2 . Since it’s made up of over 7,000 islands, the Philippines is not a train-heavy nation. That means coach buses are going to be your best choice for getting city-to-city. There is a small light rail system in the Manila metro area (called the Light Rail Transit System or “LRT” for short), but it has a bad name for being delayed most of the time.

If the phrase “coach bus” calls forth images of old Greyhounds, you’re off the mark. Because coaches in the Philippines are the primary means of intercity transit, many popular bus companies actually feature onboard attendants (think flight attendants, but, you know, on a bus) as well as entertainment centers, posh seats, and other comfortable accouterments (配备).

There’s no one central bus company in the Philippines, so central bus stations are uncommon. That means you need to know which company you want to take, what bus to get on, and where to catch it. Connect with a Filipino local for help when you’re planning your trip. They’ll help you figure out the who/what/where/when of bus transit and walk you through the entire process.

Besides coach buses, jeepneys are also very popular. They are old military jeeps left over from the US occupation of the Philippines which have since been converted into colorful, uniquely-Filipino private buses. They’re cheap, usually around 7 pesos or 0.25 per ride, they’re everywhere, and they’re probably the most popular form of mass transit in the Philippines.

More than anything though, jeepneys are colorful. The owners take lots of pride in their rides, and it’s common to see richly-painted jeepneys on most major roads. Where do you catch a jeepney and where do they go? Make it easy on yourself: have your local trip planner contain at least one jeepney ride into your travel plan—they’ll give you all the information you need.

7 . Twenty-four trains, nine countries, 13,500 miles. They are the numbers behind the heroic round trip one man took from Southampton in the UK to eastern China.

Roger Tyers, 37, used over $2,500, which was almost twice more than the cost of a return flight, to travel to the Chinese port city Ningbo for academic research in May, 2019. The man spent a month on board 15 trains during the first leg of his round trip. It was the climate crisis, not a love of trains, that drove the sociologist to choose this complicated route over a return flight. He stopped flying when UN climate experts warned that the world had less than 11 years to avoid terrible levels of global warming. Tyers calculated that his train journey to China produced almost 90% less emissions than a return flight.

Tyers is not the only person to avoid air travel in response to climate change. Thousands of people worldwide have publicly promised to stop flying. Activist Maja Rosen launched the “Flight Free” campaign in Sweden with the goal of encouraging 100,000 people not to fly for one year. Although only around 14,000 people signed the online “# flightfree2019” pledge (保证), Rosen, who stopped flying 12 years ago, says that the campaign has made more people worry about the climate crisis and aware of harm of travel by air and motivated them to try new ways of travelling.

According to a survey released in May 2019 by Swedish Railways, 37% of respondents chose to travel by train instead of by plane where possible, compared to 20% at the start of 2018. A spokesperson said: “Rail travel has been boosted due to the worries.” Domestic passenger numbers in July fell by 12% compared to the previous year, according to Swedavia, a company which operates Sweden’s 10 busiest airports.

“The collective pledge helps fight the sense of hopelessness many people feel when it comes to tackling climate change,” Rosen said. “One of the problems is that people feel there’s no point in what you do as an individual. The campaign is about making people aware that if we do this together, we can actually bring changes.”

9 . The noise produced by busy roads is a growing problem.

Already, researchers in the Netherlands are working to develop techniques for silencing the roads. In the next five years the Dutch government aims to reduce noise levels from the country’s road surfaces by six decibels overall. Dutch mechanical engineer Ard Kuijpers has come up with one of the most promising and novel ideas. He set out to address the three most important factors: surface texture (质地), hardness and the ability to absorb sound.

The rougher the surface, the more likely it is that a tyre will vibrate (颤动) and create noise. Road builders usually get rid of bumps on freshly laid asphalt (柏油) with heavy rollers, but Kuijpers has developed a method of road building that he thinks can create the ultimate quiet road. His secret is a special mould (模具) 3 metres wide and 50 metres long. Hot asphalt, mixed with small stones, is spread into the mould by a rail-mounted machine which flattens the asphalt mix with a roller. When it sets, the 10-millimetre-thick sheet has a surface smoother than anything that can be achieved by conventional methods.

To better the performance of his road surface—to make it hard wearing yet soft enough to remove vibrations—he then adds another layer below the asphalt. This consists of a 30-millimetre-thick layer of rubber, mixed with stones which are larger than those in the layer above. “It’s like a giant mouse mat, making the road softer,” says Kuijpers.

The foundation itself uses an even more sophisticated technique to reduce noise further. It consists of a sound-absorbing concrete base containing flask-shaped slots (瓶型狭槽) up to 10 millimetres wide and 30 millimetres deep that are open at the top and sealed at the lower end. When sound waves of specific frequencies enter the top of a flask, they set up resonances (共鸣) inside and the energy of the sound dissipates (消散) into the concrete as heat.

Kuijpers believes he can cut noise by five decibels compared to the quietest of today’s roads. The success of Kuijpers’ design will depend on how much it eventually costs. But for those affected by traffic noise there is hope of quieter times ahead.