Category Archives: Transport

Transport

Arguing with the SatNav

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One of the things I did when I sorted out my laptop at the weekend was update the supporting software for my various Garmin GPS units. There were a couple of updates for my little StreetPilot i2, the first being an improved quality British voice for the unit – which does sound slightly different – and then one of the regular software updates.

Driving to and from the Wrexham area I noticed that one of the changes seemed to be that the unit was a lot more keen for you to follow it’s route than before. If that sounds a bit odd, I’ll explain.

If you’re heading anywhere north from here, the SatNav units and route planners will invariably go for the A34 from Newbury to Oxford heading onto the M40, then will always take the northern route around Birmingham, taking the M42 and M6. However I’d never consider using the A34 thanks to it being two lane all the way and congested with lorries heading north from the south coast ports, and will instead usually take the A404 and join the M40. Although slightly longer in terms of distance, being three lanes there are less delays with lorries. I’ll also tend to take the southern route around Birmingham too.

Coming back south today, I took my usual route, and carried on along the M40 at the A34 turn off. In the past the SatNav has usually switched to my usual route – the difference in time is minutes at most, but after this software update it appears to do things slightly differently. Instead it tried to take me around the south side of the Oxford ring-road, adding a good ten to fifteen minutes to the end time. As I again went past that turn it recalculated again and went for my normal route, and with a much lower finish time.

It’s fairly obvious that the system is not recalculating a full route when it recalculates, the primary reason I’m sure being speed. Most SatNav’s will not search every possible route between two points – the techniques they use to prune the search tree and to determine which routes are not worth searching are obviously the thing that differentiates the performance – check out this recent article comparing the routing engine performance of the three major brands for some examples. Anyway, what the latest update appears to be doing is trying to first guide you back onto it’s existing route. Thinking of some of the other points on the trip where I diverged, for example when I came off the M40 a couple of junctions early to enjoy the back road route home – great fun as long as you don’t get stuck behind a tractor – it doesn’t seem to do a full recalculate and is making much more effort to turn you around than it did before. Considering that by this point on the trip the SatNav is only really on to keep track of the safety cameras it’s a bit annoying that it starts arguing with the way I’m going!

Thinking about this, perhaps the ultimate improvement to a SatNav system would be one that learns. For example my back route home from the M40 is only a few minutes longer, and is a route I quite often take as thanks to the tank being pretty empty, and the car nicely warmed up it is a nice antidote to the usually miles of motorway cruising I’ve been doing – the ultimate system would remember previous patterns and not, as it did today suggest two routes to get me back to the motorway before finally fully recalculating.

Current Affairs, Transport

One Way IDR Plan Scrapped

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I may have baulked at the prospect of my local council spending my taxes on a probably fruitless attempt to stop it, but I’m certainly pleased to hear that Reading has scrapped the loony one way IDR plan. The idea was that turning the whole of the IDR into one giant roundabout would ease traffic congestion in the town, however taking our usage as an example, a trip to almost anywhere in town, like the sorting office, or the station would have resulted in us having to drive a complete circuit around the town centre to get there and back. Currently we only have to use a short stretch of the IDR for most journeys, so making the change would increase the amount of time we would have spent driving around Reading not reduced it. Unfortunately for Reading taxpayers though, their local council has now spent a truckload of money on a totally fruitless exercise – it’s back to the drawing board for how to solve Reading’s traffic problems.

General, Transport

Things we Learnt on Holiday 2

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Bringing the Float Plane Alongside

Float planes really don’t like calm water.

One of the things I’ve always wanted to do was fly in a float plane. I guess it’s having watched series like Tales of the Gold Monkey which included a Grumman Goose flying boat. But anyway, since on this holiday Beth was going up the CN Tower and seeing Niagara Falls – things that I’d done but she hadn’t, and from where we were staying in Parry Sound Georgian Bay Airways were running Fly and Dine trips to Henry’s Fish Restaurant, a place only accessible by water, how could we resist!

Heading out wasn’t a problem – we were introduced to our pilot, signed the relevant pieces of paper and filled out emergency contact details, and clambered into the little float equipped Cessna 180. The take off was a little bumpy, thanks to the little waves on the water, but we had a beautiful clear run out to Henry’s Place.

The meal was fantastic too – fish and chips, but with all the fish freshly caught of course. Having finished eating we then sat and watched the world go by waiting for our lift to come back. It was a lovely evening – pretty sunset, and absolutely no wind at all – which proved to be a bit of a problem.

Our plane appeared right on time – but had to abort his first attempt at a landing thanks to a boat crossing it’s runway area. When he eventually came alongside we had a trainee pilot too – not too much of a problem.

We got in, and the pilot manoeuvred the plane out to the take-off area, opened up the throttle and tried to take off. Unfortunately the plane just didn’t lift. After a bit of a discussion they went round again, and again it wouldn’t take off.

At this point out in the middle of the lake we did a seat swap, and put the more experienced pilot into the pilots seat and swapped me with the trainee pilot to put him in the back, and tried again. Even at the fourth attempt we didn’t take off, so at this point we headed back to Henry’s place and left the trainee pilot behind, the pilot phoning back to base to get another plane to pick him up.

He then tried again – still no joy.

Finally, having watched the other plane come in, he tried taking off on the much longer landing runway and succeeded – at attempt number six.

Needless to say, the pilot was incredibly apologetic, as in all the problems we’d missed the sunset flight over the islands – we’d just had to head back to base. He said that the problem was caused by ‘glassy water’ – essentially the lack of wind and the millpond smooth surface of the lake made it significantly harder for the plane to lift. He even offered to buy us an ice cream, and said that he felt it was entirely his fault, but having read up on float plane dynamics it really wasn’t his fault, nor was it because, as Beth thought we as passengers were unusually heavy – bear in mind that even with the second pilot off the plane it still wouldn’t lift.

To some extent, the fact that absolutely still water makes it harder for a float plane to take off seems a bit counter-intuitive, but if you read this Plane and Pilot introduction to Flying with Floats, taking off from glassy water is described as being harder than a rough water take off. To understand why you have to remember back to your school Physics lessons, in particular surface tension and the capillary action on the plane. If the surface of the water is flat as a mill pond, all the surface tension on the water is acting to hold the plane down, hence the force needed to get it into the air is significantly more. With the water being a little bit choppy, the effect of the surface tension is lessened, and the plane is better able to move.

So lesson number two from the holiday – you may think that smooth water would make life easier for a float plane – but it doesn’t. Having said that, if you’ve never experienced a float plane, it is a great experience and certainly one to try if you have a chance – and you now don’t even have to leave the UK to try it out.

Current Affairs, Transport

The Fastest Way to Brussels

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You can always rely on Ryanair and it’s charismatic boss Michael O’Leary for some entertaining news stories. After discriminating against disabled passengers by charging them for a wheelchair, winding up the green lobby and sitting right at the bottom of the pile as the worlds least favourite airline, today it lost out in another battle over one of it’s adverts, this time claiming that it in a comparison with Eurostar it was the fastest and cheapest way to get from London to Brussels.

In order to make this comparison, they compared the time it takes the train to get from London to Brussels, with the time for their closest route, which flies from London Stansted airport 30 miles north-east of London to Charleroi Airport 28.75 miles from Brussels. The Advertising Standards Authority ruled that the comparison of both time and cost were misleading because the comparison did not include the time and additional cost to get to and from Stansted or Charleroi.

The response from Ryanair was typical – they said that time and costs involved in getting to an airport or railway station were irrelevant as they applied to both modes of transport – they also said that “no stupid rulingâ€? could hide the success of the airline.

Not surprisingly, I don’t agree – if I’m wanting to go somewhere, the time taken for the whole journey is the most important, as is the convenience of the schedule. Last year when I went on a day trip to Brussels I made exactly that decision. For a start, Ryanair didn’t get a look in – flying from pretty well the opposite side of London to somewhere miles outside Brussels it was a non starter. We did consider the Eurostar, but that lost out because to get to the terminal we needed to spend an hour on South West Trains to get there and back. In the end, thanks to our close proximity to London Heathrow, and the much closer location of the main Brussels Airport to the city compared to Charleroi where Ryanair arrive, we opted for a BMI flight instead.

The basis of the Advertising Standards Authority ruling is that comparing the time from central London to central Brussels is a fair comparison – in which case the Eurostar wins easily as it’s only a short hop on the respective city metro system to the terminal rather than a much longer and more expensive journey out to the airport. Put simply, they are saying that the only fair way to compare is to pick a start and end location and compare the whole journey. Having said that, Ryanair would probably pick Stansted and Charleroi and add the time to get to each airport to the time for the Eurostar…

Eurostar originally uploaded by Boxley.

Transport

Has Heathrow Terminal 4 Improved?

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Back at Christmas I posted a big grumble about the fiasco that is Heathrow Terminal 4 – a piece that even got me quoted in the Times. Heading over to France this last week, we went with British Airways, again from Terminal 4, this time into Geneva Airport in Switzerland.

So first up, there have been changes with the notorious ‘Fast Bag Drop’… Yes, rather than sort out the problems, they’ve just dropped the word ‘Fast’ from the title. Interestingly they’ve also done the same in Geneva, but as with Calgary we’d checked in and put the bags through in a few minutes there, unlike the twenty minute queue at Heathrow.

The other hassle we had last time was caused by the lack of available gates in the terminal, and it was the same this time around as we were bussed out to a remote stand. This didn’t cause us much of a delay going out, but coming back the inbound plane was over an hour late, entirely due to the same situation. According to the crew on the plane, they had been ready to go on time, but the flight coming out to Geneva had about twenty special needs passengers. Bear in mind that all of this would have been known to British Airways, but the plane was again on a remote stand. Whereas in Geneva the special needs passengers were taken off without too much of a delay over the air bridge, at Heathrow where on the remote stand the only access to the plane is up steps, it took them over an hour to load the passengers, resulting in such a delay that our plane took off only a minute or two before the next Geneva to London flight. It had one advantage though, when we touched down at Heathrow, they did put our flight onto a free gate at terminal 4, so at least we didn’t have to contend with the interminable wait for busses.

Thankfully all our baggage arrived – although considering that on the same day the Telegraph were running a story about the airlines selling off some of the hundreds of thousands that fail to be returned in the paper that was being given out, you couldn’t blame people for being worried that they wouldn’t!

Although we can do little to avoid Heathrow or Gatwick when heading to Canada Рcertainly it might be worth considering the Eurostar/TGV option next time we head to Taiz̩.