Metropolitan Line Air-Conditioned Tube trains Launched

The first air-conditioned Tube train has gone into service on the London Underground.

The train, which will be used on the Metropolitan Line, is the first of a 191-strong fleet of new trains.

Transport for London (TfL) plans to roll the air-conditioned trains out across 40% of the network by 2015.

The train set off from north London's Wembley Park station at about 1030 BST on Monday. London Mayor Boris Johnson was due to attend the launch.

The introduction of the new trains to the Metropolitan Line is due to be completed by the end of 2011.

Air-conditioned trains will be introduced to the Circle Line, the Hammersmith & City Line, and finally the District Line, by 2015.

Budget cut

The total cost of the new trains will be £1.5bn, TfL said.

The budget to cool Tube carriages on the London Underground was slashed by £10m in July as part of TfL cutbacks.

However, TfL said the introduction of new trains would not be affected by this budget cut.

The mayor's office said cooling the network was still a priority but it had to ensure it was getting value for money as part of the network upgrade.

A heat map that monitored the London Underground on 28 July 2008 - one of the hottest days of the year - found the Central Line was the hottest, with temperatures of up to 32C (90F).

The Metropolitan Line recorded temperatures of up to 27C (81F).

The Jubilee Line was significantly cooler with most stations recording temperatures of 25C (77F).

Meeting for Financing 500 CNG Buses Project on August 3

Hoping for some positive developments from this meeting ............... let's see how long more to see these buses on the streets of Karachi .............
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KARACHI (August 01 2010): The Ministry of Environment is going to hold a meeting on Tuesday, August 3, with the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP) and other banks to finalise funding for the 500 CNG-powered buses for Karachi. The meeting here would also be attended by representatives of Sindh government, Karachi City District Government (CDGK) and CNG bus operators.

The meeting would discuss criteria of funding to the already delayed project and, if all issues are settled, the 500 environment-friendly buses would ply on the city's road during this month. Beside the funding issue of the project all other arrangements have already been finalised, and the Minister of Environment, Hameedullah Jaan Afridi, is much interested to start the project in the metropolis, sources said.

All studies and selection of CNG bus operators have also been completed by Karachi Mass Transit Cell (KMTC) of CDGK and the bus supply and manufacturing firms were also ready to run the buses soon after the resolution of the funding issue. Earlier, local and international commercial banks and development financial institutions (DFIs), led by the State Bank of Pakistan (SBP), had shown interest in providing loans to the pre-qualified manufacturers and suppliers of CNG buses.

Though the ground working for launching of the CNG buses project have been completed, it was needed to have the private public support to run these buses on at least 40 routes of the city. Sources said that the selected and qualified banks, led by SBP, in co-operation and co-ordination of Enercon, would provide 80 percent loans for the project.

The government would also provide subsidy of at least Rs 0.7million for each bus, while the private bus suppliers would facilitate the 20 percent equity, they added. According to the project, initially 500 CNG powered buses were to be run on the city routes and this number would be increased to 4000 during the next five years.

For the successful launching of the project, the co-ordination and help of other institutions, like Hydro-Carbon Development Institute of Pakistan (HDIP), Infrastructure Project Development Facility (IPDF) and Enercon were also sought. At least 14 private companies, including Midway Consortium, a Punjab-based CNG dedicated bus supplier which has good experience in operating such buses in Lahore and other cities of Punjab, had earlier shown interest to operate its buses in Karachi.

CDGK May Scrap Plan to Buy more CNG Buses

KARACHI: The City District Government Karachi (CDGK) Transport and Communication Department (T&CD) might scrap the procurement process of further CNG buses due to paucity of adequate funds.

The total cost of adding 21 CNG buses to the existing fleet of 75 was estimated at Rs 63 million while the CDGK had twice invited tenders for the buses and had also received bids from the interested investors.

Earlier, the CDGK had cancelled the lowest bid on reasons that the successful bidder could not furnish certificates of a strong financial position and the technical ability to run the bus fleet. Thus, the tenders were invited again and the bids were received for the final settlement. However, the bids received were discarded and the onward procedures were sent to the files for good on the pretext of lack of funds.

City Administrator Fazlur Rehman recently vowed that the CDGK would not close down any development projects in the city because of paucity of funds.

The T&CD for the fiscal year 2010-11 has 26 development schemes for which Rs 616.500 million have been allocated. It is pertinent to mention that the department has 114 traffic signals to look after and Rs 26 million have been allocated just for the maintenance and repair of these 114 traffic signals.

While talking to Daily Times, T&CD Executive District Officer Iftikhar Qaimkhani said the CDGK T&CD has not yet dropped the scheme of procuring the new CNG buses but due to lack of the required cash flow, the scheme could not be completed during the last fiscal year.

He added the scheme has been included in the 2010-11 budget with certain possibilities including that either the provincial government would provide the required sum of money or private investors might come forward, whom the CDGK would fully support or even the CDGK might earn enough revenue to fulfil the task itself.

“We have to wait until December to see if the CDGK gets the required revenue or else the project would further linger on until the required revenue is in hand,” commented Qaimkhani.

High-Speed Rail to Benefit China

World's biggest economy is building its Railway so fast and Pakistan is closing down the train one by one ..................... Economic growth cannot be fully achieved until the country has modern and fast transportation system ...............
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BEIJING: China’s construction of a vast high-speed rail network will bequeath it one of the world’s most advanced rail industries, but it needs to monitor the debts it is running up in the process, the World Bank said on Wednesday.

China plans to build 13,000 km (8,078 miles) of high-speed rail lines by 2012, more than the rest of the world combined.

The Beijing-Shanghai line due to open next year will halve the travel time between the two cities to 5 hours.

Trains will travel at a maximum speed of 350 km an hour(218 mph) on 8,000 km of newly built lines and 250 km an hour on 5,000 km of upgraded track.

By 2020 the network will have expanded to serve more than90 percent of the population, at a budgeted cost of 2 trillion yuan ($295 billion), and include 16,000 km of the fastest newly built lines, according to the government’s blueprint.

Li Jun, a senior railway ministry official, told reporters the target for new tracks was likely to rise as the government draws up a more detailed economic plan for the next five years.

The aim is to ensure most provincial capitals apart from those offshore and furthest west are no more than an 8 hour journey from Beijing, boosting efforts to bring growth and urbanisation to poorer interior areas.

Places covered include far-flung southwestern Kunming, the capital of Yunnan province, some 2,000 km from the capital.

China is building a fleet of state-of-the-art trains for the network with the help of foreign firms including Bombardier Inc, Siemens, Kawasaki Heavy Industries Ltd and Alstom SA.

“This transfer of technology and know-how, together with the experience of building and operating several thousand route-kilometres of high-speed railway, will make China’s one of the most advanced railway industries in the world,” the World Bank said in a report.

“This should position the country to compete internationally when other countries adopt high-speed railways,” the report said, likening the creation of the network to the building of the Interstate highway system, which knitted the United States together half a century ago.

But foreign firms hoping for a long-term bonanza are likelyto be disappointed, with Beijing keen to focus on using imported designs and skills to complement domestic technology.

“We are targetting the most advanced high-speed rail technologies in the world, with innovation as the backbone,” the railway ministry’s chief engineer, He Huawu, said in notes prepared for a news conference in Beijing on Wednesday.

“On the foundation of imported technologies, a dedicated high-speed rail technology innovation platform has been established, so that China’s railway industry will be able to fully rely on its original innovation in the future,” he said.

He denied, however, that foreign companies were being forced to hand over their technology as the price of market access.

The breakneck expansion will create hundreds of thousands of jobs for skilled engineers as well as manual labourers and, apart from shortening passenger travel times, will release much-needed capacity for growing freight traffic, the bank said.

Looking at the lessons to be learned, it said the high population density of eastern China, fast-growing incomes and the prevalence of many big cities fairly close to one another created favourable conditions not found in most developing countries. Nor could all countries make the vast political and economic commitment that a decades-long programme requires.And then there are the financial costs.

Ferozpur Road: LRMTS Primary Artery for Green Line

Following the recent spell of rain in Lahore, one gets skeptical about this major road of Lahore Mass Transit System where the part of it would be underground.

By looking into the the following pictures, where huge holes appeared due to some underground bursting of sewerage pipes, the designer have to really consider the Soil strata and the utilities beneath ........ Hoping for implementation.

No Buses Available For Most LTC Routes

From Lahore Mass Transit System ……… to Local Public Transport System ……… It shall be the dream of this metropolitan residents to have a better and reasonable urban transport …….. Keep it up this will benefit the car production and the Wagon Mafia ……. who is now getting so strong that it even forced Railways to abondon most of its trains …… Even the Korean GM of LTC can't do anything .............
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LAHORE: The Lahore Transport Company (LTC) has yet to arrange for buses to run on all of its 53 routes in the city.

Out of the 53 routes, 30 have been non-operational since April 10, 2010 – the day the LTC marked the routes. Three out of the remaining 23 routes, became inactive recently after Niazi Express wrapped up its operations on June 30 from Route No. 39 and 40 and Premier Bus Service got a stay order on Route No. 138.

Route No. 39 runs from Sherakot to Allama Iqbal Town, Kalma Chowk, Cantt and New Airport, Route No. 40 stretches from Lorry Adda to Wapda Town through Allama Iqbal Town, Faisal Town and Bagarian.

About the 30 non-operational routes, a senior official in the LTC told The Express Tribune that they remained under the use of other forms of transport which did not fall under LTC’s jurisdiction.

These included vans, coasters, and two-stroke, CNG and motorcycle rickshaws.

He said that the company intended to reclaim the routes and replace the undesirable means of transport with an affordable and efficient bus service.

“Other transport services would be moved to alternative routes,” he said.

The strength of buses in Lahore has come down from 1,100 (during 2002 to 2006) to less than 500.

The number of transport companies operating in the city fell from 14 to seven.

Bashir Sial, the Urban Transport Association chairperson, held the government responsible for the trend. He said that government had failed to come up with sound policies and made the transport sector unattractive for investors.

“The transporters were bound to wind up their businesses to avoid losses,” he said.

It was high time the government started providing relief to the transporters or else the few who are left will also be forced to shut down operations.

An LTC official seeking anonymity told The Express Tribune that there was no imminent threat of the transporters shutting down their operations. He said that the LTC had held successful negotiations with some of the transporters.

Besides, he said that the company had also signed agreements with Bahria Town, Nestle, Bandial and Usuzo. These companies, he said, had expressed eagerness to invest in the public transport services and would very soon begin operations.

He said that about 500 buses would be available to operate on several routes in the next five to six months.

Financial Constraints Delaying Lahore Mass Transit Project

When the Government somehow makes up mind to take up some mega project ........... than comes this to stop them going ahead ............... Ironic
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