The Courier Shop

When compared with the rest of the world anyway!

Moscow copes with the two-and-a-half hour traffic jam
– Despite congestion, Beijing drivers report improvement in traffic
– Houston, New York and Los Angeles fare well, relatively speaking

The daily commute in some of the world’s most economically important international cities is longer and more grueling than before imagined, reflecting the failure of transportation infrastructure to keep pace with economic activity, according to IBM’s (NYSE: IBM) first global Commuter Pain study released today.

IBM surveyed 8,192 motorists in 20 cities on six continents, the majority of whom say that traffic has gotten worse in the past three years. The congestion in many of today’s developing cities is a relatively recent phenomenon, having paralleled the rapid economic growth of those cities during the past decade or two. By contrast, the traffic in places like New York, Los Angeles or London has developed gradually over many decades, giving officials more time and resources to address the problem.

For example, the middle class in China is growing rapidly, with the number of new cars registered in Beijing in the first four months of 2010 rising 23.8% to 248,000, according to the Beijing municipal taxation office. Beijing’s total investments in its subway system are projected to be more than 331.2 billion yuan by 2015 as the city expands the system to more than double its current size, according to Beijing Infrastructure Investment Co., Ltd.  The city plans to invest 80 billion yuan in 2010 in building its transportation infrastructure.

The study did offer a number of bright spots. Forty eight percent of drivers surveyed in Beijing reported that traffic has improved in the past three years – the high for the survey – reflecting substantial initiatives to improve the transportation network in that city.  In addition, the commute for drivers in Stockholm, Sweden seems to be, if not pleasant, then largely pain-free. Only 14% of Stockholm drivers surveyed said that roadway traffic negatively affected work or school performance.

Overall, though, the study paints a picture of metropolitan-area commuters in many cities struggling to get to and from work each day. For example, 57% of all respondents say that roadway traffic has negatively affected their health, but that percentage is 96% in New Delhi and 95% in Beijing.

Similarly, 29% overall say that roadway traffic has negatively affected work or school performance, but that percentage rises to 84% in Beijing, 62% in New Delhi, and 56% in Mexico City.

Moscow was notable for the duration of its traffic jams. Drivers there reported an average delay of two-and-a-half hours when asked to report the length of the worst traffic jam they experienced in the past three years.

IBM Commuter Pain Index

IBM compiled the results of the survey into an Index that ranks the emotional and economic toll of commuting in each city on a scale of one to 100, with 100 being the most onerous. The Index reveals a tremendous disparity in the pain of the daily commute from city to city. Stockholm had the least painful commute of the cities studied, followed by Melbourne and Houston (which tied) and New York City. Here’s how the cities stack up:

The index is comprised of 10 issues: 1) commuting time, 2) time stuck in traffic, agreement that: 3) price of gas is already too high, 4) traffic has gotten worse, 5) start-stop traffic is a problem, 6) driving causes stress, 7) driving causes anger, traffic affects work, 9) traffic so bad driving stopped, and 10) decided not to make trip due to traffic. The cities scored as follows: Beijing: 99, Mexico City: 99, Johannesburg: 97, Moscow: 84, New Delhi: 81, Sao Paolo: 75, Milan: 52, Buenos Aires: 50, Madrid: 48, London: 36, Paris: 36, Toronto: 32, Amsterdam: 25, Los Angeles: 25, Berlin: 24, Montreal: 23, New York: 19, Houston: 17, Melbourne: 17, Stockholm: 15.

“Traditional solutions — building more roads — will not be enough to overcome the growth of traffic in these rapidly developing cities, so multiple solutions need to be deployed simultaneously to avoid a failure of the transportation networks,” said Naveen Lamba, IBM’s global industry lead for intelligent transportation. “New techniques are required that empower transportation officials to better understand and proactively manage the flow of traffic.”

IBM Global Commuter Pain Survey – Major Findings

Analysis of the survey results indicated a number of key findings related to how traffic impacts commuters:

• 49% of drivers in the 20 cities think that roadway traffic has gotten worse in the last three years, and 18% think it has gotten a lot worse.  Five percent say traffic has improved substantially, with only Beijing (16%) and New Delhi (17%) reaching double digit scores.  There are seven trouble spots based on the bottom two box scores (ranking traffic as “somewhat” or “a lot worse”):  Johannesburg (80%), Moscow (64%), Toronto (64%), Mexico City (62%), Sao Paulo (61%), Milan (59%) and Buenos Aires (57%).
• 87% of the respondents have been stuck in roadway traffic in the last three years.  The average delay is one hour. The “best” cities are Melbourne, Stockholm and Buenos Aires, where 25% or more say they have never been stuck in traffic. On the other end of the spectrum, the average reported delay in Moscow is 2.5 hours, where more than 40% say they have been stuck in traffic for more than three hours.
• 31% of respondents said that during the past three years traffic has been so bad that they turned around and went home. The percentage in Beijing, however, is 69%, the high for the survey; and only 15% in Berlin, representing the low.
• If commuting time could be reduced, 16% of respondents worldwide would choose to work more. In New Delhi, 40% said they would work more, the high for the survey; while 5% in Madrid would work more, representing the low.

The Commuter Pain Survey was conducted by IBM to better understand consumer thinking toward traffic congestion as the issue reaches crisis proportions nationwide and higher levels of auto emissions stir environmental concerns. These events are impacting communities around the world, where governments, citizens and private sector organizations are looking beyond traditional remedies like additional roads and greater access to public transportation to reverse the negative impacts of increased road congestion.

This year marks the first global Commuter Pain survey. IBM previously conducted the Commuter Pain survey in the United States in 2008 and 2009.

IBM is actively working in the area of Smarter Transportation using a worldwide team of scientists, industry experts and IT services professionals to research, test and deploy new traffic information management capabilities in cities around the world. Findings from the Commuter Pain Survey will be used to assess citizen concerns about traffic and commuter issues; expand solutions like automated tolling, real-time traffic prediction, congestion charging, and intelligent route planning; and serve as a basis for pioneering innovative new approaches to traffic mitigation.

As couriers we depend on our driving licenses, without them we couldn’t legally drive and deliver the goods. There are new changes coming in regarding drink driving and it seems just one pint could now put you over the limit.

Often couriers (and those that drive for a living) are the designated drivers when going out as simply we know the amount of alcohol that is in our bloodstream could affect our perceptions, and result in a ban, so we don’t drink. A driving ban would end our businesses in 95% of cases, so couriers are very careful.

Budweiser are launching a campaign to remind people of their responsibilities, and it’s rather funny. Go take a look, it doesn’t last long.

Think the dance will catch on?

With the new plans to lower the drink drive limits, designated drivers are vital.

The report, drawn up by Sir Peter North and commissioned by the former Labour government, recommends that the limit for drink-driving falls from 80mg of alcohol per 100ml of blood to 50mg. That would bring Britain into line with most other European countries.

Philip Hammond, the Transport Secretary, will publish the report today and will study its findings. If he goes ahead and backs the new lower drink drive limit it will be controversial, as the Conservatives had opposed such a move in opposition.

Sir Peter, who is the former Principal of Jesus College, Oxford, is likely to urge a tightening of other aspects of the procedures that surround drink-drive arrests. The Telegraph

Present legislation means that if the breathalyser is close to the ‘over limit’ marker, you can request a blood test or to give a urine sample. The time this takes allows the alcohol to disperse a bit more and a positive reading can become a negative one -it takes an hour for the body to break down a unit of alcohol.

So if you like a strong beer, or a large glass of wine you need to redress your drinking habits – with the incoming 50mg allowance, you could easily be over the limit after one pint or glass of wine.

If in doubt, don’t drink it.

Sarah

Alternatively titled – Van drivers and Legionnaires disease
Do you drive a van? or do a lot of motoring in industrialised areas?
Do you suffer headaches, muscle pain, chills, high fever, shortness of breath, a persistent cough and chest pains? It could be Legionnaires disease. That shocked me, Legionnaires disease is something that I associate with manky hospital air con and water systems, not something I would associate with van drivers and motorists.

Apparently the warm stagnant water that we use to wash our windscreens is a breeding ground for the germ. As we know engines are lovely warm places and the water that we wash our windscreens with can easily breed the disease, as it’s got all the right conditions for it.

It’s easily cured according to the researchers, just use screen wash.

“Not adding screenwash to windscreen wiper fluid is a previously unidentified risk factor and appears to be strongly associated with community acquired sporadic cases of legionnaires’ disease,”

the researchers wrote.

So if you drive a lot you are 5 times more likely to catch the disease and the researchers think 20% of Legionnaires are caught this way, through washing your windscreens without screenwash.

Something worth thinking about? I think so.

Thanks to Andy @practicaleq asking where my blog on this was

Sarah

When you are on the road for many hours at a time, like a courier, like a lorry driver you see many road signs reminding us drivers to be careful. But this takes the biscuit, a Fox’s biscuit at that!

This sign was spotted, and photographed, by Jo Abbot, who works for the RAC Foundation. It appears on a rural road between Wheatley and Waterperry in Oxfordshire.

Sarah

Why bother with courier insurance? Really, with bother with it all – even if you are a safe driver and have never had an accident.

With end users driving down the costs of their transport services some couriers are looking at ways of cutting their overheads. Insurance is one area where they think they can make savings.

Lowering the premiums by lowering the the amount they insure.
Instead of a courier carrying £50,000 worth of goods in transit cover, many are lowering their costs by slashing it to £10,000 worth of goods in transit cover instead. As a customer it’s essential you check how much cover you have and as a courier you should be responsible and ethical and let your customers know of any downgrading in the insurances that you have.

Not declaring accidents
There will always be some that don’t declare accidents regardless of what the financial climate is like. It is thought by some, that not declaring any accidents will keep their premiums low and thus their customers happy. These things have a way of coming back and biting you when you least expect it. We recently heard of a courier owner driver being hauled into court for reckless driving, the first account of the incident the police and insurer heard were the alleged victim’s. Honesty would have paid off 10 fold in this case, instead it’s costing lawyers fee’s and increased their premiums anyway.

Not having any insurance at all.
Yes you did read right, there are some couriers finding their jobs are so infrequent and their income is so low, that insurance is a financial liability to them. Never mind that it’s illegal, there are some that are just cutting back wherever they can to save us much money as they can. This is another false economy.

As a courier you shouldn’t put yourself in a vulnerable position and drive illegally – it’s your livelihood you are losing and a criminal record you are close to gaining.

Work safe, secure and legally.

Sarah