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.

Road safety. Is the message too harsh?

Last week I attended the 8th Australian Road Engineering and Maintenance conference in Melbourne. It was a very interesting conference with two different streams: Road Engineering and Road Maintenance. My interest was mainly with the Road Engineering papers and presentations which were mostly about road safety and street/urban design.

There were presentations about new devices that can enhance road safety like the BarrierGuard steel road safety barrier by Boylan Group that was presented in a crash demonstration at Sundown racecourse. 

Mike Dreznes, Executive Vice President of the International Road Federation presented a paper on forgiving highways using some very graphic images of crash victims. I must say that I couldn't keep my eyes in his presentation as these images were too disturbing for me. This is the second time that such images are used at a conference that I attend, in a very short time. Last time at AITPM conference in Sydney Ron Delezio presented crying, his own hard to believe family drama . This was an even more powerful and very emotional presentation. 

I always thought that such harsh images and information campaigns based on them don't have much success influencing people behavior because people tend to disassociate from them. The human brain tends as a protection measure to think that such crashes and injuries will not happen to me because I am different than the person in this campaign. I am younger or older, I don't drive or I don't walk, I have a better car, I don't drive at that time of the day or any other excuse. A colleague from ARRB mentioned that there is research that shows that such messages have a good outcome in some countries like Australia and Ireland but not that good in other countries like England. 

Personally, I prefer a different approach in road safety campaigns. More clever, indirect messages that don't make the viewer turn his/her head the other way. Campaigns like this one for drinking and driving:

or this very clever road side billboard that changes when it's raining.

The use of positive images seems to me a more effective way to promote road safety. Role models for young people like Karl Lagerfeld or Michael Schumacher are used to reach different target audiences hence they take different approaches.

 

But the reality is that unless we start promoting sustainable transport, more safe modes of transport like walking and cycling, road crashes would be high resulting in deaths and serious injuries and bringing much grief to people. 

Heavy Traffic

Everybody's been a long time talking
Ain't nobody said a word that's true
Ain't it time to stop this crap type talking
Won't you tell us what you're gonna do

Tell you what, why don't we break this pattern?
Tell you what, why don't we do some do?
All together we can make it happen
Untogether and we won't get through

Wanna drive, yeah drive
I wanna drive but I can't get nowhere
Heavy traffic all over this town
I wanna drive, yeah drive
I wanna drive, I gotta get somewhere
Heavy traffic is bringing me down.

Every time I see the red light burning
Don't it always make the air turn blue
But until we see the red light turning
There ain't nothing anyone can do

We all dream about an open highway
Making dreams is all that we can do
We'd be moving on if I had my way
Nothing can stop me getting back to you

Wanna drive, yeah drive
I wanna drive but I can't get nowhere
Heavy traffic all over this town
I wanna drive, yeah drive
I wanna drive, I gotta get somewhere
Heavy traffic coming into this town

I wanna drive, yeah drive
I wanna drive but I can't get nowhere
Heavy traffic all over this town
I wanna drive, yeah drive
I wanna drive, I gotta get somewhere
Heavy traffic is bringing me down
Heavy traffic all over this town

Heavy traffic all over this town

Heavy traffic coming into this town

Written by Rossi/Young/Edwards - Performed by Status Quo

Famous traffic engineers and transport planners.

I was wondering the other day if there are any traffic engineers or transportation planners that are considered famous. And when I say famous I mean well known among the general public and not only among our profession and scientific community. While I tried really hard to think of someone, no one came to mind and I felt a little embarrassed as if I hadn’t done my homework properly. But then I asked the same question in two different relative LinkedIn groups. And while there was some name dropping none of these could really qualify as being famous or well known. Actually I doubt that if I asked 10 different colleagues about those names if I would get even one recognized unanimously.

Even the fictional ones are not that famous.

When trying to find people that are famous for other reasons but who still come from a traffic/transport engineering background, the only name that came up was that of the Iranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad who apparently at some point in his life studied civil/traffic engineering.

So why is it that although world has some famous architects like Frank Lloyd Wright, Mies van de Rohe, Frank Gehry or Zaha Hadid just to name a few, doesn’t have famous traffic engineers? Why do we have famous economists like Adam Smith, Karl Marx. John Keynes or Milton Friedman and we don’t know of any transport planners? 

And if for doctors it is quite reasonable to know so many because of all these diseases named after them why is it that we don’t know who designed the first tram system? Or the inventor of Bus Rapid Transit? Why the bridges aren’t named after their designer?

Actually this last part may not be absolutely true as in Brisbane we have the Walter Taylor Bridge designed and constructed by WalterTaylor who was an engineer and builder. 

Source:State Library of Queensland and John Oxley Library