Showing posts with label Car transports. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Car transports. Show all posts

Wednesday, April 25, 2012

Cars with an efficiency equal to train

The slightest contaminate cars on sale at the end of this decade will be so well-organized that they match the cleanest of today's speedy electric trains, Richard Parry-Jones told an clever move conference in London.

Parry-Jones, one of the industry's most appreciated engineers, guesses that by 2020, the car trade is targeting just 40g/km of tailpipe carbon, which interpret to 25g/km per passenger when the standard number of tenant in cars - 1.6 - is factored in. That number is similar with today's most professional electric trains; "that's an outstanding growth when you think that the typical average was 140g/km in 2000," said Parry-Jones.

He also expects that bright cars that inter-communicate with one another and traffic management systems are the future of the car trade. In addition to this he said that the networked vehicles below digital power are going to become the future of car manufacturing.

The previous Ford engineer is now top of the industry-government Automotive Council and chairman-designate of Network Rail.

The transport minister Justine Greening at the conference said that the British road network needed improvement to manage with a potential 44 per cent boost in traffic. He also said that the passage increase like that would put our country under a crippling damage. Around £1.5bn will be used up on national and local road improvements with a further £2.3bn mark down for major roads. 

Though, hope for road development may center on public-private finance initiatives. Greening told that, “With the Treasury we are looking at attracting extra economics from private financiers”.

The government is trying to convince British pension’s finances to spend in transportation in return for trustworthy, long-term financial returns. She said that they are also in need to use these roads more cleverly.

Monday, January 30, 2012

House transportation bill would spend about $260B

House Republicans are proposing to spend about $260 billion over the next 4 1/2 years on transportation programs, as well as substantially increase the size of trucks permitted on highways, according to a draft bill being introduced this week.

Rep. John Mica, R-Fla., chairman of the House Transportation and Infrastructure Committee, and other GOP leaders are expected to introduce the bill on Tuesday. Mica's committee is poised to approve the measure on Thursday.

Significant policy changes in the bill include giving states far greater power — and the U.S. Department of Transport far less say — over how federal transportation aid is spent. The bill also consolidates many existing transportation programs, and makes it easier and quicker for road construction and other transportation projects to meet the requirements of federal environmental laws.

States could permit trucks weighing up to 97,000 pounds — and in some cases as much as 126,000 pounds — on interstate highways under the bill. The current limit is 80,000 pounds in most states. Increased weight limits are supported by the trucking industry, but opposed by safety advocates.

"Larger and heavier trucks mean bigger safety risks for highway drivers," Sen. Frank Lautenberg, D-N.J., wrote in a letter to House lawmakers last week asking them not to raise weight limits.

The bill would maintain current spending on transportation despite declining gasoline and diesel fuel taxes, which historically have paid for highway and transit programs.

A separate committee will decide how to cover the gap between gas-tax revenues and the spending levels proposed in the bill. GOP leaders have said they plan to use revenue from expanded oil and natural gas drilling, but haven't provided details. However, congressional aides knowledgeable about the proposal said it would include drilling off the Virginia coast and in federal leases in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge. The aides weren't authorized to speak publicly and asked not to be named.

The bill provides enough money to prevent the nation's roads, bridges and transit systems from falling further into disrepair, but not enough to significantly reduce the backlog of needed work on transportation infrastructure, transportation experts said. A congressionally mandated commission estimated in 2009 that it would require $200 billion a year to reduce the backlog while maintaining the current transportation system.

"Clearly this level of funding is inadequate to support our needs as a nation," said Joshua Schank, president of the Eno Center for Transportation, a Washington think tank that supports greater transportation investment.

But the bill is expected to save jobs in construction, bus manufacturing and other transportation-related industries in part because it allows state transportation departments to make long-term commitments of funds. Those kinds of commitments are usually necessary before companies can go forward with major new transportation projects.

Each $1 billion in transportation construction spending supports about 30,000 jobs, said Andy Herrmann, president of the American Society of Civil Engineers.

The GOP bill is "holding along the lines of what we've been doing in the past," he said.

But that may be enough to propel the bill through the House in an election year where voter regard for Congress is at rock bottom and lawmakers are eager to show off an accomplishment.

The last long-term transportation bill expired in 2009. Congress has kept transportation aid flowing to states through a series of short-term extensions. The current extension expires on March 31.

The Senate is working on its own bill, which would spend $109 billion over two years. Sen. Barbara Boxer, D-Calif., a co-author of the bill, says the bill's sponsors have a plan to pay for the measure, but hasn't detailed how that would happen.

A bipartisan proposal introduced in the Senate on Monday would continue transit spending at current levels while giving the regulators greater safety oversight of transit agencies, including the power to impose fines. The Banking Committee is expected to approve the measure on Thursday, after which it will be incorporated into the Senate transportation bill.


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