British Model Buses

Section 1 - Introduction

Until recently, suburbanization, urban sprawl and automobile dependency were therefore matters of interest primarily to the United States, Canada and Australia. These days, these issues have spread elsewhere, including Asia, the Middle East and even Europe. Although the problems associated with these changes varies from one place to another, they mainly include environmental impacts such as emissions of greenhouse gases and pollution, economic constraints, such as increases in infrastructure costs and external costs of pollution and social injustice such as race and socio-economic segregation and social inequality.

In 2003, there was a car for 11.5 people in the world. However, it is a global average and is not distributed proportionally between the countries. If in North America, Australia and Europe, there were three people per car on average, in Asia, there were 250-300 people per car on average. The relatively small number of cars by people in the developing world is not at all reassuring, given the enormous growth potential. Especially when most of the financing of transport in the developing world is facing the road (60 percent), while only a small portion (17 percent) is oriented transit (Jacquot and Haq, 2003) . Eastern European countries like Hungary and Romania have similar investment patterns and are also facing an increase in road infrastructure. (Pierce and Haq, 2003).

Middle Eastern countries are not immune from the global transport either. In a region with no shortage of oil supply, the automobile is used as the main means of transport among those who can afford it. Similarly to other regions, most investment in transport infrastructure related to roads, although in many areas of transportation infrastructure in the Middle East is not well maintained. In most cities in the Middle East, public investment in transport infrastructure are very low priority. (Pierce and Haq, 2003).

Currently, Egypt is the only country in the region with a subway system. Even Israel, which has the strongest economy in the Middle East and is highly westernized than the rest of the region, has struggled to expand its transport network. Only in 2006, more than 40 years after they were proposed, not building light rail systems started in Tel Aviv and Jerusalem (Jacquot and Haq, 2003). Meanwhile, the city of Tel Aviv where most of the economic activity of Israel know most of the urban problems resulting from dependence on cars.

Air pollution, congestion and degradation of land in Tel Aviv are the results of relatively high car ownership (400 cars per 1000 inhabitants), which is almost double the national average. Due to the fact that over 95 per cent of trips by public transportation are carried out by diesel buses, the transit system in Tel Aviv contributed its share of urban problems (Shiftan et al., 2003).

Shiftan et al. (2003) to identify major transport problems in the metropolitan area of Tel Aviv. The first is the high and increasing congestion, which is due to increasing motorization. According to Sofer (2004) the number of vehicles in Israel increased by 100 per cent every ten years, while road infrastructure increases by 10 per cent. The second problem is the lack of synchronization between the transit system and the spatial distribution of the evolution of the earth. The new residential and commercial developments are built in areas with no or little access to public transportation, an issue that favors decentralization and higher car dependency. The third problem is a lack of coordination between the authorities and parties involved in the transmission system, a problem which causes difficulties in maintaining the transportation system and the implementation.