Not much of a story there.

When there is not much happening in Switzerland and I need to file an EcoWorldly post, I usually look at wider Europe. My notes on bus travel in other nations around Europe read: mostly reliable, mostly clean, mostly efficient.

Still not much to write home about.

And then I read Pem Charnley’s article about bus transportation in Britain, which struck much more of a chord. Having recently written here about the woeful state of British rail transportation, I thought it might be appropriate to continue Pem’s theme and recount my experience of bus travel when I returned to our sunny island for a brief visit recently.

The story starts in the West Midlands with a Saturday shopping trip from my residence in Warwick to the nearby town of Royal Leamington Spa. As before, I shall evaluate the transport infrastructure of the 4^th richest nation in the world using some carefully chosen criteria.

Time

British bus firms are fully committed to the information age, providing extensive online timetable and route information. Many bus company websites look as if they were designed by a 12 year old in the late ‘90s, but all the required information was available to help me plan, allowing me to set off for the bus-stop in plenty of time.

Arriving at the bus-stop, I was curious to note that the faded and stained timetable displayed at the stop didn’t match the information provided on the web. After some initial concern I began to realise that the published timetables are anyway irrelevant since British buses run to their own, secret timetable. This time table is determined by a complex formula based on the average time taken to smoke a packet of cigarettes and drink several cups of tea, multiplied by the number of pages in The Sun newspaper.

I once thought that bus-shelters were vandalised by bored youths with no other outlets for their frustrations. Now I know that they are vandalised by people tired of wasting their lives waiting for busses with no other outlets for their frustrations.

Travel Experience

Eventually, a bus appeared on the horizon. I stood at the curbside expectantly as the bus roared straight past me leaving me standing bewildered in a fog of diesel fumes. It seems that for a bus to stop for a single passenger only, he or she must display the appropriate level of desire to travel in order to justify the inconvenience of stopping. You see, bus services are heavily focused on convenience - the driver’s that is, not the passenger’s.

I now know that in this circumstance one must wave an arm, jump up and down a little and stand partly in the road in order to demonstrate to the driver that one is really committed to the journey. If possible, try to make eye contact with the driver - just so there is no doubt that you really are waving at the bus and not at some other moving object.

Some people may say that standing in a busy road and staring down a 20 ton bus is dangerous, but personally I like a little adventure on my travels.

On boarding the bus, however, enthusiasm begins to wane. I remember as a child that sitting on the top deck of a double-decker bus was a fun experience – one can look down on other cars, see into other peoples gardens and generally feel a little more elevated than normal.

Unfortunately, I seriously doubt that the cleaning staff have ever stepped foot on the top deck of a bus in the West Midlands. The floor is strewn with litter, the windows are opaque with grime and the air smells like the stair-well of a town centre multi-story car park (UK residents will know the odour to which I refer). Instead of feeling elevated, one feels quite the opposite.

To summarise the travel experience, it can be said that once one gets the hang of it, the experience is functional, if not entirely sanitary.

Cost

Bus travel is not expensive. But value for money depends on how many times you have to buy the same ticket – allow me to elaborate;

Having survived the outbound journey, done some shopping, waited seemingly endlessly for the bus home, become hungry, brought a sandwich and waited around in the cold a while longer, a bus finally arrived. Unfortunately I was unable to board immediately - once the arriving passengers had alighted the driver immediately jumped out of the bus to have a cigarette with a colleague parked in the next bay. If you ever doubt that bus drivers can physically move quickly then just watch one go for a break.

Meanwhile the queue of passengers shivered in the cold while the empty busses sat chugging diesel fumes into the air.

Eventually our driver grudgingly got back to business, allowing the weary looking queue of travellers to board his bus. He was a charming fellow, and as I waited for him to take the fare from the passenger in front of me I presumed he was married to a lady named Kate – at least by the letters A T E which I noticed were tattooed on his last three knuckles. On seeing his forefinger I realized that I wrong about this, just as I had been naive about so many aspects of this journey. I was about to understand that the forefinger ‘H’ merely completed the motto instilled on the customer service training course.

Pesenting the return ticket that I had purchased some hours previously, I was told rather bluntly that “You can’t come on this bus with that ticket”.

Certain that there must be some confusion I explained that I had brought it earlier this morning and invited this ambassador of Travel West Midlands to inspect the ticket more closely.

“Wrong bus.” He explained flatly. Sensing my confusion with his special talent for empathy, the driver tiredly explained that I was holding a ticket issued by the Stagecoach bus company, which runs similarly liveried busses on the same route. Reluctantly he pointed to the Stage Coach bus in the next bay as it pulled away, driven by his smoking companion. I’m all for competition in public transport, but a little bit of integration would be useful. Besides, on what are these two firms competing? Rudeness, dirtiness, lateness, hopelessness?

In resignation at my fate I asked for a new ticket, but it wasn’t to be. Having only a £10 note for the £1.25 fare proved to be the final obstacle of my journey as the Travel West Midlands employee of the month told me he didn’t have enough change for the £10, and suggested that I either wait for another bus or get some smaller currency. There was little interest in exploring solutions for this predicament – it was apparently my problem, and bizarrely, he suddenly had a schedule to keep.

I took my £10, and went to look for a taxi.

Conclusion

I don’t wish to sound crass, but in most of the UK busses are only for poor people, or people that for some other reason can’t drive. It is clear that even the most ardent environmentalist would choose a car instead of submitting to this hell on a daily basis. And if you think I am exaggerating then I challenge you to try this for yourself on a cold, damp Saturday morning.

I’ve been on busses in third world countries, where passengers share space with goats and chickens, where the most relaxing place to sit is on the roof and where the driver employs an assistant to wipe the front windshield – whilst the bus is still moving. But although third world transport may lack comfort, it does not lack civility. Sharing space with livestock is one thing, but feeling like livestock is another.

My notes for bus travel in Britain read: avoid.

Photo courtesy of Flickr

The wind howls, the setting some kind of Arctic wind tunnel. Sure, there’s a waiting room over there, but it’s deserted. And no wonder. The strip lighting such an intense hue that it dazzles – a fluorescent goldfish bowl that makes the squall preferable.

There’s only a few people here. A mum yells at her kids, then tells her friend about her recent sex life, the wind carrying her conquests to the damp corners of the platform and anyone unfortunate enough to have hearing as functional as her genitals.

To use the bus is not a green option, it’s the last ditch attempt of the stranded.

I loathe the fact I can’t drive tonight. My mind drifts back to when I was 17 and stole a car, took me and my mates to the hills before writing it off and waking up in hospital to be told I’d need an operation to rebuild my nose.

The joys of youth. The joys of joyriding. I never got behind a wheel again. I instinctively always put my pedal to the metal and treated country lanes as the world rally championships. I now know that I’m being punished.

Tonight, I wish I’d got a car.

The bus drivers awaiting their shift huddle around the No Smoking signs. Smoking. Scaffolding obscures the bay where my bus is due and the twenty minutes remaining stretch off into the blackness. I bury my chin inside my coat collar and wait.

The bus arrives. I pay. I take a seat. Just me and three others. The stench inside is overpowering. I imagine a hobo’s armpit. I bury my nose inside my coat collar, ruing the fact they rebuilt it.

As we collectively navigate our way along the roads, a rogue cola can chimes with the bends, rolling first that way, then back again. The atmosphere is cloying as all the passengers stare straight ahead, eyes appearing haunted by the experience, all desperate for their destination.

This is a travesty! An insult to the tax payer. A Dickensian scene powered by diesel. The chancellor’s coffers funding an illegal war rather than tackling this disgrace.

I thank the driver, alight, glad it’s over.

A short trip, yet another reminder that the UK’s public transport has a long journey ahead. How can this land have stooped so low?

Source:

Photo courtesy of Flickr.

Several weeks ago, EcoWorldly investigated public transport options around the world in a series of articles which concluded that public transport can be a pleasant, effective and extremely viable form of transportation.

During the week we looked at many positives, from bus travel in South Korea, to Rail Travel in Europe and even Camel Transport in the desert.

But what of the negative aspects of public transport? These aspects are becoming increasingly important, since despite the best efforts of governments and environmental groups, motorists will not give up the car unless viable alternatives exist.

Authors, Anthony Miall and Davil Milsted, wrote in The Xenophobes Guide To The English, “The English take an almost masochistic pride in their public transport system, a system which even a third world country would consider as a disgrace.” With this in mind, and having previously had the opportunity to sample public transport around the world from the Railways of India, Thailand and China, to the Metro of Mexico City, the River Boats of Dubai and the cross country buses of Guatemala - not to mention the super efficient railways where I live in Switzerland - I decided to sample the railways of my native Britain once again to see how they compare against the rest of the world, and more importantly, against the car.

Were Miall and Milsted right or wrong? After evaluating my British railway experiences from several different perspectives, here are my conclusions:

Cost

“That will be 92 pounds please sir,” asked the clerk behind the ticket counter at Coventry station.

“No, I’m sorry - I would like a single ticket to London, second class,” I replied, being sure that my initial request had been misunderstood - no doubt due to the the thick wall of glass and scratchy intercom that separated us in order to isolate rail workers from lower life forms such as passengers.

“Yes, 92 pounds,” he answered testily, oblivious to the fact that this sum of money could have easily transported me by aircraft to Helsinki, Barcelona, Estonia, practically any destination in Europe, much less the 1 hour train ride to London.

In disbelief I handed over my credit card, just as a helpful passenger in the queue behind me pointed out that if I asked instead for a return ticket, then my journey would be significantly cheaper - which it was, by almost half.

Whereas fares in most countries are a simple mathematical function of distance travelled, class of travel and sometimes age of traveller, in the UK it appears that a whole new branch of mathematics has been devised to calculate rail fares which is well beyond my understanding. Meanwhile the ticket clerk’s eyes remained focused on something far in the distance as he no doubt wondered how anybody could be so stupid as to not understand why a day-return is cheaper than a single ticket.

Time

Having quickly become used to the experience of daylight robbery, which is effectively rail travel in Britain today, my initial expectation was of fast and efficient travel - after all, those huge amounts of cash must end up somewhere, right?

At 10.42 my train had yet to arrive. Ok, 2 minutes late is not a problem. At 10.52, by which time a Japanese train driver would be reaching for his Samurai sword, there was still no sign of a train. Never mind, as an Englishman, one rarely complains and tries to maintain a stiff upper lip in all circumstances. By 11.00, presumably having finished his tea break, the Station Master (or whatever they call themselves these days) made an announcement informing expectant passengers that our train would be 50 minutes late due to “congestion in the Reading area”.

Congestion? Trains? I had always, and apparently wrongly understood that congestion was a phenomena attributable to road traffic: random variations in traffic volume which can lead to buildups of heavy traffic in some areas and hence delays, known as congestion.

Trains, on the other hand, rely on a strict schedule, known as a Timetable which is designed to ensure that the journeys planned match the infrastructure available. Clearly the mathematicians at work in the fare calculation department have also had a hand in timetabling, using perverse forms of mathematics to introduce random variability and therefore congestion into the timetable.

Non UK residents often dismiss jokes about British railway problems such as delays due to “Leaves on the line” and “Wrong kind of snow.” Surely this is typical British over exaggeration of the pessimistic side of life? Few realize that just like congestion, these are genuine announcements heard by many a traveler on our island.

Facilities

British Railway stations are often windswept and desolate places. If you ever want to know what the end of the world may feel like, and if you can stand the smell of urine, then spend 30 minutes waiting at Southampton Central station, or Birmingham International, or any number of passenger confinement areas around the country.

Many of these hubs of the British transport network feature cosy warm cafes and book shops, providing glimpses of civilization. The trains themselves feature useful innovations such as small shops, bars, Internet access and power outlets for laptops. In fact pretty much every need is catered for, except that of actually getting to your destination on time.

Many toilets are equipped with sophisticated hygienic systems, such as touch free toilet flushers, taps and soap dispensers. In fact, railway staff have such confidence in the ability of these systems to provide the ultimate in toiletry hygiene that they stopped actually cleaning them years ago.

Summary

Accepted, this article fails to look on the bright side. But is my experience atypical? No. Talk to many UK rail travelers and they will recount similar and frequent experiences. The real problem is that, unfortunately, many people expect little more and are subsequently conditioned to favour the car and to discount public transport as ill-effective.

If we are serious about moving people from private to public transport then we must first focus on providing a system that people can feasibly use, and which meets our real needs for freedom of mobility.

I no longer live in the UK, but if I did, having been spoiled by the comparative luxury of public transport in other parts of the world, I believe I would have some serious reservations about selling the car and submitting my self to the purgatory of British rail transport.

Unfortunately Miall and Milsted were undoubtedly correct.

Photo courtesy of Luke Seall.

The squid is between a pair of tongs, which an elderly Korean woman holds over an indoor propane stove. As the squid crisps, I look around. I’m standing in front of one of the dozens of shops and small restaurants lining the spacious hallway of the main bus terminal of Gangneung, a city on the Sea of Japan, where my trip begins.

Already, we’ve come the first advantage of car-free travel: outside of a car, you see things that you probably would never see inside a car. BBQ squid, for example.

Across from the squid, lines of men and women form and disperse in rapid succession in front of the bus ticket windows. I join a line, buy my ticket in broken Korean, and try to ask when my bus leaves.

In Korea, “when does the next bus to… leave?” is a silly question. The answer is usually “right now!” Most buses run so frequently that the next bus to wherever you’re going is usually only a few minutes after the last one. With a little help from the station attendants, the bumbling foreigner (that’s me) soon finds himself sitting comfortably in a seat on the bus that he hopes will turn out to be the right one.

The engine starts. The wheels on the bus do their thing. And I’m off.

…To sleep. I close my eyes, realizing with satisfaction the second advantage of car-free travel: I can relax, read, or even sleep. For the price of a bus ticket, I get a chauffeur to take me where I’m going, or at least wherever it is I think I’m going with my limited Korean.

Outside the bus window, the wintry landscape flies by. Korea is sometimes called the hermit kingdom, and from my seat on the bus I observe how even the passing woods seem reticent and introverted under a thick blanket of snow.

Another advantage of the bus is the chance to ignore traffic and admire the scenery.

This, my first long distance trip from coast to coast of Korea, left a very positive impression of traveling by public transit. South Korea has an excellent and well-developed public transportation infrastructure that incorporates local and intercity buses with three train systems. Like Europe, it even has a high-speed rail, the KTX, with a max speed of about 350 km/h.

If you’ve ever driven in Korea, you’ll also appreciate the brave fellow behind the bus wheel who’s able to navigate everyone safely through a country of otherwise completely insane motorists.

My conclusion?

For travel in Korea, forget the traffic and hop on a bus. You’ll enjoy the ride… and maybe even some BBQ squid.

Photo source: Flickr

Transport is too vast a topic to discuss as a whole. Instead, I want to just look at our behaviour on the roads. Can it ever be possible to curb this behaviour when we seemingly continue to believe that the car is the only way forward?

I don’t drive, yet this piece is in no way the sideswipe of some hypocrite speaking from the pavement. Not at all; my partner drives, and so we as a family are all part of the problem. But can there be a solution?

Regrettably, the environmental impacts of car use go way beyond carbon emissions. We are discussing here a subject that is absolutely inherent to the developed world’s lifestyle and, somewhat inevitably, car use continues to grow. When you consider the eagerness with which Asia and the rest of the developing world play catch up, I’d hope we can begin to set a better example.

Look around you. Urban sprawl catering to the car. Just as an example, take the shopping trip. I know in this family at least we are incredibly reliant on the car – and this involves a trip to the out-of-town supermarket. Purposefully built out of town, it should be noted. It’s convenient, there’s more choice and, damning for the local shopkeeper though what follows is, the trip will invariably work out cheaper.

Local air pollution, noise, the impacts on health, congestion, road traffic casualties, all these negatives seem to be cast aside in favour of the convenience afforded by owning a car.

Furthermore, land take is enormous and as swathes of the countryside become asphalt, yet more car use becomes a necessity. Shopping, along with business and leisure; all require that we travel. And as more roads are built, so our destinations become further and further away.

But as is well known, the main environmental impact from cars is of course those emissions. There is perhaps the rather naïve belief that technology has the answer here. But let’s take the catalytic converter as an example of why it will take more than technology to clean up our act.

Since 1992, it has been mandatory that petrol cars have catalytic converters fitted. And certainly, once fitted, they can indeed reduce the amount of carbon monoxide, nitrogen oxides and hydrocarbons emitted. However, they reduce fuel efficiency and therefore to an extent negate the original benefits. Coupled with this, since more fuel is required, more carbon dioxide is emitted into the atmosphere.

Not only is more CO2 being produced, the original reason for these catalytic converters being introduced is being undone by increasing car ownership and travel.

It’s imperative this be understood. Any technological advance, be it in fuel efficiency or a reduction in emissions will always become nigh on negligible because the sheer volume of traffic on our roads continues to rise. No matter how clean the technology, unless we are dealing with zero emission transport, an increase in volume outweighs the advance. So what of our alternatives?

Public transport? Well, why is it still a running joke that buses seem to always turn up in threes? And why does our rail network continue to be the butt of so much satire? The answer to both these questions is simple. It’s because there’s more than an element of truth to them.

When one considers arguments against the use of trains or buses such as the price of fares, overcrowding, the length of time needed to complete the journey, lack of personal safety, lack of reliability, you realise that as things stand, the answer is far from on our doorstep – where, incidentally, you’ll find the car is parked.

But I would suggest that we could at least collectively push for improvements, demand investment, rather than continually wait on the unsubstantiated rhetoric that comes from the mouths of Westminster. These issues do indeed need to be resolved, but I’m sure that with awareness and investment, they can be.

As an example, consider the use of the Metrolink in Manchester. This is no new project. It officially opened in 1992 and according to their website, 52,000 passenger journeys are undertaken each day. Annually, this equates to 18.8m passengers and this has led to research suggesting that at least 2 million car journeys have been taken off the road each year along the route. This is more like it. Especially as light rail transport is considered to be around three times more energy efficient than your average family car.

The Metrolink is of course just one example – but it does highlight that alternatives are out there, and as stated, this was opened 15 years ago. I am not suggesting here a mass exodus to a greener, more sustainable way of life, via a light rail network. But as experts are telling us, an efficient public transport system must be seen as part of the future.

Certainly, technical improvements to cars can also be seen as a candid part of this – consider for example the hybrid cars now on the market, but somewhere along the line, our behaviour and reliance on the car will have to be curtailed as we begin to see the catching of a bus, train or tram as more a part of our daily routine.

This article first appeared in the Western Daily Press © Pem Charnley 2007

Picture Obtained from Flickr here.

A wind of change is blowing through the world of rugby. A green wind.

The 2007 Rugby World Cup, the 3rd largest sports event in the world with an estimated 2.5 million spectators from around the world, is being held in France from September 7 to October 20. The organizers, including a special rugby committee, a government agency and the French Rugby Federation, have vowed to make the event tangibly eco-friendly, and number of the players on the French team have given their names to the cause.

The French Ministry of Ecology and Sustainable Development issued a detailed press release at the end of August, outlining the three major axes of the Rugby World Cup environmental program: emissions calculations, concrete actions, and a publicity campaign. After calculating the impact that the six weeks of matches and festivities will have on the environment, including 570,000 tons of CO2 emissions, the government agency identified three spheres of action: public transport, renewable energies and waste management. Those actions, and other environmental issues, feature in the plan to raise awareness among the publics involved in the World Cup ― fans, employees, volunteers and television spectators ― with ecologically-oriented posters, leaflets and commercials.

The potential was great. The expectations were high. "This is it," I thought: the green movement is finally emerging from those polluted backwaters and, blown by the green wind, it is at long last moving into the mainstream. Even though I was not the proud holder of a ticket, I wanted to enjoy the atmosphere of fair play and bonhomie that characterizes rugby, witness the incredible growth of green, and relish the feeling of being one of the crowd, no more the eccentric tree-hugging freak of yore. What follows is an account of my experience last Friday at the "Stade de France," the Stadium of France, during the few hours preceding the opening ceremony and first match of the tournament, which pitted the French against the Argentineans.

The first sphere of action in the environmental program consists of the promotion and facilitation of public transport to and from the stadiums, and between the ten World Cup venues scattered across the country. The mythical Stade de France is located in the working-class suburb of Saint Denis, just a few miles north of the French capital. I took the D-line train from the centre of Paris out to Saint Denis without any trouble at all. It must be said, however, that my rapid journey cannot be attributed to the efficiency of the World Cup program since the D-line is part of the normal metropolitan subway and train system. No doubt the action in this sphere is going full guns, full eco-guns that is, at the other nine stadiums.