📘 Part 3: Public transport

This episode's vocabulary

Convenient (adj.) - suitable for your purposes and needs and causing the least difficulty.

Convenience (noun) - the state of being convenient.

Emission (noun) - the act of sending out gas, heat, light, etc..

Substantial (adj.) - large in size, value, or importance.

Cleanliness (noun) - the state of being clean, or the act of keeping things clean.

Inefficient (adj.) - not organized, skilled, or able to work in a satisfactory way.

Conducive (adj.) - providing the right conditions for something good to happen or exist.

Congestion (noun) - a situation in which there is too much traffic and movement is difficult/

Host (of something) (noun) - a large number of something.

Futuristic (adj.) - strange and very modern, or intended or seeming to come from some imagined time in the future.

Questions and Answers

M: What are the advantages and disadvantages of private transport?

R: It seems like the most obvious plus points are things like convenience, since you can usually order things like taxis right to your door, and directness, you just point it in the direction that you want to go and you get to where you need to be, unlike with public transport, where you might have a bit of a walk even after you get to the general area. I suppose, when it comes to downsides, clearly, cost is a factor, because greater position will need more resources, and you have to pay for them. Another negative aspect could be the environmental cost. I mean, if we just focus on cars, for example, then having lots of them will produce more emissions than just having a single bus, for example. So that could be a problem too.

M: Who likes to travel more, older people or younger people?

R: Well, in my country, older people get a bus pass so they can use public transport for free, or at least at a heavily discounted price. So I suppose they tend to get around a lot more, and then more generally, when you think about it, older people tend to have more money saved up so they could spend it on things like travel or things associated with travel, while younger people tend not to have such substantial reserves.

M: What do you think needs to be improved in public transport?

R: Oh, a million things. The maintenance and cleanliness could always be better. Just because you see lots of litter or damage. And then it never seems to be very well run or it's inefficient and wasteful. So better funding and a culture that is conducive to those things being addressed would go a long way to fixing them.

M: Are there fewer people using private cars because of improved public transport?

R: I mean, it's not that obvious, one way or the other. To be honest. That's not exactly something you see being reported in the news, and you don't usually go out of your way to find out about it. At a guess, I would say that while it makes sense that this is happening, there seem to be ever more cars on the road, but that's just a feeling based on experience, and it's not a fact, it's just an opinion.

M: Do you think offering free public transport will solve traffic problems in the city?

R: It might solve the problems of traffic congestion in some cases. However, some people, they're almost married to their cars. And the other thing is, if you give something, if you give people something for free, they tend to treat it with a lot less respect, which has happened with bus passes in my country. So I don't know if it will solve these problems, and even if it did, it might create a whole host of new problems.

M: How will transport change in the future?

R: Ooh, actually, I answered a market research survey about this recently, and so, apparently, lots of new technologies are in the pipeline involving drones and remotely operated vehicles. So instead of getting a bus, people would be shuttled to and from wherever they get picked up and dropped off by small helicopters and things. That's something they're looking at.

M: What? Small helicopters?

R: Yeah, it was in a market research survey I did. It looked pretty cool. I imagine there are various costs to this, but it sounds cool. It sounds very futuristic.

M: Thank you, Rory, for your answers.

R: Thank you, Maria, for your authentic reactions!

Discussion

M: So private transport, dear listener, we mean cars, private vehicles, private cars. And public transport, busses, trains, well, planes, but planes could be private, like private jets.

R: You could probably have a private bus as well, if you wanted. So it's not really about the size. It's more about the ownership. Who owns this? Is it an individual or a community?

M: To paraphrase the examiner's question about advantages and disadvantages, you say the obvious plus point is that... Convenience. Yeah? For example. So the advantage? The obvious plus point of private transport is convenience. And you have your car right next to your house, you can order a taxi right to your door. Order a taxi right to your door, so the taxi will come just where you are.

R: To your house. Right to your door is to your house or where you live.

M: But public transport, with public transport, you might have a bit of a walk, so you just walk there, to the train station, to a bus station. Disadvantages or downsides. So one of the downsides of private transport is that, well, it costs a lot. So the cost.

R: Well, it costs a lot compared to public transport, usually. I say this, do you know, train tickets in my country cost something like five or six times as much as plane tickets. It's crazy.

M: Crazy, yeah. And I think in Europe, in general, train tickets are super expensive.

R: Yeah. I don't understand why. But...

M: No, because, like, you have what, modern trains? You have super modern trains, fast trains, I don't know.

R: I think it's to do with how the companies are run. Like I say it's extremely inefficient.

M: Another downside could be the environmental cost. So what private cars do to the environment.

R: We can always talk about the environmental cost of something, because there is always an environmental cost of something.

M: Cars produce lots of emissions. So harmful gases. So cars emit harmful gasses or produce emissions. You can say that in my country, older people get a bus more often than younger people.

R: At least, I think so. It makes sense. If you have this bus pass, then you're more likely to use it than if you don't, I guess.

M: Yeah. And usually, people get a metro pass or a bus pass a train pass, like this card that you use and you just travel by train lots of times, not like a single trip. So a bus pass or a train pass. And older people get these bus passes, and they can travel for free, but maybe not in your country, dear listener.

R: Yes, but generally older people and younger people in certain disadvantaged groups might get discounts or heavily discounted access to things.

M: Yeah, or they get, like older people get a heavily discounted price on public transport. So they tend to get around more. They get around more? They travel more than younger people. Oh, it's for free. Let's go by train. Hey! You know? Instead of staying at home, they just go out and about, travelling by busses and trains. That's why it's packed. Public transport is packed, full of people. And older people tend to have more money saved up. So older people tend to save up money so they can spend money on travel. Younger people tend not to have such substantial reserves. Substantial? Like significant, a lot of money. Reserves, meaning, like financial things, money.

R: What could we say? Stocks of money, they're holding money.

M: Public transport needs to be improved. Passive voice, we talk about maintenance. So the maintenance of public transport. The government maintains public transport, meaning it takes care of public transport, repairs it. Like the government, right? And the maintenance. All this, you know, when I take care of things, it's expensive. So the maintenance and cleanliness. Cleanliness.

R: Cleanliness.

M: Clean? Cleanliness or cleanliness.

R: Cleanliness. It looks like cleanliness when you write it, but it's pronounced cleanliness.

M: Cleanliness. From the word clean. Cleanliness, the state of being clean. So the government is responsible for the maintenance and cleanliness of public transport.

R: Or it should be, I don't think it behaves like that sometimes.

M: Yeah, and we say that public transport is well run or is not well run. If I run something, I manage it, I organize it. Like run a company. I manage my company, I rule, I'm director. Here, the same verb to run. So the public transport in my country is not well run, or is well run.

R: Is it passive voice? Oh, yes, perhaps it is.

M: Yes, it's passive voice.

R: Fabulous.

M: The public transport in your country could be inefficient, so not effective, bad or wasteful. So it doesn't run on time, it breaks down, so you waste a lot of time and money. So you can say like better funding is necessary, so more money allocated to public transport is needed, and a culture that is conducive. To what?

R: Well, conducive to the things that we talked about. So things like making it more efficient and cleaner. So if something is conducive, it supports it or encourages it.

M: Yeah, conducive? Providing the right conditions for something. Fewer people, dear listener, not less people, fewer people. And we can say that there are fewer people who choose private cars, more people choose public transport, for example. Or the other way around, more people choose private cars. You don't go out of your way to find the answer to this.

R: At least I don't think you do.

M: Yeah, like go out of your way to do something is a nice idiom.

R: But that just means that you make a special effort to perform something specific, but I don't think most people try hard to find out if there are more people using private cars or there are fewer people using them because of better public transport. I don't know. It sounds like that, but how do you know that for sure?

M: And you can say that there seem to be ever more cars on the road. So now there are more cars on the road than there used to be in the past. About traffic jams, you can say traffic congestion. That's a very good synonym. Use it in your essay, so traffic congestion could be improved. I liked it when you said that some people are married to their cars.

R: Yeah. So in this case, it doesn't matter what you offer as the alternative, they will still want to use their car.

M: Yeah, true. So dear listener, some people are married to their cars. It's a happy marriage. So they don't go by public transport. A very good synonym to a lot of. A host of, a host of problems, a host of new vehicles. So a host of something. And about the future, you can say that some new technology is in the pipeline. In the pipeline? Meaning it's coming. It will be implemented in the future. It is planned. So something is in the pipeline for the future. And Rory told us about drones regulating the traffic, for example, and people could be shuttled too. People could be moved from point A to point B. People could be shuttled to different places by small helicopters.

R: They could be, yeah.

M: So in the future, there will be helicopter taxis, for example, in cities. Like very convenient.

R: Convenient, but I don't know how likely it is to happen. It was just in this market research survey I was doing.

M: Yeah, so it sounds really futuristic. Futuristic? Like it will be in the future. So maybe unrealistic, but, well, it sounds like the future. I recommend reading some articles about transport in the future, to kind of, to find some ideas, and these ideas could be used in your essays as well. So transport in the future. And some technology that, yeah, they're using in your country in public and private transport. Okay, dear listener? That's your task. Thank you very much for listening! We love you, we hug you, we send you lots of joy and happiness. Okay?

R: And we'll see you next time! Bye!

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