Tag Archives: Highway History

Sat-nav maps update aims to prevent stuck lorries …

A multi-million pound sat-nav project aims to stop lorries and other vehicles getting stuck in narrow lanes and under low-lying bridges on UK routes.

Ordnance Survey is creating a database that will contain information about 200,000 miles (321,869km) of roadways to prevent such accidents.

Read more – http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-37703556

 

Abandoned fire station basement in Dudley rediscovered …

A former firefighters station that has been mysteriously shut away for half a century has been rediscovered.

Based in the former national works in Dudley, it housed the Co-operative Wholesale Society’s company crew.

The station is believed to have been used until the 1960s before it was locked and left untouched for decades.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-birmingham-37553461?post_id=10153964735751247_10154027995231247#_=_

Investors fear China’s big bus is taking them for ride …

The Times, 11 August 2016,

A “straddling bus” that gained worldwide interest when it was road-tested in China last week may be just a fantastic scam, its investors fear.

They have demanded their money back after criticism of the electric bus’s performance and the discovery that its main production base was still an empty field.

The bus, which was given a brief 300-metre test run in Qinhuangdao last week, glides on rails over traffic jams like a moving tunnel.

Song Youzhou, its inventor, says that a four-car train of electric Transit Elevated Buses (TEBs) could carry 1,200 passengers and travel at up to 37mph over other vehicles.

His company has admitted that the well-publicised trial in Qinhuangdao was an internal test and not a formal road test because the city had made no commitment to the project.

Critics say that the giant bus may turn poorly, prove too heavy for the road and risk constant collisions with unruly drivers who routinely cut into bicycle and emergency lanes to get ahead.

Chinese media discovered this week that despite reports that the futuristic buses would be introduced across the country next year the main TEB production base was just an empty field.

Some investors in TEB, which were promised annual returns of between 10 per cent and 20 per cent, have turned up at its office in the capital demanding their money back, the Beijing News reported.

Huaying Kailai, a company blacklisted for illegal finance activities last year, has sold investment packages in the buses that Chinese media suspect is an illegal peer-to-peer financing scheme. Elaborate scams remain all too common in China.

Mr Song, who said he expected global demand of about 500,000 TEBs, rejected the barrage of criticism. “We haven’t done anything wrong at all,” he told the Shanghai news website Sixth Tone. “The latest tests show that the bus design is entirely possible.”

Mr Song said that the design was best suited to six-lane roads in big cities, where the buses can occupy two lanes in both directions while higher vehicles use other lanes.

 

Elderly ‘driven to early grave’ by giving up cars …

The Times, 7 September 2016,

Older drivers are among the safest road users in the country and making them give up their cars could send some of them to an early grave, an expert has warned.

“Giving up driving is associated with a huge deterioration in health and wellbeing and may even be linked to speeding up death,” Charles Musselwhite, associate professor of gerontology at Swansea University, said.

“Older people make up 5 per cent of pedestrian activity yet account for 30 per cent of pedestrian deaths and 18 per cent of [those] killed or seriously injured. Crossings are poorly designed for older people and do not allow enough time to cross for over 90 per cent of older people.”

Speaking at the British Science Festival, Dr Musselwhite also suggested that speed limits could be brought down to give older drivers longer to react and that overtaking on some roads could be restricted to designated passing places.

Dr Musselwhite said that old age brings with it deteriorations in eyesight, working memory and cognitive processing speed, and that older drivers often inadvertently break the unspoken rules of the road because of the extra time they need to make manoeuvres. The frustration this causes is a significant source of accidents.

The death rate among drivers in their 70s is lower than the death rate for drivers aged between 17 and 30, according to Department for Transport figures.

Yet in spite of their relatively good safety record, elderly drivers are more liable to make mistakes when they are put under pressure.

“What you get on the road is a bunch of laws, but that’s only one level of it,” Dr Musselwhite said. “Actually, what everyone drives to is a bunch of norms. These are unwritten rules that you only really learn after your test and which you pick up daily as you go about interacting with other bits of traffic.

“Older people often buck those norms, they do something a little bit different or unusual and that upsets people.”

Dr Musselwhite said there was a case for trying to manage this conflict because the number of drivers in their eighth, ninth and tenth decades was projected to increase dramatically over the next few decades.

There are presently four million people aged over 70 with driving licences on Britain’s roads. As life expectancies increase, 90 per cent of men in this age group are forecast to be on the roads by 2030.

Currently all drivers over the age of 70 must re-apply for their licences every three years and politicians frequently come under pressure to make them retake their driving tests.

The AA has published guidance suggesting that people should continue to drive as long as they feel able to do so.

 

Flat-pack van goes from box to built in 12 hours …

The Times, 7 September 2016,

The world’s first Ikea-style van that can be assembled in only 12 hours has been developed by a British entrepreneur to carry out humanitarian missions in remote parts of Africa.

The flat-pack vehicle can be shipped to the developing world before being put to use transporting food, building materials and people.

The all-terrain van, dubbed the OX, has been designed by Gordon Murray, a Formula One engineer who developed the McLaren F1 supercar.

It is able to be assembled by a three-person non-expert team, can seat 13 and travel up to 620 miles without filling up.

At just over four metres in length, it is far shorter than other pick-ups but can carry almost two tonnes due to its lightweight, super-strong chassis.

The project, which has been in development for five years at a cost of £3 million, has been led by Sir Torquil Norman, the former banker and toy manufacturer, who led the redevelopment of the Camden Roundhouse in north London.

Mr Murray told the BBC that the vehicle ranked “above anything else I’ve ever done”, adding: “Designing expensive sports cars; that reaches a few people. [If] this goes in to mass production, this will help thousands.”

Sir Torquil, who founded the Global Vehicle Trust to lead the project, said: “We believe that the OX has huge potential for charities, aid organisations and development programmes. My dream is to one day see an OX in every village in Africa.”

Three prototypes have been built so far and backers are now seeking funding to continue the development before putting it into mass production.

 

Angled bays put a new slant on the perfect car park …

The Times, 25 August 2016,

When most people arrive in a full car park, they see a parking problem.

When David Percy arrives in a full car park, he sees a geometry problem and, he says, most car parks have been offering the wrong answer.

Professor Percy, from Salford university, has shown that the conventional car park, with its series of rectangular boxes marked out by white paint, is an inefficient use of space. He found instead that with just minor tweaks you can improve capacity by more than 20 per cent without having to do anything other than use the same white paint to draw lines at an angle.

The inspiration for his research came from a sprucing up of his university car park. The standard rectangular lines were painted over and “this traditional conformity set me thinking”, he wrote in Mathematics Today.

What if the bays were at 45 degrees instead, angled towards the flow of traffic? While some car parks use this system, most do not. But does it have advantages? Might it ensure him more reliable access to departmental meetings?

 

Driverless cars will not steer us towards efficiency …

The Times, 16 September 2016,

It has been hailed as the ultimate gadget for commuters who cannot find enough time in the day. The driverless car promises to free precious minutes by allowing owners to check emails, call colleagues or even grab a quick power-nap on the way to work.

There’s one snag: academics believe that it will fail to boost productivity, and that motion sickness, passenger nerves and the fear of smartphones turning into lethal missiles in a crash would stop most owners getting the maximum benefit from their vehicle.

The study by the University of Michigan even suggested that British drivers could reap the least reward.

More than two thirds of adults surveyed in the UK said that they would not attempt “any activity in lieu of driving” in a driverless car — a greater proportion than respondents in the US, Australia, China, India and Japan.

Self-driving vehicles are being developed around the world to boost mobility and road safety. The government is backing a series of multimillion-pound trials, including one involving self- driving pods negotiating their way around pedestrianised areas in Milton Keynes. In the US driverless cars developed by Google have clocked up more than 1.5 million miles.

The study, from Michael Sivak and Brandon Schoettle at Michigan’s transportation research institute, said that the average car-owning American spent more than an hour a day travelling. However, the paper suggested that “self-driving vehicles currently are not likely to result in an improvement in productivity”.

It said that surveys of motorists suggested that “36 per cent would be so apprehensive in such vehicles that they would only watch the road”. A further 10 per cent suffer travel sickness that would prevent them working on a laptop or iPhone, it added.

The study also raises concerns that laptops or smartphones could go flying in the event of a crash.

Surveys of adults in six countries found that Britons were less likely to be interested in work, play or sleep while in a driverless cars than those in other countries. Some 67 per cent of Britons said that they would refuse to ride in driverless cars or would simply look out the window, compared with 38.5 per cent in India, 39.2 per cent in China and 58.5 per cent in the US. A total of 3,255 people were surveyed.

The disclosure was made as the House of Lords science and technology committee announced plans yesterday for an inquiry into the future uses of driverless cars.

The Earl of Selborne, the committee’s chairman, said: “If the UK is to be at the forefront of this transport revolution, investment into research is vital to ensure the technology is perfected, allowing the public to embrace the use of autonomous vehicles.

 

Older drivers no more dangerous, Swansea University accident data study says …

www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-37292951

New research from Swansea University challenges the idea that older people are dangerous drivers.

Analysis of data on vehicle accidents showed that drivers aged 70 are involved in 3-4 times fewer accidents than 17-21 year old men.

By observing older drivers, the study found that most mistakes made occurred on right turns and overtaking.

Young men are more likely to be involved in incidents resulting from driving too fast and losing control.

The research findings were outlined at the British Science Festival in Swansea.

Charles Musselwhite, associate professor of gerontology at Swansea University’s Centre for Innovative Ageing, found that dangerous driving is not generally an issue for older people.

While the elderly are more likely to be involved in an accident than the safest-driving cohort in their 40s, they are less likely than very young drivers to be involved in accidents.

Older drivers tended to make mistakes when they felt under pressure from other road users, the study found.

The most accident-prone age group, by a substantial margin, is young men. Indeed, 17 to 21 year-olds are three to four times more likely to have an accident than 70 year-olds.

Accident demographics

There is an increase in accidents among the over-75 age group, which Prof Musselwhite puts down to increasing physical frailty.

Older and younger drivers are also involved in different types of accident. While young men are more likely to be involved in single vehicle incidents, usually caused by speeding and losing control, older people tend to have smaller impact collisions.

Older women are more likely to have small accidents when doing tight manoeuvres. Older people are also more likely to be involved in accidents involving other older drivers, suggesting they make similar errors.

However, Prof Musselwhite said that older drivers compensate for their declining powers by driving more carefully, slowing down, leaving larger gaps, and choosing better weather and quieter times to go out in the car.

He also noted that this may change as people work and live longer.

Road safety concerns have prompted discussion about re-testing older drivers, but such programmes have been conducted in other countries like Australia and Denmark without improving results.

The question of whether and under what circumstances older people should face losing their licence is complicated. Prof Musselwhite argues that officials should implement more rigorous testing, especially eye tests, and extra monitoring of the effects of prescription drugs.

The solution right now is a market-based one: at some point it becomes so expensive for old people to insure their cars that they have no choice but to give up driving.

Loss of independence

Clearly there are issues when conditions such as dementia or other health problems affect cognitive skills, but Prof Musselwhite says that denying old people a licence should not be taken lightly.

They often need to drive when public transport is not convenient and shops have moved from villages to out-of-town locations.

There is also a psychological need. Older people told Prof Musselwhite that driving was of great importance for them, comparing losing their licence to losing a limb.

Older people say they need to drive for the feeling of freedom and mobility, to feel useful and have a role in the family. Taking away driving licences can lead to depression and loss of mobility.

Rather that urging restrictions on older drivers, Prof Musselwhite said that “a lot of existing infrastructure doesn’t work all that well for the elderly”. He suggested that dedicated filter arrows for right turns across traffic, or wider lanes, could help. But he noted that this might inhibit traffic flow, or even encourage young drivers to drive faster.

There are numerous problems for older pedestrians as well. For instance the average speed that someone needs to cross the road is set at 4.7km/h. In separate studies, 86% of old people did not walk that fast, rising to 94% for older women.

As mobility and freedom of movement are closely linked to physical and mental wellbeing in older people, Prof Musselwhite said driverless cars are a promising development for future elderly cohorts.

 

Making the Connections: transport and its place in history, York 16 November …

http://events.history.ac.uk/event/show/15330

It is easy to find examples of transport’s impact on history, but for several reasons it has proven harder to study its intricacies and effects, and over the last thirty years the subject has received little attention, with some even arguing that it has been progressively marginalised within scholarly circles. Whereas decades ago, no book on the nineteenth century would omit the construction of the canals and railways, now their existence and role in shaping the period’s history receives little acknowledgement. The ‘Making the Connections’ one-day workshop seeks to re-invigorate the study of the history of transport by bringing together scholars of different historical periods and from different disciplines. Sponsored by the National Railway Museum, supported by the York Management School’s Management and Organisational History Research Cluster, and run by the York Transport Historians Group – which was established in 2015 and is a joint venture by staff at the National Railway Museum and the University of York – the workshop aims to demonstrate and celebrate transport’s central importance to the grand tapestry of human existence.

Registration details will follow. The full registration fee for the workshop is expected to be around £29, and there are 10 student places available at £10 each.