Hello everyone and welcome back to the easy english podcast.
I'm your host oliver, and today we are talking about transport how we get around, specifically public transportation transportation And we're going to look at three main types buses, trains and subways, or metro systems.
And this will allow us to practice our listening and learn some new words and phrases about transport.
We're going to discuss the differences, the advantages and disadvantages of each.
A number of years ago, I think maybe one or two years ago, I made an episode about transport.
And I talked about planes, trains and maybe cars.
But I wanted to remake this topic with some more up-to-date structure and details, better vocabulary.
So if you're looking to improve your vocabulary about transport, then keep on listening.
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So let's look at our key vocabulary.
As always, I'm going to teach you five key words or phrases, and I want you to listen for these phrases and words during the main episode.
This allows you to practice your active listening.
Can you do that?
Perfect.
Let's take a look at our key vocabulary today.
The first word today is actually a phrase and it is public transportation.
Public transportation.
Don't worry if you know this already.
It's always good to practice the pronunciation and the listening.
So public transportation.
This is a system of buses, trains, or even subways that anyone can use.
It is for the public, for us, for people.
Most countries have some form of public transportation.
The next word is route.
Route.
Or as Americans say it, route.
Route.
They say with a slightly different pronunciation.
But we would say route.
And route is the path or way that a bus or train travels.
It is where it goes, where it stops, where it begins, where it ends.
That is the route.
The third word today is fare.
Fare, and this is the money that you pay to travel, it is the fee, the cost.
So, for example, buses and trains have maybe different fares, different prices, different costs.
The fourth word is a very good one and it's useful even outside of transport, and that is network.
Network, And a network is a system, so a system that is connected.
And in this case, with transport, a network is a system of connected lines or routes.
For example, the railway network or the train network is all of the train lines, all of the areas that you can go to and the different trains.
That is the network.
And our final word today is commuter, commuter.
This is a noun and it means a person who travels to and from work every day.
So if you travel to your office and back every day, or maybe on the days that you do travel, you are a commuter.
And this comes from the verb to commute, which means to travel to work.
So those are our key vocabulary words for this episode.
So to recap, public transportation, route or route if you're American, fare, network and commuter.
So let's go to our main topic today looking at fare three different types of transport, and i'm going to talk a little bit about my opinion too, and what i think about each of these types of transport.
So let's start with the bus.
The bus is probably the most common type of public transportation in the world, Because there's not a lot of infrastructure, so not a lot of building required to allow buses to operate.
So most of the world has buses.
And it's a very flexible option because it travels on the street that is already there.
And it can reach almost any neighborhood.
The route of a bus is often a very detailed one. with a stop on almost every street corner.
So almost every part of a street that it goes on within a city.
Of course, in more rural areas outside the city, those stops become less and less because there are less people.
And as a result, the bus cannot, I guess, service those areas as much.
But even in countries that basically don't have a lot of trains or metros or trams or other types of public transport, they usually will have buses.
And this is quite common, particularly in countries with low populations.
But also in per areas.
So if you take a lot of big countries, the capital cities may be great for public transport.
But then you travel to smaller, more regional areas like smaller towns or cities or even the countryside in these countries.
And there is pretty much no public transport at all. or very little.
This is very common right across the world, but often they will still have some form of bus transport.
So this is why I think buses are great.
They are fairly low cost for a country to use, to implement and to set up.
And they're great for short distances and for getting to lots of specific stops.
Looking at cities, I think buses are actually probably one of the more comfortable methods of transport and usually they are the cheapest out of all the options.
But there are some potential problems with buses.
Often buses can be affected by traffic if there's lots of cars on the street.
I know in lots of European cities, even in my own local city, there are bus lanes, so roads that are only used by buses, and this allows them to not have traffic, so to not get stuck in traffic.
And that's great, but this isn't possible everywhere.
I know in London, for example, there are lots of bus lanes too, but many areas of the city, especially the city centre uh, because it's old and the roads are quite narrow, and they can.
They don't increase the size of the roads, of course, because it would destroy this beautiful city and they want to reduce the amount of cars and traffic.
So it actually makes sense to have less roads over time.
But the result of this is that sometimes the buses can be late because they are stuck in traffic, because their road system is, I think, with time, getting smaller and busier.
Although over time, they have done a lot to reduce the amount of cars in London.
But overall, I don't mind traveling by bus.
I don't do it often because I guess the part of the UK I live in is very car dependent.
So we drive a lot in cars, mainly because the population is very small here in the part of the UK that I live in, which means that the public transport system is not so big.
It's not a big network.
But I know some people that do use buses.
And when I travel to other countries or to bigger cities, I don't mind using buses.
Actually, in London I often prefer using the buses rather than the metro system, or the London Underground as it's called.
So I think if you need to travel a short distance, the bus is an excellent choice.
And it can be good for long journeys too, because it's nice and cheap.
Okay, so our next type of transport to discuss today, and that is the subway or the metro.
Or if you're in London, they call it the underground.
But first, very quickly, if you would like the transcripts and vocab lists for each episode as it's released, you can actually watch the episode while listening to the transcripts.
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Okay, back to the episode and let's take a look at the subway system or the metro system.
So little facts before we start.
You may have like metro systems or subways in your city or maybe in the capital city, more often in the country that you live.
Usually they tend to be found in big major cities.
So some of the biggest cities.
But did you know that the world's first metro system was called the Metropolitan Railway?
And it opened in London in 1863.
And it's now part of the London Underground.
So I find that always very interesting.
It's so long ago, actually, that the first metro system was created.
Actually, the third oldest metro station.
So the second was in Budapest, I believe in 1896.
So almost 30 years or a little over 30 years after the London Metro.
And then the third oldest metro system was actually in quite a small city of Glasgow in Scotland, which is quite a random place for a metro.
And they still have it today, a very small metro line.
It's like one line that goes around the city.
But I always think that that's quite cool.
So the metro or the underground, whatever you want to call it is built on a special network of tracks that are often under the city streets.
And some of the advantages of this are that they are very fast.
So it's quite a fast method of transport.
And this is because it is not affected by traffic or people walking around up on the surface around the streets.
Cities can be very busy places with the cars, with the people, and having an underground system avoids a lot of this and it gets people to work faster.
They're probably the best way to travel long distances across a city, especially during rush hour.
But some of the advantages of this is that a subway or a metro network may not go everywhere, particularly on certain lines or certain areas.
The spaces between stations can sometimes be quite large.
And it can still require you to walk maybe 15 or 20 minutes from the station when you exit.
And probably the biggest disadvantage in my opinion, is that the metro systems or the subway are often, in almost every country I've been to, very crowded during the working hours, rush hour particularly.
The rush hour is when people go to work in the morning and come back in the evening.
Sometimes these trains, especially some busy lines with high population, can be very uncomfortable and it can be very hard to get a seat or even a comfortable place to stand, particularly in the summertime when people are sweating and they're hot.
One of the worst metros for comfort not every line but some of the old lines particularly is the London Underground.
The London Underground is great, don't get me wrong.
It's a very efficient way to travel and it's under a very old city.
And the metro line itself is probably one of the most amazing networks in the world, based on even the time that it was built.
But because it is so old and so historic, the ventilation and the air is not so good And it's very hard for them to improve it because of the scale and how old it is and the space that it takes up.
Once a city is already fully built on top of it, the metro has developed.
It's very hard to rework and improve.
There are some improvements and they have been doing improvements over the years, but some parts are almost impossible for them to fix.
As a result, in the summertime, it is very hot.
Very, very hot inside.
And the air conditioning, the ventilation, it does not work very well.
So for this reason, I prefer using buses when I'm in London, particularly in the summertime.
In the wintertime, it's fine.
There's no problems really at all.
In other colder countries, like when I lived in Moscow and St.
Petersburg in Russia, the metros were very comfortable, apart from rush hour when it was very busy.
But I had the opposite problem in the winter.
I found it very hot inside because there's still a lot of people and you're wearing winter clothing because it's cold outside.
The heating is also on inside and it's very warm, so it can be quite uncomfortable and sweaty, especially if you're traveling for a short distance, and it doesn't make sense to take all of your coats and jackets off because you need to put it on again as soon as you leave.
So let's look at our third method of transport and discuss it.
But first, I want to very quickly look at our listener spotlight.
And the question today I think you can guess it already is what is your favorite type of transport and why?
It can be public transport.
It can be private.
I just want you to tell me what your favorite type of transport is and why.
Because I'm recording this podcast close to the last one, I don't yet have any answers to read out today in our listener spotlight.
But because I think the content is slightly longer in today's episode...
We will not worry.
So I need you guys to try your best to answer these questions so that I can read out some of your wonderful answers to help everyone else learn and practice their English too.
And it's great to practice your writing and your creation with thoughts.
Try to not use Google Translate or any kind of translation or AI tool when you answer these questions.
So I want you to feel comfortable with practicing with your real English.
I'm not going to correct you.
I'm not going to point out mistakes.
I just want you to practice.
So answer below.
What is your favorite type of transportation and why?
Now let's go back to our last form of transportation for the episode.
And that is the train.
Train is another important form of public transportation.
And they're usually used for longer trips than buses or subways.
But they're quite similar, I guess.
Usually they have more space, I think.
And they're usually perfect for commuters.
The reason I've included this in city transport is because often a lot of people live on the edge of a city, particularly in European style cities and American style cities.
Not a lot of people in most cases live in the center of the city or even, in many cases, in the city itself.
Cities can be quite spread out, and the surrounding suburbs these are areas around the city are often where most people live.
And there's a number of reasons for that.
People live in the suburbs because it's cheaper, so it's not in the center of the city.
There's more space, so often you can have a bigger home or apartment.
And it can be more comfortable for family life.
There's perhaps more nature, more space and areas to travel around.
And for them, they have to often, if they don't work from home, commute into the city.
And the most common way for people to do this besides car is train.
A train really is perfect for commuters.
People who are traveling that longer distance from home to work.
Trains are very fast and comfortable, but of course during rush hour they can also be very busy at times.
A big advantage of trains is you skip the traffic.
You don't hit traffic.
Commuting by car into the city for work is difficult for a number of reasons.
You have traffic on the roads and then, once you arrive in the city, you need to find somewhere to park your car.
So you have to pay for parking, pay for the fuel and the car and spend the time in traffic and parking.
Of course, this is different if your company has a large car park or somewhere for you to go.
But if you're just parking in the city center, that can be a bit of a nightmare.
So it makes sense to leave your car at the train station and get the train into the town.
But the main disadvantages and this is almost always true for trains, no matter where you are in the world is that there is a limited number of stops.
Because trains use larger stations, they can't be too close together.
This doesn't matter whether it's in a city or whether it's outside of a city.
There will usually be a decent amount of space between each train station stop.
It's not like a metro where often the stations are a little bit closer together.
And, as a result, you might have to walk quite a little while after going to each train station to get to exactly where you want.
And in most countries the use of an actual train, so not a metro or a bus or a tram, is more expensive than those other options.
So the train is often quite an expensive option, and it requires people to buy a pass or some kind of a card which allows them to travel a number of days during the week to make it more affordable.
So train really is your best option for traveling a long distance, either for work or for a trip to another town or another place that's a little bit further away, but again, i quite like the terrain when i can use the train and get it and i think it's a comfortable method to travel.
So, whether you're a commuter or you just use transport for fun, for traveling, to meet friends or to go into the town or city,
I hope this topic was interesting for you to hear vocabulary about transport and to hear me talk about these different types of transport.
In the future.
So in a while, maybe on Patreon.
First I will do an episode about phrases related to public transport and transport.
So asking for a ticket, paying and the different phrases around using transport, as I think this might be helpful for those of you who are planning to move to an English speaking country or travel there, particularly the UK as well.
So again, thank you so much for listening.
I appreciate each and every one of you for supporting the show.
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I couldn't do it without you.
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I hope you have a wonderful rest of your day.
Keep on studying and practicing your English.
You will get better and better.
Thank you so much for listening.
Have a wonderful evening or afternoon or morning.
Goodbye.
