1 . If you’re taking the train in Switzerland, your first stop should be the Swiss Federal Railways (SBB) website. Except for a few scenic routes, SBB runs all the regional, commuter trains, and high-speed trains in the country.

●R, RE, and IR are regional trains that are slower, cheaper, and stop at all or most stations between two major centers.

●IC or ICN (the N is for “night”) are fast trains that connect major cities but do not stop at smaller towns along the way.

●S or S-Bahn trains are frequent commuter trains that connect cities and suburbs. If you miss an S train, there’s usually another one coming soon after.

The SBB website sells one-way or round-trip tickets between Swiss cities and other cities in Europe. They also sell City Tickets, including the train to that city, public transportation in the town, and a travel pass that typically allows access to several touristic sites.

To purchase a ticket or research schedule options, type in your point-to-point destinations first and preferred travel time. You can select the train that works best for you. Once you’ve selected your route, enter your passenger information. You’ll have the option to purchase a City Ticket. Complete your purchase with a credit card. You will be issued a voucher (票券).

Children below 16 years of age travel free. But you must pick up a Swiss Family Card before traveling. For travelers with disabilities, select “Barrier-free travel” from the pull-down menu labeled “Standard view” to see only trains that have wheelchair-accessible carriages.

Your ticket will not show a seat reservation. If you buy tickets at the SBB counter or office in the train station, you’ll have the option of reserving a seat in advance.

2 . Traveling in the same car with several people is an excellent idea, which allows one to save on fuel. In the past, few of us would go to the company or work place together.     1    We share a car every day with people whom we do not know anything about. We just need to connect to the Internet or use a mobile app to find the perfect transport for us.

    2    It makes practical sense to use tools at our hands to connect with people who would like to share cars together. Tools like mobile apps help contribute to sharing options.

Undoubtedly, carpooling (拼车) is an excellent option to save some money. It also adjusts our monthly budget for other activities, but the truth is that this type of transport is also much better suited to improve the traffic conditions of cities.     3    

Practically speaking many times, we see heavy traffic but upon further finding we would see many cars with only one passenger in it. Rather than being alone in a heavy traffic situation, why not have passengers?    4     At the same time, you can also have amazing conversations.

Spending on transportation is part of what we consider to be fixed expenses in a family, whether to move to work, to study or simply because we live in areas far away from the large urban centers.

    5     It’s specially fit for those who want to spend less on fuel or would love to have an eco-friendly approach for the environment.

3 . After eight years of construction, the Padma Multipurpose Bridge in Bangladesh opened to the public on June 26, reducing travel time from parts of the southwest of the country to the capital Dhaka from seven to eight hours to as little as just 10 minutes.

The 21.5-meter-wide, 6.15-kilometer-long bridge built over the Padma River, the main branch of the Ganges, has two levels with the upper tier having a four-lane highway and the lower tier a single-track railway, according to Wuhan-based China Railway Major Bridge Engineering Group, or MBEC, one of China’s biggest bridge makers. Before that, travelers and goods were transported via boat or ship because of the vast width and fast-flowing nature of the river, and the tendency of the area to flood.

In 2014, the Bangladeshi government awarded MBEC a $1.54-billion contract to build the core structure of the bridge, making it the country’s largest infrastructure(基础建设) project as well as the largest foreign bridge project undertaken by Chinese companies in terms of total cost.

“The construction was much harder than expected as the complex geological conditions brought multiple challenges to us,” said Shen Tao, deputy general manager of the project. “The bridge is located above a river with banks on loose soil, and downpours in the rainy season often caused flooding, bringing us numerous difficulties we had never experienced before.” “During the construction, we had to adjust the design plan to adapt to environmental changes whenever necessary,” he added.

“However, through continuous learning and adaptation, construction teams have greatly improved their abilities including technology, communication and adaptability.” said Wen Wusong, chairman of MBEC. “They demonstrated the strength of China’s road bridge construction to the whole world and the bridge is a model of international cooperation.”

Over the past eight years, the project has created over 50,000 jobs for local residents, according to MBEC.

I was only in China for about 4 months last year. I stayed in Shanghai and visited some other cities    1     (include) Beijing. While the price feels a bit too much for a high speed train, the Chinese infrastructure (基础建设) is     2     (true) far ahead of any other developing country and even some developed ones in Europe. The train stations are as big     3     airports: almost everything in     4     is like airports. They have all the high standards of airports but without the waiting time. The trains are just like those from Germany or France,     5    are clean, modern and highly developed and run at very high speeds. It is about 1,200 kms from Shanghai to Beijing, and each high speed train     6     (take) around 4 and a half hours to reach its destination and     7     are more than 2 trains every hour, each day.

I also had the experience of     8     (sit) in Maglev (磁力悬浮列车) in Shanghai. There is a public maglev train that runs from Shanghai city to its international airport. The    9     (distant) from the city to the airport is 40 kms and the speed of the train is 430 kms/hr. It took us just around 6 mins     10     (cover) 40 kms and it felt rather smooth.

7 . World’s Incredible Railways

Running for about 193 kilometers. West Highland Railway Line is one of the “greatest hits” of the landscapes Scotland offers.The line can be enjoyed through the comfortable Caledonian Sleeper might train from London to Fort William, with the last stretch of the journey accompanied by breakfast. Remember to keep an eye out for stags(雄鹿)as they survey their kingdom.

Widely regarded as one of the world’s greatest rail journeys, it runs weekly over a 2,979-kilometer route crossing the length of Australia from Adelaide in the south to Darwin in the Northern Territory. Each trip takes more than 53 hours, including extended stops in remote towns such as Coober Pedy for passengers to experience the Outback during off-train tours.

For centuries, known as “The Roof of the World”, Tibet was visited only by the hardiest travelers and explorers, but the opening of the remarkable Qinghai-Tibet Railway in 2006 created a permanent connection with the Chinese rail network. The 1,956 kilometer route from Xining to Lhasa tops out at the Tanggula Pass, 5,068 meters above sea level. With its opening, direct trains run to Lhasa from Beijing in 40 hours and Shanghai 47 hours.

The TranzAlpine takes four and a half hours to cover just 224 kilometers. Its famous “open-air carriage(客车厢)” is the real highlight. This open-sided car allows passengers to experience the fresh mountain air first-hand and take amazing landscape photos. Passengers can also now listen to a GPS-based audio commentary in English, enjoying stories about places along the route, the country and its culture.

8 . The national statistics showing a decline in bike ridership are a bit misleading. It is indeed down in rural and suburban areas — but cities tell a different story. Biking in cities has exploded recently with millions of Americans mounting bicycles for the first time in years. Is it the start of a long-term trend?

There are good reasons to hope so. Transportation is the largest source of greenhouse emissions (排放) in the U.S., and cars and light trucks account for 58 percent of transportation emissions. Switching from cars to bikes cuts emissions much faster than switching to electric cars.

And motor vehicle accidents still kill more than 39,000 Americans a year — including more than 700 cyclists. Some 70 percent of people surveyed in the U.S. say they’re interested in biking. Why don’t they bike more? It comes down to safety. Half of the people surveyed said they were, understandably, too afraid to bike on the street.

Putting a painted biking path on a 40-mph road is not going to appeal to potential cyclists afraid of a close encounter with a car. Bike safety isn’t about painting bike paths on every street. It’s about creating bike networks that can take you safely from point A to point B. Good bike networks are made of things like greenways, protected bike paths with physical barriers separating riders from cars, and quiet streets.

The good news is that bike networks were expanding in the U.S. years ago. Between 1991 and 2021, there was a six-fold increase in painted, off-road paths, from 5,904 miles to 39,329 miles. And the increase in protected bike paths is even more dramatic: Their total length, nationwide, went from only 34 miles in 2006 to 425 miles in 2018. In fact, cities in the West and East are leading the pack, but the trend is nationwide.

Driverless buses are     1    (current) in operation on some open roads in four countries-China, the United States, Finland and Germany. The     2    (long) of unmanned bus routes in China has reached 54.6 kilometers, 8.6 times as long as those in the US. But that’s just a beginning. Major cities across China     3    (explore) how to use cutting-edge technologies to improve their transportation networks.

Cities like Guangzhou and Shenzhen have unmanned buses in operation on open roads. It is estimated     4     this year, China will increase     5     number of driverless bus routes to over sixty.

In October 2020, the Longzhou One, the minibus started trial operations in Suzhou, offering free services to the citizens. It is equipped     6    a global positioning system, cameras and sensors to navigate. AI technologies and cameras also work together to enable the bus     7    (detect) and avoid obstacles on the road.

A high-speed 5G network and smart connected-devices allow the driverless buses to receive information     8    (regard) traffic and road conditions almost in real time.

With the combination of 5G, navigation satellites, AI, big data and other technologies, urban transportation is gradually getting ultramodern,     9     makes its management via high-tech possible. Such a trend will become more     10    (evidence) in the future.