Proper bus etiquette

21 Jul, 2010 in mobility, public transport by admin

bus etiquetteThink you know all about proper etiquette when it comes to using public transportation? Well, let’s put it to the test! Imagine you board a bus and finds a double bus seat empty. Where would you sit?

Option 1: You would leave the aisle seat free for fellow commuters to take, therefore sitting next to the window would be your choice.

Option 2: You would sit in the aisle seat.

If you chose option 2, then it is really an insensible choice because by sitting in the aisle seat, you are indirectly obstructing others from sitting next to you. It would almost seem as if you are making a clear statement like “sit beside me only if you must”! And this is the reason why there are plenty of empty window seats on most of the buses, when people chose option B and sit in the aisle seat! Notice this the next time you board a bus!

If only all the commuters in a bus were courteous and have proper bus manners, traveling with strangers on a bus would be a much more pleasant experience! Good etiquette are always appreciated, and more so in buses! So read on and learn about the dos and donts while commuting by public buses:

  1. Probably the most important of all, have your fare ready with you as soon as you board a bus, if not before boarding. It is obviously bad manners to make the ticket collector or conductor wait while you rummage through your purse or bag to fish out the money!

  1. It is courteous to offer your seat to a handicapped or an elderly person who have strollers. It pays to do a kind gesture genuinely.

  1. While conversing with someone, keep your voice low. Don’t disturb the other commuters around you, and especially not the driver.

  1. Smoking. Another offensive habit is to smoke publicly. A lot of non-smokers are highly offended by this behavior and hence one should extinguish their cigarettes before boarding a bus.

  1. Limit the use of audio device to headphones. And if you must talk on the phone while on board, keep your voice down and speak.

  1. Acknowledge the seats that are for the elderly people or the disabled. Don’t be a seat “hogger”.

  1. Don’t try to engage in an unnecessary conversation with your co-passenger. About 75% of the public transport commuters prefer to commute in silence or doing their own work.

  1. Another common mistake is to try and jostle your way into the bus before the passengers get off. Be courteous. Let the passenger get down and then board the bus.

  1. This one is for parent. Do not let your children treat the bus as a playground and run here and there. Try and hold the child’s hand at all times and make sure they dont disturb the other commuters by making too much noise.

  1. Another common bad habit is to litter the bus. Try to keep the bus as clean as possible. Remember, the space behind each seat is not for secretly disposing your litter and nor is the window for chucking out the litter. Keep the litter with you and once you get down from the bus, dispose it off in a bin.
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All about Free Public Transport

20 Jul, 2010 in green, mobility, public transport by admin

Public TransportEver heard of free public transportation? Well it’s not an alien concept anymore, it does exist! However, this is not very common. Who would benefit from such free transportation? Obviously the people or the citizens would be the ones who are most benefited by it but free public transportation is also beneficial for the economy and for the environment. Why? Because if mass transit was free then a lot of people would use it instead of their own automobiles. This means lesser emissions or carbon dioxide and other pollutants and fumes and better quality air!

Free public transportation is already a successful idea in Hasselt, Belgium. In fact, free public transit has started more than a decade ago and it is still as popular! A brief history about free public transportation in Hasselt:

In the year 1995, the politicians became aware of the poor public transportation in Hasselt and the problems it created. Although the public buses covered a huge area, yet there were very few commuters. Hence, the city’s transport company (De Lijn) was presented with the project of free bus service by the city council. And as they say, the rest was history. Thanks to Steve Stevaert, free bus service was launched on July 1, 1995 in Hasselt. This became a huge hit! When there was no free bus service, the numbers of passengers per day commuting by the bus were a mere 1000; however, with the introduction of the free bus service, the number zoomed up to 12,600! Gradually other free shuttle service was also introduced for convenience.

Now, back to the present; it would not be such a bad idea if every city had free public transportation. The funding for such services could be obtained by introducing a small increase in taxes. This would hardly be any problem because in comparison to the savings made by using free transportation instead of private cars, the tax paid for such free public transit would be negligible! Also, staffs would be required and nor would there be wastage of paper for the purpose of tickets!

Free public transportation offers various environmental benefits such as reducing the emissions of greenhouse gases, which means no global warming; other advantages are the reduction in noise pollution, air pollution, smog, congestions, not to mention the significant reduction in fossil fuels like diesel or petrol! No more worries over increase in petrol prices! Free public transportation also saves the country from spending billions of money on highways and saves trees because there would be no printing of tickets! Not only that, the precious urban space would also not be wasted on parking spaces and there would be less cramped parking spaces. It also reduces litter! Because a majority of the litter found in metropolitan cities are the receipts or bus tickets. Also it fosters public pride in community resources and there would be no more fare disputes!

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Public transportation or private cars? What would you opt for?

19 Jul, 2010 in green, mobility, public transport by admin

private carsPrivate cars or public transport, which is better? This is a common ongoing debate. The answer to this question depends on the mindset of the person. While some thinks that the main reason of traffic jams are the private cars and some commuters think that public transport is not a better alternative for commuting. Hence, different people have different opinions and reactions when asked whether they would prefer their own cars or use mass transit.

A majority of the people, mostly of the upper class, thinks that private cars is a better choice when it comes to transportation and this is why these days the number of people who use their own cars for commuting is increasing rapidly. This contributes to the high levels of pollution in the city.

People who are constantly on the go or do not have a lot of time find traveling by private cars a better choice and have good reasons to support their choice as well. Firstly, they think that as far as public transit is involved, a lot of their precious time is wasted by waiting for a bus or train to arrive; hence the speed factor is crucial for them. According to them, they can directly arrive at their destination without having to stop on the way to pick other passengers, which is the case in public transit.

Another reason why people do not prefer to use public transportation is because they do not like to share space with strangers or because they don’t like to stand in the bus or train. With their own cars or even cabs, a seat is always guaranteed. Let’s take the example of buses, during rush hours it is highly difficult to find an empty seat and usually one is left grasping the hand bar or the seat in order to save one from being flung when the brakes are applied. This is highly uncomfortable and it is not very easy to maintain one’s balance in a crammed bus.

Let us now discuss the advantages of public transport. Of course this is a cheaper and a more cost effective way of commuting; don’t believe it? Just ask any person who uses their private cars for commuting on a regular basis about the amount of money they spend every month on the maintenance of the car and the expenditure on fuel. While there are special reserved lanes for public transit, which means that public transport can be faster than private cars.

The next factor is the environment factor, as far as it is concerned, even an elementary school kid knows that one should always walk for shorter distances and use buses and public transport instead of private cars. Imagine a situation where all the people in a bus had used their own cars instead, that would be equivalent to seventy cars producing toxic fumes and polluting the environment instead of just one bus! However, these days “green” buses have been introduced which do not produce pollutants and are more compatible with the environment.

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A detailed view on the different modes of public transportation

18 Jul, 2010 in green, mobility, public transport by admin

public transportationAs we all know, public transportation is a shared transportation service that can be availed by the public for a fare or sometimes it’s free. Public transportation is also known as public transit or mass transit and is quite different from car pooling or hailing a cab because in public transport, the service is shared by strangers.

There are different modes of public transport; these can be enumerated and explained as follows:

  1. Airline – This type of public transportation is used when it is impossible to get to the destination by other modes of transportation because of there is no proper ground infrastructure. Hence this mode is preferable for long distance journeys. The speed at which airlines travel is very high and hence one can get to the destination very fast but has to incur a lot of waiting time prior to the travel or after the travel by aircrafts. Bush airlines are another example, it works just like bus stops; i.e. when the aircraft is full of passengers, it takes off.

  1. Buses or coaches – These are probably the most common mode of public transportation. They operate on conventional roads and has the ability to carry a large number of passengers. Other forms of buses are electric buses and trolleybuses, these do not work like conventional buses because they require overhead wires for its operation. Nowadays, electrical buses also ply the road; these are buses that work on batteries which can be recharged via underground wires.

  1. Trains – After the bus, this is the second most common mode of public transportation. Depending on the built, trains can be fast or slow. Common forms of urban rail transit are light rail, rapid transit, trams, funiculars, commuter rail, people movers, etc. Some of the high speed passenger trains can run at a speed of 120 miles per hour! Countries like Europe and Japan have well developed high speed rail transport system and are a great alternative for air travel because it is both fast and comparatively cheaper.

A new concept of train transit is the personal rapid transit which is like the cab service but it is automated and it does not run on conventional roads, instead it operates on guideways or rails. This type of transport is quite uncommon. Unlike the cab or taxis, personal rapid transit is not labour-oriented. It drops people directly to the location of their choice.

  1. Ferry – A ferry can be defined as a boat or ship that carries people or even vehicles sometimes, across a water body. Water bus is a common form of ferry; it works just like bus, in the sense that it carries passenger only and has many stops. Ferry services is not only limited to a small water body, the ships that carries passengers across large water bodies like the Mediterranean sea are also termed as ferry services.

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Public Transport – The smart green solution for a better tomorrow

17 Jul, 2010 in green, mobility, public transport by admin

Public Transport Public transportation is an indispensable and integrated part of every citizen’s life. It is not only a cost-effective way of traveling but is also looked upon as means of providing sustainable and safe mobility. Think about it, without public transportation, where would we be today? Hence, public transportation is an integral part of any metropolitan city.

Public transportation plays an important role in contributing to the environment as well by sustaining economic growth, hence stabilizing the economy as a whole. Not only that, public transportation also utilizes the scarce resources like fuel, energy, etc efficiently.

The main aim of the public transport sector is to enhance the environment in urban areas for business as well as for the citizens. It has been reported that by the year 2025, the public transport sector plans to double its market share worldwide. In order for this to happen, all the stakeholders must accept their responsibilities and perform them dutifully.

Why is public transportation the smart green solution for a better tomorrow? Well there is not just one but four answers to the question! These are:

  1. It empowers the economy
  2. It also helps Earth to breathe
  3. It lessens congestion of traffic
  4. It brings everyone everywhere!

How does it empower the economy? In the recent times, our economy is undergoing several changes and readjustments because of increased globalization. In such cases, public transportation can help stabilize the turbulence and reduce its effects on the citizens as well as the society as a whole. In addition to that, it also contributes to the economy by creating direct wealth, by means of contributing to GDP of a country. This is because public transportation is a means of providing employment opportunities to millions of people!

Public transport helps planet Earth to breathe because nowadays there are plenty of well patronized and newly introduced public transport vehicles that consume energy in an efficient and equitable manner. This reduces the pollution in the country thanks to modern technologies.  On an average, public transport can reduce the consumption of energy by 500 litres per capita!

How does public transportation reduce congestion? Imagine a group of twenty people of the same neighborhood going to work in their own cars; that would be twenty separate cars on the road traveling to the same destination! Now imagine if all these people went to work in a carpool, it is not only cost effective but also eliminates nineteen other cars on the road! So that is why, in a car oriented society which we live in today, we must make effort to save urban space and opt for public transportation which would make all the traffic flows more fluid and congestion free!

It can be said in conclusion that opting for public transport means contributing to the society and the planet as well as providing self with an attractive and economic mobility package!

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