preserved heritage buildings create an atmosphere that goes beyond a typical port town and place Fremantle at the top of Perth attractions and places worth visiting. On a Saturday with the market open and everyone enjoying a coffee or a beer under the sun, you feel so relaxed that you start thinking that Perth is definitely a place worth considering moving to.

 Street artists painting in the street or playing music enhance this atmosphere.

  

 

Unfortunately as a typical Australian city there is a lot of work to be done when it comes to cycling and cycling infrastructure. Perth has very low percentage of people cycling to work at 1.3 %. The percentage of people using public transport for their every day trip to work is much higher at 12.7 % lower than Brisbane but on a upward trend which is expected to further rise in the near future thanks to the new free for all CAT (central area transport service) bus lines. Perth operates a Free Transit Zone ( FTZ ) where within the Perth city centre travel on public transport is free. 

To travel within this zone you can simply hop on any train, bus or CAT. You are not restricted to the amount of times you can use this service and no tickets are required. The FTZ includes City West and Claisebrook on the Fremantle, Midland and Armadale train lines, the start and finish of the FTZ are clearly marked, on the train stations and bus stops.

My tour around Perth ended at City Beach where looking at the sunset over the Indian Ocean on a clear and warm winter day I thought that won't be long before the day that I will return there to explore further this wonderful part of the world. 

User pays - user says. Is that right?

The last few years and especially after the global financial crisis or GFC as we call it here in Australia that we love our acronyms, a big part of the transport discussion is around financing and funding. Public-private partnerships (or PPP for the Aussies) and other more complicated financing tools or instruments are developed and used to keep funding transport projects in times that almost all countries are opting for austerity measures.

The first results of this new approach are not that encouraging. The last year the big discussion in Brisbane regarding transport and traffic was the failure of the big privately owned transport projects, the Clem Jones (CLEM7) and the Airport Link tunnels. The companies that invested in those projects failed financially and went into receivership. 

A Dart & Co

Inevitably the luck of funding and the failures of the new privately funded models fired up again the discussion about the fundamental funding issues:

Should transport infrastructure be founded by the state? Is it fair for example for a tax payer that doesn't own a car to pay for a new highway? Should someone that rides a bike to work and never uses public transport to contribute with his taxes to the subsidization of the bus and train network? Should transport companies that use an industrial road be responsible for the maintenance cost of the road that they are the most frequent users?

Infrastructure Australia which is a statutory body, established under the Infrastructure Australia Act 2008 and advises federal and state governments, investors and infrastructure owners on a wide range of issues like the country's current and future infrastructure needs, mechanisms for financing infrastructure investments, and policy, pricing and regulation and their impacts on investment took the discussion a step even further. In the latest annual report - the national infrastructure plan  they suggest that the user pays - user says model should be adopted. That means that not only the user should fund the infrastructure project by making a direct contribution but also in return the user will get a say on the level of service provided.

"A move to congestion charging will be needed if we are to reduce the growing economic burden of congestion and make best use of existing network infrastructure," Again this statement of the same report raises many questions as it is a totally different approach from the one major Australian cities were taking till now.

So does this mean no more new tolled transport infrastructure? Until today the thinking was, that a new road/ bridge/ tunnel that would reduce congestion and give people the option of shorter travel times would attract traffic despite the price of the tolls because people would gladly pay for the time saved. As it was proved not too many people would do that and most would prefer a longer and cheaper trip which in the case of Brisbane, would also be more pleasant (shinning and not dull). So, are we moving in a direction that tolls would be introduced in existing roads that face congestion in a congestion pricing scheme similar to London and Stockholm?

The Spectator

The debate started  a long time ago and would probably last for a few more years. I expect that in the near future we would start discussing even more innovative approaches like crowd funding. And maybe who knows some day someone would decide to build and maintain a bus or two just because that would give him the right to name the buses after his wife or daughter, the same way a video game production company gave donators the right to have game characters named after them.

Low Bridge or High Times?

One of the issues often underestimated in traffic engineering is that of vehicles' height. Low clearance bridges or overpasses cause all short of problems to traffic and transport. From major safety incidents to amenity problems to surrounding neighborhood. 

Just yesterday Europe and the world was shocked with the tragic crash of a double decker bus on a low clearance bridge in Munich, Germany that left 40 young people injured, one of them severely.

It surely made me wonder; was it the low overpass or was it the high times?

That bridge had a clearance of 3.4 m which is far less than the 4.3m Queensland and Australian Road Rules general regulation hight or the 4.4 m double decker bus regulation.

This 3.4m height though, is taller than the clearance of a number of railway overpasses throughout Brisbane wider area. There are a few that are less than 3.0 m and there is even the one over Colina Street, Wynnum that has a clearance of 1.9 m. 

Searching in the Internet for a list of vehicles' heights, I couldn't find a single page that all different vehicles are listed. That is because vehicle height is the one dimension that is far from standard. Truck manufacturers provide the various standard chassis and on top of them, they fit different types of truck bodies. Many of the truck bodies are custom made to fit different transport needs.

Even with container trucks, height is not standard. There are many types of containers that can reach up to 2.86m for the high cube one. With this height even if the container could move by itself without the need for a truck to carry it, it still couldn't make it under some of Brisbane's rail overpasses.

One of the major car rental companies on their truck rental website lists every truck's height but instead of the overall height they list just the cab height. 

Most of the in-car GPS navigator systems don't have a comprehensive list of all low clearance overpasses. I am afraid that even professional truck drivers are driving around without knowing the exact height of their vehicle. 

Rail infrastructure is usually very difficult to modify within a reasonable cost, especially in locations that the overpass is too close to the railway station like in Wynnum. Lowering the road surface underneath, wherever permitted by geology and storm water design, creates collateral damage to the wider area, with retaining walls creating a barrier for pedestrian movement.

The answer to these problems is usually detection systems and warning signs. Tunnel management authorities are leading the way in this field. And of course, transport planning should always try to find a suitable detour for the extraordinary transport of high loads.

Freeway Of Love

Knew you'd be a vision in white
How'd you get your pants so tight?
Don't know what you're doin'
But you must be livin' right, yeah

We got some places to see
I brought all the maps with me
So jump in, it ain't no sin
Take a ride in my machine

City traffic's movin' way too slow
Drop the pedal and go, go, go

We goin' ridin' on the freeway of love
Wind's against our back
We goin' ridin' on the freeway of love
In my pink Cadillac

We goin' ridin' on the freeway of love
Wind's against our back
Ain't we ridin' on the freeway of love
In my pink Cadillac?

Never you mind the exit signs
We got lots of time
We can't quit till we get
To the other side

With the radio playin' our song
We keep rollin' on
Who knows how far a car can get
Before you think about slowin', slowin' down, yeah

City traffic's movin' way too slow
Drop the pedal and go, go
Come on now, go

We goin' ridin' on the freeway of love
Wind's against our back
We goin' ridin' on the freeway of love
In my pink Cadillac


We goin' ridin' on the freeway of love
Wind's against our back
Ain't we ridin' on the freeway of love
In my pink Cadillac?

Here we go, one more time

With the wind and your fingers in my hand
Kind of think we are going for an extended throw down
So drop the top, baby, and let's cruise on into
This better than ever street

City traffic movin' way too slow
Drop the pedal and go, go
Come on baby, go, do it for me now

We goin' ridin' on the freeway of love
Wind's against my back
We goin' ridin' on the freeway of love
In my pink Cadillac

We goin' ridin' on the freeway of love
Wind's against my back
Ain't we ridin' on the freeway of love
In my pink Cadillac

And what I want you to do, baby
Get over in the left lane
And let's merge with peace, oh, yeah
Take the love exit, and then make a right turn
Go on over to love and satisfaction and joy
Well, ain't we ridin' baby
Ain't we cruisin' down?
Free, free, free, freeway
Go on out to, ow
Let's be good to each other, scream
Freeway! Well
See that little landmark over there
A whole lot of kisses and sweet stuff
We'll be just about ow, ow, ow!
And satisfaction roll down
Satisfaction, yeah!

Aretha Franklin, song by Jeffrey Cohen & Narada Michael Walden

Not another motor show. It's the Brisbane Truck Show.

Yesterday I visited the Brisbane Truck Show 2013 at the Brisbane Convention and Exhibition Centre. I have visited several trade fairs in the past, starting from my early childhood when the yearly visit to Thessaloniki International Trade Fair was something I was looking forward to. I remember vividly the big foreign national pavilions with all the exhibitors and equipment.

As a kid I had a big interest in all shorts of vehicles and especially fast cars. A few years ago I had the chance to visit the Paris motor show which is probably one of the three largest car shows in Europe along Geneva and Frankfurt. Very impressive show with some car manufacturers showing prototypes and racing models.

 

But Brisbane Truck Show was something quite different. Being my first truck show and not having too much detail on what to expect I entered the show from the Grey Street entrance. I browsed through the stands of truck accessories and I thought that this would be a boring afternoon and a total waste of time. At least the National Heavy Vehicle Regulator seminar that I had registered to attend, would make up for that. 

And then while I continued browsing through the halls and corridors I ended up at the main hall and had my first glimpse of the huge prime movers. "All right, here we are..." I thought and decided this time to find the correct first point of entrance to the main hall so I could see the exhibition without missing anything.

First stand was Australian made Kenworth trucks with the flagship T909 that is often used as a prime mover for road trains in Australia. Kenworth was one of the companies that allowed truck enthusiasts and of course potential buyers to climb inside and sit behind the steering wheel of their trucks. Once again that reminded me of my childhood when I wanted to become a truck driver.

 

 

And then it was all the other big players in the truck industry. DAF and MAN and Mercedes and Freightliner with the Coronado.

Of course Volvo could not be missing from such an event, as they are probably the best manufacturer of heavy vehicles in the world. As always the emphasis was on road safety for the driver.

 

Volvo also presented very useful and well designed software for the transport operators.

Western Star's 4900 FXC, Aussie 1, was named truck of the show. 

 

 Mack's stand was also very interesting with a touch of history added to the usual impressive trucks. From the 1980 the R797RS named Penny Ann probably reminded a lot of people of their past. 

Three hours later I left the exhibition center enthusiastic with a feeling of certainty. Similar to the car industry, that pushes the limit for road safety but also amenity for drivers, truck and heavy vehicle industry does the same but at the same time enhancing productivity and saving cost for an industry where energy consumption is so critical.

Motorcycle lane filtering.

I was reading in the news the other day that Transport for New South Wales  is trialling motorcycle lane filtering. Motorcycles will be allowed to lane filter between stationary vehicles at intersections from 1 March to 30 April 2013 as part of an Australian-first trial in Sydney. I guess that most people are not familiar with this term lane filtering or lane splitting and probably that applies to some traffic engineer and transport planners from other countries. But in Australia it is illegal for motorcycles or even bicycles to drive between stationary vehicles, for example at a red traffic light.

As  Transport for NSW website explains:

Motorcycle lane filtering includes:

• Motorcycles moving between stationary vehicles.
• Motorcycles travelling within the lane, on the lane line and/or into the adjacent lane when filtering.

This trial is for a two month period at a set area in Sydney CBD and it comes with certain conditions, mainly that motorcyclists are not allowed to travel through moving traffic (lane splitting) and that riders must not filter in ‘bus only’ lanes.

The road rules that are used to prohibit lane filtering and don't apply for this trial period and are the same also in Queensland are:

• Drivers/riders on a multi-lane road must travel entirely within a single lane (rule 146a) 
• Drivers/riders must travel within a single line of traffic on a road without marked lanes (rule 146b)
• Drivers/riders on a multi-lane road must not move from one marked lane into another marked lane by crossing a continuous line separating the lanes (rule 147)

There are motorcycle websites that claim that actually lane filtering is not illegal when is done safely. They claim that there is no specific road rules that cover this and no rule that specifically uses the terminology “lane splitting” or “filtering”.

Reading this news story I remember how strange it seemed to me when I first came from Greece the sight of motorcycles waiting in the traffic light queue in the same way as cars.

The norm when driving a motorcycle or a motorbike in Athens or any other place in Greece is that you drive in the space between the traffic lanes when you reach a queue at traffic lights.
 

Athens, Greece

Athens, Greece

 And it seems that this practice is quite common in other parts of the world as well.

Ho Chi Minh City, VIetnam

Denpasar, Bali, Indonesia

Ubud, Bali, Indonesia

And I can understand why. First of all it helps motorcycle drivers reduce their traveling time quite significantly in the city centers, especially during peak traffic periods. In doing that, it gives drivers an incentive to prefer a motorcycle or a motorbike over of their car. That means less cars in the roads, less congestion, less air pollution and even less noise.It also means less need for on-street parking as in one car parking space you can feet more than one motorcycles especially when you are thinking and designing smartly as we try to do in Brisbane. Motorcycles can fit in places that cars don't like under motorway on ramps.


It seems to me that this is an issue that we definitely need more research. Is it safe to filter or there are too many dooring accidents? Does lane filtering prevents serious rear end crashes at traffic lights? Is lane filtering another reason for road rage as some drivers will look at this as queue jumping or they would be glad cause this probably would save them time from waiting at another red?  And how much pedestrians may be affected from motorcycle lane splitting? Unfortunately there isn't enough generally accepted research on this issue and let's hope this Sydney two month trial can shed some light.