Being the voice of a busy and active industry

Issue 2 2008 / 30 April 2008 / Simon Posner, Chief Executive, Confederation of Passenger Transport UK (CPT)

The Confederation of Passenger Transport UK (CPT) is recognised by Government as the voice of the coach, bus and light rail industries and is the focus for consultation and negotiation on national and international legislation, local regulations, operational practices and engineering standards.

As a trade association, we exist for one reason only: to support our members and further their interests. We defend them when they are under fire and to try to agree, and then to promote, a common position on issues affecting the environment in which they operate.

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Tagged with: Confederation of Passenger Transport UK (CPT), Simon Posner

Groundbreaking guided busway provides quality experience

Issue 2 2008 / 30 April 2008 / Chris Poultney, Project Manager, Cambridgeshire County Council

The Cambridgeshire Guided Busway is at the cutting edge of Bus Rapid Transit development in the UK. Chris Poultney of Cambridgeshire County Council, explains how the world’s longest guided busway will provide high quality, reliable and frequent public transport for passengers.

Catering for housing growth

Cambridgeshire County Council is facing a major challenge in delivering the transport infrastructure the county needs in the wake of a huge growth agenda. As the fastest growing area in the UK, in coming years the Cambridge sub-region will see the construction of a significant number of major development sites in and around the city of Cambridge.

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Tagged with: Cambridgeshire County Council, Chris Poultney, Country Profile

Building our future

Issue 2 2008 / 30 April 2008 / Willie Gallagher, Executive Chairman, Transport Initiatives Edinburgh (tie)

Edinburgh has been through decades of development. The City’s economy and encouraging inward investment now ensures that when a business comes to Edinburgh, it comes to stay. One of the contributory factors to this success has been the vision and strategy of the City’s leaders; politically, economically and socially.

The City is now on the cusp of a monumental change – one which will drag it into the 21st century and place it as a leader in Europe in terms of its public transport infrastructure. The agent of this change is the Edinburgh Tram Project – which in April 2008 moved into a new phase, achieving a critical milestone in its delivery programme, with the signing of the contracts for the scheme’s infrastructure and the manufacture of its rolling stock.

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Tagged with: Country Profile, Transport Initiatives Edinburgh (tie), Willie Gallagher

Tube Lines’ station upgrade programme thrives

Issue 2 2008 / 30 April 2008 / Tooraj Shadnia, Senior Project Manager, Tube Lines

With a capital investment of £500 million, Tube Lines’ station upgrade programme is one of the largest in the world. Over the last five years, the programme has been delivered on time and within budget.

Almost two million people use the Jubilee, Northern and Piccadilly lines every day. That’s over a quarter of the population in the Greater London area and is seen as a very serious amount of footfall. The complete Underground system carries more people daily than the entire UK rail network and that figure grows at 7% a year.

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Tagged with: Country Profile, Tooraj Shadnia, Tube Lines

Industry standards for quality seating

Issue 2 2008 / 30 April 2008 / ET

In the days before privatisation, British Rail undertook the design, manufacture and maintenance of the majority of components and systems which were used in railway vehicles. Passenger seating was no exception to this general rule. It is difficult to think of an organisation which conducted such an undertaking for a greater number of passenger seats other than British Rail. In an article on behalf of the BSI British Standards, Mr. Peter Matthews, Director of Poised Joint Management Ltd, explains the laws and seating standards now adopted by the industry to ensure maximum safety.

Whilst these issues were challenging, the situation offered the designers of the day unique advantages. The dependent issues of design, manufacturing and maintenance could be considered holistically and without some of the restraints that are in place today. Diverse subjects such as passenger comfort, fire performance and structural performance, were identified by BR standards, material standards, detail design and best ‘in-house’ practice. Among the last of the seats that we saw built in this way are those known as Inter City 70’s, which can still be seen on High Speed Trains (HST). This seat back molding was manufactured in Sheet Molding Compound (SMC) to BR detail design and required tooling which cost £70,000. At that time (early ‘70s), this was a huge sum which was justified by the long term build requirement spanning many vehicle classes and eventual quantities of approximately 70,000 units.

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Tagged with: BSI British Standards, Country Profile

STIB: devoted and dedicated improvements

Issue 2 2008 / 30 April 2008 / Alain Flausch, Managing Director, STIB

The Brussels public transport company, STIB, has experienced a spectacular growth in passenger numbers during the last eight years. In addition to expanding its fleet and restructuring the metro, bus and tram networks, STIB has launched a number of studies with a view to expand the network in the highly-populated zones of the Brussels Capital Region.

STIB is the biggest urban public transport company in Belgium. It serves the 19 boroughs of the Brussels Capital Region as well as 10 other surrounding municipalities. It covers a surface area of 240km² and provides transportation for over 1.1 million inhabitants.

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Tagged with: Alain Flausch, City Profile, STIB (Société des Transports Intercommunaux de Bruxelles)

The MOBIB Brussels smart ticketing project

Issue 2 2008 / 30 April 2008 / Etienne Graindor, Smart-Card Project Manager, STIB

STIB, the main public transport operator in Brussels, has been involved with smart-ticketing for years, as a founder of the Calypso secure transactions EC supported project (1994-2002). Since June 2004, the main requirement of the Company Board has been to build a smart-ticketing system that is customer focused. Actually, the project was requested to be a strategic tool for marketing and to position the capital city public transport as a unique mobility partner of all facets of urban life.

So far, MOBIB, the Brussels smart-ticketing system, answers all kinds of possible interoperability scenarios, at national and international level, and is able to cope with a maximum of integration configurations, e.g. with other smart functions required in mobility environments (e.g. services, payment, etc).

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Tagged with: City Profile, Etienne Graindor, STIB (Société des Transports Intercommunaux de Bruxelles)

Bybanen: The Bergen Light Rail System

Issue 2 2008 / 30 April 2008 / Thomas J. Potter, Chief Engineer, Bybanen: Bergen Light Rail

In March 2000, Norway decided that a light rail system would be the ‘backbone’ of the city of Bergen’s public transport system, and so approved a 20km line from the city centre (Bergen sentrum) to the Bergen airport at Flesland via the suburban town centre of Nesttun and the major shopping area of Lagunen. Bergen did operate a tramway system from 1897 until 1965, but the new system will re-establish rail operations in the same corridor as the last line of the tram system. In addition to the first line, additional extensions to the system are also planned.

The first half of the first line, a 10km section between the city centre and Nesttun, has already been funded and construction officially began on 7 January 2008. The day was marked by an official ceremony with the laying of a foundation rail by the Norwegian Minister of Transportation, Liv Signe Navarsete.

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Tagged with: Bergen Light Rail, Light Rail, Thomas J. Potter

Road pricing: finally inside the box

Issue 2 2008 / 30 April 2008 / Ivo Cré, Project Manager, Polis and Melanie Kloth, Project Manager, Polis

The famous riddle where nine dots have to be connected by straight lines without lifting your pen taught the world to “think outside the box”. Over the last five years, urban road charging has moved from the zoo of exotic transport management measures, to the heart of the public debate on the future of urban transport.

Urban charging is a key topic in the EU’s Green Paper on urban transport and is likely to be mentioned in the derived action plan. The number of cities and regions investigating road pricing is growing. Urban pricing is moving inside the box. This is good news – if some very fundamental issues are taken into account.

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Tagged with: Ivo Cré, Melanie Kloth, Polis, Road Pricing

Successful Real Time Passenger Information in Oslo

Issue 2 2008 / 30 April 2008 / Jarl Eliassen, Managing Director, Trafikanten AS

Trafikanten AS is responsible for customer services and travel information in the greater Oslo-area for all modes of public transport. The services are provided free-of-charge to the public through service-centres, call-centres, Internet, WAP and SMS on behalf of the PTA’s and all PT operators in the area. The geographical area of Trafikanten AS is continually growing and the web-based services and online travel planner now covers all eight counties in the South-Eastern part of Norway.

Trafikanten AS is responsible for developing and maintaining a variety of public services relating to their role in Public Transport. In 2004, Trafikanten AS started introducing Real Time Passenger Information (RTPI) for their customers. By the second quarter of 2008, more than 95% of the Oslo fleet of buses and all trams will be connected to this RTPI system.

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Tagged with: Jarl Eliassen, Real-time Passenger Information (RTPI), Trafikanten AS

Protection via security systems: implementation and experience

Issue 2 2008 / 30 April 2008 / ET

IP Security Roundtable

Participants:

Jonas Andersson
Director, Business Development, Axis Communications AB

Robert Wint
Marketing Director, EMEA, Verint

Krishna Baboelal
Policy Adviser, RET, Public Transport Company of Rotterdam

Jens Puls
Chief Security Officer, Deutsche Bahn AG

Following the success of Eurotransport’s Public Transport Security 2008 conference, held in Berlin in March 2008, we have given two vendors of security equipment and two end users implementing security in their transport networks, the opportunity to answer some questions relating to their operations and how security is impacting their business and their performance.

First of all, we put five questions to Mr. Andersson and Mr. Wint, from two of the leading industry vendors of security equipment, to gain an insight into what they feel are the main benefits of their systems and how they can help public transport operators.

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Tagged with: Axis Communications AB, Deutsche Bahn AG, Jens Puls, Jonas Andersson, Krishna Baboelal, Robert Wint