Matthew Jones

Title of Work: Getting from Here to There: A Comparison

Abstract:

Public transportation in the United States is generally smaller in area and more expensive for end users than in Germany. Cities in the United States are often farther apart than in Germany, and there is less financial support for public transportation. Although public transportation in Germany is much denser, more extensive, and better funded, it has the disadvantage of being much more difficult for people with disabilities to access.

Title of Work (IGP Language): Von hier nach dort gelangen: Ein Vergleich

Abstract (IGP Language):

Der öffentliche Nahverkehr in den Vereinigten Staaten ist im Allgemeinen flächenmäßig kleiner und für die Endnutzer teurer als in Deutschland. Die Städte in den Vereinigten Staaten liegen oft weiter auseinander als in Deutschland, und es gibt weniger finanzielle Unterstützung für den öffentlichen Nahverkehr. Obwohl der öffentliche Nahverkehr in Deutschland viel dichter, umfangreicher und finanziell besser ausgestattet ist, hat er den Nachteil, dass er für Menschen mit Behinderungen viel schwieriger zu erreichen ist.

Elevator Pitch Video

Elevator Pitch Transcript:

Europe has a reputation for having much better public transit than the United States does. As a civil engineering student focusing on transportation, when I traveled to Europe, their public transit was something I was specifically interested in trying out, testing, and seeing the inner details and workings of. My internship also focused on analyzing the different methods of transportation people used, and what they could be using instead if things were different.

During the internship, my work was focused on finding out why people used the transportation methods they did. I helped get our survey out to its recipients, which focused on why people did or did not use public transit and their specific reasons for doing so. I also traveled fairly frequently on Dortmund-area public transit, and sometimes further afield, learning about how the specific networks functioned.

I noticed several differences between here in the United States and there. Among them were the much more frequent and longer-running schedules - for example, Mountain Line in Flagstaff runs most bus lines every half an hour during the week and every hour on the weekends, starting at 6 AM and ending at 10 PM on weekdays and less on weekends. Many German lines, in contrast, offer service around the clock every fifteen to thirty minutes. German public transit, and European transit more broadly, though, was not generally as disability-accessible as it is in the United States. Large gaps between train boarding platforms and trains were fairly common, as were high steps to get onto a train or bus; when dealing with suitcases, I struggled with some of these despite being able-bodied. A truly disabled person would doubtless have much more trouble. American public transit is generally more disability-accessible, with ramps and much smaller gaps.

Europe's public transit is certainly larger and more efficient, but whether it's better now becomes a matter of opinion. My goal with my paper was to enable you to form your own opinion on the subject.

Full-Length Video Presentation

Full-Length Video Transcript:

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