When we talk about how good the European railways are, it's interesting to remember that Europe still uses the old manual method of coupling which makes their railways much less efficient. I heard that Europe was about to change to automatic couplers in the 1970s, but France vetoed the idea for some odd reason. C'est la vie!
Here's a list of some of the other railway related This Day in Tech postings:
March 5, 1872: Westinghouse Gives Railroads a Brake - Describes how air brake systems work, the air brake 2.0 reference provides a nice perspective on technological innovation.
Nov. 18, 1883: Railroad Time Goes Coast to Coast - who knew that the idea of standard time started with the railways, but it makes sense when you think about it.
I have always believed that comedy is a great way to learn and communicate. My music video on high speed rail and some others I have "in production" are all done with that in mind.
At the VREF's Future Urban Transport Conference this week, Michael Glotz-Richter, from the Free Hanseatic City of Bremen's Sustainable Mobility department showed us two films on how James Bond was able to outwit his opponent using public transport and bicycling in Bremen. The films are great examples of using comedy to encourage sustainable transport. The public transport film is above, the James Bond bicycling in Bremen is here.
On Tuesday afternoon, following the VREF's Future of Urban Transport conference we took a hybrid bus to the Volvo Museum and had a presentation on Volvo's approach to bus rapid transit and hybrid bus technology. BRT and public transport priority in general are one of my main interests, so it was nice to learn more about Volvo's work in this area. The main message for me was that transit priority is important for reducing greenhouse gases since there is only so much that vehicle technology can do by itself.
The Volvo Museum was fascinating. It describes the company history and there are cars, trucks and buses from every decade, including "concept" vehicles. Photo shows me 'driving' one of the historic buses (they would not let me drive the hybrid!). Very interesting is that Nash Motors from the USA almost bought Volvo in the 1930s, but at the last minute Volvo's founders were able to get additional funding to keep the company. Given my name that was an interesting personal connection!
On Monday, we started with presentations from very high level business leaders at AB Volvo, Bombardier Transportation, Volvo Car Corporation and the Swedish Petroleum Institute. They described what their companies were doing in the areas of future urban transport. Next we heard from the Mayor of Goteborg, the Deputy Mayor of Changsha (China) and Kulveer Ranger (Director of Transport Policy for the Greater London Authority). They described how their cities were addressing the issue of sustainable transport and urban planning. The final session discussed 'service' business ideas: urban freight management, Veolia Transport (a major operator of public transport services) and a property developer from Stockholm who described how they redeveloped an old industrial area.
All the presentations were interesting, although I think that the discussion would have been better if the groups were mixed rather than in the "silo" based format. For example it would have been interesting to have the Bombardier's president discuss where and when rail investment is warranted with a policy maker from a developing country in Asia or Africa. Or having the Volvo Cars president discuss with London's transport policy director how to make electric cars a reality (London believes electric car technology is ready for deployment now, it would have been interesting to hear the auto industry's view on that).
On the other hand, the conference was small enough so that we could discuss many of these issues on a one-to-one basis. In fact, I discussed Shai Agassi's very interesting Better Place proposal for deploying electric cars NOW with London's Mr Ranger the evening before over a beer.
We started Tuesday with two videos of James Bond in Bremen. Then four focused discussions of specific research projects sponsored by the VREF. Professor Lisa Schweitzer (University of Southern California) talked about the need to proactively work on development around rail stations in disadvantaged areas. Professor Yves Crozet (University of Lyon) described how to improve accessibility for disadvantaged areas by focusing on slower modes of transport based on a case study of Lyon's BRT line (the case study used a very cool GIS analysis).
Next we heard from Professor Anthony May (University of Leeds) on the results of a quick analysis of transport financing in France, Germany, Great Britain and Japan. What was most surprising was the lack of detailed research in the area of comparing these systems and the high degree of variation. (This would be an excellent subject for my WIKI-based transport knowledge management system, more later.) Finally, Professor Elizabeth Deakin (UC Berkeley), another of my favorite UCB professors, talked about the US transport funding situation. Both presentations included several excellent recommendations for improving the funding process.
In the afternoon a small group of us visited the Volvo Museum and learned a bit more about the Volvo buses. More tomorrow.
I just returned from the 4th Future Urban Transport Conference held in Göteborg. The conference is sponsored by the City of Göteborg, the Volvo Research and Education Foundations and the Volvo company. (The photo above is of the design on the sides of Göteborg's public transport vehicles - they have a great PT system including a new bus rapid transit line.)
The conference was excellent, blending academic research with public policy and business issues. The first day consisted of presentations from academic researchers. Many were from programs sponsored by the VREF and there was a real diversity of ideas and opinions expressed. The conference website shows the schedule with links to the presentations.
One of the most interesting presentations for me was the keynote by Professor Geetam Tiwari who discussed some of the research done at her institute in New Delhi. Her presentation Public Transport Use - Emerging Issues really made you think about some preconceived ideas about public transport (is a new metro the right solution for cities like Delhi? is public transport really safer than alternatives? what are the real equity issues in transport?).
I also really enjoyed Professor Carlos Daganzo's presentation on A Cheap and Resilient Approach to Eliminating Bus Bunching. Professor Daganzo was one of my teachers at Berkeley and he always amazed me by being able to translate very complex mathematical analysis into practical ideas, and even better, to make them easily understandable. As a public transport rider I feel like I am affected by bus bunching every day and so I hope to work with Vienna Transport to test Carlos' idea on my local bus line. I'll keep you updated.
The third presentation that made a big impact on me was by Professor Harry Dimitriou: Mega transport Projects, Globalization and Private Finance: Emerging Challenges for the 21st Century. The topics he raised are especially topical since many policy makers have been operating under the assumption that private finance (e.g. public private partnerships etc.) are the answer to solving our transport infrastructure problems ... but the private finance model seems to have let us down in the last several years, what does this mean? Among the interesting points he made is that the private sector is not necessarily more efficient than the public sector, that finance companies and government can have very different objectives for their assets (financiers may want to churn the asset to generate short term profits, government wants an efficient and sustainable infrastructure solution), etc. Fascinating ideas extremely relevant for today's problems.
I could go on since there were many other interesting papers and discussions. Tomorrow more on the second two days of the conference.
After spending the morning at the Vasa Museum in Stockholm I decided to have lunch in the museum restaurant. Museum restaurants are always dicey quality wise, but it looked good.
The restaurant serves "simple Swedish food" according to the museum brochure, but my meal was excellent. They had about three main dishes and lots of very ample sandwitchs and salads. Since I had Swedish meatballs the night before I decided on a lighter meal of fish.
I had salt cod with boiled potatoes and sauted winter vegetables. The cod was accompanied by lignon berry jam and capers (again I really love these bits of sweet in salty dishes). The vegetables were really great, they included beets with the standard carrots leeks and celery saute ... adding a very nice flavour. It's cafeteria style, you order, take your cold food and then the waiter brings your hot food. A nice touch was that when the waiter he noticed that I did not have any bread, and so he told me I should go back and get some ... that's really friendly and nice service!
Again, plan your museum visit, go to the museum ahead of the crowd and then have lunch on the early side too. When I went in I was alone in line, when I left there was a line (although it was pretty short).
It's only open for lunch, but I recommend it highly.
Most of the guidebooks say that the Vasa Museum is a must in Stockholm. I agree.
The museum is built around a sailing ship built in 1632 that sank on its maiden voyage. (Boy, that must have been embarrassing!) Anyway, after trying to salvage it in the 1600's (they were able to bring many of the cannons back up using an early version of a diving bell), the ship was essentially forgotten although it was in the main harbour.
In 1957 the ship was found again, now surrounded by silt, and the King supported the idea of raising it up from the seabed. The process took four years, but the ship could be raised and then moved to a temporary museum for restoration and documentation. I visited the ship on my first trip to Sweden in 1983, but several years ago they opened a new museum in a building that surrounds the ship and provides great views of all levels.
The museum has a film presenting the history (with English subtitles) that runs almost every half hour. Also they offer tours (in English) several times a day. Both the tour and film are excellent and I recommend them highly. One more recommendation: get there early ... the museum is justifiably popular so it fills fast. I was there about 10 minutes after opening and had the place pretty much to myself for about 15 minutes. When I left at about 1 pm, it was really getting crowded.
