TRANSPORTMOST CROWDED
ROAD NETWORK
(COUNTRY)
According to the latest
available figures published
by The Economist, as
of 2014 car-crazy Japan
had 628.4 vehicles for
every kilometre (0.62 mi)
of road. The United Arab
Emirates trailed in a distant
second, with 479 vehicles
per km. Asian and Middle
Eastern countries
dominated the upper
reaches of the list, making
up nine of the top 10 most
crowded road networks.
FIRST SELF-DRIVING TAXI SERVICE
On 25 Aug 2016, self-driving taxis began serving the public. Starting with
a fleet of six vehicles, riders in Singapore are able to hire “robo-cars” and
travel within a 6.5-km^2 (2.5-sq-mi) district called “one-north”. The software
firm behind this service, nuTonomy (SGP), believes that self-driving taxis
could reduce the number of cars in Singapore from 900,000 to 300,000.
The taxis are fitted with cameras (see right) that read traffic lights.LARGEST PUBLIC TRANSIT CABLE-CAR NETWORK
The Mi Teleférico system in La Paz, Bolivia, features
10 km (6.2 mi) of aerial ropeways on three separate lines.
Owing to the city’s rugged and mountainous topography,
traditional transit systems such as subways and light rail
systems are not feasible here. The cable cars carry more
than 60,000 riders daily, saving commuters 652 million
min in 2015 alone and preventing the release of 8,000 tons
(7,257 tonnes) of emissions annually.LONGEST COMMUTE
FOR A CITY
After evaluating 50 million
users and 167 metropolitan
areas, a 2015 study by
Google-owned traffic app
Waze discovered that
commuters in Manila,
Philippines, faced average
one-way journeys of
45.5 min. Even car-clogged
urban sprawls such as
Los Angeles and New York
were less congested than
the Filipino capital: average
journey times in those two US
cities came to only 35.9 min
and 38.7 min respectively.LARGEST CONTINUOUS
PEDESTRIAN SKYWAY NETWORK
Harsh winters combined with the need to improve access
to downtown Minneapolis in Minnesota, USA, has led to the
design of a series of elevated pedestrian walkways across
the city. Officially known as the Minneapolis Skyway System,
this 13-km-long (8-mi) climate-controlled network of aerial
passages links 69 city blocks. An estimated 260,000 users
walk through the Skyway each day.
LARGEST BICYCLE-
SHARE PROGRAMME
The Hangzhou Public
Bicycle programme
in Hangzhou, China,
is the world’s largest
bicycle-sharing system.
Inaugurated in 2008
with just 2,800 bicycles
and 60 stations, it has
expanded prodigiously
since then. In Sep 2016, it
boasted a total of 84,100
bikes and 3,572 stations.
China is home to nine
of the world’s 10 largest
cycle-share networks.BUSIEST PEDESTRIAN CROSSING
With an estimated 1 million pedestrians each day, the
Shibuya Crossing – located outside Shibuya subway
station in Tokyo, Japan – is the world’s busiest. Five streets
converge at the intersection, and an estimated 100,000
people pass through here each hour at peak periods. In
approximately 30 min, enough people would have walked
across it to fill the Yankee Stadium in New York City, USA.