New Delhi among 10 worst cities for commuters

If you think your drive to work is bad then spare a thought for commuters in the cities of Beijing, Mexico City and Johannesburg which have come top in a global poll of the worst driving commutes in the world.

An IBM Commuter Pain Study of 8,192 motorists in 20 cities, released on Wednesday, found mostcommuters -- 67 percent -- said traffic has got worse in the past three years and it is making them sick and affecting how they do their job.

Rounding out the top 10 of the worst cities for commuters were Moscow, New Delhi, Sao Paulo, Milan, Buenos Aires, Madrid and London, with scores determined by up to 10 factors including commuting time, time stuck in traffic, and stress levels.

The survey found 65 percent of people driving to work every day say the journey makes them stressed, angry and reduces their sleep and family time while 29 percent said traffic was adversely impacting theirperformance at work or school.

Some cities came out worse than others with 22 percent of commuters in Mexico City taking more than an hour a day for a typical one-way trip to work compared to only two percent of commuters in New York or Madrid taking that long.

"Cities like Beijing and Mexico City have very long commutes and the uncertainty of the commute is high as one day it can take 45 minutes and the next day two hours," IBM's Global Lead for Intelligent Transportation Naveen Lamba told Reuters.

"This means a lot of time stuck in traffic and on occasions people just give up and go back home ... and it is not just the individuals affected but there is a cost for businesses and for the cities themselves. You have a cascading affect."

Lamba said this was the third annual commuter pain survey but this was the first global poll as the previous two had focused only on U.S. cities.

"When we focused on the United States, the cities you expect - like Los Angeles, New York and Chicago - came up as some of the worst commutes as these are cities where congestion is bad and commutes are long but in a global context they looked very efficient in terms of transportation," he said.

"Developing cities are growing so fast that you are seeing congestion building up very quickly as opposed to large cities in developed countries where congestion has taken decades to build up, giving officials more time to address the problem."

For example the number of new cars registered in Beijing in the first four months of 2010 rose 23.8 percent to 248,000, according to the Beijing municipal taxation office.

He said although Beijing topped the list, most commuters in the Chinese capital said the situation was improving after rapid growth in the city caused enormous congestion.

"In fact Beijing had the highest number of people who said the situation had got better in the past three years (48 percent)," said Lamba.

"Beijing has invested in adding to its transport infrastructure and subway system so we can see why travellers feel it is getting better."

The survey found the top frustrations among commuters were stop-start traffic, which bugged 42 percent of people, and rude drivers, who irritated 32 percent of commuters.

But despite the frustrations and the economic downturn, few commuters had changed the way they go to work with 84 percent saying the financial crisis had not stopped them driving to work.

"Even though commuters say the traffic is getting worse, for some reason people seem fond of their cars," said Lamba who hoped the information from the survey could be used by transport officials to better understand and manage traffic flow.

The other 10 cities involved in the survey were Paris, Toronto, Amsterdam, Los Angeles, Berlin, Montreal, New York, Houston, Melbourne and Stockholm.

Link:IBN

Every Breath You Take

First the bad news: More than half of 130 Indian cities being monitored for air pollution are at critically polluted levels. 

Now the good news: Air pollution in Indian cities has been proved to be reversible, with improvements in public transport or changing over to greener fuels, reducing pollution levels. 

But, now the really bad news: With industries being relocated to the peripheries of cities, growing urbanization and poor scrutiny outside big cities, small towns are emerging as India’s pollution hotspots. 

According to WHO estimates, roughly 0.1 million premature deaths annually can be attributed to air pollution. Exposure to air pollution causes both short-term and long-term health effects, from eye irritation and headaches to reduced lung capacity and lung cancer, with vehicular pollution being particularly harmful. The poor are the worst off, facing higher exposure and being unable to afford high healthcare costs. A 2005 World Bank report estimated that 13,000 lives and $1279 million were saved annually between 1993 and 2002 in five cities Delhi, Kolkata, Mumbai, Chennai and Hyderabad — as a result of measures taken to improve air quality. 

A look at data for 2008 recorded by the Central Pollution Control Board (CPCB) shows that Indian cities are choked. Of the 130 cities monitored, 70 have hit levels defined as critical for the presence of PM10, tiny particles of less than 10 microns in size regarded as the most dangerous pollutant as they can go deep into the lungs. However, the top five cities are Ludhiana, Khanna (both in Punjab), Ghaziabad, Khurja and Firozabad (all in UP). Delhi, the city where judicial activism for cleaner air has led to the ejection of polluting industries, comes in at sixth place. 

The improvements in some major cities and the simultaneous emergence of several smaller towns as pollution hotspots shows that what we are seeing is national policy failure, says Anumita Roychowdhury, associate director of the CSE. 

Northern India is far more polluted than the south, with Gobindgarh (Punjab), Kanpur (UP), Indore (MP) and Raipur (Chhattisgarh) rounding out the top-10 list. Some cities in south are showing rising PM10 trends — Hyderabad, Tuticorin, Bangalore and Coimbatore in particular. While particulate matter comes from a variety of sources, PM10 is largely from vehicles. 

Eastern India, meanwhile, shows high levels of nitrogen dioxide which is fast emerging as a national challenge, according to the Centre for Science and Environment. In 1998, only five cities exceeded the national standards for presence of NO2. In 2008, 15 cities showed violations, most of them in eastern India: Howrah, Asansol, Durgapur and Kolkata have India’s highest NO2 levels. Increasing numbers of diesel cars, particularly in Delhi, is also a major cause of rising NO2 levels, according to the CSE. 

The pollution control efforts in Indian cities show, however, that air pollution is not irreversible and this is not a lost battle. Public and judicial activism have resulted in eight cities — Delhi, Kanpur, Lucknow, Ahmedabad, Hyderabad, Bangalore, Chennai, and Sholapur being directly monitored by the Environment Pollution (Prevention and Control) Authority under Supreme Court orders. Mumbai and Kolkata are under the scrutiny of their high courts. According to a CSE report, Ahmedabad has reduced its PM10 levels by nearly 50%, Solapur (Maharashtra) by 57% and Chennai, Pune and Kolkata have stopped its growth. 

Pollution levels have stabilized to some extent in some of these cities, but in the absence of aggressive action, these gains are in danger of being reversed. In Delhi, for example, the significant gains made from decades of public activism have been reversed and PM10, NO2 and ozone levels are rising fast according to CPCB data. 

At the heart of the matter lies the fact that the bulk of pollution in Indian cities is caused by cars, and despite changes to greener fuels and improvements in public transport, direct curbs on number of cars on roads seems to be inevitable to manage pollution. In Delhi alone, 1100 vehicles are being added to the city’s five million every day, with car ownership growing at 10% annually since 1995. 

Public ridership, meanwhile, has dropped from 60% in 2000-1 to 43% in 2008. In addition to investing in public transport, restraints on car ownership and usage are unavoidable if pollution is to be brought down to acceptable levels, says Roychowdhury.

Link TOI

JERSEY CORNER

Soccer teams to wear recycled bottles!

How many plastic bottles will Ronaldo or Robinho wear during the World Cup football? This is no yarn. They will wear jerseys made of recycled plastic bottles. Say yes to plastic is the message in the bottle. This may sound outrageous, but is precisely the message nine countries in the football World Cup in South Africa are spreading. 

With five-time world champions Brazil leading the charge, as it were, the Netherlands, Portugal, United States, South Korea, Australia, New Zealand, Serbia and Slovenia are using plastic to tell the world that it is the best way to end its adverse environmental impact. 

    

In an email interview, a top official of Nike, which manufactured the jerseys, said many of the world’s leading players, including Cristiano Ronaldo, Robinho and Ji-Sung Park, will take to the pitch in South Africa wearing environmentfriendly jerseys. The jerseys are made entirely from recycled polyester, each one produced from up to eight recycled plastic bottles, said the official. 13M BOTTLES USED FOR JERSEYS 

Nine teams taking part in the World Cup in South Africa will be outfitted with jerseys which are environment friendly. With each team fielding a 23-member player contingent, it automatically means 184 bottles are used up per team at a time. With each player given an elaborate kit, the number of bottles consumed is mind-boggling as it is heartening. 

    As it is, the jerseys have helped in diverting around 13 million plastic bottles, totalling nearly 254,000 kg of polyester waste, from landfill sites. This amount would be enough to cover more than 29 football pitches, the official pointed out.

    And if the recycled bottles used to make the jerseys were laid end-to-end they would cover more than 3,000 km, which is more than the entire coastline of South Africa. 

    To manufacture the kits, the sports goods manufacturer’s fabric suppliers sourced discarded plastic bottles from Japanese and Taiwanese landfill sites and then melted them down to produce new yarn that was ultimately converted to fabric for the jerseys. This process saves raw materials and reduces energy consumption by up to 30 % compared to manufacturing virgin polyester, the official claimed. 

Football teams: 9 Team members: 

23 per team 

1 jersey: 8 recycled bottles 

Jerseys: available in retail too 

Total bottles: 

13 million

With the jerseys available in retail, the idea seems potent enough to significantly lower plastic’s impact on the environment. 

    The manufacturers also claim that there will be no adverse body reaction to the plastic as the product has been tested carefully. 

    Whether Nike will source bottles from India is not known. But with the country being known for its extensive use of plastic, it may well strike it rich here. In any case, the jerseys are available in India. That will be good news for all those worried about the environment. 

    Time then to take on plastic, eight bottles at a time.