Many of you will be working in the big cities of the world (if only because that’s where most of the hospitals are), trying to avoid spending half your day fuming away in snarled-up traffic, I should imagine.

Is there a better way? Have any of you had experiences of lugging tools and test equipment around on public transport (or, even, on foot)? Is it more cost-effective to duplicate and lock the stuff you need (tools, spares etc.) in each of your sites, and travel easily, either by public transport, push-bike etc. or other means? Surely there are cheaper ways than company cars, motor-mileage, and (especially) parking nightmares (…I have a vision of an ex-pizza franchise motor-bike with the gear on the back)?

Where I’m coming from on this one is that there are only so many hours in the working day, and I’m looking at ways of making this time as productive as possible (eg, in London, in my own case).

I forgot to include taxis - especially for those of you lucky enough to be in Riyadh, Cairo, Bangkok, Singapore etc.

if it is a pre arranged visit, do it 'out of hours'
more parking, less traffic.
From a health and safety point of view, are you really allowed to carry kit around by public transport, push-bike etc?would you be insured? plus the weight of your kit? would it not need two people to carry it?

Scott, see my post about the Perfect Toolkit (ie, minimal toolkit). Also the one I’ve just added to about Access for Maintenance. All part and parcel of the same issue, is it not?

Do you regularly work outside of normal hours, then? But I see that you’re a Service Engineer, Mate. So, presumably, you have a bit of flexibility in planning your own work and arranging things accordingly. It would also depend on what type of kit you need to access too, would it not? Maybe OK for Theatres, but Outpatients would be locked up, I expect. What about “in-house” people?

Insurance? You can get it for anything. Only real issue is the premium!

Lastly, on being allowed, or not, I’ve always followed the maxim:- “To ask permission is to seek denial”. And the guy you need to ask doesn’t generally have to actually do the work, does he?

How about one of these Geoff? (don't forget to check out the extras....)

http://www.rusmilitary.com/html/c-bikes_sportsman.htm

You have my sympathies mate. I was caught last summer on the M25 when they closed it down both ways. Took me seven hours to get to Oldbury Hill (Sevenoaks) from the M40 (eventually via Guildford etc!). Its ok driving in these environments when I'm on holiday, but I don't think I could handle them routinely..

These fancy links are wasted on me, unfortunately, as where I am (presently at a well-known NHS hospital in N.W. London), all I get is “Access Denied”, followed by threatening messages of the “… and we know who you are” type. Personally, I believe that all information should be free (part of the Hacker’s Ethic), but Big Brother obviously fails to concur.

But there’s no need for sympathy, Mate. I always try to work in situations where I can either use my Oyster card (public transport), or where don’t have to leave the nice warm workshop at all! I’m too old for all that stressful rushing about. By the way, I’m told that Laos is very nice – like stepping back into the 19th century, apparently – sounds perfect!

Meanwhile, back to work ….

That's too bad. We have totally free internet access here, its up to ourselves not to abuse the trust and browse illegal websites etc. I do all my shopping/banking/hols/airsoft gun importing/ via my labs web link... How can you guys access electro-medical equipment websites if your restrained so much? Tell your IT depts. to grow up and get with it!!

There you go, then, Mate. You don’t know how lucky you are!

though how you would convince them that a motorbike and sidecar with a machine-gun mount is electro-medical equipment would be interesting to hear

Fit it with a green flashing light and "Engineer on-call" sticker?