Questions 19-21
Complete the partial summary below. Choose your answers A-F from the list below the summary and write them in boxes19-21 on your answer sheet.
NB There are more phrases than spaces, so you will not use them all. You may use any of the phrases more than once.
The passage of a bill in the United States, protecting the burial sites and other historical remains of Native Americans, known as C (Example), restricted the activities of archaeologists in their excavations of such sites and the preservation of such relics. But a breakthrough has been made through cooperation, promoting the study of the past while ensuring 19 for 20 Being able to see what their ancestors looked like has brought a new source of pride to 21.
A. a mound at Hayes Creek
B. facial reconstruction
C. NAGRA
D. the modern descendants of the Monacans
E. respectful treatment
F. the Native American heritage
Question 22
Choose the appropriate letters A-D, and write it in box 22 on your answer sheet.
22. Which of the following was NOT interested in preserving the Monacan heritage?
A. E.P. Valentine
B. Thomas Jefferson
C. Jeffrey L. Hantman
D. Karenne Wood
Question 23-25
Choose the appropriate letters A-D and write them in boxes 23-25 on your answer sheet.
23. Who has the right to decide what happens to Monacan relics?
A. The University of Virginia
B. NAGPRA
C. The Monacan Ancestral Museum
D. The Monacan Tribal Council
24. Why was Sharon Long chosen to reconstruct the faces?
A. Because she is a member of the Monacan tribe.
B. Because she is an archaeologist specializing in the ancient Native Americans.
C. Because she is from Sparks, Nevada.
D. Because she is an artist specializing in reconstructing corpses.
25. According to the writer, the success of the facial reconstruction project:
A. heralds a new era of cooperation between Native Americans an archaeologists.
B. puts to rest the spirits of the people buried at the Hayes Creek Mound.
C. proves that the modern Monacan people look exactly like their ancestors.
D. raises complex legal and ethical problems.
READING PASSAGE 3
You are advised to spend about 20 minutes on Questions 26-38 which are based on Reading Passage 3.
Is the Electric Vehicle Era at Hand?
Cars account for half the oil consumed in the U.S., about half the urban pollution and one fourth the greenhouse gases. They take a similar toll of resources in other industrial nations and in the cities of the developing world. As vehicle use continues to increase in the coming decade, the U.S. and other countries will have to address these issues or else face unacceptable economic, health-related and political costs. It is unlikely that oil prices will remain at their current low level or that other nations will accept a large and growing U.S. contribution to global climatic change.
Policymakers and industry have four options: reduce vehicle use, increase the efficiency and reduce the emissions of conventional gasoline-powered vehicles, switch to less noxious fuels, or find less polluting propulsion systems. The last of these—in particular the introduction of vehicles powered by electricity—is ultimately the only sustainable option. The other alternatives are attractive in theory but in practice are either impractical or offer only marginal improvements. For example, reduced vehicle use could solve congestion woes and a host of social and environmental problems, but evidence from around the world suggests that it is very difficult to make people give up their cars to any significant extent. In the U.S., mass-transit ridership and carpooling have declined since World War II. Even in western Europe, with fuel prices averaging more than $1 a liter (about $4 a gallon) and with pervasive mass transit and dense populations, cars still account for 80 percent of all passenger travel.
Improved energy efficiency is also appealing, but automotive fuel economy has barely budged in 10 years. Alternative fuels such as methanol or natural gas, burned in internal-combustion engines, could be introduced at relatively low cost, but they would lead to only marginal reductions in pollution and greenhouse emissions. Electric-drive vehicles (those whose wheels are turned by electric motors rather than by a mechanical gasoline-powered engine) could reduce urban pollution and greenhouse emissions significantly over the coming decade. And they could lay a foundation for a transportation system that would ultimately be almost pollution-free. Although electrically driven vehicles have a history as old as that of the internal-combustion engine, a number of recent technological developments-including by-products of both the computer revolution and the Strategic Defense Initiative (SDI) in the 1980s—promise to make this form of transportation efficient and inexpensive enough to compete with gasolin.
The term "electric-drive vehicle" includes not only those cars powered by batteries charged with household current but also vehicles that generate electricity onboard or store it in devices other than batteries. Their common denominator is an efficient electric motor that drives the wheels and extracts energy from the car's motion when it slows down. Internal-combustion vehicles, in contrast, employ a constantly running engine whose power is diverted through a series of gears and clutches to drive the wheels and to turn a generator for the various electrically powered accessories in the car.
Electric vehicles are more efficient—and thus generally less polluting—than internal-combustion vehicles for a variety of reasons. First, because the electric motor is directly connected to the wheels, it consumes no energy while the car is at rest or coasting, increasing the effective efficiency by roughly one fifth. Regenerative braking schemes—which employ the motor as a generator when the car is slowing down—can return as much as half an electric vehicle's kinetic energy to the storage cells, giving it a major advantage in stop-and-go urban traffic.
Every major automaker in the world is now investing in electric vehicle development as well as improvements in less critical technologies such as those underlying car heaters and tires. The resulting advanced components will be the building blocks for very clean and efficient vehicles of the future, but in the meantime many of them are finding their way into internal-combustion vehicles.
Although automakers worldwide have spent perhaps $1 billion on electric vehicles during the 1990s, in the context of the industry as a whole this investment is relatively small. The auto industry spends more than $5 billion a year in the U.S. alone on advertising and more than that on research and development. And oil companies are spending about $10 billion in the U.S. this decade just to upgrade refineries to produce reformulated low-emission gasoline.
One crucial factor in determining the success of electric vehicles is their price—a figure that is still highly uncertain. General Motors's newly introduced EV1 is nominally priced at $33,000; Solectria sells its low-volume-production electric vehicles for between $30,000 and $75,000, depending on the battery configuration. (Nickel-metal hydride batteries capable of carrying the car more than 320 kilometers add nearly $40,000 to the price of a lead-battery vehicle.) The adversarial nature of the regulatory process has encouraged opponents and proponents to make unrealistically high or low estimates, so it will be impossible to tell just how much the vehicles will cost until they are in mass production.
The cost of batteries (and fuel cells) will probably always render electric vehicles more expensive to purchase than comparable gasoline vehicles. On a per-kilometer basis, however, the cost of an electric and internal-combustion vehicle should eventually be about the same. Fuel for electric vehicles is inexpensive, maintenance is minimal, and it appears that electric motors last significantly longer than gasoline engines. Taking into account the cost of air pollution, greenhouse gases and other market externalities (that is, factors that society at large must now pay for) would tip the scale in favor of electric vehicles in many circumstances.
In California, where powerful air-quality regulators have led the way toward electric vehicles, progress has been slowed by opposition from both auto manufacturers and oil companies. On a national level, early hopes for the Partnership for a New Generation of Vehicles, a scheme promoted by the US government, have foundered on inadequate funding, political infighting and excessive caution. As a result of this internal conflict, vehicles to be built in 2004 will ostensibly have their designs set in 1997, making it likely that the partnership will embrace only the smallest of incremental improvements rather than spearheading the introduction of fuel cells and other radically new technologies. Nevertheless, it seems certain that electric-drive technology will eventually supplant internal-combustion engines—perhaps not quickly, uniformly nor entirely—but inevitably. The question is when, in what form and how to manage the transition. Perhaps the most important lesson learned from the current state of affairs is that government should do what it does best: provide broad market incentives that bring external costs such as pollution back into the economic calculations of consumers and corporations, and target money at innovative, leading-edge technologies rather than fund work that private companies would be doing in any case.
The emergence of electric vehicles has important economic implications. Whoever pioneers the commercialization of cost-competitive electric vehicle technologies will find inviting export markets around the world. Electric vehicles will be attractive where pollution is severe and intractable, peak vehicle performance is less highly valued than reliability and low maintenance, cheap electricity is available off-peak, and investments in oil distribution are small. Indeed, if the U.S. and other major industrial nations do not act, it is quite possible that the next generation of automotive giants may arise in developing countries, where cars are relatively scarce today.
Questions 26-32
Do the following statements reflect the opinions of the writer of Reading Passage 3? In boxes 26-32 write:
YES if the statement reflects the writer's opinion
NO if the statement contradicts the writer
NOT GIVEN if there is no information about this in the passage
26. Developing countries may surpass the US as car producers.
27. Powering vehicles by electricity is a high-technology concept.
28. In this environmentally-aware age, people are keen to stop driving cars.
29. Nobody knows exactly how much an electric car will cost.
30. Electric vehicles will be less noisy than gasoline-powered vehicles.
31. The big vehicle manufacturers see no future for electric cars.
32. The US government is backing the development of alternative-fuel vehicles.
Questions 33-34
Choose the appropriate letters (A-D) and write them in boxes 33-34 on your answer sheet.
33. Electric vehicles
A. use a series of gears and clutches to turn the wheels.
B. will never be able to reach high speeds.
C. only consume energy while the wheels are turning.
D. could solve the problem of global warming.
34. The Partnership for a New Generation of Vehicles
A. drew up a blueprint for the era of the electric car.
B. failed to make progress toward its goals.
C. only got support from small auto makers.
D. recommended banning gasoline-fuelled vehicles.
Question 35
Name three advantages mentioned by the author that electric vehicles have over conventional vehicles.
Questions 36-38
Complete the partial summary below. Choose ONE or TWO words from the passage for each answer. Write your answers in boxes 36-38 on your answer sheet.
As the evidence grows that gasoline-fuelled vehicles are a major contributor to global pollution, pressure is mounting on government and industry to find an environmentally-friendly substitute. There are four possible alternatives, but electric vehicles are the only 36 Such cars may be powered by batteries charged from the household current or generate and store electricity themselves. Whichever method they use, their 37 is an electric motor which operates in exactly the same way. Developing countries enjoy several advantages for popularizing electric vehicles, and it is possible that future 38 may spring up there.
Academic Reading Test 5
INTERNATIONAL ENGLISH LANGUAGE
TESTING SYSTEM
ACADEMIC READING
TEST 5
TIME ALLOWED:
NUMBER OF QUESTIONS:
1 hour40
Instructions
WRITE ALL YOUR ANSWERS ON THE ANSWER SHEET
The test is in 3 sections:
Reading Passage 1 Questions 1-14
Reading Passage 2 Questions 15-28
Reading Passage 3 Questions 29-40
Remember to answer all the questions. If you are having trouble with a question, skip it and return to it later.
READING PASSAGE 1
You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 1-14 which are based on Reading Passage 1.
Sleepless in America
A. America's adults are increasingly living unhealthy and sometimes antisocial lifestyles. Instead of working to live, they are living to work. They report spending more time working and less time sleeping and engaged in social and leisure activities than they did just five years ago. Most say they suffer from sleep problems and when they go to sleep, many sleep alone even if they are married.
B. These are some of the findings of the 2001 Sleep in America poll, which looks at the relationship between Americans' lifestyles, sleep habits and sleep problems. Sleep deprivation continues to be widespread in America. According to the poll, a majority of American adults (63%) does not get the recommended eight hours of sleep needed for good health. In fact, nearly one-third (31%) report sleeping less than seven hours each week night. The poll also shows that more than one-third of Americans say they get less sleep now than five years ago. Seven in 10 (69%) say they experience frequent sleep problems and most say they would sleep more if they believed it would benefit their overall health and well-being.
C. One positive finding was that many people don't want to give up any more sleep in spite of their busy lives. On the downside, however, far too many adults still sacrifice sleep, which is unhealthy and counter productive to their lives. One reason for this is the increasingly fast-paced and competitive world in which live is placing growing pressure on people to perform in their jobs and relationships. Poll coordinators say the greatest difficulty lies in educating Americans that a good night's sleep every night, and not just on weekends or holidays, is essential.
D. Today Americans' lifestyles are considerably different compared to just five years ago. Now almost as many adults say they spend more time at work as say they spend less time sleeping (40% vs. 38%). More than one-third (38%) say they are working fifty hours or more a week. These people experience more insomnia than those who spend fewer hours working. Research has shown a direct relationship between hours worked and the negative impact it has on sleep, particularly those who work more than 40 hours a week. A secondary effect of working long hours is the sleepiness people feel during the hours they are awake. Many adults say they spend less time involved in leisure and social activities and sleeping compared to five years ago. One-quarter of people polled (25%) say that if they needed to find more time in their lives they would probably give up leisure activities first. Others say they would give up time with family/friends (19%) while seventeen percent say they would give up sleep.
E. Children can be a detriment to a good night's sleep and be a catalyst for sleep-related problems. The poll shows that sleep problems occur more in households with children 18 years of age and younger. Married people with children average less sleep during the week than those without children(6.7 vs. 7.2 hours/night), and single people without children (7.1 hrs.). Adults with children are more likely to report symptoms of insomnia than those without children (58% vs. 46%). They also experience more daytime sleepiness that interferes with daily activities a few days a month or more (50% vs. 32%). More than one in ten married adults (12%) with children reports often sleeping with a child and the majority of these adults (81%) reports a sleep problem.
F. Although seven in 10 adults (69%) say they experience frequent sleep problems, they are most common among adults with children (76%), those who sleep with a child (81%), those with marital problems (77%), caregivers (76%), and people with certain medical conditions. Health problems play a significant role in the quantity and quality of adults' sleep. Those who report chronic medical conditions including diabetes, cancer, hypertension, heart disease and/or arthritis are most likely to experience sleep problems such as insomnia (trouble falling asleep), and sleep disorders such as sleep apnea, (pauses in breathing during sleep), and restless legs syndrome, (frequent limb movements during sleep).
Questions 1-5
Classify the following statements as applying to:
A. Adults married with children
B. Adults married without children
C. Both
Write the appropriate letters A-C in boxes 1-6 on your answer sheet.
Example Answer
46% suffer from insomnia B
1. average 7.2 hours sleep /night during the week
2. experience frequent sleep problems
3. experience more daytime sleepiness
4. have trouble falling asleep
5. average less sleep during the week
Questions 6-9
Complete the summary below. Choose your answers from the list below the summary and write them in boxes 6-9 on your answer sheet.
NB There are more words than spaces, so you will not use them all.
Example: Not getting the recommended 8 hours sleep each night leads to sleep.
Answer: Deprivation
Working over 40 hours a week has a 6 on sleep and leads to 7 during waking hours. Children can cause 8 problems and be a 9 to good sleep. Word List unhealthy, detriment, satisfaction, sleepiness, negative impact, leisure activities, benefit, sleep-related.
Questions 10-14
Reading Passage 1 has 6 paragraphs, A-F. Choose the most suitable headings for paragraphs B-F from the list of headings below. Write the appropriate numbers (i-ix) in boxes 10-14 on your answer sheet.
NB: There are more headings than paragraphs so you will not use them all.
List of Headings
i. Families and Sleep
ii. International Sleep Awareness Week
iii. Education the Key
iv. Sleep, Sleep Problems and Health
v. Less Fun, Less Sleep, More Work: An American Portrait
vi. Poor Sleep Leads to Chronic Disease
vii. Putting the Life in Lifestyles of Workaholic Americans
viii. Marriage and Sleep
ix. Americans Sleep Starved
Example Answer
Paragraph A v
10. Paragraph B
11. Paragraph C
12. Paragraph D
13. Paragraph E
14. Paragraph F
READING PASSAGE 2
You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 15-28 which are based on Reading Passage 2 on the following pages.
Global Water Crisis
According to a report released by the World Water Organization (WWO), two-thirds of the world's population will be facing water shortages by 2025. The report states that the world's water supply is not keeping pace with demands being made upon it—consumption rose six-fold between 1900 and 1995, more than twice the rate of population growth. The report also says that while most wealthy countries will cope with falling water supplies due to efficient water management, poorer countries will suffer on a huge scale, making it even harder for them to escape poverty.
The WWO says the scale of the crisis is such that the world will increasingly witness a new phenomenon, "water refugees"—millions of people being forced to leave their homes in search of clean water. Chronic water shortages are already being experienced around the world. Lake Chad in Africa, which provides water to 20 million people in six countries, has shrunk by 95% in the past 38 years. Two-thirds of China's cities are facing severe water shortages and Delhi in India is predicted to run out of groundwater by 2015 at current usage rates.
The world's water supplies are stretched to the limit due to escalating populations, rising agricultural use, poor management and the effects of global warming. Consequently the WWO is urging governments and institutions to take urgent action by:
1. Giving the water crisis high priority at the World Summit on Sustainable Development in 2002.
2. Increasing investment in water supply sanitation and water resources to ensure that the basic needs of poorer communities are met before the luxury needs of the wealthy.
3. Increasing efforts to meet commitments to reduce greenhouse gas emissions by 5% by 2012.
4. Reintroducing traditional methods of water conservation in poorer countries. For example, water harvesting could significantly help to meet India's water needs if land was set apart for rainfall collection.
Water is our most essential and basic requirement. Although water has been successfully harnessed for energy, irrigation and industry we are increasingly paying a high cost for it as people in poorer countries die from lack of a fresh, regular supply. Worldwide water shortages will begin to threaten food production in many countries too. By 2025 the amount of water needed for food production around the world will rise by 50%, due to population growth and higher standards of living. Poorer countries will face having to choose between using water for crop irrigation or domestic and industrial use. Consequently many may be forced to risk the vagaries of international markets by importing food. For the 1.3 billion people who live on $1 a day or less, high grain prices could quickly become life threatening.
The primary reasons for the water supply crisis are:
1. Lack of water regulation, management and investment by governments in poorer countries.
2. Global warming which causes deserts to expand, rivers to dry up, droughts to intensify and melting of the polar ice caps which may lead to the intrusion of salt water into freshwater supplies.
3. Unsustainable use of groundwater which occurs in every continent except Antarctica.
According to the WWO, even though water shortages and hosepipe bans exist in the UK, each person still has an average of 150 litres of water a day at their disposal—enough to wash 15 cars. In some of the poorest countries, however, people are surviving on a daily ration of less than a bucket of water.
Questions 15-18
Using NO MORE THAN THREE WORDS from the passage, answer the following questions. Write your answers in boxes 15-18 on your answer sheet.
15. By what year will water requirements for worldwide food production have risen by 50%?
16. Which countries will be least affected by a global water crisis?
17. What new phenomenon will increasingly be seen as people are forced to leave their homes in search of water?
18. During which period of time did world water consumption increase at twice the rate of population growth?
Questions 19-23
Do the following statements agree with the information in Reading Passage 2? In boxes 19-23 on your answer sheet write:
YES if the statement agrees with the information
NO if the statement contradicts the information
NOT GIVEN if there is no information on this in the passage
19. The report states that falling world water supplies won't affect prosperous countries.
20. The WWO is urging governments to educate people on the importance of conserving water.
21. Global warming will help to create fresh water by melting the polar ice caps.
22. A major reason for the water supply problem in poorer countries is their governments' failure to control water usage.
23. Traditional methods of water conservation have contributed to the water crisis in poorer countries.
Questions 24-28
Choose the appropriate letters A-D and write them in boxes 24-28 on your answer sheet.
24. Between 1900 and 1995 world water consumption increased .
A. sixty times
B. six-fold
C. at the same rate as the population
D. at six times the population rate
25. The world's water supplies are running out because.
A. there are too many people
B. of poor water management
C. the earth is getting hotter
D. all of the above
26. By 2025 many poorer countries may be forced to.
A. buy water
B. revert to traditional methods of water conservation
C. import food
D. stop farming
27. More than a billion people live.
A. on ten dollars a week
B. on a dollar a day or less
C. near Lake Chad
D. in Africa
28. Global warming causes.
A. drought
B. flooding
C. decreased evaporation rates
D. lower sea levels
READING PASSAGE 3
You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 29-40 which are based on Reading Passage 3 on the following pages.
Changing the Way We Shop
The way we shop is being revolutionized by a network of smart tags or labels that contain tiny microchips and wireless batteries. The tags will be attached to every product we buy and provide information about their exact location, shelf life, directions for use and recycling. They'll also tell manufacturers when to restock store shelves and even entice consumers to buy products. The new tags will carry an electronic product code able to identify more than 268 million manufacturers, each with more than 1 million unique products. That's far more than today's bar codes, which can identify 100,000 manufacturers and types of products.
The Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Cambridge is leading the smart-tag revolution. The MIT Auto-ID Center is developing the language and network structure its corporate partners will use in smart tags brimming with information about where an individual bottle of shampoo, for example, is at any given time in the distribution channel. That may translate into less product theft or counterfeiting, and more direct communication with consumers.
If the MIT center's vision comes true, by 2010, a consumer at work may be able to dial home via the Internet to see if his or her pantry contains all the ingredients to make spaghetti for dinner. If not, the pantry will pass along a list of missing items to the local supermarket, which will make sure the pasta and sauce are waiting in a shopping cart when the customer arrives.
Then, the shopper can peruse the cheese case, where parmesan cheese is always available, because smart shelves and labels on the cheese alert the manufacturer when it's time to restock. The hamburger also has a smart label telling whether it has been kept properly refrigerated, and even offering a spaghetti recipe.
Checkout is just as easy: Shoppers need only roll their carts out the door and pack their groceries. The intelligent shopping cart already will have tallied all the items, and a swipe of the consumer's own smart card will debit the bill automatically from a checking account.
A virtual smorgasbord of technology is being designed at the MIT Auto-ID Center. About two dozen companies and industry groups are collaborating with the center, including microelectronics firm Alien Technology, consumer goods maker Gillette, container manufacturer International Paper, and retailer Wal-Mart Stores. The key technologies at the MIT center are the 96-bit electronic product code that will be placed on each smart tag to identify each product, as well as a Product Markup Language under development that will describe the product and include how-to-cook instructions or information on storage temperature and moisture.
An Object Name Service will link the electronic product code and Product Markup Language, telling computers where to locate information on the Internet about any object carrying an electronic product code. Scanners able to read the information will be put into hand-held computers, cellular phones, store shelves, and doorways. MIT's partners will contribute the microchip, wireless antenna, battery, and other technologies to make the smart tags while MIT will define the framework. The center soon will begin a small pilot project, and within the next 18 months, test its technology at several stores.
The initial application for smart tags is in supply-chain management or tracking the movement of goods from the factory floor through the distribution system. At International Paper anywhere from 2 percent to 7 percent of products are stolen or misplaced during distribution so the new tags will enable the company and others like it to track down products on a per-item basis, reducing losses significantly. The Anti-Counterfeiting Coalition estimates that trademark counterfeiting, another major problem in the distribution chain, robs US companies of $200 billion in revenue annually so smart tags should help to reduce this problem too.
At Gillette smart tags will be used to make sure their products are on the shelf when the consumer wants to buy them. Consumers will be able to point a cellphone containing a scanner at any product to learn about its features from the company's website and, as incentive, discounts may be given to those who buy products immediately.
Despite their obvious advantages MIT says smart tags aren't expected to replace bar codes any time soon though due to the current cost of developing and producing them. New microchips and other technologies are, however, starting to drive down their cost. In a few years, tags without batteries will cost about 5 cents each, but in five to 10 years they will cost 1 cent each, which is competitive with today's bar codes.
Questions 29-35
Classify the following descriptions as referring to
MIT Auto—ID Center MIT
Alien Technology AT
Gillette GT
International Paper IP
Write the appropriate letters in boxes 29-35 on your answer sheet.
NB You may use any answer more than once.
29. is producing a wide range of virtual technology.
30. customers will be able to use a cellphone to scan products and learn about its features from the company's website.
31. will use smart tags to track products to prevent them being stolen or misplaced during distribution.
32. will begin conducting tests at several stores in the next 18 months.
33. manufactures microelectronic products.
34. will be able to ensure that products are in stock when the customer wants them and may give discounts to those who purchase products right away.
35. says that although smart tags are still an expensive replacement for bar codes, new technology will make their price more competitive within a decade.
Questions 36-40
Do the following statements agree with the information given in Reading Passage 3? In boxes 36-40 on your answer sheet write
T if the statement agrees with the information
F if the statement contradicts the information
NG if there is no information on this in the passage
36. More than 20 companies are working together with MIT to develop smart tags.
37. Bar codes are a more effective way of storing information.
38. The high cost of developing smart tags will be passed on to consumers.
39. Within a decade people may be able to check what food they have at home without even being there.
40. Although smart tags will make it easier to track products they will lead to less direct communication with customers.
Academic Reading Test 6
INTERNATIONAL ENGLISH LANGUAGE
TESTING SYSTEM
ACADEMIC READING
TEST 6
TIME ALLOWED:
NUMBER OF QUESTIONS:
1 hour40
Instructions
WRITE ALL YOUR ANSWERS ON THE ANSWER SHEET
The test is in 3 sections:
Reading Passage 1Questions 1-13
Reading Passage 2Questions 14-27
Reading Passage 3Questions 28-40
Remember to answer all the questions. If you are having trouble with a question, skip it and return to it later.
READING PASSAGE 1
You should spend about 20 minutes on Questions 1-13 which are based on Reading Passage 1.
Intelligent Trams Will Guide Themselves
Since the early 1990s, major cities all over the world have been turning to the old-fashioned tram to solve the problem of gridlocked streets resulting from the last century's love affair with the motor car. Electric trams have long been recognized as ideal non-polluting forms of urban transportation, but the latest trams, still in the experimental stage, will not even need drivers—they will be steered by computers.
The drawback to the traditional trams was that they were guided along steel tracks. This meant that, besides being noisy, they couldn't go round an obstruction. So if a motor vehicle or other object stalled while crossing a tram track, all transportation along that line was held up until the obstacle was removed. Another major problem was derailments; if a tram jumped the tracks, it was a major operation to get it back on them. The revolutionary new trams, however, will be guided along "virtual tracks" that will guide them around busy streets without a driver having to touch the wheel.
There are two different technologies employed to enable computers to guide the trams. One, developed by researchers at the Eindhoven Institute of Technology, in Holland,is the Phileas vehicle, which has an on-board computer guidance system
pre-programmed with the tram route. Magnets embedded in the road's surface are detected by sensors under the tram to ensure that it is on the right track. If it is even two centimeters out, the on-board computer will make an adjustment to the tram's steering. Phileas was constructed by Dutch company APTS. Anton Gos Klostermann, an engineer behind the Dutch project, says that automatic steering systems such as these allow cities to implement tram-like schemes at a fraction of the cost. He says that trams increase the efficiency of public transport dramatically because they require less road space than motor buses and are highly reliable. "Phileas has all the benefits of light rail, but is much cheaper and safer," he says. "We see it as a completely different type of transportation."
Another driver-free tram-type vehicle is preparing to make its debut in Britain.
Known as the Omni, the tram uses cameras mounted at the front edge of the roof to track a line painted on the road. The cameras then transmit the information to the on-board computer system, which is located where the driver would normally sit. The system looks 100 feet ahead of the tram to plot its course. According to its creators, the system works reliably even if two-thirds of the line is obscured by dirt on the road.
The Omni is a double-decker, like the traditional British trams and buses. It has two advantages over motorized transport: One is that it has step-free entrances only 350mm above road level. So, just by building up kerbs slightly at ever tram stop, the vehicle becomes fully accessible for passengers in wheelchairs and for those with difficulty climbing steps. This speeds up the processes of boarding and alighting for all passengers. There is, in fact, a special section for wheelchair users at the back of the tram. The second advantage is that guided, pollution-free vehicles such as these trams can operate quite successfully in a pedestrian environment, and so the new trams can extend their services into places where cars and buses are banned, such as shopping malls.
