【推荐1】You’re standing at a city bus stop, waiting for a bus to arrive. You wait and wait.     1     But you haven’t seen one for at least 20 minutes. Finally, a bus full of people arrives. Just as you try to squeeze yourself in, you see another bus coming down the street, and another one behind it!

What’s going on? Why do buses always seem to come in bunches (成群) instead of at regular intervals (间隔) ?

    2     They say that passengers tend to remember the few times when more than one bus arrives at a stop and to forget the many more times when a bus arrives alone.

However, experts who study traffic say that bunching really can happen quite easily.     3     If each stop had the same number of passengers waiting, the buses would keep to their schedule. But usually there are many people at a few stops and no one at others.

Suppose many people happen to gather at a particular stop.     4     So it gets delayed and the bus behind it catches up a bit. When the second bus arrives at the same stop, there has been less time for passengers to assemble (聚集), so the bus goes on its way quickly. Meanwhile, the first bus arrives at its next stop a little later than usual, so there’s been more time for passengers to join the crowd.     5     Once one bus catches up with the other bus, the two buses end up travelling together. If the route is a long one, a third bus could eventually catch up with the first two.

Check it out the next time you hop (跳上) a bus!

【推荐3】Lime has launched its latest Gen4 e-bike, featuring a series of upgrades, among which an interchangeable battery is the most characteristic, in an effort to improve the sustainability and availability of the company’s shared vehicles.

The launch is initially limited to Washington D.C., but the e-bike will gradually spread in other cities this spring, including Atlanta and Charleston in the U.S.

In early 2021, Lime announced a $50 million investment in the Gen4 model. The battery can be used between Lime’s Gen4 e-bikes and Gen4 e-scooters(电动滑板车), which will hopefully result in reduced van trips for the Lime’s operations team replacing the batteries. The feature is also designed to improve reliability for the service and prevent large numbers of uncharged, unusable vehicles lying around on sidewalks.

“The launch of our Gen4 e-bike is an important step toward achieving our mission of building a future where transportation is shared, affordable and carbon-free,” said Wayne Ting, CEO of Lime. “Standardising our exchangeable batteries across modes is a leap forward for Lime and the broader micromobility industry, making operations more efficient and sustainable, while improving reliability for riders.”

Other significant updates to the bike include increased motor power, an improved phone holder, new handlebar display(already seen on Lime’s e-scooters), an automatic two-speed transmission for a smoother ride, and a modular(组合式的)design which the company says makes the bike’s usable life longer. Durability(持久性)is a major issue for the miromobility industry.

The demand for e-bikes, shared or otherwise, appears to be continuing at a steady pace, as Americans apparently bought electric bikes at greater rates than they did electric cars during the pandemic. Here’s all the electric bikes and scooters that rolled into CES 2022 for a glimpse of what’s ahead.