According to a recent issue of the weekly electronic newsletter AERBT (An Executive Review of Business Travel), there are several anomalies in the UK's present system of Air Passenger Duty (APD).

One of these discourages passengers from rail + air journeys in favour of air + air journeys.

If you fly economy class from (say) Newcastle to Heathrow and then Business Class on to New York, you pay APD on the first leg of your journey only - the economy class domestic trip.

If however you go by train from Newcastle to London then fly out Business Class to New York, you pay APD at Business Class rates for the transatlantic journey - significantly more.

Click to visit www.aerbt.co.uk, the AERBT website

The leaflet about the 747 express bus service between Montreal and Trudeau airport says it runs 24 hours a day.

A quick look at the timetable in the leaflet shows that the departure at the top of the list was at 6:00 from the city. 24 hours?

I then looked at the bottom of the list to see when the last one was - and it was at 5:13!

There was indeed a 24 hour service: early morning departures are at the memorable times of 0:25, 0:55, 1:26, 2:12, 2:57, 3:43 and 4:28.

Why are these not at the top of the column?

And at one of the stops, someone got on wanting to pay for his ticket. His US dollar bills were rejected, as was his Canadian $5 bill. The driver would only accept $7 in coin.

I'm not sure where I'd get $7 in coin in Montreal at 6:15 in the morning; and if I'd been turned off the bus for that I'd be tempted not to use it again! It's better at the airport - there is somewhere selling tickets!

I've seen a recent study of the impact of mobile phones on health. There have been several of these, some better than others, but I thought the recommendations associated with this one were worth reviewing.

Using land-lines, using hands-free sets and texting is safest, because the radiation source (the mobile phone) is not close to your head.

It is also safer to use mobile phones out of doors, where they emit less energy because they have easier access to the towers which relay the signals. Use of phones in trains or cars also results in more energy being used, since the phones are constantly switching signals to new towers.

I arrived at New York Penn station in good time for the 17:00 departure for Washington DC in a torrential downpour.

The page I had printed off confirming my internet ticket purchase told me to scan my ticket in a QuikTrak machine. I found the machines, but it wasn't very obvious where to scan the bar-code! In fact, you don't insert the ticket: you hold the bar-code where you see the cross-lights of the scanner by the hopper at the bottom of the machine. It asks you if you want a print: I hit Yes and out came the ticket.

I went to the Acela Express waiting area. There was a notice saying that the area was reserved for Amtrak ticketed passengers only, although my ticket wasn't checked and I suspect you could have walked in with virtually anything as long as you looked respectable!

The waiting area was reasonably comfortable - the kind of standard you meet at airport gate areas. There were plenty of porters (Redcaps) around. The area was no-where near full, at around 16:30 on a Monday.

There were a few indicators for both arriving and departing trains, although one was blank and one showed the first few trains of the day!

As 17:00 - the scheduled departure time of my train - arrived, the display for my train changed to "5 minutes late": there was no announcement.

I went out into the crowded concourse area, where the departure indicators said STAND BY until the platform number was displayed and there was a rush to the head of the platform.

We boarded at 17:04 and left (imperceptibly) at 17:12: there was a three minute welcome aboard announcement. This said that photo id would be required: I wasn't asked for it.

I was in the Quiet Car: one person started using a mobile phone as we left New York.

The station stop at Newark Penn seemed quite long: I noticed some new New Jersey Transit trains (loco and coaches) in the station.

As we left Newark, the phone user used it again and was nudged to move to the vestibule - and he then moved to another car, thanking the person who had pointed out that he was in a Quiet Car.

The ride was a bit rough in places, especially south of Philadelphia.

We were switched to the slow line in the Metropark area, and back at Trenton.

I was interested to see the LED displays over the vestibule doors being used for commercial advertising. One offered Interflora deliveries at a discount: you also got bonus points on your Amtrak Rewards card. Another - as we left BWI Airport, the final stop - offered a 10% discount at selected restaurants in Washington Union Station on production of an Amtrak Rewards card.

Wilmington station was being upgraded.

While the train was stopped at stations, there was a "Last call for x station" announcement - was this really necessary?

As we arrived at BWI Airport, there was an announcement that the train was "arriving on the adjacent track" and that not all doors would open: in particular, passengers in the last car were asked to move forward. There was a very slow approach to the station, followed by an announcement that doors would open on the left-hand side and not the right-hand side of the train. A delay in opening the doors, coupled with the incomprehensibility of the "adjacent track" announcement, caused mild concern among the passengers!

The train left New York Penn station 12 minutes late, and thanks to a brief stop and the change from fast to slow lines, Philadeplhia 23 minutes late. We left BWI 35 minutes late, and arrived in Washington 32 minutes late.

I recently made what should have been a short ride on Washington's metro, involving one change of train.

The short ride became a long one, because of the 24 minutes I spent waiting for trains - 14 minutes for a Blue Line train at Pentagon Centre and ten minutes for the Orange Line at Rosslyn.

Twelve minute intervals between trains, introduced as an economy measure, are clearly not unusual: allow plenty of time if you are travelling on WMATA!

I also really noticed how dark the stations are - lighting too has been cut back.

How often do you use on-line booking systems for hotel or flight bookings - and how often do you swear at their design faults?

Let's ignore the many US systems which assume that everyone has a 5-digit zip code and a 10 digit phone number and move to those which really ought to know better.

I recently wanted to book a meal for IARO members at a specific Marriott hotel in Hong Kong. I went to the hotel web-site, clicked on Meetings - and was taken to the general Marriott functions web-site, asking me where in the world I wanted to hold my function! I managed to get back to the right part of the forest in the end!

When booking a hotel, I like those sites which automatically assume you are staying one night - so you enter your arrival date and the departure date is automatically generated (and easy to edit). Those which do not - which insist on me putting in both arrival and departure date, and delight in telling me that "Departure date is before arrival date" if I omit to do this are unpopular!

Similarly with flight booking systems, and especially the multi-city options, it is reasonable to assume that the arrival airport at the end of flight 1 is the same as the departing airport at the start of flight 2. It is so easy to generate this as a default - alterable, of course, if necessary. So why doesn't everyone do it?

It also irks me when I am allowed to enter "London" as a generic departure point (as an alternative to selecting from a list including Heathrow, Gatwick, Stansted, Luton, London City, Biggin Hill and Londonderry) and then being told that London is ambiguous and I have to enter a specific airport! If that's the case, why offer me the option in the first place?

Emirates is one of the many sites which has a pop-up calendar on its booking web-site which facilitates the entry of travel dates. The calendar tool is good but only some people use it sensibly. When you enter the date of one flight, some sites blank out previous dates so that you can't return before you go - eminently sensible.

Emirates' multi-city option is good: enter the first leg of your journey, hit Plus and you can enter another (or hit Search to find fares and times for the sectors you've entered). Some airlines limit the number of sectors you can enter on a multi-sector journey - and the limit is always one less than I need!

And when booking multi-sector flights, it is nice (thank you, Continental Airlines) to be offered "This airline only", "Code-share partners only" or "All airlines". OK, the price may be a bit higher if you leave an alliance, but let's have the choice!

So, BA, when I express a wish to go London - Los Angeles - New York - London, I expect to be offered a direct flight between Los Angeles and New York on your alliance partner American Airlines (remember them?). I do not expect to be offered a routing on an overnight flight via Heathrow - I'm doing this routing to try to avoid overnight flights!

On a recent daytime BA flight back from Boston to London,the "light snack before arrival" included penne pasta with what looked like a vegetable sauce.

This came with a spoon with which to eat it.

Eating penne with a spoon is certainly possible - as a whole plane-load of people quickly found out - but certainly neither convenient nor conventional!

Question: did the provision of a spoon rather than a fork save money, weight or thought?

The driving licence is no longer the first aspiration of a teenager in the US.

Trends are analysed in a recent article in "Advertising Age". The analysis shows that licence holding among, for example, 18 year olds has dropped from 86% in 1978 to 68% in 2008.

The article can be found on the Advertising Age web-site.

Similar trends apply to all teenage years - indeed, at the very end of the article, a comparison of overall licence holding by age group shows that licence holding has declined in all age groups between 1998 and 2008.

There is speculation about why this trend should have happened, particularly among the young.

Some States have increased minimum driving ages: some have tightened requirements. The inability to use portable electronic devices and an interest in the environment are seen as other causes.

The same trend is apparent in the UK: driving licence holding in the 17-21 year old cohort has been dropping for some time, and has only shown a slight uptick in the last set of statistics.

Interesting!