London Has Finally Figured Out How To Make The Tube Run Faster | ||
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Commuters in London will soon be able to get from a to b faster on the Tube, thanks to a brand new carriage design that will debut in the next decade. When a train enters the station, it takes a certain amount of time to open the doors, let people out, let people in, and then close the doors to leave. This is called dwell time. It refers to the time when the system is not moving. Cutting the dwell time is a priority of transport authorities, as anyone travelling on the District line during peak hours already know. Paul Priestman, the lead developer behind the New Tube for London, says that reducing dwell time was a key goal in designing the new carriages, which are expected to enter operation in 2022. "If [the dwell time] is shorter, than you can put more trains in the system," Priestman told Business Insider UK. The shorter dwell time should trigger a chain reaction: If the train spends less time standing still at the station, it would allow more trains on the network at the same time, resulting in a faster and less crowded commute for everyone. To do this, all of the new trains will feature large double doors, whereas around half of the doors on the existing trains are single. To prevent people from clogging the entrances, the floor of the new tube will have lighted paths to guide people toward the centre of the train. A red-green light system on the outside of the doors will let passengers waiting on the platform know when it's time to board — a green light indicates it's safe to get on the train and a red light means the doors are closing.
Another trick to speed up loading time will be to raise the level of the platform to match the train floor, creating a smooth step for people with less mobility, "If one person can't get on and off more quickly, it slows down the system," Priestman said. Join the conversation about this story »  | ||
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Markets Around The World Are Up | ||
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European markets are up early Tuesday. Here's the scorecard, so far: France's CAC 40 is up 0.46%. Germany's DAX is up 0.44%. Spain's IBEX is up 0.86% Italy's FTSE MIB is up 0.60%. Britain's FTSE 100 is up 0.22%. "European equities are set to perk up on overnight gains in the U.S. and Asia. Confidence in the U.S. economy seems to be brushing off any domestic concerns and the bulls are running with it," Capital Spreads dealer Jonathan Sudaria said in an analyst note. Asian markets closed in the green. Nikkei's 225 closed up 2.05%, and Hong Kong's Hang Seng closed up 0.27%. This comes after reports that Japan's Prime Minister Shinzo Abe is considering holding a snap vote in Decemeber if he decides to postpone a sales tax increase planned to take effect next October. U.S. futures are up, with Dow futures up 29 points, S&P futures up 2.50 points, and Nasdaq futures up 7 points. There are no major economic reports coming out of the US or Europe on Tuesday. Join the conversation about this story »  | ||
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Alibaba Sales Hit $2 Billion In A Single Hour (BABA) | ||
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Shanghai (AFP) - Alibaba said $2 billion of goods were sold in the first hour of its Singles Day shopping bonanza in China Tuesday, maintaining the day's dominance as the world's biggest retail event as it went global for the first time. The ecommerce giant said that amount was more than a third of the $5.8 billion full-day sales recorded on the same day last year. Alibaba has been pushing November 11 as Singles Day -- so named for the number of ones in the date -- since 2009 as it looks to tap an expanding army of Internet shoppers in China, which has the world's biggest online population. Singles Day already surpassed major shopping festivals in the US in terms of transaction value last year, toppling the combined online sales of $3.7 billion recorded on Thanksgiving Day, Black Friday and Cyber Monday, according to an estimate by Internet analytics firm comScore. The day was originally marketed as an "anti-Valentine's Day" in China featuring hefty discounts to lure the country's singletons and price-sensitive buyers. It has been expanded globally this year to include overseas merchants and customers. Within the first hour and 12 seconds, more than 12.23 billion yuan ($2 billion) of deals were settled on both domestic and international retail marketplaces, Alibaba said in a statement, adding that 45.7 percent of the transactions were made via mobile devices. Headquartered in the eastern city of Hangzhou, Alibaba debuted its shares in New York two months ago with a record-breaking $25 billion initial public offering. The giant operates China's most popular online shopping platform, Taobao, which is estimated to hold more than 90 percent of the online market for consumer-to-consumer transactions. The company does not sell products directly but acts as an electronic middleman. It also owns other marketplaces, including business-to-consumer platform Tmall. More than 27,000 brands and merchants are participating in this year's Singles Day, while consumers in more than 220 countries and regions will be able to join the 24-hour spending spree, the statement said. Some 500 million packages are expected to be shipped during this year's festival, up 50 percent from a year earlier, the state postal service told state media last month. But some Internet users were less impressed, accusing some merchants of fooling consumers by raising prices beforehand. "I don't know why people are so excited about the 'Double 11' (November 11). It's meaningless as they all hike prices before offering a discount," one wrote on China's Twitter-like blogging service Sina Weibo. Alibaba said last week its third-quarter net profit jumped 15 percent year-on-year to $1.1 billion, its first earnings report since successfully completing the world's biggest stock offering in September. Revenue soared by 53.7 percent from the same quarter last year to $2.7 billion, it said. Join the conversation about this story »  | ||
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