New development on Swanston street

Found an awesome news in awhile.

http://www.melbourne.vic.gov.au/aboutmelbourne/projectsandinitiatives/majorprojects/swanstonstreet/Pages/SwanstonStreet.aspx

Take that Robert Doyle!

Hopefully, Swanston street will be a good example to other shopping streets around Melbourne so that in the future, we will have more car-free streets. The streets that come to my mind are Brunswick, Smith, and Lygon (remember how good it was when the street was closed for cycling criterium?). And those are just the ones near my current house (as of 14 Feb).

The idea is to bring the street back to pedestrians. For too long, we have forgotten that the streets are for the people -- not those who can afford to have steel armoured vehicles. That idea is so embedded in our brains (new generations that grew up with cars) that we forget that street is a public space for all modes of transports slow and fast. We only have to think about the day when horses shared our streets with pedestrian, car, donkey and other.

Bring back livable streets!!

Sharing News

The Brumby Government has finally committed to Melbourne's first bicycle sharing program in its CBD (The Sunday Age). OK, this usually means he will do nothing and pretend that he never said such thing if asked in the future as to why he didn't do anything about it. What fascinates me was the fact that Brisbane will beat Melbourne to the first program in Australia. It signed a contract with JCDecaux with 2,000 bikes and 150 stations by March 2010. Now, compare this with Melbourne's counterpart: 6,00 bikes. That said a lot about the Brumby Government commitment to alternative transportation. So, what is so interesting?

SKM (the company that rejected my application - and my friend's - in 2008) recommended that the speed limit in CBD should be 30km/h. Now if the government eventually gets off its arse, and follows that recommendation, then that would be the real good news. The day might finally come when overtaking cyclists using car in CBD are rare occasions.

On the final note, RMIT industrial design students (shame on you, Melbourne University) decided to take initiative and set up a pilot program called CommonBike. The program will be a bicycle sharing program. The aim is to inform the general public about future bicycle-sharing program, with a side benefit being data collection. Several hubs will be set up around CBD, northern and northeastern inner suburbs. Hopefully, this program will be successful.

Transportation Network: Coordinated vs Anarchy

Recently I wrote an article for Paradox (Melbourne University Maths and Stats  society's magazine). It can be found on page 21-24 on this issue. Below are the first few paragraphs.

In the "real" world, many systems can be characterised by a network with nodes and paths joining them. Here, we will consider traffic flows of a decentralised transport system for personalised vehicles. It is natural to ask ourselves whether or not this network system is the most efficient one, alternatively, on average, does this road network allows commuters to get from A to B most efficiently?

On the surface, this question seems easy to answer; one can

• set up a model of the system;
• find the global minimum using the convex minimum cost flow algorithm.  

In reality, individual commuters do not collectively opt for the most optimal strategy, but their own optimal strategy. Hence, the actual performance of the network is often far from its best, even if all individuals choose the quickest route and all information is available to them. The key question here is to understand how far the actual performance is from the most optimal one. 

Part 2

The second idea is bus rapid transit.

Unlike conventional bus system, BRT is its new interpretation. It has most of advantages of train system without its cost. There are no complete agreement on what constitutes as BRT, but to me the following rough idea will explain what I believe to be BRT.

Walter Hook, director of the Institute of Transportation and Development Policy, measures the success of BRT by whether or not commuters identify BRT as permanent structure within city on part with trains and trams. Let me explain further. When we think of train, we immediately think of its stations and rail tracks. In Melbourne, we will probably think of a system under severe stress. Similarly, when we think of trams, we think of rigid tracks that run with automobiles, sometimes in complete separation from the main traffics. And in recent time, platform stops around CBD.  So, when I say that BRT's success is measured by comparing with trains and trams, I mean that Melway includes all of BRT infrastructures in its publication. 

So, what elements can combined to form BRT? 

First, its stations must be distinct from normal bus stops. In most implementation, this entails a raised platform, where the floor of station is level with the bus floor. I believe this is not necessary enough. A well-designed stations are generally enclosed and provide pre-paid ticket system. This allows the commuters to purchase ticket prior to the bus entry and thus reduces the time waste at each stop. Now, the main problem with this system is that conductors are required at each station, and hence increasing the operating cost. In addition, some stations can be designed to be local landmarks within suburbs like New York subway mosaic.

Second, the bus must be distinct from the conventional bus. Commuters cannot distinct the difference between normal bus from BRT if the BRT fleet is essentially the same as bus fleet. That is, there is no point in running BRT with old rundown buses. So what should be included in the new bus? The bus should be fitted with two wide rear and front doors to facilitate large flow of commuters. I am sure that there are more innovation out there.

Third, in some system, its buses run on separate lane. Note that this is not essential elements, depending on the condition of the local traffics. The philosophy is that the bus must be able to navigate through without interruption. So, in low traffics condition, often the mixed used lane is sufficient. In contrast, in dense traffic like Hoddle st during peak hour, separate bus lane is crucial to the success of BRT. For example, an ideal design may reserve two lanes for BRT buses and local buses. This may be physically separated like the proposal for New York.

Further within close proximity of the station, some street furniture is required. What makes train station distinctive is all the local street furniture associated with it. It is simply not enough to just put a station and expect it to do a trick. For intuition, pedestrian crossing and walkable street with cafes maybe added to create unique culture around the station. This is something bus stop or highway can never achieve. 

Advantages

1. Cheap per mile in comparison with train and tram.
2. Easy to implement. In general, the route should coincide with the one with high bus usage. 
3. High frequency.
4. Express service means faster transportation.

Disadvantages

1. In the face of climate change, it is harder to change the bus fleet to something carbon neutral.
2. Addition of the bus on the road means higher road maintenance cost.

  For example of well implemented system see TranMilenio in Bogota, Colombia.

New ways to move people around

In recent months, Melburnians have noticed and some experienced the train system under tremendous strain as a result of years of neglect. It is logical that the government should therefore implement effective transportation plan, which can reduce the strain in the current system for a reasonable price.

On this weekend, I found two reasonably new ideas of moving people around. One is significantly cooler than the other. I will talk about the cooler one first.

CyberTran : The problem with the current rail system is that the train has to stop at every stations it was scheduled. As a consequence, from commuter perspective, if he want to travel pass 10 stations, the train has to stop unnecessarily at 9 stations. From this perspective, we see that the current form of urban rail is inefficient. Since societies compete by the speed at which information/capital flows though the city (in this case, human capital), inefficiency in public transportation means losing competitive edge.

I believe that CyberTran can reduce this inefficiency. First let me explain what is CyberTran, then the potential benefits of CyberTran.

CyberTran is a complete transportation infrastructure which consists of the vehicle (called tran), the guideway and station. It doesn't have a schedule like conventional train. The commuters select their destinations and after waiting for a short period of time, the vehicle will pick them up and take the passengers directly to the destination without stopping at stations in between.  

On the contrary to convention wisdom in public transport, tran is a computer-controlled ultra-lightweight train which can carry at most 20 people at any given time. If there are more than 20 people wanting to go to the same destination, then more trans will keep coming until all passengers have been picked up. Since tran is always stored in the station when it is not in used, the waiting time is generally short. 

Trans run on separate guideway. One advantage of lightness of tran is that less structure components are required to build the guideway. This has a benefit of lowering initial cost of construction and allows the guideway to be completely built - with similar cost - where it has less interference with other form of traffics. 

The stations are designed so that trans can bypass them without interfering with stationary trans there. Hence, they are located off the main guideway. This increases the average speed since other cars don't have to slow down. Further, since most energy is spent on accelerating and decelerating vehicle, by maintaining cars at near constant speed, one can achieve higher energy efficiency. 

The unused trans are stored at the station and can be recharged using solar cell (or other appropriate form of renewable energy). Therefore, it has an additional benefit which is; no large warehouse is needed to store vehicles. 

Once passengers are picked up, tran will accelerate to the speed before joining the main guideway. As the vehicle is controlled by computer, there is less chance of collision. This is demonstrated in Morgantown PRT system in West Virginia, where excellent record was maintained during its 30 years in operation. 

Its advantages:

1. Safe with low level of collision.
2. Lightness of vehicle means less is needed for construction of the guideway.
3. It uses less energy to move similar population than the conventional train with regenerative braking system in place. 
4. With virtually no stopping in between stations (it can be designs by some clever algorithm to stop at a few stations.), it can achieve higher speed. 
5. It costs less than train system to build and operate.
6. Less polution.
7. Increase commuter travelling freedom, and less stressful.
8. Tran can travel on the slope of up to 20% in comparison with 5% for train. This means it can navigate through obstacles more easily than train. 

All in all, I like this idea. The next one is bus rapid transit. In considering for construct more study is needed. But in term of pollution, CyberTran has more potential to be carbon-free during its operation.

Here is a video of similar idea.

Australian train...

In the last month, I had privilege to "enjoy" Australian train. The trip was simple: I needed to travel to Wollongong for AMSI summer school. 

To Wollongong:

Interestingly, it was cheaper for me to travel to Sydney first before backtracking down south to Wollongong. Then, it made some sort of sense. Countrylink (the train operator) was having a promotion on the trip between Melbourne and Sydney. This was fine with me, since I wouldn't mind meeting my friend in Sydney. 

Waiting for the train on the platform at Spencer st Station (I refuse to call it Southern Cross), the first impression I get wasn't good. The train was delayed by at least an hour. Now, instead of going faster, the operator decided to go slower. In combination with the track work between Campbelltown and Moss Vale, the train had to do a detour through Wollongong!!! 

Now, I don't know the people who designed the program, but it seems illogical that the train passed through Wollongong, but it refused to stop there. Given that they knew in advance that there will be a track work there and still refused to adapt the program to the new situation, this clearly demonstrates the mentality of those involved in transportation business.  

Ok, I was a little too critical on the fact that I arrived in Sydney three hours late. Nonetheless, I should point out that I never heard of European train that arrives at their destination three hours late.  

Never mind, I should also mention the condition on the train. This should be more of amusing incident rather than anything else. It turns out that the air condition in the compartment that I was allocated was broken. I have my suspicion that its thermostat was broken, which means the machine just kept pumping cold air into the carriage. When I found out about this, it was already in the morning so I decided to be manly (yeah, that's right. It is about a boy trying to be a man) and braved the cold. In any case, that was fun. 

But the return trip was better. 

From Wollongong:

The journey started at 17:20 on Friday 6th. I caught a coach from Wollongong, which arrived in Moss Vale by 19:20. That wasn't too bad a trip despite the fact the train was diverted through Wollongong anyway. Now, here come my problem with the system. On the schedule, if the train was on time, it will arrive at 22:30. Now, I don't know about anyone else but I would assume that during timetable designing process, they would make sure that the commuters don't have to wait three hours for their train. 

Anyhow, that wasn't too bad if the train was on time. Luckily, I got a chance for an ultimate waiting experience in my life. The train ended up three hours late. On the plus side, I managed to read twenty pages of math book (for comparison purpose, this is equivalent to reading 100 pages of any novel.), completed most of math problem I set for myself and still had about an hour left to test my mental strength after I was too exhaust from math. 

The rest of the trip was far from incident-free. I was waken up at 6am to be dropped off at Albury, and forced to catch a coach from there back to Melbourne. I arrived at Spencer st at 11am, which concluded 17:40 hour trip (compare to about 8 hours driving). The best part is that Saturday 7th was the hottest day on record in Melbourne. Someone also told me that apparently on that day Melbourne was the hottest city in the world. 

So, am I happy with train in Australia? Well, they will always continue to surprise me. But sorry, I will take a bus next time.....

Bus improvement

Another idea that I am sure people already dreamt about:

The bus should be fitted with a rack at the back so that cyclists can hang their bicycle. It shouldn't be too expensive, and it will promote more cycling.

Melbourne: Towards minimal environmental impact

Recently, the state government released another transport plan for Melbourne future. Despite the lack of certainty of funding, it promises some interesting projects. In particular, I am interested in the plan for cyclists. As a supporter for more riders on the road, I am somewhat disappointed with initial promise of $12.3 million a year on improving conditions for bike riders. However, I am hearten with the recent announcement to increase this fund to $18 million a year. Not bad for a start, given that Bicycle Victoria asked them for $30 million a year. Nonetheless, it is an improvement.

Outline in the plan, I am interested in the  bike hire project in CBD. The idea is far from a radical one; there are already similar projects in Paris and Barcelona. Nor it will be a quick fix for the congestion in CBD. In fact, I am disappoint at the scale of the project. It promises 600 bikes which normal people can borrow a bike in order to travel around CBD. Nice idea, but 600 bikes? And only CBD? I think the government aims a bit too low. Anyway, here are some of the ideas that I dream of, some may not be feasible, but that is beside the point. I am allow to dream, right?

Bike sharing: Essentially the idea is similar to the one in Paris and Barcelona. But I think that instead of restricting to 600 bikes spreading around CBD, it should aim to spread at least 100 bikes within 10 km of CBD (this is still significantly smaller number than the system in Paris, but we could argue that Melbourne has less people).  I mean there are  a lot of people going to Melbourne University. Why shouldn't the program include such commuters? And this is how it should work:

• People can get a ticket at the station, which will be spread out all over Melbourne. The first 30 minutes should be free and every 30 minutes there after, fee will be charge directly to the bank account.
• The bike will be designed so that there is no compatible part in this bike with other commonly used bike. The aim is to discourage people from stealing bikes. There is one design in Sweden, in which most of the bike has no easily removable parts. 
  
• There will be teams of maintenance to ensure the right distribution of bikes over entire system. This means, the first few years in operation, the general movement of bike will be studied to ensure that right numbers of bikes are at the right spot in Melbourne. 
• There will be workshop where these bikes can be fixed. This project will create jobs, and provide a training ground for young mechanics. The commuters can easily report  any malfunction on the bike through each bike station.

Bike taxi:  I have seen some bike taxis in CBD. I think we should encourage these riders by establishing road lanes for. In particular, Swanston st should be closed off except for cyclists. I see that this policy will create Swanston st culture just like Lygon st. 

Now, on the contrary to common belief that the closure will destroy businesses, it have been shown the opposite results numerous times. In particular, the nearest living proof is Swanston st itself. Since the partial closure in 1991, Melbourne saw a dramatic increase in the number of outdoor cafes opened on the street (250). The rational behind the increase is the fact that the number of pedestrians  increases by 39 percent during daytime. From the words of  Rob Adams, the director of urban design department:

Well, we've doubled the number of pedestrians walking past their [stores]. You know, you don't shop from a motor car - not at 60 kilometres an hour, you don't

In line with this idea, we then should restrict the speed of motorised vehicle to 30 km/hr. This is to limit the number of accidents in CBD. It is illogical to have car being driven at 60 km/hr in CBD. It would make CBD a lot safer for 7500 cyclists that commute into CBD each day. 

Bike rail: Now, come a more radical idea. This is something I dream of having in at least one city in this world. The idea is to have bike on rail (not the same one as trains). First thing anyone should notice is that putting bike on rail mean less friction and hence the rider can travel at faster speed. I saw a design in one Melburnian's backyard. I reckon that I can travel at least 40 -50 km/hr easily on this bike, if the plastic shell is added to improve on aerodynamic.

Imagine the potential for this type of transportation in Melbourne (of course I don't think this justifies the price tag). So the idea is to have stations between extreme ends of the city. The aim is to connect outer region with human-powered vehicle network. The riders can do the following (the idea is still in its early stage):

• Hire a bike and ride on it to and from any two stations. I am not sure yet of the price. It can be a small annual fee. 
• Now, the bike will have to be designed so that quick adjustment can be made. The rider will have to register in the system their detail personal bike configuration, which will be determined at the commencement of membership. To access the bike, the rider can ring the station, and tell them to adjust the bike ready for him/her. 
• There will be at least 4 lines of rails. Two in each direction, and one of the two will be reserved for slower riders. A remote control will be given to each rider, which will allow them to change lanes. Note that the track will be narrower than the train track.
• In recognition that this system will not cope under high traffic condition, we can change the idea to bike train. However, this system will be based on more communal and car pooling idea. That is, each user can choose either to "pedal" or to sit and "do nothing". If one choose to do nothing, then a small fee will be required in exchange for the work given by the "pedaller". Alternatively, we can have a number of "pedallers" and "sitters" going in to the same station (or the station along the way) attached to each other. So, this reduces the problem to the design of the vehicle. 
• Under this system, it will require a good organisation skill at each station. So, implementation would be an issue, never mind the initial construction cost.