EDUCATIONAL METHODS TO CHANGE THE ATTITUDES OF TRANSPORT PLANNERS TOWARDS ENVIRONMENTALLY SUSTAINABLE TRANSPORTATION SYSTEMS IN DEVELOPING COUNTRIES

This paper describes a pilot project aimed at increasing the exposure of transport planners in Bangkok and Colombo to Bus Rapid Transit (BRT). The objective of the project was to examine the efficiencies of three educational methods used to increase the understanding of local transport officials about BRT as well as changing their attitudes toward the implementation of BRT in their cities. Two methods were found to increase the planners' inclination to implement BRT: 1) providing the planners with information on public attitudes and perceptions of BRT, and 2) asking them to make their intentions more concrete by specifying possible BRT routes on a city map. A method that provided detailed information on using and operating a model BRT system appeared to increase the feeling of “obligation” of the planners to develop a BRT system for their countries. The combination of these methods would possibly be effective in strategies to change transport planners' attitudes toward BRT

MIROC-ESM: model description and basic results of CMIP5-20c3m experiments

An earth system model (MIROC-ESM 2010) is fully described in terms of each model component and their interactions. Results for the CMIP5 (Coupled Model Intercomparison Project phase 5) historical simulation are presented to demonstrate the model's performance from several perspectives: atmosphere, ocean, sea-ice, land-surface, ocean and terrestrial biogeochemistry, and atmospheric chemistry and aerosols. An atmospheric chemistry coupled version of MIROC-ESM (MIROC-ESM-CHEM 2010) reasonably reproduces transient variations in surface air temperatures for the period 1850–2005, as well as the present-day climatology for the zonal-mean zonal winds and temperatures from the surface to the mesosphere. The historical evolution and global distribution of column ozone and the amount of tropospheric aerosols are reasonably simulated in the model based on the Representative Concentration Pathways' (RCP) historical emissions of these precursors. The simulated distributions of the terrestrial and marine biogeochemistry parameters agree with recent observations, which is encouraging to use the model for future global change projections