A Delight Of Transport The London double decker bus has been extolled and immortalised by British composers Michael Flanders and Donald Swan in their famous song "A Transport of Delight" : "If tickets cost a pound apiece Inside that 30-foot long by 10-feet wide One of the America's motoring maga. zines wrote "It is as agile as it is Landrover. Just the thing for a family of 72." As for Britons, the mere glimpse of a red double decker arouses a strong proprietory feeling, so much so that when an expatriate English woman spotted a "British Week" Routemaster in Tokyo, it moved her so deeply that she flung her arms wide in gaiety. Then she burst into tears and kissed it. Thousands of Japanese passengers queued up patiently for a free ride when eight double deck London buses rolled through Tokyo's streets during British week last year. The riders included the Crown Prince of japan. An author says: "As much a symbol of London as Big Ben, the massive double deckers steal the scene wherever they go to boost Britain's export drive" A Routemaster with G. B. plates stopped traffic in Munich's rush hours and was put on exhibition in Kenigsplatz. When "Garuda" the first of the seven Boeing-737 planes recently purchased by the Indian Airlines from the United States touched down at Palam Airport on December 12, 1970, it was received with greetings and applause by a big crowd which included Dr. Karan Singh, Indian Minister for Tourism and Civil Aviation, Dy. Minister, Dr. (Mrs.) Sarojini Mahishi, About 10 years ago when the first dou ble decker was introduced in the city of Bangalore by the Mysore State Road Transport Corporation, after the inaugural function the bus was driven on the roads of Bangalore with the then Chief Minister Mr. Jatti and other ministers and officials riding on the bus. The whole city was astir with curiosity and there were large crowds waiting on the roads to have a ride in the bus. With the explosion of population all over the world, the problem of mass transport is becoming acute in all the developed and developing countries of the world. It has assumed serious proportions in India, particularly in the metropolitan cities. It redounds to the credit of Indian Engineers that India has developed the largest passenger carrying capacity buses in the form of articulated double deckers which are now plying on the roads of Bombay, Delhi, Ahmedabad, Hyderabad and Bangalore. Even Madras which has all these years operated single decker buses has introduced one articulated double decker bus this year and there are many more cities like Poona, Bhavnagar, Baroda which are likely to follow suit. One can safely say that "An Era of Articulated Double Deckers" has dawned in India. Though the development of automobile industry in India as a whole is little halting and not as fast as it should be, the progress of passenger bus industry is creditable and with the strides it has taken in the recent past, it even evokes admiration. The metropolitan cities have not been able to increase their fleet of double deckers because of the shortage of foreign exchange involved in the import of double decker chassis. The introduction of articulated double decker has substantially resolved this problem so much so that apart from the metropolitan cities even district cities are now thinking of having articulated double deckers. These large capacity buses have proved to be a boon during emergency. At the time of open session of the Organisational Congress at Ahmedabad thousands and thousands of people were stuck up in Gandhinagar at midnight in biting cold for want of transport. The articulated double deckers were requisitioned from Ahmedabad Municipal Transport Service. Some of the double deckers carried loads of even 200 passengers and provided relief to the stranded visitors. With the stringent foreign exchange position, worsening day by day, the import of double decker chassis became very difficult. The underground railway with its initial cost being prohibitive, was remote possibility in the metropolitan cities. In the densely congested cities of Bombay, Delhi, Ahmedabad, the large capacity articulated double deck bus was the only answer. Semi articulated double decker buses have manifold advantages : 1. The passenger seating capacity has been increased to 100 against the maximum of 80 seats in a conventi The increase in capacity reduces the capital cost per seat. A much lower cost of oper ation per seat per K. M. is also obtained. 2. The entire construction consists of completely indigenous components. saving valuable foreign exchange. 3. Lay-off time is minimised, because the trailer bus can be hitched on to any spare tractor when the prime mover is under repair or service. 4. For the tractor semi-trailer combination, the turning circle actually improves as the short wheel base tractor has a shorter turning circle than a longer wheel base truck or bus, thus increasing manoeuvrability of the combination. 5. As the load is distributed over '3 axles as against' 2 axles in conventional vehicles, the wear and tear on roads is considerably reduced. 6. The jerks which are directly transmitted on conventional double decker buses due to gear changes are practi cally eliminated on this type of vehicle thus giving the passengers a much smoother ride. 7. Normally the success of a transport system is measured by the number of vehicles passing through a road or a junction in a given time. The traffic is counted in terms of 'passenger car units'. A private car represents one 'p. c. u.' (passenger car unit) and a bus 3 'p. c. u' s. after taking into consideration the road space which is occupied by the bus as compared to the car. The conventional double decker carries about 70 passengers. In terms of passenger carrying capacity, the bus is nearly six times as efficient as the 4-seater car, bearing in mind that each bus occupies 3 times as much road space as the private car. The articulated double decker which carries about 100 passengers and 10 to 25 standees, has an immensely much more passenger carrying capacity than the private car. During the Fourth Five Year Plan, there is going to be a substantial rise in the demand for the commercial vehicles, particularly, passenger buses. The present production of commercial vehicles is 40,000 per annum, in our country. At the end of the Fourth Five Year Plan the production of the commercial vehicles is expected to reach the target fixed at 81,000 including the defence requirements. A Planning Commission study has recommended a radical rationalisation of the pattern of mass transportation services in the metropolitan cities of Delhi, Bombay, Madras and Calcutta, for a network of efficient and modern transport. The Study suggests that the undertakings in these cities should introduce large capacity buses suitable for city operation. They should standardise design of the buses to make transport more economical. The main problem of road transport undertakings in these four cities "is of overage and uneconomic-to-repair buses." एक व्यक्ति के लिये Such buses constitute 17.4 per cent of the total fleet in the case of Bombay (BEST), 39.3 per cent in Delhi (DTU) and 47.3 per cent in the case of Calcutta (CSTU), the study adds. These undertakings have not been able to replace these overaged buses in required number because of lack of funds. The Study, therefore, recommends financial support to enable them to replace overaged buses and augment their fleet. The study has estimated the cost of replacement of overaged buses, at Rs. 31.4 crores. India can legitimately take pride in building the most modern single deckers as well as double decker passenger buses. Hundreds of single decker buses and luxury coaches are already exported from India and in the very near future, India will be one of the leading exporters of passenger buses in South East Asia, Middle East and African countries. It is high time our government awakens to this possibility and starts taking interest in exploring possibi lities of making passenger bus industry as one of the leading export industries of our country. ७ वर्षीय राष्ट्रीय बचत पत्रों ( द्वितीय तथा तृतीय निर्गम ) में धन जमा करने की सीमा में वृद्धि । २५ हजार तक के बजाय ५० हजार रुपये तक के बचत पत्र खरीद सकते हैं । दो व्यक्ति (संयुक्त रूप से ) - ५० हजार के बजाय १ लाख रुपये के बचत पत्रों को खरीद सकते हैं । ७ वर्षीय राष्ट्रीय बचत पत्रों (द्वितीय निर्गम) पर ५ प्रतिशत चक्रवृद्धि ब्याज देय है । ७ वर्षीय राष्ट्रीय बचत पत्रों (तृतीय निर्गम) पर ५ प्रतिशत ब्याज प्रतिवर्ष देय है । यह ब्याज आयकर से मुक्त है । इन बचत पत्रों में जमाकर्ता १२ वर्षीय नेशनल प्लान सेविंग्स सर्टीफिकेट्स एवं ४ प्रतिशत ट्रेजरी सेविंग्स डिपाजिट सर्टीफिकेट्स की परिपक्व राशियाँ जमा कर सकते हैं । विस्तृत जानकारी के लिए कृपया अपने जिले के जिला संगठनकर्ता, राष्ट्रीय बचत से सम्पर्क स्थापित करें | राष्ट्रीय बचत निदेशालय, उत्तर प्रदेश द्वारा प्रसारित doodood oodood O Computer Aided Design In Architecture In the building industry as a whole computers are being used more and more for a wide variety of applications ranging from structural analysis to costing and computer aided design. Whilst many of these applications are regularly in use and are now accepted as part of the industry's way of life, computer aided design in architecture has not so far been used to any great extent. Computer aided design is potentially one of the most interesting areas of recent computer developments, but to some architects probably a little frightening. Computer aided design is part of a new era in computer application-that of man-machine communication. The advent of new techniques in software (the written instructions which control the operation of a computer) now enables a person to communicate with a computer by means of typewriter or display units. No longer does the computer require a complete programme to carry out a calculation. By virtue of a pre-prepared file of information, relevant to the work being carried out, an engineer or designer can use the computer as a reference library and sophisticated calculating machine combined. He can ask the computer a question and get an immediate reply. He can ask the computer to make a calculation based on that question and make his own decision on the result. In this way he can converse with the computer and use that machine to aid him in building up a design idea. This of course may be ideal for the electronic engineer whose designs are principally based on mathematical structures, but architectural design (although involving mathematics) is very much a visual and intuitive art. It is, therefore, imperative that the architect has visual representation if he is to use a computer with any effect. This is achieved with the aid of graphical display devices and special light pens. of the graphical display, detects by means of the associated computer, the exact position at which it is directed and if required can be made to leave a trace of its movements across the screen like a pencil on paper. The light pen can be used to feed graphical data into the computer--in the form of either diagrams or text. This information can be displayed on the screen as well as being stored in the computer. Standard routine programmes held in the computer can provide the architect with more powerful facilities than does his ordinary pencil and paper. Drawings displayed on the graphical rotated about a chosen point and expanded unit can be enlarged or diminished in size, from a two-dimensional sketch into an accurate perspective drawing, all at the touch of a button. The control programmes provided with the display unit can be used by the operator to |