ERL Educational Depot Tour

I went to KLIA Express Depot Tour with TRANSIT and the (KTM) Railway Fan Club on Wednesday 9 December 2009. The tour, which took about 2.5 hours, started from KL Sentral station to Express Rail Link depot at Salak Tinggi.Thank you to all ERL Maintenance Support Sdn Bhd (E-MAS)'s staff for the interesting and informative tour. And many thanks to Moaz...

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A Japanese Perspective on Crowding: How Well Have the Japanese Adjusted to High Density?

M. HommaPsychologia, 1990, vol. 33, pp. 128-137At the present time, Japan faces many problems related to crowding or high density; shortage of housing, limited space, traffic jams, and urban problems. However, a number of scholars working in different fields have suggested that the Japanese tolerate high density because they have developed coping strategies...

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Commuting Stress?

Wednesday, 4 March 2009From QoWL Helper Almost whenever we get to chat to representatives of a client organisation we can guarantee that the issues that will get the most moans and groans from everyone in the room are 'parking' or 'travelling to work'.When examined across all our data sets parking and travelling to work seem to have little effect on...

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Possible Implications Of Daily Commute And Mosquito-borne Diseases

ScienceDaily (Sep. 21, 2009) — University of Hawaii at Manoa assistant researcher Durrell Kapan recently published a paper in PLoS ONE highlighting how daily commuting patterns in mega-cities may be a critically overlooked factor in understanding the resurgence of mosquito-borne diseases such as dengue fever, infecting 50-100 million people annually.Even...

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Commuting stress and noise

SourceResearch shows that a large increase in background noise at a constant, steady level is experienced as less intrusive as time passes; although prolonged exposure produces lasting elevations in blood pressure.1 If the noise is not only loud, but also intermittent, then people remain conscious of their heightened irritability even after an extended...

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Effects to mediate crowding on train's physical structure.

PO ENV 9: XXIII INTERNATIONAL CONGRESS OF APPLIED PSYCHOLOGYMadrid, July 17-22, 1994HOMMA, Michiko; Japan Women's University, Tokyo, Japan.One of the urban environmental problem is various phenomena occured (or caused) by crowded congestion. In Tokyo, the problem is particularly serious in many aspects. Crowds on commuting trains in the morning and...

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How to reduce stress while commuting

Aug 20th, 2009Do you get out of your car with a queasy stomach, a headache and your blood pressure registering through the roof? If you do, that energy vulture called stress may have sent your pulse skyrocketing. In a study conducted at the University of California at Irvine, researchers found that the stress of commuting takes a major toll on health....

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More commuting news

Nine steps to dealing with commuter stressRebecca Smithers, consumer affairs correspondentFriday 20 April 2007The GuardianWhether gridlocked in traffic, crammed on to public transport in unbearable heat or forced to sit next to someone with poor hygiene, most of us have experienced downsides to our commute. But now a study has revealed the secrets...

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Published and Launched

GRIFFITHS, A., KNIGHT, A., & MOHD MAHUDIN, N.D. (2009). Ageing, Work-related Stress and Health: Reviewing the Evidence. London, UK: Help The Aged.Launched at a seminar held at the Institute of Material, Minerals and Mining, 1 Carlton House Terrace, London SW1Y 5DB on 21 October 2009 (14:00 – 17:00).Download the report h...

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For record

National Summit On Urban Public Transport 2009Theme: Integrating the Public Transport NetworkDate: 15/10/2009 (Thursday)Time: 08:00 - 17:00 p.m.Venue: Prince Hotel & Residence Kuala LumpurKeynote Speaker: Y.B. Dato' Sri Ong Tee Keat, Minister of TransportOrganized by Asian Strategy & Leadership Incorporated Sdn Bhd (ASLI)WebsiteAuthors WorkshopDate: 04/08/2009 (Tuesday)Time : 08:30 a.m. - 13:00 p.m.Venue : Library Auditorium, Level 1, IIUM...

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Thank you to my RAs!

To all these wonderful people: Siti Rohaizu Ahmad DinNawwar Izyan ZulkifliMohd. Taufik bin MohammadRabiatul Adawiyah SallehNurzaihan MarzukiHaniza MatSiti Fathimah Che AniSuharyati Mat DaudIntan Sapura Aina Mohd YusoffNorwahida Che Abdul HalimSiti Farhah Ahmad SazaliAliya Ahmed M. Yusuf AhmedNuralyani AzlisyahMunira Abdul JalilMohd Fadzly FojiSaidatul Akmar Abdul RahimWan Husna Izzati Faharul AzmiAnisah Zainab MusaMardiana Mohd SallehReneilda RevisioneryNurul...

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Stress takes toll on Moscow metro commuters

Underground suicides expected to rise as more Russians lose their jobsBy Shaun Walker in MoscowFriday, 27 March 2009Problems at home, worried about losing your job in the economic crisis, or just feeling down? Russian medical experts have the answer – take the bus.Travelling on Moscow's crowded metro system is provoking a wave of despair among commuters, psychologists in the city say.About 150 people commit suicide on the metro each year and the...

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The woman with no sense of personal space

If I step aboard a crowded train and see that the only free space is a cramped mid-seat gap, sandwiched between two tired-looking commuters, and faced directly opposite by three further passengers squashed close under a detritus of newspapers and laptops, then I will invariably choose to stand. By seizing the free spot, the unavoidable encroachment into my personal space would soon spoil any comfort that might be derived from resting my legs.A new...

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Why train designers should avoid three-seat rows

Train companies should consider designing bigger carriages with pairs of seats only, and should avoid rows consisting of three seats. That's according to Gary Evans and Richard Wener whose new study demonstrates that it's not the overall number of people on a carriage that affects how cramped we feel, rather its the number of people in our immediate vicinity. That's why so many of the middle seats are left empty in three-seat rows.One hundred and...

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Emergencies inspire crowd cooperation, not panic

Crowd plus emergency equals mass panic, or so urban myths and Hollywood films would have us believe. The reality, recognised by social psychology for some time, is that people in crowds often behave in remarkably cooperative and selfless ways. A new study by John Drury and colleagues suggests that this kind of collaborative behaviour emerges when people in a crowd acquire a shared identity. And contrary to the "mass panic" perspective, an emergency...

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Key Result Areas (KRAs) On Public Transport

Key Result Areas (KRAs) on public transport as announced by the Prime Minister of Malaysia: Source: The StarThe Kelana Jaya LRT line is to get 35 new four-car train sets by 2012 as part of the Government's efforts to increase public transport usage to 25% from the present 16%.Minister in charged of meeting the targets: Transport Minister Datuk Seri Ong Tee Keat for improving public transport in a moderate period of time.For the upgrading of public...

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Public Transport and H1N1

In the era where infectious illnesses and diseases are widespread, public transportation systems need to provide a safe and healthy environment for both passengers and workers. Gershon and colleagues (2005) carried out a structured review of scientific and grey literatures on subway safety from either the mass transit or passenger perspective. These literatures were sought out from Medline, Ovid, Embase, Cochrane Database of Systematic Review, HealthStar,...

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