Passengers' Experiences
* Turkey - Knight in a white van - “What? You provide free transportation to and from work?”
Istanbul,Turkey -Today's Zaman -26 May 2007: -- ... After moving to İstanbul I knew it was impossible for me to drive in this massive city, the cheap and convenient public transport offering a better alternative... İstanbul traffic is unimaginable. Car and gas prices also make buying and driving a car uneconomical for me. Also, I quickly discovered that Turkish people, generally so nice, kind, and helpful, turn into aggressive lunatics when behind the wheel... Thankfully my new boss told me that the school provided a free service bus that picked up school personnel from Erenköy, alleviating my fears. Service buses are normal and indeed an expected commodity provided by almost every workplace in İstanbul... White vans with the school or company logo on the side, they can be seen everywhere during rush hour in the morning and at night. For companies it’s one of the best ways to make sure employees arrive and leave on time. For the city, it helps cut pollution and reduce traffic congestion. For those on the service buses, it takes away the stress of dealing with traffic and parking...
* Chile - Transantiago: A cautionary tale of public transportarion in
Santiago,Chile -pauliescan.spaces.live, by Paul Francois/Fellow Traveller -26 May 2007: -- The story of Transantiago began with the urgent need to do everything to reduce the smog in Santiago, which is surrounded by mountains and suffers the problem of thermal inversion in winter which can effectively prevent the pollution from escaping... One third of the population of Chile, and an even higher proportion of its industry, is located in Santiago, the majority of its freight movement is by diesel - powered trucks spewing black fumes into the air. In addition 60% of the working population of Santiago go to work by private car, in spite of a continuously expanding subway system. Transantiago hopes to get people out of their cars and into the public transport system by combining the use of the subway and the buses by permitting transfers granting a ride of up to 90 minutes for a single fare... In 1990 when the military regime ended there were 14000 buses on the streets of Santiago. In 10 years the number had been reduced to 8000 by creating monopolies on main routes and putting them up for bids. Transantiago aims for a further reduction to 5600 which, apart from reducing the number of deaths from traffic accidents from 1 every 3 days, should significantly reduce air and noise pollution and diesel consumption... The government did not choose to nationalize the system, so it gave concessions to 5 large companies to provide main routes with articulated buses carrying up to 180 passengers and feeder routes with smaller buses... Transantiago was born on February 10, 2007. "Public" transportation has always been a problem in Santiago because, with the exception of the subway, it is privately owned with hundreds of owners. Buses race against each other to fight for passengers as the drivers are paid a percentage of fares instead of fixed salaries. The result is too many badly maintained vehicles, accidents, smog, noise and violent assaults on the drivers as the passengers pay cash... In the meantime the pressure is on to fine-tune the operations for the first week of March 2007... The Government is fining the bus operators for not putting the stipulated number of buses on the road and not providing minimal facilities for drivers at the terminals... Transantiago continues to limp along in spite of new routes being added and a frantic program of construction of sheltered bus stops. The system is running at a considerable loss covered by Government subsidies. Meanwhile the news media are having a field day blaming everything on Transantiago from lower productivity to increased stress in the workplace...
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