Finding the unexpected in the everyday.
October 29, 1987 A new trolleybus system was inaugurated in Mongolia’s capital city of Ulaanbaatar (also known as Ulan Bator). These trolleybuses have become a heavily used part of the city’s overall transit network, which also includes regular bus lines and a hodge-podge of privately owned passenger vans that are collectively called “microbuses.” The sometimes... Continue Reading →
October 28, 1888 In Japan, the first line of the Iyotetsu (Iyo Railway) Company went into service in the Ehime Prefecture on the main island of Shikoku. The Takahama Line, covering 5.8 miles (9.4 kilometers) between the Ehime Prefecture’s capital city of Matsuyama and the port town of Mitsuhama, made its debut a little over... Continue Reading →
September 18, 1899 The Gyeongin Line, the first railway built on the Korean peninsula, was opened after two-and-a-half years of construction. The initial segment of the line, covering approximately 21 miles (33.8 kilometers) in what is now the northwestern region of South Korea, linked the capital city of Seoul with the port city of Jemulpo (present-day... Continue Reading →
September 10, 2009 A new and record-setting rapid transit rail network in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) city of Dubai began regular operations at 6:00 a.m. The actual debut of the Dubai Metro had taken place the previous night. Sheikh Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum, vice president and prime minister of the UAE and executive... Continue Reading →
September 4, 1994 Japan’s Kansai International Airport was opened. The facility, which was designed by renowned Italian architect Renzo Piano, is located on an artificial island in the middle of Osaka Bay in western Japan. Kansai was the first major airport to begin operations in Japan in 16 years. The first regular flight to land at... Continue Reading →
August 28, 1946 Ricardo De Lara Paras and his brother-in-law Florencio P. Buan established a pioneering bus service in the post-World War II Philippines. Philippine Rabbit Bus Company, Ltd., which was incorporated as Philippine Rabbit Bus Lines exactly 11 years later, came into existence less than two years after the liberation of the Philippines from... Continue Reading →
August 21, 2014 In the state of Maharashtra in western India, Prime Minister Narendra Modi laid the foundation stone for a rapid transit system to be built in the city of Nagpur. This ceremony took place the day after the Union Cabinet approved the development of the system. (The Union Cabinet, which consists of the... Continue Reading →
July 30, 1978 It was a day of many logistical challenges and a large number of confused motorists in the southernmost section of Japan, as Okinawa Prefecture (one of the nation’s 47 main administrative divisions) officially switched its traffic patterns from driving on the right-hand side of the road back to driving on the left-hand... Continue Reading →
July 16, 1902 In what is now the state of Kerala in southwestern India, the newly built Cochin Railway (commonly known today as the Shoranur Junction-Cochin Harbour Terminus section) was opened to passenger traffic. This took place more than six weeks after the railway was opened to freight traffic. At the time, this part of... Continue Reading →
July 11, 1974 The central government of India formally declared an artificial seaport in the section of the Gulf of Mannar along the city of Tuticorin (present-day Thoothukudi) to be one of the nation’s major ports. The all-weather Tuticorin Port was accorded this designation as a result of the exponential growth of maritime traffic... Continue Reading →
Transportation History 