Struggling through Traffic mess in Dhaka

image: BBC

Abu Afsarul Haider in the first of a two-part article on the traffic problem in Dhaka

Bangladesh is a home of 160 million people and its capital Dhaka, which is one of the fastest growing cities in the world, has at present a population of more than 16 million. By 2025, the UN predicts Dhaka will have more than 20 million people.

All the mega cities in the world suffer from traffic jam at certain hours of the day, especially during office-hour called rush-hour. What we have in Dhaka is not traffic jam, it is total traffic chaos and mismanagement. As usual we can play blame game but before doing so, let us analyse the situation to find where the problem lies?

* Unpleasant as it may sound, it is not only in Dhaka the whole country is full of indisciplined drivers and pedestrians who have no respect for traffic rules and regulations. Everywhere in the world traffic is managed by the auto signaling light and one can hardly see a policeman. Whereas, in Bangladesh, at every intersection along with auto signaling light there are at least four policemen, including one sergeant, standing at the corner but still they are helpless to manage this mad traffic.

It seems everybody is in a hurry; nobody will follow the lane or speed limit or let others pass. Drivers are continuously honking their horn, overtaking from the wrong side and driving their vehicles in such a manner that anybody new in town will start thinking negative about the people and country. Pedestrians show less interest to use footpath, foot-over-bridge or under-pass. Many times I have seen when it is turn for vehicles to move, pedestrians are also simultaneously trying to cross the road from different directions, thus slowing down the traffic and causing accident.

Public transport drivers stop the vehicles on the middle of the road for letting passengers in and out. Nobody dares to raise voice against them. Of course, drivers are not always at fault; it is us, the passengers who create problem some time. Such as, a public transport driver who respects traffic signal and drives at the regulated speeds are cursed by the passengers continuously. I have noticed passengers shouting from the back and asking the driver to speed up, because the other buses have overtaken him and went ahead. Owners of the private cars, seating on the back, may have some control on the drivers but many are least bothered.

Suggestions: The problem lies in our behaviour pattern, many break the law knowingly and many don't even realise that they are doing something terribly wrong. This is a social problem and needs to be addressed accordingly. Teaching a child, what is wrong or right is easy but bringing change on the grownups is tough but not impossible. There should be a collective efforts through making partnership with different non-governmental organisations (NGOs), development partners, social organisations like Rotary, Lions etc who should take a long-term plan and project on teaching ethical driving, road crossing, traffic police management with audio-visual display, images etc.

Public and private sectors can give priority on hiring those drivers who have training from such organisations. Electronic media can play a huge role by showing small documentaries of one or two minutes on the subject on a regular basis. Social organisations can take a project on creating awareness among the people. All this should be a long-term project and not just an eye-wash during the Traffic Week.

Since, fine and penalty is so negligible for violating traffic rules, people don't care much. Here, we need to be harsh, I am confident if we can fine heftily along with some punishment to drivers and pedestrians, things will start changing.

* Dhaka has a population of 16 million people, and the road network is not adequate. For a standard city, minimum road requirement is 25 per cent whereas Dhaka has only 7.5 per cent road of its total area. A significant portion of road is occupied by the hawkers, shopkeepers, construction materials of real estate developers etc., which is causing obstruction on free movement of vehicles. To make things worse these roads are subject to cuttings throughout the year by DESA, WASA and other utility facilitators. Dhaka is overpopulated and definitely it is not designed to accommodate 16 million people. Every day more and more people are coming to Dhaka for business, job-seeking, health care, education etc. This huge population acts as a catalyst to traffic congestion.

Suggestions: Now, we cannot build new roads overnight. Building roads and developing infrastructures are the responsibility of the government and it should be a continuous process. For a short-term solution, whatever roads we have, whether it is a main road or inner road of residential or commercial area, we must make maximum use of those.

There should be an integrated and coordinated plan among all the utility facilitators, so that digging roads does not continue throughout the year.

Since Dhaka is offering better business, good education and better health care facilities than other parts of the country, people prefer to live here and we cannot ask or force them to go away. Dhaka is surrounded by small townships like Savar, Gazipur, Bhairab, Ghorashal, Mymensing, Tangail, Narayanganj. Munshigang etc. All we need to do is the improvement of connectivity of our highways, railways, waterways so that people can commute from adjoining small townships to Dhaka, let us say, within one to two hours' time. We know government does not have enough financial resources, but if there is sincerity, honesty, integrity and everything is transparent, many private organisations will come forward for the development of infrastructure. Here, government role should be creating an environment for the private sector to come forward; there will be a win-win situation for both public and private organisations. These roads should be run on the basis of toll so that regular maintenance can be made. We need to improve our railways and introduce commuter trains with modern coach on regular intervals from these townships. If we can really materialise this project, the outcome will be tremendous, which will not only change the scenario of Dhaka but also of the entire country. Because of high living costs in Dhaka, many people will prefer to live in those townships and commute everyday for work.

Once more and more people start living on those townships, the private sector will sense their need and will come up with good housing, better education, health care and other facilities.

* There are around 1.5 million registered vehicles in Bangladesh and Dhaka has six hundred thousand of them. Non-motorised and motorised vehicles are running side by side in Dhaka and also in other cities as well. Here, we have messed up the situation, at the very beginning. Since we never had a detail land transport policy, in the name of importing public transport, importers have taken the advantage and imported different types of vehicles for earning money. We have seen very odd-looking vehicles like battery-operated rickshaws, colourful rickshaws, vans, human puller carts, baby taxis, mini buses, buses, trucks, human haulers and what not, in addition to the latest model Mercedes cars desperately fighting to move on the road. Since the speed capacities of these vehicles are different, one is slowing down the other and thus creating a haphazard situation.

Suggestion: Now, we have to decide first, how we would like to see Dhaka and our other cities in the next 10, 15, 20 or 30 years' time. Economic activities, growth etc., depend on our decision. If we want a well-planned Dhaka and Bangladesh, then we need a total overhauling of our land transport policy. We must have detailed discussion on the subject with all the stakeholders and adopt a complete land transport policy where it should be mentioned specifically what types of vehicles we will allow on the road. Authorities concerned do not sometimes allow rickshaws and other non-motorised vehicles to ply on different roads, but, this will give a temporary relief to the problem. Rickshaws and other non-motorised vehicles are there because of demand for them. If we can create an environment where commuters will no longer use those vehicles, they will be phased out automatically.

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afsarulhaider@gmail.com

Source: Thefinancialexpress-bd

Getting Smart About Traffic

By Randy Rieland

Photo Credit: Courtesy of Flickr user K2D2vaca 

The road more traveled.

Usually I walk to work, but last week, after another apocalyptic forecast of torrential rains and head-twisting winds, I fell prey to weather dread and drove in.

In no time, I was reminded of why Washington D.C. has the worst drivers in the U.S.–Allstate verified it–and also why it’s among the Top 10 congested cities in the country. The latest estimate is that drivers here waste an average of 45 hours a year in traffic jams. I don’t know if anyone’s come up with a comparable analysis of how much time the stress of sitting in gridlock takes off your life, but I’m guessing I said goodbye to 15 minutes or so that morning.

The experience revived my interest in the science of traffic flow and how GPS, sensors, and algorithms have made it possible to imagine a day when the commuting madness will end.

Here are some of the ways we just may get there:

1) Follow the wisdom of E. coli: That’s the thinking of two Chinese engineers wrestling with the hideous traffic of Guangzhou, a city of 13 million in southern China. They are advocates of applying “swarm intelligence” to traffic lights in the city, or more specifically, something known as Bacterial Foraging Optimization. This is an algorithm based on the behavior of E. coli, which, while very basic, ultimately results in the optimal solution to problems. In this case, the algorithm would be applied to stop lights, adapting them to traffic flow instead of keeping them on a fixed loop.

2) Failing that, you can still learn a few things from humans: Scientists at the University of Southampton in the U.K. found that real humans are better traffic controllers than computerized systems. So now they’re focusing on developing artificial intelligence for traffic control systems so they can learn from experience as humans do.

3) Or feel the pulse of social chatter: IBM studied traffic jams in three Indian cities over the past year through the social network comments of people stuck in them. The company’s evaluation of tweets, Facebook updates and other social network discussions of people in Mumbai, Bangalore and New Delhi is designed to show how social data can be used to read public attitudes on big urban issues, such as traffic. Among its findings: Drivers in New Delhi talked more about public transportation, weather and the stress of commuting, while those in Bangalore vented about the overall driving experience, construction and parking. And in Mumbai, they tended to rant about accidents and pollution.

4) Twitter intelligence is not an oxymoron: And Twitter is also being used in real time to stay on top of traffic accidents and backups on British highways. A mobile app called Twitraffic analyzes what people are saying on Twitter about traffic and warns you about problems that have popped up. The company behind the app claims it lets people know about accidents an average of seven minutes before the government’s Highways Agency does. It hopes to launch a U.S. version next month.

5) Meanwhile, back in the U.S.: There’s already a pretty impressive mobile app available here for helping you avoid commuting nightmares. It’s called Waze and it not only gives you directions, but it also monitors what other drivers are saying about what’s happening on the streets around you. It’s a traffic report through crowdsourcing, and one that constantly updates with new directions if there’s bad news coming in about the road ahead.

6) Just let the cars work it out: Since last month, about 3,000 vehicles around Ann Arbor, Michigan have been able to talk to one another. As part of a joint project of the U.S.Department of Transportation and the University of Michigan, the cars and trucks have been adapted to be able to communicate wirelessly and warn each other of potential accidents or backups. For instance, one vehicle could tell another when it’s approaching an intersection or if it’s stopping on the road ahead. The Michigan researchers think these wireless systems, if they become a standard feature, could cut accidents by 80 percent.

7) Car Talk was taken: MIT scientists are heading down the same road, developingsomething they calls CarSpeak. It’s a communication system for driverless cars that lets them “see” through the data provided by other cars on the road. And that would allow a car to cruise right through an intersection because it would know no other cars were coming.

Down the road

Here are a few other developments designed to help us get around:

Not so mellow yellow: A researcher at Virginia Tech concludes that one of our big problems is yellow lights because they create what he calls a “dilemma zone” for drivers. He’s developing a system for giving drivers a few seconds notice when a light is about to turn yellow.

We don’t need no stinking stretch limo: The largest buses in the world, 98-foot-long vehicles capable of carrying more than 250 people, will be rolled out in Dresden, Germany next month.

Nothing makes an old man feel young like driving at night: According to a study at MIT, the most important car feature for drivers over 50 are smart headlights, which adjust the range and intensity of light based on the location of other cars. The idea is to reduce glare and improve visibility at night.

I’m sleepin’ here: A new study of traffic noise levels in and around Atlanta found that almost 10 percent of the area’s population is exposed to traffic noise at a level described as “annoying.” And more than 2 percent live where traffic noise was described as “highly disturbing to sleep.”

Video bonus: How maddening are phantom traffic jams, you know, when everything slows to a crawl for no apparent reason? Here are two explanations, one from scientists, the other more like what we imagine.

More from Smithsonian.com

When Cities Run Themselves

Cars With Benefits

Source: Woub

Traffic in the City

One thing that will put off any new visitor to Port Harcourt, Nigeria’s oil hub and Garden City, is the ever present traffic congestion. It hits you hard whether you arrive in the city by road or by air. From one junction to another along the , the two major access routes to the city, traffic congestion has become common. Whoever has a business to do in any part of the city must build the traffic-jam factor into his time schedule. Or else, you will find yourself crawling in traffic for hours on end.

“Urban traffic congestion,” says Michael Thomson, a transport planning consultant, “is one of the greatest and most complex issues of our time.” And most congestion problems are in developing cities like Port Harcourt.

Cities are important for economic growth, e.g., travel and trade. Governments of such states need to give high priority to urban development. As the headquarters of oil producing and related companies, Port Harcourt is an attraction for local and international businesses. Traffic congestion in Port Harcourt, which, like Lagos, is an entrepôt, causes loss of man-hours, a liability to businesses and their workers’ wellbeing, a minus for the economy. This won’t benefit places like Eleme Petrochemical, Bonny NLNG and NGL, etc.

In Onne, for instance, there is the Onne Oil and Gas Free Zone (OGFZ), a strategically located distribution hub to serve the oil and gas projects in Nigeria and throughout the sub-Saharan region. There are other companies, like the Nigerian National Petroleum Corporation (NNPC) and Notore Chemical Industries Limited.

Solutions aren’t far away, though, if state governments dare. First, a decent public transport to catch up with an immense deficit. Unfortunately, mass transit is not a cure-all. A small but rising number of Nigerians are willing and able to buy cars (a little over half the 24,158 cars imported in the first half of 2012 were passenger vehicles). Two economists, Uri Dadush and Shimelse Ali, say a GDP per capita of $4,429 is an indicator of ability to buy a car.

As demand for cars outstrips the provision of infrastructure, state ministries of transport must start considering smart transport policies and well-thought-out physical planning. Commuters need alternatives. A study on shifts in trips patterns – spatially, temporally and modally – due to the repair of the Third Mainland Bridge should be a goldmine of data.

Second, Samuel Palmisano, former chairman of IBM, is convinced that instrumentation (mobile phones), interconnection (internet) and intelligence (analytics) can be used to build smarter transport systems. Perhaps it is time for ingenious solutions to be developed, as smartphones become the default means of connecting to the internet. (There are 4 million connected smartphones in Nigeria’s N245bn mobile device market.)

Furthermore, aside from hard infrastructure like roads, sewers and bridges, soft infrastructure is also important, such as intermodal transport regulations (like traffic laws) that are properly communicated to the public. A long-term plan to effectively manage these common assets will ease traffic pain and complement the comparative advantage of the city.

Source: Businessdayonline

It's 'Golden Week' In China, And The Traffic Jams Are Like Nothing You've Ever Seen Before

Tea Leaf Nation

After you see these pictures, you might never complain about traffic ever again.

Tea Leaf Nation

It's "Golden Week" in China (meaning there are a bunch of holidays, prompting basically a week-long holiday), and the government has suspended road tolls, so naturally the traffic is simply epic.

Tea Leaf Nation

Reports from Xinhua indicate that 85 million Chinese -- 13% more than last year -- hit the road.

Tea Leaf Nation

Bill Bishop points us to Tea Leaf Nation, which has found some really wild traffic jam photos, mostly from the social network Weibo.

Tea Leaf Nation

Check out more at Tea Leaf Nation >

The sheer number of people who just got out of their car and decided to engage in some roadside recreation speaks to the total lack of movement on these roads.

Here are a few more social media pics that were compiled by News.163.com:

News.163.com

News.163.com

News.163.com

Source: Businessinsider

10 Traffic Jams from around the World

The story of traffic problems in Brazil's biggest city, Sao Paolo, which suffers jams of up to 180km at some points in the week, brought a worldwide response from readers. Here are 10 of their gridlock stories - plus one that's traffic-free.

Bangkok, Thailand

Bangkok's traffic problem has been getting worse since the government introduced a policy to refund tax for first-time car buyers.

Coupled with the Thai aspiration to own a car and get some status, this policy has resulted in five million vehicles in a city which can only cope with less than two million cars.

Once I got into a jam in downtown Bangkok, when I spent almost two hours moving less than a kilometre. Sometimes, my colleagues have arrived at work up to four hours late. I think the city should be more serious about public transport. People have better things to do than sit on the roads for hours every day.

Two or three weeks ago, travelling from Pathum Thani to central Bangkok, it took four and a half hours for a journey which usually takes less than an hour. Sirithep Vadrakchit, Thailand

Jakarta, Indonesia

Indonesians living in Jakarta have their own word for traffic jam - the inevitable "macet".

Your life is planned around the traffic jams which often continue through the day. Travelling even short distances can take hours and some parts of the city are in a constant state of jam.

Unfortunately there is little alternative. Public transport is poor and even recent initiatives such as a trans-Jakarta bus lane are inefficient and even contribute to the problem by clogging intersections and reducing road space while moving comparatively small numbers of people.

Last week I went out to visit our new house. My driver got lost and ended up in Ciputat, a suburb notorious for traffic, and it took us about 30 minutes to cover 2km. Two hours to work in Sao Paolo? it's the stuff of dreams. Allan Bell, Jakarta

Nairobi, Kenya

The worst thing that the British colonialists left us with were the roundabouts.

These are the main source of traffic problems in Nairobi since the place to which you are headed may be very clear, but because the cars already in the roundabout have the right of way you are forced to wait.

Unpredictable traffic is the way of life here. Even if a place is only a kilometre away, you are safer leaving your house an hour ahead of time or even just walking. But laziness and pride makes walking to be frowned upon. The worst traffic jams are every Friday - when it rains even a little, you can even sleep in the road. Arthur Buliva, Nairobi

Manila, Philippines

In Manila, the traffic congestion used to be unbelievable.

My worst-ever commute was 10 years ago, on my way home. We left Pampanga at 5.30pm and arrived home in Las Pinas City at 1.30am.

But congestion has begun to ease a bit with an odd/even scheme, which forbids car owners to hit the road one day a week.

If your registration plate number ends in the numeral one or two, then you're not allowed to use your car on a Monday.

If your plate number ends in three or four, you can't drive on Tuesday, and so on.

However, during weekends, the scheme is suspended, allowing everybody to use the road, and that's when you're back to reality. Bernie G Recrio, Las Pinas City, Philippines

Mumbai, India

image: mumbai.metblogs.com

Sao Paolo drivers are lucky - 180km of traffic jams in Sao Paolo would be super-jammed into 5km in India.

This is not an exaggeration. That ambulance you see between lanes, is where every driver in India thinks he ought to be.

Add to that the cows, ponies and beggars that surround your car, and that is just the beginning.

Indians seem to think the car in front of them runs on their horn, not petrol - so blast away, even if the poor driver in front is only crawling as fast as the hundred cars in front of him. David James, Mumbai

Kampala, Uganda

image: skyscrapercity.com

We experience traffic jams every morning and evening, especially when it rains. This is due to very bad road conditions, coupled with poor drainage systems.

The whole place is usually thrown into a total mess even though the stretches of the jams are not that long. Motorists spend hours trying to manoeuvre through these terrible roads. Bob Sembatya, Kampala

Lexington, Kentucky, US

Lexington calls itself the Horse Capital of the World and it shows.

The city was laid out in the years before the industrial revolution, and since the mid-1900s, the explosion in car ownership has swamped the traffic system.

Our biggest road is so overcome with its burden that central lanes have to change direction at each rush hour. If you move the other direction, heaven help you.

The outer ring road clogs every morning and evening, especially because no trees were ever planted to keep the sun from shining directly in motorists faces' at the busiest exchange, a 100m free-for-all where merging traffic competes with exiting traffic for the chance to smash each other to bits.

All this in the home of the largest indoor basketball arena, where games are scheduled sometimes for immediately after rush hour, and you have a level of anarchy that only a rural city in America could create.

Once, driving on my morning commute, it took me an hour to get to work. The drive without congestion is 15 minutes. Lyle Goodwin, Lexington, Kentucky 

Austin, Texas, US

image: movabilityaustin.org

On any given day, as I sit in my car in traffic with the air conditioning whipping my hair around and the radio blasting, I see two things that make me feel both guilty and shocked.

A vacant city bus inching along my route and an empty tram cutting across traffic at 5pm.

For a city like Austin, experiencing only a fraction of the growing pains that a place like Sao Paolo is undergoing, this is the future.

A future cut off from each other in our middle-class lives, so we can be comfortable in our air-conditioned cars and not think about the implications of an energy-efficient city bus crawling along in traffic right by our side. Neysa Joseph-Orr, Austin, Texas

Seoul, South Korea

Seoul drivers are notorious for ignoring any traffic rules, especially red lights, and will drive across intersections over red lights. This is called "biting tails" in Korean and means you end up with a few cars blocking the intersection when you get a green light - so you're stuck.

This happens at every crossroad - and there are lots of crossroads - hence the fantastic 2mph experience.

Then on the weekends you battle your way out of town at a snail's pace of about 15-20mph, and of course trying to get back into Seoul on a Sunday afternoon can take four hours for what should be only a 40-minute drive. You end up frustrated and drained.

Maybe I should invest in a Korean navigation set with an in-built TV so I can watch the soaps while I'm driving/crawling along like everyone else. Martina Marek, Seoul, South Korea

Dhaka, Bangladesh

Dhaka is arguably the most densely populated city in the world.

It lacks a mass transit system or a major freeway to support the 15 million people who live and work here. A 15km ride in an auto-rickshaw can take two to three hours in heavy traffic, during which one often has to contend with dust, exhaust fumes, extreme heat and noise pollution. Traffic laws aren't usually enforced and vehicles move in an terrifying dance routine. Joshua Martin, Dhaka

And finally... Megeve, French Alps

I work in my chalet in the French Alpine resort of Megeve. I leave my bedroom at about 8am, according to how much wine I have drunk the evening before.

I commute two flights of stairs to my office every morning, glancing at Mont Blanc as I pass the first window, and I take a 20-minute break after the first flight, which is called breakfast. I then continue my commuting, which in all takes about 10 seconds, unless I cross someone coming in the opposite direction, which can add a further second to my journey.

The only times when the stairs get really congested are during holiday periods when lazy members of the family arrive to profit from their rich but hard-working brother. Then the journey can be a nightmare, so I leave them to the bustle of the stairs, while I take the lift. Vincent Bowler, Megeve

Source: BBC

Top 10 ways to Ditch Your Clutter and Digitally Organize Your Life

We've all got a few cabinets, drawers, and shelves filled with clutter that seems outdated: CDs, paper, photo albums, DVDs, and books take up a lot of space. Here are 10 ways you can take the plunge into a digital, clutter-free life.

10. CDs, Records, and Other Music

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If you were alive before the age of iTunes, you probably have countless CDs, cassette tapes, and records lying around taking up space in your house. Maybe you have some of them in your digital music library, others you don't. Well, now's a good time to digitize everything and get rid of some of that clutter (well, the clutter you're less emotionally attached to, at least). Ripping CDs is easy, but if you want to rip those old records, you'll have to do a bit more work. While you're at it, make sure you're ripping everything in high quality—after all, you might just become an audiophile in the process.

9. Photos and Slides

Your digital camera makes digitizing photos easy—all you do is transfer them to your PC—but if you have a lot of old photo albums, it might be a good idea to scan those into your digital library to keep everything together. Scanning regular photos is easy, and you caneasily touch them up with software to make them look crystal clear. Then, just organize them using a library like Picasa or Lyn, andsync them all up to the cloud so you always have access. If you have some old negatives lying around, you can easily scan those in too.

8. Post-Its, To-Dos, and Other Notes

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Pen and paper is still one of our favorite to-do list managers, but if you find that you get buried under disorganized scribbles and Post-Its, it's time to take it all digital. Use a to-do manager like Astrid or Wunderlist to keep track of your tasks, and a program like Simplenote to capture, organize, and sync all your simple text notes. If you really want to go all-out, you can use something like Evernote, which lets you capture nearly anything into a searchable, syncable database, so you always have those little notes on hand.

7. Business Cards and Contact Info

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Despite what many people say, business cards are not irrelevant quite yet. But, they can get lost easily, and clutter up your wallet, car, desk, or whatever other place you choose to stash them. Instead of hoarding tiny pieces of paper, scan them into your phone as contacts using something like Google Goggles. You can stick them all in their own contact group, so they don't clutter up your personal contacts, and you'll always have that info on hand when you need it. Plus, when you want to send that info over to someone else, you don't need to fumble for a business card—just send them the digital contact via SMS, email, or Bump.

6. Books, Magazines, and Newspapers

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Some bookworms may shudder at the thought of giving up their physical books, but it can help you reclaim a lot of space. Ebook readers are cheap, and you can load them up with ebooks without spending a dime. If you get a Nook Simple Touch, you can even root it and turn it into the ultimate reading machine with some bookmark-and-read-later apps, some news aggregators, or whatever else you want. iPads and Android tablets have a lot of digital newspapers and magazines available in their respective app stores, and they work quite nicely—not to mention you can visit nearly any publication's web site for the latest news on any given subject.

5. Recipes and Other Kitchen Tools

If cooking your daily meals and tracking what you eat has gotten too complicated, a switch to digital might be just what you need. Ditch that old recipe box for a recipe library on your computer, or even better yet, get a meal planning app and plan your weekly meals stress free. Not only can you store recipes, but you can create grocery lists based on what you're going to make during the week, saving you the headache of sifting through recipe cards, and tiny grocery lists. While you're at it, grab a couple of these apps so you can better track what you're eating and stay healthy.

4. Movies, TV, and Other Video

If there's one thing that took up more space than anything else for me, it was the giant shelf of DVDs, Blu-Rays, and other video media. There's no need to have all of those around, though. Build yourself a media centeror buy a cheap-but-awesome set top box for all your digital video needs. You can stream movies and TV through services like Netflix, Hulu, and Amazon, or you can rip all those DVDs and Blu-Ray discs right to your hard drive for playback on your TV, and download anything of the holes in your collection. Not only will you get rid of all those discs, but you might even get rid of a box or two from your media cabinet.

3. Gift Cards, Loyalty Cards, and Event Tickets

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Raise your hand if you've ever forgotten to bring your concert ticket to the concert. Ever forget to put the right loyalty card in your pocket, or even forget that you have a gift card for the store you just shopped at? Moving these things to your phone can not only save you some space in your wallet, but it can help you keep all that stuff organized. iOS 6 just introduced Passbook, a great way to manage your gift cards, coupons, loyalty cards, and event tickets right from your phone. You can also get Passbook on Android with Passwallet. Alternatively, use a program like Key Ring to scan in all your loyalty cards so you have each of them on hand at all times, anduse a program like TripIt to get digital information about your flights when you travel. The more you can put on your phone, the easier it'll all be to access.

2. Money

Okay, so paper money and physical credit cards aren't so easy to get rid of, but you cando a lot with your phone. Not only can youmanage your money and budgets with something like Mint, but you can actuallypay back your friends with services likeSquare or Dwolla (or, if you must, PayPal). Some banks even have an easy way to make digital payments between friends. If nothing else, it'll make it easier for you to stop carrying around that checkbook, or stop worrying about how much cash you have on hand all the time.

1. Paper Documents, Manuals, and Everything Else That Comes From Trees

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Okay, so you're really committed to this digital thing, which means it's time to round up all the paper in your life and convert it to a digital format: bank statements, insurance statements, bills, and even the manuals that come with all your gadgets. Okay, that last one is pretty easy to do—just search for the manuals on Google and toss out the paper—but everything else is a bit more complicated. Check out our complete guide to going paperless and how to make the transition from paper for information on how to digitize, how to store it all, and what things you should still keep around in paper form.

Title image by Adchariyaphoto (Shutterstock).

Source: Gizmodo