The Final Report of the LiRa-2 project was presented at the LiRa-2 Conference on 15 September 2005 in Manchester. A report of the conference can be viewed on the website. In the LiRa-2 download section all presentations are available and also background reports that give more details about the projects and the case studies.

At the LiRa-2 Conference in Manchester a new transportation model was introduced: the Rapid Transit Options Assessment Tool. It was developed to determine, in an early stage of planning, what type of public transport is feasible in a given situation.
To give more people from 'the continent' an opportunity to get acquainted with the model, a workshop is organised at 4 November 2005 in Utrecht, from 11 till 16 h. The venue is next to the Utrecht Central railway station. The presentations will be in Dutch. If you want to participate, send an e-mail to Jan Termorshuizen, project manager of LiRa-2 (terj@haaglanden.nl). Applications are handled at a first-come, first served basis.

The first phase of work on the ambitious Wolverhampton Interchange Project starts next week.

The Interchange project will see road, rail, bus and Metro services brought together on a single site in the city centre to enable passengers to make easy transfers between modes of public transport and will feature world-class facilities.

Initial work will involve improving the main access to the future Interchange area through the creation of a left only lane and local widening of the Ring Road St Davids / Horseley Fields junction, and improvements at Corn Hill junction. This includes traffic signals and pedestrian crossing facilities, to provide extra capacity and improved safety. Work on this phase is due to start on October 10th and is due to be completed in March 2006.


Artist's impression of the re-developed railway station in the Interchange area.

Councillor Milkinderpal Jaspal, Wolverhampton City Council's Cabinet Member for Transportation, said: "The work will only be carried out in off-peak hours - between 9.30am and 3.30pm - until November 14th. From Nov 14th until January 9th 2006, to minimise disruption, work will be carried out overnight, between the hours of 9.00pm and 6.30am."

A temporary speed limit of 20mph will be imposed on the southbound Ring Road carriageway within the vicinity of the works for the safety of road users and the workforce. Horseley Fields will be closed for a period of around ten weeks for the diversion of underground services from January 2006. A diversion route - Bilston Road island, Middle Cross and back onto Horseley Fields - will be put in place and sign-posted.

Councillor Milkinder Jaspal, Wolverhampton City Council's Cabinet Member for Transportation, said: "We would like to apologise for any inconvenience caused by the work that is necessary for the completion of this phase of the Interchange project and will make every effort to keep disruption to a minimum.

"The Interchange will promote public transport as an accessible, easy and efficient mode which will improve journey times. It will create a high-quality public transport gateway to Wolverhampton and provide a better environment for pedestrians and cyclists as well as new and improved road access and parking facilities for motorists", he added.


Artist's impression of the Interchange area showing the station, multi-storey car park, new road access, widened bridge and pedestrian canopy

The Wolverhampton Interchange project will involve:

• New road accesses to the rail and bus stations
• Widening of Railway Drive and limiting access to public transport, pedestrians, cyclists and taxis
• A high-quality covered walkway to link the bus and rail stations
• An extension of the Midland Metro routed to the Interchange
• Refurbishment of the multi-storey car park at the rail station
• Refurbishment of the rail and bus stations
• A state-of-the-art information system to help passengers plan journeys.

HiTrans is an Interreg IIIB project under the North Sea programme, and is funded 50% by the EU regional development funds, and 50% by the partners of the project.

HiTrans has partners in Norway, Sweden, Denmark, England and Scotland. Rogaland County Council of South-Western Norway is lead partner. The project commenced October 2002 and will finish September 2005.

Car ownership and usage in European cities is increasing, especially in medium size cities.

One of the explanations to why this is occurring especially in these cities compared to larger cities, is that large cities tend to be served by rapid and frequent modes of public transport; e.g. subways. On the contrary, medium sized cities, where public transport tends to be based on regular bus services, often struggle to make people choose to travel by public transport instead of private cars. Hence there is a need to develop and implement more attractive modes of public transport in medium sized cities.

A challenge, especially valid to these cities is that the potential patronage and revenue is relatively small. Therefore, there is a strong focus on and a need for cost optimised solutions when it comes to alternative concepts for public transport. Over the past 20 years, new and more cost-effective technologies for high quality public transport have been developed and introduced in various cities around the world e.g. high tech light rails, guided bus ways and high quality bus systems.

Through numerous examples the HiTrans best practice guides illustrate how high quality public transport also can be achieved in medium sized cities.

The best practice guides were presented at the HiTrans Conference at 22 and 23 September 2005 in Århus. More information on HiTrans can be obtained from the website www.hitrans.org.

The Hague, 5 October 2005 - Just like this year, the City Region Haaglanden will grant € 10 million to enhance personal security in public transport in 2006. This amount will be increased by € 3 million in the next three years for controlling personnel on the new RandstadRail light rail lines between The Hague and Zoetermeer. This can be read in the 'Long-Term Plan on Personal Security in Public Transport 2006 - 2009' that the board of the City Region Haaglanden has decided on. Apart from this, € 6,5 million will be spent on amenities on the stations and stops of RandstadRail.

Mr. Bruno Bruins, responsible for Transportation and Mobility at the City Region, states: 'The expenditures on personal security are clearly bearing fruit. Public Transport travellers feel safer now and we have less incidents and non-paying travellers. The statistics indicate, that the appreciation of the travellers rose from a scanty 7,1 in 2001 to a good 7,8 in 2004, on a scale from 1 to 10. In these years the number of incidents went down by 13% and we have much less non-paying travellers now. This also improves feeling safe. For short, we continue our present policy and do something extra for RandstadRail, because we want to make a good start with these new lines.'

The budget for personal security is spent on the wages of controlling personnel, education and training, aggression management and fixing damage. The realisation of RandstadRail will bring about some structural measures, like cameras, emergency phones and public address systems on the stops. In the RandstadRail vehicles, HTM will also apply cameras.

In the bus station in front of the railway station of Leuven, the regional public transport company De Lijn informs its clients by the real time Travellers Information System (TIS). This system gives real time information on the departure times of the buses through digital screens. This way, a traveller can get immediately the information on the bus he or she wants to board and about possible delays. Behind the digital screens is an extensive network of technical systems. We'll have a look behind the screens.

Real time information
The TIS is based on the data that are pun into Hastus. Hastus is the computer program that is also used to make the timetables and the line-schedules. The Hastus-system produces the theoretical departure times. These times are completed with real time data. The traveller can see the real departure time on the screen, corrected for two types of delay: delay of connecting trains and traffic-induced delays of the buses.
The delay of the buses that is caused by waiting for a train where a connection is required is copied from the Aribus-system that computes the delay for the transfer from train to bus. This information is also shown to the bus drivers on small screens on the platform. If the time is indicated in red, the driver should wait, if it is green, he can go.
The TIS also gets information on delays of the buses in traffic or by accidents. This is possible because all buses have a GPS transponder. This way, the exact position of the bus is known, from which possible delays are computed by the Monitoring system. The Monitoring system tracks all buses, to give traffic management the opportunity to follow the buses on their computer screens. Every scenario is given its specific colour. A bus that runs on schedule is green, one that is behind will be blue and the buses that are ahead will be shown in red. This way problems can be prevented.

The TIS combines both types of delay to one indicator that gives the total delay of the bus. Hence, the traveller obtains the real departure times from digital screens in the pedestrian tunnel and at the platforms. The screens can also be used to give extra information on problems or modifications of the time table.
The information on the screens is refreshed every 40 seconds. Apart from that, the information on a certain bus is removed from the screens when the bus is detected by the loops at the exit of the bus station.

Future developments
The response from the public indicates a very positive attitude to the screens, displaying real time information. This has made De Lijn to decide to invest € 4,39 million in 2006 to install more digital screens with real time information. Today the screens are used in Leuven, Brugge, Hasselt, Mechelen and Oostende. Ten other large bus stations will be supplied with the system: Aarschot, Antwerpen Left Bank, Brugge 't Zand, Brussel-Noord, Brussel-Zuid, Halle, Kortrijk, Merksem, Sint-Truiden and Tienen. In each of these stations general displays and platform displays will be mounted. In bus stations with a separate waiting room, a television screen will display the information.