Urban transport
City Mayors deals with urban transport issues in developed and developing countries and features the world’s greatest metro systems

World’s greatest metro railways
History, design and operations
World Metros is a new series by City Mayors. The series features the world's greatest metro railway systems systems, explain their history and describe current operations. Please write to the editor if you wish to contribute to the World Metro series. More

Saving energy by making use
of eyes' sensibility to contrast
5 November 2008: We are consuming, and wasting, vast amounts of energy. This must be changed. My idea involves changing a 60-year-old concept in the way that traffic lights work all over the world – and how they waste money and energy. What follows is a summary of the work undertaken in mechanics and electricity, which won approbation at the Polytechnic University of Catalonia. More

Personal Rapid Transit on
verge of becoming viable
20 July 2008: It took a long time and the personal commitment of a president of the United States for the concept of travel to the moon to be made a reality, and there were many who doubted it would ever happen. Personal rapid transit (PRT), also called Personal automated transport (PAT), has had a similarly long gestation, and the concept was perhaps oversold in the 1960s when, in the UK, drawings were published of clumsy elevated structures cutting through Central London and looking almost as intrusive as the six-lane expressways to which they were claimed to be an alternative. More

London’s canal network offers opportunity
for viable and sustainable freight transport
30 June 2008: Back in August 1981 three barges loaded with lime juice and pith in 45 gallon barrels made their way up the Thames. At the helm on that day was a colleague of mine, Gerry Heward. He was about to have a date with history. At Brentford in west London the tiny fleet passed through the tidal lock and onto the 200 year old Grand Union Canal. From here they travelled 50 kilometres north to Hemel Hempstead. At Rose’s factory, the barges unloaded their cargo so it could be processed into lime juice cordial and marmalade. More

Toll bridges a simpler alternative
to Bloomberg’s road pricing idea
7 January 2008: New York City Mayor Michael Bloomberg’s proposal for ‘congestion pricing’ – a fee imposed on driving in Manhattan’s central business district during prime hours – has made it safe at last to discuss traffic solutions that were previously off limits. Just last week, New York City Hall announced a crackdown on the official placards that allow tens of thousands of public employees to park free on the street – a topic long avoided by those in charge. More

US cities realise that
cycling makes sense
30 September 2007: With more motor vehicles, roads, and parking lots than any nation on earth, the United States is renowned as the land of the automobile. Many cities have more registered automobiles than residents. The monthly car payment for American families often exceeds its mortgage payment. But in spite of America’s love affair with the car, many US mayors are now striving to make their cities more bicycle-friendly. More

London’s transport network suffers from
under-investment and muddled strategy
5 August, 2007: A key element of the long awaited modernisation of London’s underground rail network, the so-called Private-Public-Partnership (PPP) deal has been behind many headlines, not least when Metronet, one of the consortiums set up to undertake the work, collapsed in July 2007. Designed to transfer risk to the private sector in exchange for much-needed improvement to London’s creaking underground infrastructure, the process has been roundly criticised since the world’s largest public private partnership deal was first mooted. More

TransMetro set to end chaotic
commuting in Guatemala City
16 June 2007: For Guatemala City’s commuters public transport is in a state of crisis, with daily rampant crimes committed against them inside and outside the city’s antiquated buses. Recklessness by bus drivers adds to the problem. But hopefully, things are set to change. More

New Yorkers mostly hostile to
suggested congestion charge
11 June 2007: When big city mayors, business leaders, and environmentalists gathered recently in New York City to discuss climate change, at the heart of their talks was the effects of carbon emissions on the environment. More

Solving transport issues has
highest priority for megacities
16 May 2007: Environmental issues play a central role in urban planning. However, in emerging megacities, infrastructure growth often takes precedence over the environment. This is just one of the key findings of a survey of 522 decision makers from 25 megacities. Solving transportation issues has the highest priority in the cities surveyed, and air pollution is seen as the main environmental issue. More

European cities commit themselves
to hydrogen as bus fuel of the future
5 October 2006: Five European cities have committed themselves to work together to develop and procure hydrogen fuel cell buses as the future for clean green bus fleets. The buses, which only emit water vapour and not harmful emissions, have been successfully tested by German automotive company DaimlerChrysler in several European cities. At a ceremony at the European Union in Brussels, representatives from Amsterdam, Barcelona, Berlin, Hamburg and London signed a memorandum of understanding to make the technology commercially viable. More

Road tolls prove a success
in cities around the world
London’s congestion charge is probably the best-known in the world, but it has not been the most successful. That honour appears to go to Durham, a city in northern England noted for its cathedral and castle. Durham introduced a cordon-based pricing scheme in 2002, the first in the United Kingdom, and a year before London. More

Melbourne Mayor calls for bold ideas
to manage the city’s transport system
In an editorial article to explain the thinking behind the City of Melbourne’s recently published draft Transport Strategy, Lord Mayor John So writes that far from being anti-car, Melbourne had been car friendly and the city was committed to welcoming people by all means of transport. However, the Mayor makes it clear that Melbourne’s existing road system was reaching saturation. “Road congestion is costing our city about $2.7 billion a year, now. If nothing is done, by 2015 this congestion could cost around $6 billion annually,” he writes. More

Urban traffic congestion costs
the USA $63 billion per annum
Congestion continues to grow in urban areas of the US. Despite a slow growth in jobs and travel in 2003, congestion caused 3.7 billion hours of travel delay and 8.7 billion litres of wasted fuel, an increase of 79 million hours and 262 million litres from 2002 to a total cost of more than $63 billion for the year. The solutions to this problem will require commitment by the public and by national, state and local officials to increase investment levels and identify projects, programs and policies that can achieve mobility goals. More

British parliament criticises government
over approach to light railway schemes
The excessively complicated design, build, operate and maintain contracts for light rail schemes in England has rendered such schemes unmanageable and of poor value to the public.  This was among several conclusions by the British House of Commons Public Accounts Committee from an inquiry as to why so few schemes have been completed satisfactorily.  "The Department for Transport has persisted in an arm's length approach towards light rail," said committee chairman Edward Leigh. More

Some 4.5 million people use the 100-year-old
New York City Subway every business day
Over the past 100 years, the New York City Subway has evolved and grown from a nine-mile line to a four-borough system consisting of 26 lines and 468 stations. Carried on upwards of 600 trains, more than 4.5 million people depend on it each business day to reach their destinations. More

London’s congestion charge
cuts traffic jams by 30 per cent
London Mayor Ken Livingstone’s central London congestion charging system celebrated its first anniversary in February 2004 to general acclaim at home and abroad. In spite of the prophets of doom and even some of its supporters back in 2003, the centre of the UK capital has achieved and maintained its figure of 30 per cent fewer traffic delays inside the charging zone compared with the period before charging was introduced. More

German Greens call for city
tolls to reduce road traffic
After the success of London's congestion charge, which celebrated its first anniversary in February 2004, the idea is catching on in Europe, and particularly in Germany. Green party members throughout the country are pressing for its introduction. More

Cities must reduce road
traffic to save young lives
The consequences of transport for health affect most of the population, not just drivers and passengers in motor vehicles. In Europe, air pollution accounts for about 100,000 premature deaths in adults annually; emissions from road traffic make up a significant share of this pollution. Each year, traffic accidents still kill about 120,000 people (a third of them aged under 25 years), and cause some 2.5 million injuries. More