transportation

Stressed commuters turning to public transit, tech

If you're getting stressed-out by your commute, you're not alone, according to an IBM survey which found more people amenable to using public transit and technology to improve their daily transportation.

IBM today published the results from its annual commuter sentiment study which found the transportation infrastructure is improving but "commuter pain" is increasing.

Why the paradox? IBM's Vinodh Swaminathan, director of business development at IBM's Intelligent Transportation Systems, says that even if there are incremental improvements to the transportation system, a lousy commute is still a lousy commute.

"If you cut someone'… Read more

Driverless cars shuttle Heathrow passengers

Autonomous cars aren't the future--they're already here and in use in London. Heathrow Airport swapped 2 diesel buses for 22 electric pods that shuttle passengers from Terminal 5 to the parking lot without the help of a driver.

Each electric pod can carry up to four passengers and their luggage. At the terminal, passengers request a pod and enter their destination.

Once in the pod, passengers don't have to worry about traffic or the pod's ability to navigate around cars because they travel on designated roadways. It takes the pods about five to six minutes to travel approximately 1.2 miles to the T5 Business Car Park.

The autonomous vehicles, made by Ultra PRT, have yet to be in an accident, according to an article in the New York Times. They operate at a top speed of around 25 mph, and can handle light snow. Because the electric vehicles operate only when needed, they're more energy efficient than the pair of diesel buses that formerly looped the airport, stopping at every drop-off point regardless of the passenger load.

But the best part of the service is that there's no driver to tip. … Read more

MIT algorithm could help prevent midair collisions

MIT researchers are working on an algorithm that could help reduce the likelihood of airplane collisions in the sky, part of work to overhaul the FAA air traffic system.

The FAA's NextGen overhaul mandates that by 2020 all commercial aircraft broadcast GPS coordinates, which would be more accurate than ground-based radar.

The system uses GPS data to track hypothetical puck-shaped zones around smaller aircraft to keep them a safe distance apart. Thousands of small aircraft were involved in near-misses over the past decade and there were 112 midair collisions, according to MIT.

Researchers at the MIT International Center for Air Transportation (ICAT) based the system on months of real-world flight data. A chief goal was to reduce the frequency of false collision alarms. They decided to use two alerts: a moderate one when flight paths are converging, and a severe alert when a collision is imminent. … Read more

ReFuel races spur electric-car innovation (audio slideshow)

Engineers searching for ways to redefine the American car, moving away from gasoline engines and toward cleaner battery-powered electric transportation, had a chance to put their designs to the test this weekend on a big-time track, the MAZDA Raceway Laguna Seca in Monterey, Calif. In the coming years, production standards for battery-management systems and charging systems will emerge, and today, these innovators are experimenting with what works and what doesn't, searching for the best new methods with which to manufacture the next generation of vehicles. The ReFuel Clean Power Motorsports Event, now in its third year, gives electric-car builders … Read more

Study: No savings at 62 mpg

Raising federal fuel economy standards to as high as 56 mpg in the 2025 model year would yield fuel savings to consumers that more than offset higher vehicle prices, a new study found.

But lifting corporate average fuel economy to 62 mpg would result in vehicle price increases that exceed fuel savings over a five-year period, according to the nonprofit Center for Automotive Research.

The report highlights room for compromise on the Obama administration's preliminary proposal to raise CAFE to between 47 mpg and 62 mpg from the 2017 to 2025 model years.

Environmental groups have pushed for 62 … Read more

How Uber's car-booking service can succeed in NY

NEW YORK--I had my Uber moment a few Sundays ago, standing on a corner in the hipster enclave of Williamsburg, Brooklyn, with my arms full of houseplants.

It had been raining off and on all afternoon. The subway line that could most reliably take me back to my apartment, following a lavish shopping spree at the borough's most notable gardening emporium, wasn't running because of weekend construction work. My alternative was to take a route that would involve two different subways followed by a 15-minute walk. With the houseplants. Bedford Avenue, Williamsburg's main drag, is a well-populated … Read more

A better-sounding way to play CDs

I've owned, listened to, and reviewed a lot of high-end CD players, but none of them sounded as good as PS Audio's PerfectWave Transport and Digital-to-Analog Converter (DAC) components.

The Transport uses a CD-ROM drive mechanism that "reads" and rereads the data on the CD as many times as necessary until a bit-perfect match is achieved. PS Audio's Web site says the CD's data is placed in a 64MB memory buffer as the music plays, so you're not directly listening to the CD. To prove that claim remove the disc from the Transport and the music will continue playing for approximately 30 seconds!

The Transport can also play high-resolution WAV files off DVDs, with sample rates up to 192-kHz with 24-bit resolution. I had a few of these DVDs on hand for this review, and the PerfectWave components really shined with high-resolution audio. … Read more

Mercedes Sprinter becomes executive office

The idea of a van conversion is nothing new. Consider the water-bed-toting vans of the '70s with their diamond-shaped portholes and air-brushed scenes from Yes album cover art on the sides. But a company called Brilliant Transportation has updated the idea of the van conversion for our less whimsical age.

Enter the Brilliant Van, a conversion based on a Mercedes-Benz Sprinter. The tall Sprinter allows stand-up room inside, and Brilliant fits it with leather recliners and two 32-inch LCD TVs fed by DirecTV. A color printer and a 3G Wi-Fi hot spot enable type-A personalities to keep busy. The Brilliant Van even has a hardwood floor.

We've always liked Mercedes-Benz's Sprinter van, a practical vehicle with easily configurable interior space. Freightliner has sold them since 2001 in the U.S., and Dodge even got to put its own badge on the Sprinter when Daimler owned Chrysler. The Sprinter is powered by a 3-liter diesel V-6, giving the vehicle 400 miles range. Mercedes-Benz fits it with its Adblue emissions clean-up system to make it comply with U.S. regulations.

You could probably buy one of these vans from Brilliant Transportation for the right amount of money, but the company is really in the business of rentals. Based in New York, the clients for its chauffeurs-driven vans are mostly businesses and entertainers. … Read more

Transportation is prime marketing turf at SXSW

AUSTIN, Texas--Marketers are everywhere here at the South by Southwest Interactive Festival, but this year they've discovered some prime new territory: private transportation. The annual geek gathering is nominally headquartered at the Austin Convention Center, but in reality sprawls all across the city's downtown, and given the amount of late-night revelry taking place, cab rides are commonplace. Luckily for this year's attendees, a whole lot of those rides are free--or cheap.

Social-networking site Tagged decided to intercept travelers as soon as they landed at Austin's airport, setting up a display for a "Tagged Wheels" … Read more