Posts Tagged ‘Transport’
Japanese Bike Parking Station
Posted in Models by Kate Archdeacon on January 24th, 2010
Source: Treehugger
Image: guardian.co.uk
From “Tokyo’s High Tech Bike Parking Revisited” by Sami Grover.
From solar-powered bike parking pods to the Indian-designed vertical bike tree, TreeHugger is not short on neat concepts for better bike storage. But it was Tokyo’s automated bike parking that really got us excited. Now the Guardian has created a short English-language video piece on how the system works. Essentially, bikes are fitted with a small sensor strip, and as the bike is rolled into the machine—it scans the identity and ensures you have a fully paid membership.
Membership, incidentally, costs the equivalent of about 15USD a month. And just check out the speed at which the bike is returned to the user—almost exactly 30 seconds from arrival at the unit and inputting your membership details, your bike is returned and you can pedal away. Impressive stuff.
Read the full article by Sami Grover.
Tags: bicycles, enabling technologies, innovation, Transport
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Beauty & the Bike: from research project to community change
Posted in Models by Kate Archdeacon on January 19th, 2010
Source: Beauty & the Bike via Treehugger
Extract from Beauty and the Bike: Teenage Girls and Urban Mobility Culture:
“Beauty and the Bike aims to document the mobility culture, and particularly the bicycle culture, of an important, future oriented, target group. The project is focussed on girls and young women between 10 and 25 years old, and their attitude towards their travel choice, with the bicycle as the centre of interest.
The cultural dimension to European urban traffic planning has, until now, been regarded as at best marginal to planners’ concerns. With an education – and a contemporary practice – grounded in the practical solution to apparently technical problems, urban travel planners have historically had little to do with deeper socio-cultural trends. But now that urban travel has taken centre stage in a new and radically different kind of production – the battle against global warming – the urgent need to change CO2 emitting urban travel habits is requiring planners to take account of the cultural climate their apparently technical solutions have spawned. Beauty and the Bike is a cultural urban travel project that aims to help urban traffic planners, by looking at one such mobility culture – that of the teenage girl and young woman.
Central to this project are the ways teenage girls choose their travel modes in two European countries, the United Kingdom and Germany. The core production activity of the project is cultural, with a documentary film, portrait photography exhibition and catalogue as key outputs. But its work is also rooted in, and supported by, progressive urban travel planners in Darlington (UK) and Bremen (Germany). Teenage participants in the project live in these two urban areas.
Looking at their lives superficially, they seem similar – with internet and iPods, fashion, first loves, and the stresses of school. But when you look more closely you find an important difference: their choice of travel modes. And the ways and means teenagers are able to get around, shapes their identity and sense of independence. Especially for girls, these are of vital importance for their development. Whilst most of the Bremen girls use their bikes on a daily basis, the Darlingtonians mostly walk, take the bus, or hope for a lift from one of their parents.”
The project led to the launch of a bike hire group, Velodarlo, as well as a local campaign for cycle paths in Darlington. Velodarlo has recently been awarded funding to become DarLOVElo, which will inherit the Velodarlo Bike Pool and receive initial funding of over £30,000 to buy some 40 more bikes and set up a base near the centre of the town. The young women from the Beauty and the Bike project are committed to founding the Bike Club that will be the central feature of the new project, and they have been receiving skills training from members of Darlington Cycling Campaign in repairs and maintenance.
Tags: behaviour change, bicycles, local action, Research, Transport
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Sharing & efficiency: Taxi 2
Posted in Models by Kate Archdeacon on November 18th, 2009
Source: Springwise
Taxi2 is a beta project from Virgin Atlantic that’s currently being tested in New York and London. Touting the financial and environmental motivations for sharing a cab, Taxi2 is a free service for passengers of any airline. Users simply log on to the Taxi2 site and input their flight and destination details. From there, the system matches them with suitable cab-sharing companions and provides a protected way to contact them, allowing the travellers to decide whether to agree to the match. The system offers a way for female travellers to be matched only with other female travellers; it also protects all personal details. Once travellers agree on a match, Taxi2 even provides a printable and foldable sign to help them find each other at the airport. A mobile version of the technology is coming soon. Much the way carpooling makes sense as a way to reduce the cost and impact of commuting to work, so cab-sharing seems like a no-brainer for all the many travellers heading in the same direction.
Read more on Springwise.
Tags: enabling technologies, new systems/services, sharing, Transport
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Take the train: BBC Worldwide bans short-haul executive flights
Posted in Movements by Kate Archdeacon on October 28th, 2009
Source: GreenRazor, the GreenPages Newsletter
Image: dmitri krendelev via flickr CC
From “BBC Worldwide bans short-haul executive flights” by James Murray, BusinessGreen, 02 Oct 2009
Staff at BBC Worldwide have been banned from taking domestic and short-haul flights as part of one of the most wide-ranging green travel programmes yet attempted in the UK. Executives have been told they can only fly when travelling by train adds more than three hours to the journey. The edict, from the BBC’s commercial arm, means that staff have to take the train to all domestic locations, as well as European cities as far afield as Strasbourg, Amsterdam and Bordeaux.
In addition, they must formally explain why a meeting cannot be held using one of the company’s five videoconferencing suites before they can book a long-haul flight.
“For some people it has been a bit painful,” admitted David Halford, head of ethical sourcing and environmental policy at the company. “But we consulted with the baird {sic} before we introduced the policy and took the view that if we are really serious about cutting emissions it will be painful at times.” The company’s environmental department also undertook a study of all journeys taken in the year prior to introducing the policy and found that switching to the train would save the organisation money. “One of the complaints was that rail travel would be more expensive than flying, but we analysed the data from an entire year and that was just not the case,” said Halford.
Read the full article.
Tags: airplanes, behaviour change, policy, Transport
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Carbon-Offset Kiosks at San Francisco Airport
Posted in Models by Kate Archdeacon on September 22nd, 2009
Source: World Environment News
Image: 3degreesinc
San Francisco International Airport (SFO) is launching the Climate Passport program allowing travelers to offset the impact of their air travel through an airport kiosk. This will be the world’s first airport kiosk-giving people the opportunity to calculate the environmental impact of their flights and purchase carbon offsets to address that impact while at the airport.
Where does the money go? The City has conducted extensive research on each project supported by the program to ensure that all carbon offsets are sourced from a specific project that results in real, quantifiable, permanent greenhouse gas emission reductions.
Tags: Carbon-neutral, new systems/services, Transport
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Guerilla Bike Lanes
Posted in Movements by Kate Archdeacon on September 3rd, 2009
Source: Going Solar Transport Newsletter
Image: Urban Repair Squad
“Guerilla Bike Lanes”, from bikeoff
Many cities worldwide have been subject to painters of unofficial cycle markings on urban streets and roadways, in attempt to ‘carve’ themselves out a safer space among all the motorized traffic. Until recently it appears these activists were unknown to each other, though now a number of websites and forums have started to appear to collectively archive instances from different locations and share information.
The Urban Repair Squad are one of the more organized groups – they operate in Toronto, Canada and represent a group of unnamed activists, keen to see the city’s cycle lane infrastructure deployed sooner rather than later, given the authorities recently already delayed two years after promising new cycle routes, without implementing them. Their dissemination includes a downloadable ‘DIY infrastructure’ manual to share their method and objectives.
“They say city is broke. We fix. No charge.” Urban Repair Squad
Tags: action, bicycles, community, Transport
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National Electric Vehicle Festival
Posted in Events by Kate Archdeacon on August 28th, 2009
Source: Going Solar Transport Newsletter
The Festival is hosted by the Australian Electric Vehicle Association (AEVA). There will be vehicles old and the new, including: a 1917 Detroit Electric and an ultra-new Tesla Roadster electric super car, plus old and new production and converted cars and bikes on display, stands, displays, fun for the kids – and lots, lots more. The event will coincide with Canberra’s annual floral festival, ‘Floriade’.
Date: 4th October, 2009 9 am – 4 pm
Venue: Old Parliament House Lawns, Canberra
More Info: http://CanberraEV.org/festival or contact: billgresham@ gmail.com
Source: Going Solar Transport Newsletter
Tags: electric vehicle, Events, Transport
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Bus Rapid Transit System, Bogota
Posted in Models by Kate Archdeacon on August 27th, 2009
Source: By Degrees, NY Times
From “Buses May Aid Climate Battle in Poor Cities“, Elisabeth Rosenthal
Image: Scott Dalton, NY Times
BOGOTÁ, Colombia — Like most thoroughfares in booming cities of the developing world, Bogotá’s Seventh Avenue resembles a noisy, exhaust-coated parking lot — a gluey tangle of cars and the rickety, smoke-puffing private minibuses that have long provided transportation for the masses.
But a few blocks away, sleek red vehicles full of commuters speed down the four center lanes of Avenida de las Américas. The long, segmented, low-emission buses are part of a novel public transportation system called bus rapid transit, or B.R.T. It is more like an above-ground subway than a collection of bus routes, with seven intersecting lines, enclosed stations that are entered through turnstiles with the swipe of a fare card and coaches that feel like trams inside.
Versions of these systems are being planned or built in dozens of developing cities around the world — Mexico City, Cape Town, Jakarta, Indonesia, and Ahmedabad, India, to name a few — providing public transportation that improves traffic flow and reduces smog at a fraction of the cost of building a subway.
Tags: governance, Health, Transport, Urban Design and Built Form
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Sustainable Transport Panel, Perth
Posted in Events by NetworkingWA on August 21st, 2009
Source: Networking WA
With Sustainable September fast approaching, this event will discuss the issues surrounding Public Transport. The panel, including Senator Scott Ludlam (Greens) will discuss the topic of ‘Sustainable Cities’ and opportunities, pros and cons of new ‘sustainable’ transportation methods. The event will be run in a ‘debate’ type forum, with a panel and chair leading the discussion, and opportunities for the audience to ask Panelists questions around the themes of discussion.
September 2 – 4:30pm for drinks and canapes
Tags: discussion group, perth, Transport
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Naked Streets, Shared Spaces
Posted in Models by Kate Archdeacon on August 14th, 2009
Sources: GoingSolar, Enchanted Isle, Times Online and Sydney Morning Herald
Image via streetsblog
Hans Monderman (1945 – 2008) pioneered the concept of the “naked street” by removing all the things that were supposed to make it safe for the pedestrian – traffic lights, railings, kerbs and road markings. He thereby created a completely open and even surface on which motorists and pedestrians “negotiated” with each other by eye contact.
Monderman worked tirelessly to prove that such roads are safer and, more than 25 years after his first experiment in the Netherlands, streets all over the world are being redesigned to the Monderman “shared space” model. He passionately believed that segregating cars and pedestrians was wrong and an imposition from the state. Instead, he claimed a natural interaction between the driver and the pedestrian would create a more civilised environment.
His maxim was: “If you treat drivers like idiots, they act as idiots. Never treat anyone in the public realm as an idiot, always assume they have intelligence.”
Source: TimesOnline
Tags: sharing, Transport, Urban Design and Built Form
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