Chris Drumgoole

Results of fireworks

Originally uploaded by chrisdrum

Walking along the street last night around 10pm, the city sounds like a war zone - people are taking full advantage of this being the last night of the Chinese Spring Festival - they’re setting off every last firework they can get a hold of.

What’s left is these cardboard boxes with cylinder tubes used to launch the fireworks into the sky.

I’m impressed the city organized these “we do everything from haul garbage to moving household appliances” cyclists to help with the massive clean up effort, in real time.

This photo is of one such cyclist was crossing the intersection in front of me.

I started with my 2nd speech at Toastmasters to post the speech I presented on my Website. Last night, I presented my 3rd speech. The topic was in regards to Beijing Traffic - I presented some ideas on how Beijing could improve what is becoming a disaster.

As a disclaimer, I am not an expert in the field of traffic management, nor have I studied the ideas presented in my speech. I’ve only experienced first hand the degrading state of Beijing’s traffic over the last 5 years, primarily as a driver, but also user of the public transit system. And I’ve only experienced bits and pieces of these ideas in different cities around the world (as specified in the speech) and have mostly liked what I’ve seen. Also, this is a 7-minute speech, so I couldn’t go into a lot of detail… I could speak for hours on this topic…

And here it is… (comments please!)

Unless you’re lucky enough to live within walking distance of your office or school, I am sure you all experience the daily grind of transit during rush hour. Roads are chalk full of cars. The subway system is not expansive enough. Buses are overcrowded… And it’s getting worse every day!

I am going to present you with my “4-Point Plan for Traffic Harmony”. These strategies are used by several cities worldwide and I see no reason why they can’t be implemented here in Beijing!

1. Curb Auto-sales by instituting a license plate quota system

1,000 new cars enter the Beijing road system every day. That’s about 360,000 new cars a year. Beijing already has over 3 million cars – with the road system already swelled, new measures must be taken immediately to slow the car population explosion.

Cities like Shanghai and Singapore have a type of vehicle bidding system where the city places a limit on the number of new cars allowed each year. For example, Singapore imposes a limit of 3% of the current number of cars. The price of purchasing a license will depend on market demands. The price goes higher as more bids are made. People ask themselves “Do I really need a car?”

2. Introduce Congestion Zones

Singapore and London are two examples of cities who have instituted downtown congestion zone fees. Each car is equipped with a device and stored-value card and each road entering the zone has overhead sensors that, as cars pass under, deducts an amount of money from the car’s stored-value card. This follows the “pay-for-use” concept and those who contribute to congestion more end up paying more. This added fee will encourage drivers to think of alternative routes or transportation methods, or provide them with a smoother ride should they decide to pay the fee.

3. Introduce Public Light Buses

Part of the problem that causes congestion on major roads is the high number of large buses. These large buses are slow, especially when accelerating. Hong Kong has an excellent bus system that combines large and small buses, called “Public Light Buses”. These are small buses that only hold 18 people and generally follow a shorter route than their larger counterparts. And because they are small, they are able to drive faster. Beijing can add several thousand of these to the roads, also creating new routes in the process. Passengers will also enjoy greater comfort while traveling due to the 18 pax limit.

4. Introduce Carpool Lanes

Beijing already has many bus lanes where access for normal vehicles is controlled by time of day. The city can take this one step further by introducing “car pool lanes”. The idea is cars can only drive in these lanes if they have 2 or more people in them. It would make sense to add these to major roads such as ring roads, boulevards, and expressways. This has the added benefit of discouraging single drivers.

To wrap up, I have presented 4 points that will no doubt greatly improve the city’s traffic situation. They are:

1. Curb Auto-sales by instituting a license plate quota system
2. Introduce Congestion Zones
3. Introduce Public Light Buses
4. Introduce Carpool Lanes

I am confident that with implementing all 4 points swiftly, we could see a real change in the traffic situation for the better, and we won’t have to wait until 2012 when the current Subway expansion plan is realized.

You all now need to go out and petition the Beijing Traffic Bureau to implement these points at once!

I tried to add a little humor to keep the audience interested, and I seemed to have gotten good response. Obviously I didn’t give the speech word for word - I actually, while on stage, changed the intro and made it a story instead of just dry commentary.  I also made the ending a bit more dramatic.  I’m such a dramatic person…

Well, sort of.

I’ve got an S60 mobile phone (the Nokia N82). This application, JoikuSpot, when installed on my S60 device, creates a WIFI Hotspot which shares the GPRS connection. I can then connect to this hotspot using my iPod Touch while, oh, sitting in Beijing traffic!

This solves the only real complaint I had with the iPod Touch (no bluetooth for internet connection sharing).

Rocking!

Buy Data!

Those of you in China, be sure to buy a data plan from China Mobile or China Unicom! Otherwise you’ll be surprised with a rather large bill at the end of the month (or your employer will be surprised, which ever the case may be).

I have the 100RMB a month for 800 MB of data. I’ll monitor this to see how it goes. I hope this is enough…

Some Initial Concerns

As this is “beta”, there are some deficiencies worth mentioning. First, the hotspot it creates doesn’t have any security yet. Yikes! Joiku, the software maker, states future versions will add security. Let’s hope this becomes a reality sooner rather than later. Second, I am curious what the battery consumption on my N82 will be after a 30 minute cab ride. I’ll report back if I notice any excessive consumption. What’s probably more of a concern is me hitting, and then bypassing my monthly limit of 800Megs.

GigaOm suggested not to use this application unless you had a nice 3G service for your phone. But in actuality, now that China Mobile has Edge, the speeds are acceptable, at least for the time being.

Here are some screenshots I created from my S60 device:

It was a very small download and quick install. It automatically placed the icon in the Applications folder.

After running the application, it first asks whether you want to share your connection. When you select “yes” it will ask what connection to share. For me, I shared the “CMNET” connection (note, this is only valid for China Mobile).

Now, you can see the Wifi Hotspot is connected and available for your device(s) to access.

After selecting the JaikuSpot Wifi hotspot on my iPod Touch, I can began accessing Websites. On the phone, it shows you how much data is being sent in both directions.

You can also see what devices are connected - a useful feature, at least until security is added to the app.

I’m flying to Hong Kong today, Tuesday, February 5, and return next Monday, February 11.  I probably won’t post until I’m back… Unless, of course, I win a ton of money in Macau…

And let’s all welcome in the Year of the Rat!  Have a good one!

I’ve been back in Beijing for a few days and have had a chance to play with my new gadget, the iPod Touch. Here are some observations:

• I jailbreaked it. Currently at version 1.1.2 - waiting to upgrade to 1.1.3 until the jailbreak process is more fullproof. Here are my jailbreaking notes.
• It’s slick - nice interface, and Safari + Wifi makes it a nice toy while at the coffee shop.
• I am surprised why Apple decided to make 2 partitions - the first one is around 300 MB, the 2nd one, for lal your data, spans the rest of the storage (in my case, almost 8GB). The problem with this 300 MB limitation on the first partition is that is where the applications are installed to. I am already full! I have read though that people have simply moved the Applications folder to the other partition and created a symbolic link. I’ll try that today or tomorrow. But, why bother with 2 partitions?
• I wish it had Bluetooth (and consequently Bluetooth-enabled internet access). I’d love to be able to pair it with my mobile phone so I could access the Internet in the taxi. YES, I know that an iPhone is essentially this! But I didn’t buy an iPhone, did I?! (besides, unlocking would have been a pain, more expensive, etc.)
• The build quality and packaging is surpurb. Nice all-metal casing, glass scratch-resistant face - gadgets are getting somewhere!
• I haven’t gotten music and movies to sync properly yet with gtkpod or amarok. I’m following this guide, and am getting close! Will hopefully get this working soon. The files transfer, but the iTunes DB doesn’t get updated properly. But, I won’t be using this as my primary multimedia device. I want it primarily for these two reasons:
  • Internet Tablet
  • Big(ger) screen movie viewing during travel