All posts tagged: transport

CN workers to strike Monday, vow to fight Canada move to end rail shutdown | Labour Rights News

CN workers to strike Monday, vow to fight Canada move to end rail shutdown | Labour Rights News

Published by Sam

The union representing workers at the Canadian National Railway (CN) says they will strike next week, in a new threat to the economy after promising to challenge a government decision to end an unprecedented rail stoppage. The Teamsters union filed notice on Friday, just days after returning to work, that conductors, locomotive engineers and other workers at Montreal-based CN would strike on Monday. The announcement is the latest twist in a labour dispute at Canada’s top two railroads, which locked out more than 9,000 unionised workers on Thursday, triggering a simultaneous rail stoppage that business groups said could inflict hundreds of millions of dollars in economic damage. Labour Minister Steven MacKinnon, citing the risk to the economy, asked the Canada Industrial Relations Board (CIRB) on Thursday to order an end to the stoppage and also impose binding arbitration on the union as well as on CN and rival Canadian Pacific Kansas City (CPK). Canada, the world’s second largest country by area, relies heavily on trains to transport a wide range of commodities and goods. Business …

London City airport: 54% of journeys take under six hours by train, data shows | Air transport

London City airport: 54% of journeys take under six hours by train, data shows | Air transport

Published by skeptic

More than half of the journeys taken from London City airport last year can be reached in six hours or less by train, data reveals. The Labour government is preparing to make the final call on the airport’s application to significantly increase its passenger numbers. The airport wants to increase capacity from 6.5 million to 9 million passengers a year by putting on more weekend and early morning flights. The analysis, by the New Economics Foundation thinktank (NEF) and the environmental charity Possible, found that destinations served by the airport were mostly in mainland Europe and could be reached easily by train. It found that 43.7% of the airport’s destinations could be reached in under five hours, 54.1% in under six and 66.2% in under eight. The most popular routes – including Amsterdam, which made up 15% of the airport’s flights in 2023 and Edinburgh, which made up 10% – can be reached quickly by train: Amsterdam takes four hours and Edinburgh four hours and 20 minutes. Many English airports are seeking to expand. Gatwick, …

‘Groundbreaking’: How children in Hawaii won landmark climate case | Climate News

‘Groundbreaking’: How children in Hawaii won landmark climate case | Climate News

Published by Sam

EXPLAINER A group of children and young activists has won a constitutional case forcing a government department to curb emissions from the transport sector in Hawaii. In an historic settlement of a climate change lawsuit brought by 13 children and young activists in 2022, the Hawaiian department of transport agreed on Thursday to decarbonise its transport sector with a goal of reaching zero emissions by 2045. Hawaii was already aiming for carbon neutrality by 2045, which means balancing the carbon emitted into the atmosphere by capturing or offsetting it. But this settlement forces the department to go further by halting carbon emissions altogether. The settlement has been hailed as groundbreaking. “[This] is the world’s first youth-led constitutional climate case addressing climate pollution from the transportation sector,” said Earthjustice, a nonprofit environmental law organisation, after the settlement was announced. Hearings for the case were due to begin on Monday next week, but will no longer go ahead. What was the Hawaii climate lawsuit about? A group of children and young people filed the lawsuit, Navahine v …

Alaska limits cruise ship passengers in capital city after 1.6m visitors last year | Travel and transport

Alaska limits cruise ship passengers in capital city after 1.6m visitors last year | Travel and transport

Published by skeptic

Alaska’s capital city is to limit the numbers of cruise ship passengers arriving at the port amid concerns over tourism’s growing impact, but a leading critic of the industry has said further measures to protect Alaskans’ quality of life are needed. Located on the Gastineau Channel in southern Alaska, Juneau has a population of 32,000 and last year received a record 1.65 million cruise ship passengers – a 23% increase from the previous high. While many businesses encourage the bonanza of tourist dollars, other people are bothered by buzzing helicopters, crowded streets and hiking trails, and damage to the local environment. Seeking to balance the economic benefits against the effects of high numbers of visitors, the city reached an agreement last week with the Cruise Lines International Association in Alaska that will limit daily cruise passenger arrivals to 16,000 from Sundays to Fridays and to 12,000 on Saturdays. Juneau’s tourism manager, Alexandra Pierce, said: “The city’s position is that we do not have room for cruise growth with our current infrastructure and we have negotiated …

Wealthy white men are UK’s biggest transport polluters, study finds | Transport

Wealthy white men are UK’s biggest transport polluters, study finds | Transport

Published by skeptic

Wealthy white men from rural areas are the UK’s biggest emitters of climate-heating gases from transport, according to a study. Research by the Institute for Public Policy Research (IPPR) looked at transport emissions by income, gender, location, ethnicity and age. The study broke down the transport emissions into international and domestic flights, private road transport and public transport. Wealth The richest 0.1% in Britain emit 22 times more from transport than low earners, and 12 times more than average. The data finds that income is directly linked to levels of mobility, with people who earn more than £100,000 travelling on average at least double the distance each year compared with those on incomes under £30,000. Those in the most deprived 10% are responsible for by far the fewest emissions, though flying still makes up more than half of their total emissions. Graph showing how transport emissions steadily increase by every decile from most deprived to least deprived. Gender Men are responsible for significantly more emissions from transport than women are. – 1; }) .map(function (sheet) …

Law passed to protect critical transport firms from ‘malicious actors’, other disruptions

Law passed to protect critical transport firms from ‘malicious actors’, other disruptions

Published by skeptic

WHAT ARE THE CHANGES? The new law will subject the designated entities to controls in three areas: Ownership, management appointments, and in their operations and resourcing. Under new proposed ownership controls, buyers will need to notify the authorities within seven days of becoming a 5 per cent controller of an entity. Approval is needed for other controlling thresholds – 25, 50 and 75 per cent – or if buyers gain indirect control over a designated entity. Sellers are also required to seek approval when they lower their controlling interest in an entity below the thresholds of 25 per cent, 50 per cent and 75 per cent. Designated entities must notify the authorities within seven days of becoming aware of these changes in ownership and control. Also proposed in the law are management appointment controls, with new approval requirements for designated entities to appoint the chief executive officer and the chairperson of the board. For a designated operating entity that is also a licensee under the relevant authority, approval will be required for the appointment of …

UK marks landmark AI investment to develop self-driving vehicles

UK marks landmark AI investment to develop self-driving vehicles

Published by skeptic

UK AI company Wayve has announced a $1.05bn investment to develop the next generation of AI-powered self-driving vehicles today. Backed by tech giants such as Microsoft, Wayve will use this investment to develop and launch the first embodied AI technology for self-driving vehicles in the UK. Embodied AI will enable automated vehicles to learn from and interact with a real-world environment. This includes the ability to navigate and learn from situations that do not follow strict patterns or rules, such as unexpected actions by drivers or pedestrians – going far beyond the capabilities of existing AV technology. The UK leads the way in these emerging industries Today’s investment cements the UK’s position as a world leader in these emerging industries, with both the self-driving vehicle and AI sectors bringing huge potential for economic growth as they develop. Between 2018 and 2022, the UK autonomous vehicle sector alone generated £475m of direct investment and created 1,500 new jobs. As the self-driving vehicle industry grows in the UK, it is expected to be worth £42bn and create …

Train strikes to halt most trains in south-east England on Tuesday | Rail transport

Train strikes to halt most trains in south-east England on Tuesday | Rail transport

Published by skeptic

Most trains will not run in south-east England on Tuesday – including on key commuter routes in and out of London – after train drivers embarked on three days of rolling strikes at national rail operators. Drivers in the Aslef union are striking for 24 hours at each English operator between Tuesday and Thursday, while continuing a week-long nationwide overtime ban that started on Monday, as part of a long-running pay dispute. Rail passengers have been advised to check before travel, with the overtime ban causing additional disruption and reduced timetables in various places around the country where operators depend on voluntary shifts to run some services. Most operators will not run any trains on their strike days, meaning some cross-border services to Wales and Scotland will be hit later in the week. Commuters into the capital will be the biggest group affected by Tuesday’s strike. It will stop all services on c2c, Great Northern and Gatwick Express, and all bar a handful of trains on some routes run by on Greater Anglia, Thameslink, Southeastern, …

How safe are express buses to Malaysia? Here’s what you should know

How safe are express buses to Malaysia? Here’s what you should know

Published by skeptic

“We can’t speed (in the daytime),” he said. “(At) night, we speed. … Traffic is (light).” The fastest he said he has gone is 120 km/h, driving from Johor Bahru to KL in a time of two hours and 45 minutes. But he himself has never caused an accident, he claimed, as he is “a professional”. “When I’m driving, my eyes, my nose, … my body, everything’s working,” he said. “Even when I speed, … customers say, ‘You’re a good driver. … Some buses (take) five hours; you (take) three hours.’” Keeping to the speed limit for the entire trip would make him feel “sleepy” and is “impossible” to do, he added. Another driver, Burhan Abdharu, said the reason accidents happen in the early hours is the drivers are tired and “haven’t had enough sleep”. The longest he has driven is from KL to Singapore and back and then to Singapore again. That is 15 to 17 hours of driving, not including break time, he reckoned. Source link

Incredible £5bn project to build 235 bridges and 15 miles of tunnels | World | News

Incredible £5bn project to build 235 bridges and 15 miles of tunnels | World | News

Published by skeptic

A mega rail project in Africa has been given the green light and will provide much-needed investment. Plans to develop a huge new iron ore mine have been given the go-ahead by authorities in Guinea. Discovered back in the 1990s, iron ore deposits in the country’s Simandou mountains will now be extracted after a deal was struck between Rio Tinto and the Singapore company Winning Consortium Simandou (WCS) – both of which hold majority stakes in the mining complex. Simandou is poised to become the world’s largest and highest-grade new iron ore mine. It has an estimated reserve of over 1.8 billion tons – the iron content of which exceeds 65.5 percent. The majority of the iron ore is expected to be exported to China, the world’s leading steel manufacturer. The reserves are located in the heart of the Simandou Mountains, near the borders of Liberia and the Ivory Coast. To transport the iron ore, a new railway line will be constructed connecting the mountainous region to the coast. The 600 km (373 miles) train …