Engenharia Elétrica

Subways: The New Urban Status SymbolBusiness Week - December 5, 2007by Jennifer FishbeinIt seems like everywhere you turn these days, a newhigh-speed train is whisking more passengers across longerdistances faster than ever before. A [NOUN] to Paris fromLondon is quicker than flying; Japanese bullet trains traverse the320 miles from Tokyo to Osaka in two and a half hours; andmagnetic levitating trains in Shanghai cut through the city at 268miles per hour. But while high-speed trains may grab all theglamour, the more mundane business of subway construction iswhat's driving the biggest growth for transportation companies.Indeed, the world is seeing an unprecedented boom in newsubways and expansion to existing systems. Thanks to surgingeconomic growth and urban populations, demand for subways issoaring in China and India. Lots of other places around theworld also are building new lines, from Dubai to SantoDomingo,capital of the Dominican Republic. And many European andAmerican cities ? including even such improbable locales as LosAngeles and Phoenix ? have caught the transit bug.Problem-Solving and PrestigeSome cities build out of necessity. Rising prosperityprompted Dubai residents to buy so many cars that they realizedthey could [ADVERB] longer drive these cars because theywere stuck in traffic. Others are keen on the environmentalbenefits of metros, which produce far less pollution andencourage drivers to leave cars at home. Some places, mainlyin the Middle East, are looking to diversify their oil-dependenteconomies. And others, to be honest, are chasing an urbanstatus symbol. Building a metro won't turn any old town intoParis or London, but it does tell the world that you've arrived.You have in some cases a prestige issue, which is morethe case in young cities in need of an image, says Jean-NoëlDebroise, vice-president for product and strategy at Alstom(ALSO.PA), the French transport company that has built aquarter of the world's metros.Rennes is an example of the new trend. The city of about212,000 people in northwestern France was looking to raise its profile when it installed a metro in 2002. It raised the bar byopting for a driverless system made by Siemens ? just like theshiny new No. 14 line in Paris ? protecting passengers from theFrench penchant for transit strikes. Turin, Italy, did the same tohelp win its bid for the 2006 Winter Olympics; its driverlesssystem opened just before the games. Even the Spanish islandof Mallorca inaugurated a short metro line in April in hopes ofluring even more tourists to its capital, Palma. Alas, it closedindefinitely in September due to flooding, amid charges ofmismanagement.A Boon for Transit BuildersThe world's three largest metro manufacturers,MontrealbasedBombardier (BBDB.TO), Alstom, and Munich-basedSiemens (SI) report high demand for mass transit, includingtramways and light-rail systems that run both under and[PREPOSITION] ground. The global subway market was worth9.3 billion dollars in 2005 and is projected to grow at a rate of2.7% per year until 2015, according to a 2007 study by theEuropean Railway Industry Assn. Subway lines [TO BUILD] orextended in 20 European cities and five Middle Eastern ones,and dozens of towns are constructing light-rail systems, reportsthe Brussels-based International Association of PublicTransport.The size of a city determines its need for a metro system.Cities of a few million people ? or those anticipating hugepopulation growth ? really can't do without a mass transitsystem. But cities of one or two million inhabitants can choosebetween a subway and a surface tramway, which costs far lessbut also runs more slowly.[CONJUNCTION] funding is an issue,cities usually will spring for a subway, says Debroise. Thetramway has a very old image of the 19th century, with horses inthe streets, he says.(Adapted from http://www.businessweek.com/globalbiz/content/dec2007/gb2007125_600001.htm?chan=top+news_top+news+index_global+business)

Which one of the following is made NO reference to in the text as a reason for building a subway system?