Chicago bus workers campaign with passengers for better services
The city of Chicago in the United States has been cutting bus services and laying off bus workers. Now the Amalgamated Transit Union is aiming to mobilise with passengers to reverse the trend — starting with a campaign to get cockroaches off the buses! Watch the video.
read moreEmployers and unions make joint plan to increase women’s transport employment
The International Public Transport Association and the European Transport Workers’ Federation (ETF) this week signed a landmark agreement with the aim of strengthening women’s employment in urban public transport. In the presence of Isabelle Durant, Vice President of the European Parliament, UITP and ETF signed a series of joint recommendations. Women are particularly under-represented in leadership and technical positions,. At present women represent on average about 17.5% per cent of urban public transport employment in...
read moreInvestment in safe clean transport needed to reduce road crash deaths, says World Bank
A new report from the World Bank states there is a “a strong financial case for increasing investments in safe and clean road transport”. Transport for Health, published jointly with the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation at the University of Washington, shows that deaths caused by motorised road transport globally now exceed those from HIV, TB or malaria, with crashes accounting for more than 90 per cent of them. In addition, injuries and illness are undermining economic and social development, although improved transport...
read moreNew global agreement to promote good jobs in public transport
The International Association of Public Transport (UITP) and the International Transport Workers Federation (ITF) have agreed to work together to promote the development and expansion of public transport. The organisations represent global employers and workers in public transport respectively, and share the view that public transport is “a motor for sustainable growth and the creation of green jobs, as well as environmental protection in reducing congestion and pollution”. They plan to develop joint recommendations in vocational...
read more24-hour services with 750 fewer jobs: will London Underground be safe?
London Underground has announced plans to run services through the night at weekends but to close all ticket offices, with a net loss of 750 jobs. Staff unions have promised to fight the ticket office closure plans, which they say will compromise safety, especially for the most vulnerable passengers. There are also concerns about how maintenance will be carried out in a system that — unlike New York City’s Subway and the Copenhagen metro — was not designed for round-the-clock services. In his election campaign last year,...
read moreThe Indonesian capital Jakarta has given the go-ahead for construction of a long-awaited underground and elevated mass rapid transit system. The first phase will link Lebak Bulus in South Jakarta to Central Jakarta and is due to be operational by 2018. A second phase will connect the centre to Kampung Bandan in North Jakarta and is scheduled to be in action in 2020. The whole system will consist of 13 stations, with seven elevated and six underground, and is intended to reduce traffic in the congested megacity by around 30 per...
read moreGhana needs quality public transport, says employers’ association leader
The developmental importance of quality public transport has been highlighted this week by the Ghana Employers Association (GEA), which has told the country’s government that a clear transport plan is urgently needed. Chronic traffic congestion in the main cities of Accra and Kumasi means that private business employees report for duty late and tired, and “cannot give of their best”, according to Alex Frimpong, GEA’s chief executive officer, as reported in www.ghanaweb.com. Mr Frimpong added that road congestion was also...
read moreFares up, passenger numbers down: the sorry trends of British buses
Britain’s Department for Transport published the annual bus statistics for England yesterday — and they tell a sorry tale of fares rising above inflation and falling passenger numbers. Just when the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change is issuing its starkest warnings yet, the signs in Britain are that the people who need public transport most are being priced out, while motorists are given insufficient incentive to get out of their cars. The statistics show that English bus fares have gone up by an average of 4.7...
read moreRoad deaths are a global epidemic. Quality Public Transport is one of the cures.
Quality public transport systems and services are vital not only to make cities of the future more liveable and sustainable, and to enable the poorest as well as the richest citizens to access the jobs, markets and services they need. There is growing awareness that quality public transport is also literally a matter of life and death. As an article published today in The Guardian reminds us, 1.2 million people die and up to 50 million are injured in traffic accidents annually, nearly half of them in cities. An even larger number die...
read moreNew drive for quality 28 years after English bus deregulation
www.nationalrail.co.ukTyne and Wear Integrated Transport Authority (ITA) is planning to hold the private operators that run bus services in and around the English city of Newcastle to higher standards as set out in proposed quality contracts. It is the first initiative of its kind in Britain since local bus services became one of the first examples of privatisation and deregulation introduced by Margaret Thatcher’s government in 1985. But the private bus companies are bitterly opposed, and are proposing a voluntary quality service scheme...
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