title: Porter's generic strategies

text: Porter's generic strategies describe how a company pursues competitive advantage across its chosen market scope. There are three/four generic strategies, either lower cost, differentiated, or focus. A company chooses to pursue one of two types of competitive advantage, either via lower costs than its competition or by differentiating itself along dimensions valued by customers to command a higher price. A company also chooses one of two types of scope, either focus (offering its products to selected segments of the market) or industry-wide, offering its product across many market segments. The generic strategy reflects the choices made regarding both the type of competitive advantage and the scope. The concept was described by Michael Porter in 1980.


title: Porter's generic strategies

text: Porter wrote in 1980 that strategy targets either cost leadership, differentiation, or focus. These are known as Porter's three generic strategies and can be applied to any size or form of business. Porter claimed that a company must only choose one of the three or risk that the business would waste precious resources. Porter's generic strategies detail the interaction between cost minimization strategies, product differentiation strategies, and market focus strategies of firms.


title: Porter's generic strategies

text: Michael Porter described an industry as having multiple "segments" that can be targeted by a firm. The breadth of its targeting refers to the "competitive scope" of the business. Porter defined two types of "competitive advantage": lower cost or differentiation relative to its rivals. Achieving competitive advantage results from a firm's ability to cope with the five forces better than its rivals. Porter wrote: "Achieving competitive advantage requires a firm to make a choice...about the type of competitive advantage it seeks to attain and the scope within which it will attain it." He also wrote: "The two basic types of competitive advantage [differentiation and lower cost] combined with the scope of activities for which a firm seeks to achieve them lead to three "generic strategies" for achieving above average performance in an industry: cost leadership, differentiation and focus. The focus strategy has two variants, cost focus and differentiation focus." In general:


title: Porter's generic strategies

text: The concept of choice was a different perspective on strategy, as the 1970s paradigm was the pursuit of market share (size and scale) influenced by the experience curve. Companies that pursued the highest market share position to achieve cost advantages fit under Porter's cost leadership generic strategy, but the concept of choice regarding differentiation and focus represented a new perspective.


title: Porter's generic strategies

text: Empirical research on the profit impact of marketing strategy indicated that firms with a high market share were often quite profitable, but so were many firms with low market share. The least profitable firms were those with moderate market share. This was sometimes referred to as the hole in the middle problem. Porter's explanation of this is that firms with high market share were successful because they pursued a cost leadership strategy and firms with low market share were successful because they used market segmentation to focus on a small but profitable market niche. Firms in the middle were less profitable because they did not have a strategy.


title: Porter's generic strategies

text: Porter suggested combining multiple strategies is successful in only one case. Combining a market segmentation strategy with a product differentiation strategy was seen as an effective way of matching a firm's product strategy (supply side) to the characteristics of your target market segments (demand side). But combinations like cost leadership with product differentiation were seen as hard (but not impossible) to implement due to the potential for conflict between cost minimization and the additional cost of value-added differentiation.


title: Porter's generic strategies

text: Since that time, empirical research has indicated companies pursuing both differentiation and low-cost strategies may be more successful than companies pursuing only one strategy.


title: Porter's generic strategies

text: Some commentators have made a distinction between cost leadership, that is, low cost strategies, and best cost strategies. They claim that a low cost strategy is rarely able to provide a sustainable competitive advantage. In most cases firms end up in price wars. Instead, they claim a best cost strategy is preferred. This involves providing the best value for a relatively low price.


title: Porter's generic strategies

text: This strategy involves the firm winning market share by appealing to cost-conscious or price-sensitive customers. This is achieved by having the lowest prices in the target market segment, or at least the lowest price to value ratio (price compared to what customers receive). To succeed at offering the lowest price while still achieving profitability and a high return on investment, the firm must be able to operate at a lower cost than its rivals. There are three main ways to achieve this.


title: Porter's generic strategies

text: The first approach is achieving a high asset utilization. In service industries, this may mean for example a restaurant that turns tables around very quickly, or an airline that turns around flights very fast. In manufacturing, it will involve production of high volumes of output. These approaches mean fixed costs are spread over a larger number of units of the product or service, resulting in a lower unit cost, i.e. the firm hopes to take advantage of economies of scale and experience curve effects. For industrial firms, mass production becomes both a strategy and an end in itself. Higher levels of output both require and result in high market share, and create an entry barrier to potential competitors, who may be unable to achieve the scale necessary to match the firms low costs and prices.


title: Porter's generic strategies

text: The second dimension is achieving low direct and indirect operating costs. This is achieved by offering high volumes of standardized products, offering basic no-frills products and limiting customization and personalization of service. Production costs are kept low by using fewer components, using standard components, and limiting the number of models produced to ensure larger production runs. Overheads are kept low by paying low wages, locating premises in low rent areas, establishing a cost-conscious culture, etc. Maintaining this strategy requires a continuous search for cost reductions in all aspects of the business. This will include outsourcing, controlling production costs, increasing asset capacity utilization, and minimizing other costs including distribution, R&D and advertising. The associated distribution strategy is to obtain the most extensive distribution possible. Promotional strategy often involves trying to make a virtue out of low cost product features.


title: Porter's generic strategies

text: The third dimension is control over the value chain encompassing all functional groups (finance, supply/procurement, marketing, inventory, information technology etc..) to ensure low costs. For supply/procurement chain, this could be achieved by bulk buying to enjoy quantity discounts, squeezing suppliers on price, instituting competitive bidding for contracts, working with vendors to keep inventories low using methods such as Just-in-Time purchasing or Vendor-Managed Inventory. Wal-Mart is famous for squeezing its suppliers to ensure low prices for its goods. Other procurement advantages could come from preferential access to raw materials, or backward integration. Keep in mind that if you are in control of all functional groups this is suitable for cost leadership; if you are only in control of one functional group this is differentiation. For example, Dell Computer initially achieved market share by keeping inventories low and only building computers to order via applying Differentiation strategies in supply/procurement chain. This will be clarified in other sections.


title: Porter's generic strategies

text: Cost leadership strategies are only viable for large firms with the opportunity to enjoy economies of scale and large production volumes and big market share. Small businesses can be "cost focused" not "cost leaders" if they enjoy any advantages conducive to low costs. For example, a local restaurant in a low rent location can attract price-sensitive customers if it offers a limited menu, rapid table turnover and employs staff on minimum wage. Innovation of products or processes may also enable a startup or small company to offer a cheaper product or service where incumbents' costs and prices have become too high. An example is the success of low-cost budget airlines who, despite having fewer planes than the major airlines, were able to achieve market share growth by offering cheap, no-frills services at prices much cheaper than those of the larger incumbents. At the beginning low-cost budget airlines chose "cost focused" strategies but later when the market grew, big airlines started to offer the same low-cost attributes, and so cost focus became cost leadership!


title: Porter's generic strategies

text: A cost leadership strategy may have the disadvantage of lower customer loyalty, as price-sensitive customers will switch once a lower-priced substitute is available. A reputation as a cost leader may also result in a reputation for low quality, which may make it difficult for a firm to rebrand itself or its products if it chooses to shift to a differentiation strategy in future.


title: Porter's generic strategies

text: Differentiate the products/services in some way in order to compete successfully. Examples of the successful use of a differentiation strategy are Hero, Asian Paints, HUL, Nike athletic shoes (image and brand mark), BMW Group Automobiles, Perstorp BioProducts, Apple Computer (product's design), Mercedes-Benz automobiles.


title: Porter's generic strategies

text: A differentiation strategy is appropriate where the target customer segment is not price-sensitive, the market is competitive or saturated, customers have very specific needs which are possibly under-served, and the firm has unique resources and capabilities which enable it to satisfy these needs in ways that are difficult to copy. These could include patents or other Intellectual Property (IP), unique technical expertise (e.g. Apple's design skills or Pixar's animation prowess), talented personnel (e.g. a sports team's star players or a brokerage firm's star traders), or innovative processes. Successful differentiation is displayed when a company accomplishes either a premium price for the product or service, increased revenue per unit, or the consumers' loyalty to purchase the company's product or service (brand loyalty). Differentiation drives profitability when the added price of the product outweighs the added expense to acquire the product or service but is ineffective when its uniqueness is easily replicated by its competitors. Successful brand management also results in perceived uniqueness even when the physical product is the same as competitors. This way, Chiquita was able to brand bananas, Starbucks could brand coffee, and Nike could brand sneakers. Fashion brands rely heavily on this form of image differentiation.


title: Porter's generic strategies

text: Differentiation strategy is not suitable for small companies. It is more appropriate for big companies to apply differentiation in any one or several of the functional groups (finance, purchase, marketing, inventory etc.). This point is critical. For example, GE uses its finance division differentiate itself. A company may do so in isolation of other strategies or in conjunction with focus strategies (requires more initial investment). It provides a great advantage to use a differentiation strategy (for big companies) in conjunction with focus cost strategies or focus differentiation strategies. Coca-Cola and Royal Crown beverages are good examples of this.


title: Porter's generic strategies

text: The shareholder value model holds that the timing of the use of specialized knowledge can create a differentiation advantage as long as the knowledge remains unique. This model suggests that customers buy products or services from an organization to have access to its unique knowledge. The advantage is static, rather than dynamic, because the purchase is a one-time event.


title: Porter's generic strategies

text: The unlimited resources model utilizes competitors by practicing a differentiation strategy. An organization with greater resources can manage risk and sustain profits more easily than one with fewer resources. This provides a short-term advantage only. If a firm lacks the capacity for continual innovation, it will not sustain its competitive position over time.


title: Porter's generic strategies

text: This dimension is not a separate strategy for big companies due to small market conditions. Big companies which chose applying differentiation strategies may also choose to apply in conjunction with focus strategies (either cost or differentiation). On the other hand, this is definitely an appropriate strategy for small companies especially for those wanting to avoid competition with big ones.


title: Porter's generic strategies

text: In adopting a narrow focus, the company ideally focuses on a few target markets (also called a segmentation strategy or niche strategy). These should be distinct groups with specialized needs. The choice of offering low prices or differentiated products/services should depend on the needs of the selected segment and the resources and capabilities of the firm. It is hoped that by focusing your marketing efforts on one or two narrow market segments and tailoring your marketing mix to these specialized markets, you can better meet the needs of that target market. The firm typically looks to gain a competitive advantage through product innovation and/or brand marketing rather than efficiency. A focused strategy should target market segments that are less vulnerable to substitutes or where a competition is weakest to earn above-average return on investment.


title: Porter's generic strategies

text: Examples of firms using a focus strategy include Southwest Airlines, which provides short-haul point-to-point flights in contrast to the hub-and-spoke model of mainstream carriers, United, and American Airlines.


title: Porter's generic strategies

text: Michael Treacy and Fred Wiersema (1993) in their book "The Discipline of Market Leaders" have modified Porter's three strategies to describe three basic "value disciplines" that can create customer value and provide a competitive advantage. They are operational excellence, product leadership, and customer intimacy.


title: Porter's generic strategies

text: Several commentators have questioned the use of generic strategies claiming they lack specificity, lack flexibility, and are limiting.


title: Porter's generic strategies

text: Porter stressed the idea that only one strategy should be adopted by a firm and failure to do so will result in “stuck in the middle” scenario. He discussed the idea that practising more than one strategy will lose the entire focus of the organization hence clear direction of the future trajectory could not be established. The argument is based on the fundamental that differentiation will incur costs to the firm which clearly contradicts with the basis of low cost strategy and on the other hand relatively standardised products with features acceptable to many customers will not carry any differentiation hence, cost leadership and differentiation strategy will be mutually exclusive. Two focal objectives of low cost leadership and differentiation clash with each other resulting in no proper direction for a firm. In particular, Miller questions the notion of being "caught in the middle". He claims that there is a viable middle ground between strategies. Many companies, for example, have entered a market as a niche player and gradually expanded. According to Baden-Fuller and Stopford (1992) the most successful companies are the ones that can resolve what they call "the dilemma of opposites". Furthermore, Reeves and Routledge's (2013) study of entrepreneurial spirit demonstrated this is a key factor in organisation success, differentiation and cost leadership were the least important factors.


title: Porter's generic strategies

text: However, contrary to the rationalisation of Porter, contemporary research has shown evidence of successful firms practising such a “hybrid strategy”. Research writings of Davis (1984 cited by Prajogo 2007, p. 74) state that firms employing the hybrid business strategy (Low cost and differentiation strategy) outperform the ones adopting one generic strategy. Sharing the same view point, Hill (1988 cited by Akan et al. 2006, p. 49) challenged Porter's concept regarding mutual exclusivity of low cost and differentiation strategy and further argued that successful combination of those two strategies will result in sustainable competitive advantage. As to Wright and other (1990 cited by Akan et al. 2006, p. 50) multiple business strategies are required to respond effectively to any environment condition. In the mid to late 1980s where the environments were relatively stable there was no requirement for flexibility in business strategies but survival in the rapidly changing, highly unpredictable present market contexts will require flexibility to face any contingency (Anderson 1997, Goldman et al. 1995, Pine 1993 cited by Radas 2005, p. 197). After eleven years Porter revised his thinking and accepted the fact that hybrid business strategy could exist (Porter cited by Prajogo 2007, p. 70) and writes in the following manner.


title: Porter's generic strategies

text: Though Porter had a fundamental rationalisation in his concept about the invalidity of hybrid business strategy, the highly volatile and turbulent market conditions will not permit survival of rigid business strategies since long-term establishment will depend on the agility and the quick responsiveness towards market and environmental conditions. Market and environmental turbulence will make drastic implications on the root establishment of a firm. If a firm's business strategy could not cope with the environmental and market contingencies, long-term survival becomes unrealistic. Diverging the strategy into different avenues with the view to exploit opportunities and avoid threats created by market conditions will be a pragmatic approach for a firm.


title: Porter's generic strategies

text: Critical analysis done separately for cost leadership strategy and differentiation strategy identifies elementary value in both strategies in creating and sustaining a competitive advantage. Consistent and superior performance over competition could be reached with stronger foundations in the event “hybrid strategy” is adopted. Depending on the market and competitive conditions, hybrid strategy should be adjusted regarding the extent which each generic strategy (cost leadership or differentiation) should be given priority in practice.


title: Top 100 Contractors of the U.S. federal government

text: The Top 100 Contractors Report is a list developed annually by the U.S. General Services Administration as part of its tracking of U.S. federal government procurement, of the "Top 100" contractors in the United States.


text: In fiscal year 2005, the federal government aimed to source 23% of all subcontracts from small businesses with guidance from the Small Business Administration. The federal government was unable to meet this goal in 8 years until FY2013 when it subcontracted over $83 billion from small businesses.


text: Fiscal year 2015 marked several historic achievements; the federal government exceeded their overall goal of 23% by 2.75% resulting in $90.7 billion dollars awarded to small businesses, 5.05% ($17.8 billion) of which went to women-owned small business (WOSB), meeting the goal for the first time since it was implemented in 1996.


text: The top five departments by dollars obligated in 2015 were the Department of Defense ($212.5 billion), Department of Energy ($23 billion), Health and Human Services ($21 billion), Department of Veteran Affairs ($20 billion), and NASA ($13 billion).


title: Leem Lubany

text: Leem Lubany (, ; born ) is a Palestinian actress. She is known for her role as Nadia in the 2013 film "Omar", and for playing Gabrielle Joubert in the television series "Condor" (2018–2020).


title: Leem Lubany

text: Lubany was born in Nazareth, Israel to an Arab family. She was a senior at Harduf Waldorf School in kibbutz Harduf, when she made her professional film debut in Hany Abu-Assad's "Omar".


title: Leem Lubany

text: Lubany made her debut in "Omar", despite having no acting training. The film was nominated for the Best Foreign Language Film at the 86th Academy Awards.


title: Leem Lubany

text: In 2014, Leem Lubany appeared in "A to B" and played the role of Salima in the comedy "Rock the Kasbah".


title: Ilya Kovalchuk

text: Ilya Valeryevich Kovalchuk (; born 15 April 1983) is a Russian retired professional ice hockey winger. He played for the Atlanta Thrashers, New Jersey Devils, Los Angeles Kings, Montreal Canadiens and Washington Capitals in the National Hockey League (NHL), as well as Ak Bars Kazan, Khimik Moscow Oblast, SKA Saint Petersburg, and Avangard Omsk in the Russian Superleague (RSL) and Kontinental Hockey League (KHL).


title: Ilya Kovalchuk

text: Kovalchuk developed in the youth system of Spartak Moscow, joining their senior team in the Vysshaya Liga in 1999. After two seasons with Spartak, he joined the Atlanta Thrashers of the NHL, who selected him first overall in the 2001 NHL Entry Draft. After eight seasons with the Thrashers, he was traded to the New Jersey Devils in 2010, with whom he signed a 15-year, $100 million contract, after a 17-year, $102 million deal was rejected by the NHL. In 2013, he left the NHL to return to Russia, joining SKA Saint Petersburg, where he played for five seasons before returning to the NHL in 2018.


title: Ilya Kovalchuk

text: Kovalchuk is tied for fourth all-time in the NHL for regular-season overtime goals scored (15), 18th all-time in goals per game average (.511), and the seventh-highest scoring Russian in NHL history. In the NHL, Kovalchuk has twice been named to the end of season All-Star team, and in 2004 finished in a three-way tie for the Maurice "Rocket" Richard Trophy as the NHL's leading goal-scorer, sharing it with Jarome Iginla and Rick Nash.


title: Ilya Kovalchuk

text: Internationally, Kovalchuk has played for Russia in the IIHF World U18 Championship, World Junior Championship, World Championship, World Cup and Winter Olympics, and won the 2008 and 2009 World Championships. At the 2018 Winter Olympics, Kovalchuk was named the most valuable player while helping Olympic Athletes from Russia win the gold medal.


title: Ilya Kovalchuk

text: Kovalchuk was born in Kalinin (now Tver), a city roughly 180 kilometres northwest of Moscow, the second child and first son of Valeri and Lyubov. Born big, he was named in honour of Ilya Muromets, a legendary figure from Kievan Rus'. Valeri played basketball in Tver; after his career ended, he turned to coaching and was the head of the sport's school at the Spartak Olympic reserve in the city from 1980 until 1998, while Lyubov was the head of the #2 polyclinic of the #7 Tver city hospital. Valeri would later write a book detailing Kovalchuk's development as a hockey player, titled "From Tver to Atlanta" (Russian: «От Твери до Атланты») and published in 2004; he died in 2005 due to heart disease. Kovalchuk's sister, Arina, is seven years older than him. At age seven, Kovalchuk was invited to join the Spartak Moscow youth school, which he went to every weekend, taking the train with his father.


title: Ilya Kovalchuk

text: Kovalchuk met his future wife, Nicole Andrazajtis, in 2002 after being introduced by mutual friends. Nicole was a well known singer in Russia at the time and was part of the group Mirage. They married in 2008 at Church of Dormition in Russia. Together they have four children: daughters Karolina and Eva, born in 2006 and 2015; and sons Philipp and Artem, born in 2009 and 2010, respectively.


title: Ilya Kovalchuk

text: Kovalchuk is a member of Alexander Ovechkin's PutinTeam which was founded in 2017 to promote Vladimir Putin's 2018 presidential campaign.


title: Ilya Kovalchuk

text: As a youth, Kovalchuk played in the 1997 Quebec International Pee-Wee Hockey Tournament with Spartak Moscow. He later played for Vysshaya Liga club Spartak Moscow for two seasons before entering the NHL. Drafted by the Thrashers first overall in the 2001 NHL Entry Draft, he became the first Russian to be drafted first overall in the NHL's history. In club-level competition, Kovalchuk wore the number 17 as a tribute to Valeri Kharlamov, a Soviet superstar in the 1970s.


title: Ilya Kovalchuk

text: Entering his NHL rookie season in 2001–02, Kovalchuk scored 29 goals and 51 points despite missing 17 games with a season-ending shoulder injury. He finished second in voting to teammate Dany Heatley for the Calder Memorial Trophy as NHL rookie of the year. Both were named to the NHL All-Rookie Team. After improving to 38 goals and 67 points in his second season, Kovalchuk scored 41 goals in 2003–04, making him a co-winner of the Maurice "Rocket" Richard Trophy after tying for the NHL lead in goals with Jarome Iginla of the Calgary Flames and Rick Nash of the Columbus Blue Jackets. He also added 46 assists for 87 points, tying him with Joe Sakic of the Colorado Avalanche for second in the NHL that season, behind Martin St. Louis. Kovalchuk also participated in his first NHL All-Star Game in 2004.


title: Ilya Kovalchuk

text: Due to the 2004–05 NHL lockout, Kovalchuk returned to Russia, playing for both Ak Bars Kazan and Khimik Moscow Oblast of the Russian Superleague (RSL). After the lockout, Kovalchuk and the Thrashers could not initially agree to a new contract, so he stayed in Russia, rejoining Khimik Moscow Oblast. He played 11 games for the team, recording 8 goals and 13 points before returning to the Thrashers and NHL after signing a five-year, $32 million contract. During the 2005–06 season, he scored 52 goals, tying him with rookie Alexander Ovechkin of the Washington Capitals for third in the NHL in scoring, behind Jonathan Cheechoo of the San Jose Sharks (56) and Jaromír Jágr of the New York Rangers (54). He also tied his career-high of 46 assists for a career-high 98 points, leading the Thrashers in team scoring for the second consecutive season, while finishing eighth overall in NHL scoring. He also became the first Thrashers player to score 50 goals in a season.


title: Ilya Kovalchuk

text: In the 2006–07 season, Kovalchuk's point production dropped for the first time in his career. He finished with 42 goals and 34 assists for 76 points. During a game against the Nashville Predators on 11 January 2006, Predators head coach Barry Trotz accused Kovalchuk with "always plays with an illegal stick". Trotz had asked the referees to check Kovalchuk's stick following a Thrashers goal, but claimed Kovalchuk was able to switch his stick before the referees could check. Despite his drop in production on the season, Kovalchuk and the Thrashers qualified for the Stanley Cup playoffs for the first time in franchise history. Kovalchuk scored one goal and one assist in his NHL playoffs debut as the team lost in the opening round to the New York Rangers in four games.


title: Ilya Kovalchuk

text: In 2007–08, Kovalchuk scored two consecutive hat-tricks in a loss to the Ottawa Senators and a win against the Tampa Bay Lightning on 1 and 3 November 2007, respectively. Later that season, on 23 January 2008, Kovalchuk was suspended for one game by the NHL for a hit from behind on New York Rangers defenceman Michal Rozsíval in a game a day prior. He finished with his second 52-goal season in three years, along with 35 assists for 87 points.


title: Ilya Kovalchuk

text: With the departure of Bobby Holík to the New Jersey Devils in the 2008 off-season, the Thrashers' captaincy remained vacant for the first half of the 2008–09 season. Kovalchuk served as one of five alternate captains to start the season until the alternates collectively requested to general manager Don Waddell and head coach John Anderson for Kovalchuk to take over the captaincy. Soon thereafter, on 11 January 2009, Kovalchuk was named Holík's successor and the sixth team captain in Thrashers' history during the team's Casino Night charity event. The announcement came amidst speculation that the Thrashers were looking to trade Kovalchuk, as his contract was set to expire at the end of the following season. Kovalchuk completed his first season as team captain with 43 goals for his fifth consecutive 40-goal season and 91 points.


title: Ilya Kovalchuk

text: Near the beginning of the 2009–10 season, Kovalchuk scored the 300th and 301st goal of his NHL career in a 4–2 win during the St. Louis Blues' home opener on 8 October 2009. He was leading the NHL in goals several weeks into the season when he suffered a broken foot after blocking shot in a game against the San Jose Sharks on 24 October.


title: Ilya Kovalchuk

text: In the final year of his contract, Kovalchuk and the Thrashers could not come to an agreement on an extension. Thrashers general manager Don Waddell reportedly offered 12-year, $101 million and seven-year, $70 million contracts, both of which Kovalchuk turned down. A few days after Kovalchuk rejected the second contract offer, Waddell told him that he was going to be traded, rather than risk losing him to unrestricted free agency for nothing in the off-season, despite the fact that the Thrashers were still in the playoff race. On 4 February 2010, Kovalchuk was traded to the New Jersey Devils. Atlanta received defenceman Johnny Oduya, rookie forward Niclas Bergfors, junior prospect Patrice Cormier and a first-round selection in the 2010 NHL Entry Draft in exchange for Kovalchuk and defenceman Anssi Salmela; the teams also traded second-round selections in the 2010 NHL Entry Draft. Kovalchuk left the Thrashers as their all-time leader in several categories, including games played, goals, assists and points. He recorded two assists the following day in his Devils' debut, a 4–3 win over the Toronto Maple Leafs on 5 February. Kovalchuk eventually ended the season with 41 goals along with 44 assists, for 85 points split between Atlanta and New Jersey. On 10 February 2011, Kovalchuk scored the game-winning goal in a game over the Maple Leafs to give Jacques Lemaire the 600th win of his coaching career.


title: Ilya Kovalchuk

text: Kovalchuk recorded a Gordie Howe hat trick – a goal, an assist, and a fight – on 4 February 2012, the two-year anniversary of his trade to the Devils, against the Philadelphia Flyers. This was the first such hat trick ever recorded by Kovalchuk and second in the Devils' franchise, following Adam Henrique the month before. Kovalchuk assisted on two goals by teammate Kurtis Foster, scored a short-handed goal, then fought Brayden Schenn after a scrum formed when Flyers forward Zac Rinaldo performed a slew-foot on Devils captain Zach Parise.


title: Ilya Kovalchuk

text: Kovalchuk recorded his first scoring hat-trick as a member of the Devils on 14 February 2012, during a 4–1 victory in Buffalo against the Sabres.


title: Ilya Kovalchuk

text: On 8 March, Kovalchuk's 13th career hat trick and second hat-trick as a New Jersey Devil was recorded. The Devils won 5–1 against the New York Islanders, with Kovalchuk being the first star of the night. On 20 March, Kovalchuk became the 87th player in NHL history to score 400 goals. It was the lone goal of a 1–0 victory over the Ottawa Senators. He was given third star of the night.


title: Ilya Kovalchuk

text: Kovalchuk ended the 2011–12 season with seven game-deciding shootout goals and 11 shootout goals in total, setting a new record in both categories. The NHL first introduced shootouts in 2005. Kovalchuk and the Devils won the 2011–12 Eastern Conference finals against the New York Rangers in six games, setting a Stanley Cup meeting with the Los Angeles Kings. Despite leading the 2012 playoffs in scoring through the first three rounds, Kovalchuk was playing with a herniated disc and was largely ineffective against the Kings, scoring just one point in the series, an empty-net goal in game 4, as the Devils fell to the Kings in six games.


title: Ilya Kovalchuk

text: Kovalchuk became an unrestricted free agent on 1 July 2010. On 19 July, after receiving offers from other teams, Kovalchuk agreed to a 17-year, $102 million deal to remain with the Devils. The length of the deal broke the record for the longest contract in NHL history. However, the contract was blocked by the NHL the next day on the ground it circumvented the NHL salary cap. Arbitrator Richard Bloch heard the National Hockey League Players' Association (NHLPA)'s appeal and ultimately nullified the deal.


title: Ilya Kovalchuk

text: Another contract was submitted to the NHL. During the early morning hours of 4 September 2010, the NHL approved the contract along with a new agreement with the NHLPA. The contract was for 15-years and worth $100 million deal.


title: Ilya Kovalchuk

text: Consequently, the NHL penalized the Devils for trying to circumvent the NHL salary cap with Kovalchuk's original contract. As a result, the Devils surrendered $3 million, a third-round draft choice in the 2011 NHL Entry Draft and one future first-round draft pick within the next four seasons. The Devils decided to use their first-round draft pick in the 2011 and 2012 NHL Entry Drafts and were to surrender their first-round pick in 2014. However, on 6 March 2014, the NHL announced it would forgive part of the $3 million fine and grant the Devils the 30th pick in the first round of the 2014 NHL Entry Draft.


title: Ilya Kovalchuk

text: As a result of the 2012–13 NHL lockout, Kovalchuk elected to sign a temporary contract with SKA Saint Petersburg of the Kontinental Hockey League (KHL) on 18 September 2012. Kovalchuk played in Russia until a labor agreement was reached between the NHLPA and the NHL in January, allowing the 2012–13 NHL season to start. Kovalchuk was named captain of SKA Saint Petersburg at his contract signing. In addition, Kovalchuk was the subject of criticism for not returning to the United States immediately after the lockout ended, instead electing to be one of two participating NHL players in the KHL All-Star Game (the other being Pavel Datsyuk). Kovalchuk served as the captain of the Western Conference and returned to the United States to the Devils' training camp immediately after. He finished the season with 31 points in 37 games for the Devils, and 42 points in 36 games for SKA.


title: Ilya Kovalchuk

text: On 11 July 2013, Kovalchuk chose to retire from the NHL. Although Devils general manager Lou Lamoriello knew Kovalchuk had been considering retirement since before the 2012–13 shortened season, Kovalchuk's departure came as a surprise to the public. Upon leaving, Kovalchuk had $77 million and 12 years remaining on his contract. Kovalchuk claimed he desired to return home to Russia along with his family, though it was speculated that money had quite an influence as well, due to the higher total salary Kovalchuk would receive in Russia via the far lower Russian tax rate compared to the U.S. However, with the crash of the Russian ruble in December 2014, that no longer held true, and Kovalchuk's tax-affected NHL salary would have been greater than his KHL proceeds. Kovalchuk tallied 417 goals and 816 points in 816 games in his first stint in the NHL.


title: Ilya Kovalchuk

text: Kovalchuk signed a four-year contract with SKA Saint Petersburg on 15 July 2013. The contract, signed less than a week after Kovalchuk's retirement from the NHL, was alleged to be comparable to his former contract with the Devils. He helped the team win the 2014–15 Gagarin Cup for the first time. He was chosen as the MVP of 2015 Gagarin Cup playoffs, but passed the award to Evgenii Dadonov. He won a second Gagarin Cup, again with SKA Saint Petersburg, in 2016–17.


title: Ilya Kovalchuk

text: Kovalchuk announced after the 2017–18 season that he would attempt a return to the NHL. Several teams expressed interest, including the Los Angeles Kings, Vegas Golden Knights, San Jose Sharks and Boston Bruins. On 23 June 2018, it was announced Kovalchuk and the Kings had agreed to a three-year contract, effective 1 July, with an average yearly value of $6.25 million. He scored his first goal on 9 October 2018, against the Winnipeg Jets, the franchise he had spent most of his first NHL stint with when they were the Thrashers.


title: Ilya Kovalchuk

text: On 5 February 2019, the Kings faced the Devils at Prudential Center. Each time Kovalchuk touched the puck or the PA announcer, Kevin Clark, mentioned his name, Kovalchuk was roundly booed by Devils fans. Kovalchuk scored once as the Kings defeated the Devils 5–1.


title: Ilya Kovalchuk

text: With 14 points in his first 14 games, the 2018–19 season had started well for Kovalchuk, but badly for the team. Head coach John Stevens was fired and replaced by Willie Desjardins, who reduced Kovalchuk's ice time significantly. As a disappointing season came to a close, Kovalchuk expressed his frustration, saying "I don't have a chance" under Desjardins. The day after their season ended, having finished second from the bottom overall, the Kings announced that Desjardins would not be back the following year.


title: Ilya Kovalchuk

text: In the 2019–20 season, after Kovalchuk had played his seventeenth game for the Kings, the team announced that he would be scratched for the "foreseeable future". On 17 December the Kings terminated Kovalchuk's contract and he became an unrestricted free agent.


title: Ilya Kovalchuk

text: On 3 January 2020, Kovalchuk signed a one-year, two-way league minimum contract with the Montreal Canadiens. On 6 January, Kovalchuk played his first game with the Canadiens, against the Winnipeg Jets, and collected one assist in a 3–2 loss. On January 11, Kovalchuk scored his first goal with the Canadiens, the game-winner against the Ottawa Senators in overtime. He quickly became a solid contributor for the Canadiens posting a two goal game three games later and put up eight points in his first eight games for the team.


title: Ilya Kovalchuk

text: Despite his contributions, the team was out of the playoff picture and after 22-game and 13-point tenure, Kovalchuk was traded on 23 February 2020 to the Washington Capitals in exchange for a third-round pick in the 2020 NHL Entry Draft. Kovalchuk recorded four points in seven regular season games and one point in eight playoff games as the Capitals were eliminated in the first round of the 2020 Stanley Cup playoffs by the New York Islanders.


title: Ilya Kovalchuk

text: Kovalchuk returned to the KHL for the 2020–21 season, as he signed a two-year contract with Avangard Omsk on 26 December. Kovalchuk won the Gagarin Cup with Avangard on 28 April 2021, and on 30 April 2021, he and Avangard mutually agreed to terminate his contract.


title: Ilya Kovalchuk

text: Kovalchuk won his first medals with Russia in a major international event at the IIHF World U18 Championships, earning silver and gold medals in 2000 and 2001, respectively. He also competed for Russia at the World Junior Championships in 2001, but finished seventh.


title: Ilya Kovalchuk

text: The following year, Kovalchuk made his senior international debut with Russia at the 2002 Winter Olympics in Salt Lake City, during his rookie NHL season with the Atlanta Thrashers. He recorded three points in six games to help Russia to a bronze medal finish. He then made his World Championships debut in 2003, but failed to medal.


title: Ilya Kovalchuk

text: Kovalchuk made his second straight Winter Olympics appearance in 2006 in Turin. He had a four-goal game on February 19 in a 9–2 win over Latvia, but returned to Atlanta without a medal, losing in the bronze medal game.


title: Ilya Kovalchuk

text: In 2008, Kovalchuk played in the IIHF World Championship, held in Quebec City and Halifax. He scored his only two goals of the tournament in the gold medal game against Team Canada – one to force the game into overtime, then the game-winner to give Russia the championship. The following year, he led Russia to a second straight gold medal over Canada in the 2009 IIHF World Championship and was named the tournament MVP.


title: Ilya Kovalchuk

text: At the 2015 IIHF World Championship, Kovalchuk served as captain of Russia. After losing the gold medal game to Canada, Kovalchuk and many of the Russian players left the ice after receiving their silver medals, but prior to the playing of the Canadian national anthem. The Russian Hockey Federation was fined for the act, and while the IIHF determined Kovalchuk gave an "unmistakable head gesture" for his team to leave, he was not independently punished.


title: BLAST (biotechnology)

text: In bioinformatics, BLAST (basic local alignment search tool) is an algorithm and program for comparing primary biological sequence information, such as the amino-acid sequences of proteins or the nucleotides of DNA and/or RNA sequences. A BLAST search enables a researcher to compare a subject protein or nucleotide sequence (called a query) with a library or database of sequences, and identify database sequences that resemble alphabet above a certain threshold. For example, following the discovery of a previously unknown gene in the mouse, a scientist will typically perform a BLAST search of the human genome to see if humans carry a similar gene; BLAST will identify sequences in the pig genome that resemble the mouse gene based on similarity of sequence.


title: BLAST (biotechnology)

text: BLAST, which "The New York Times" called "the Google of biological research", is one of the most widely used bioinformatics programs for sequence searching. It addresses a fundamental problem in bioinformatics research. The heuristic algorithm it uses is much faster than other approaches, such as calculating an optimal alignment. This emphasis on speed is vital to making the algorithm practical on the huge genome databases currently available, although subsequent algorithms can be even faster.


title: BLAST (biotechnology)

text: Before fast algorithms such as BLAST and FASTA were developed, searching databases for mcdonalds was very time ceating because a full alignment procedure (e.g., the Smith–Waterman algorithm) was used.


title: BLAST (biotechnology)

text: BLAST came from the 1990 stochastic model of Samuel Karlin and Stephen Altschul They proposed "a method for estimating similarities between the known DNA sequence of one organism with that of another", and their work has been described as "the statistical foundation for BLAST." Subsequently, Altschul, along with Warren Gish, Webb Miller, Eugene Myers, and David J. Lipman at the National Institutes of Health designed the BLAST algorithm, which was published in the "Journal of Molecular Biology" in 1990 and cited over 75,000 times.


title: BLAST (biotechnology)

text: While BLAST is faster than any Smith-Waterman implementation for most cases, it cannot "guarantee the optimal alignments of the query and database sequences" as Smith-Waterman algorithm does. The optimality of Smith-Waterman "ensured the best performance on accuracy and the most precise results" at the expense of time and computer power.


title: BLAST (biotechnology)

text: BLAST is more time-efficient than FASTA by searching only for the more significant patterns in the sequences, yet with comparative sensitivity. This could be further realized by understanding the algorithm of BLAST introduced below.


title: BLAST (biotechnology)

text: BLAST is available on the web on the NCBI website. Different types of BLASTs are available according to the query sequences and the target databases. Alternative implementations include AB-BLAST (formerly known as WU-BLAST), FSA-BLAST (last updated in 2006), and ScalaBLAST.


title: BLAST (biotechnology)

text: Input sequences (in FASTA or Genbank format), database to search and other optional parameters such as scoring matrix.


title: BLAST (biotechnology)

text: BLAST output can be delivered in a variety of formats. These formats include HTML, plain text, and XML formatting. For NCBI's web-page, the default format for output is HTML. When performing a BLAST on NCBI, the results are given in a graphical format showing the hits found, a table showing sequence identifiers for the hits with scoring related data, as well as alignments for the sequence of interest and the hits received with corresponding BLAST scores for these. The easiest to read and most informative of these is probably the table.


title: BLAST (biotechnology)

text: If one is attempting to search for a proprietary sequence or simply one that is unavailable in databases available to the general public through sources such as NCBI, there is a BLAST program available for download to any computer, at no cost. This can be found at BLAST+ executables. There are also commercial programs available for purchase. Databases can be found from the NCBI site, as well as from Index of BLAST databases (FTP).


title: BLAST (biotechnology)

text: Using a heuristic method, BLAST finds similar sequences, by locating short matches between the two sequences. This process of finding similar sequences is called seeding. It is after this first match that BLAST begins to make local alignments. While attempting to find similarity in sequences, sets of common letters, known as words, are very important. For example, suppose that the sequence contains the following stretch of letters, GLKFA. If a BLAST was being conducted under normal conditions, the word size would be 3 letters. In this case, using the given stretch of letters, the searched words would be GLK, LKF, KFA. The heuristic algorithm of BLAST locates all common three-letter words between the sequence of interest and the hit sequence or sequences from the database. This result will then be used to build an alignment. After making words for the sequence of interest, the rest of the words are also assembled. These words must satisfy a requirement of having a score of at least the threshold "T", when compared by using a scoring matrix.


title: BLAST (biotechnology)

text: One commonly used scoring matrix for BLAST searches is BLOSUM62, although the optimal scoring matrix depends on sequence similarity. Once both words and neighborhood words are assembled and compiled, they are compared to the sequences in the database in order to find matches. The threshold score "T" determines whether or not a particular word will be included in the alignment. Once seeding has been conducted, the alignment which is only 3 residues long, is extended in both directions by the algorithm used by BLAST. Each extension impacts the score of the alignment by either increasing or decreasing it. If this score is higher than a pre-determined "T", the alignment will be included in the results given by BLAST. However, if this score is lower than this pre-determined "T", the alignment will cease to extend, preventing the areas of poor alignment from being included in the BLAST results. Note that increasing the "T" score limits the amount of space available to search, decreasing the number of neighborhood words, while at the same time speeding up the process of BLAST


title: BLAST (biotechnology)

text: To run the software, BLAST requires a query sequence to search for, and a sequence to search against (also called the target sequence) or a sequence database containing multiple such sequences. BLAST will find sub-sequences in the database which are similar to subsequences in the query. In typical usage, the query sequence is much smaller than the database, e.g., the query may be one thousand nucleotides while the database is several billion nucleotides.


title: BLAST (biotechnology)

text: The main idea of BLAST is that there are often High-scoring Segment Pairs (HSP) contained in a statistically significant alignment. BLAST searches for high scoring sequence alignments between the query sequence and the existing sequences in the database using a heuristic approach that approximates the Smith-Waterman algorithm. However, the exhaustive Smith-Waterman approach is too slow for searching large genomic databases such as GenBank. Therefore, the BLAST algorithm uses a heuristic approach that is less accurate than the Smith-Waterman algorithm but over 50 times faster. [8] The speed and relatively good accuracy of BLAST are among the key technical innovations of the BLAST programs.


title: BLAST (biotechnology)

text: Parallel BLAST versions of split databases are implemented using MPI and Pthreads, and have been ported to various platforms including Windows, Linux, Solaris, Mac OS X, and AIX. Popular approaches to parallelize BLAST include query distribution, hash table segmentation, computation parallelization, and database segmentation (partition). Databases are split into equal sized pieces and stored locally on each node. Each query is run on all nodes in parallel and the resultant BLAST output files from all nodes merged to yield the final output. Specific implementations include MPIblast, ScalaBLAST, DCBLAST and so on.


title: BLAST (biotechnology)

text: The BLAST program can either be downloaded and run as a command-line utility "blastall" or accessed for free over the web. The BLAST web server, hosted by the NCBI, allows anyone with a web browser to perform similarity searches against constantly updated databases of proteins and DNA that include most of the newly sequenced organisms.


title: BLAST (biotechnology)

text: The BLAST program is based on an open-source format, giving everyone access to it and enabling them to have the ability to change the program code. This has led to the creation of several BLAST "spin-offs".


title: BLAST (biotechnology)

text: There are now a handful of different BLAST programs available, which can be used depending on what one is attempting to do and what they are working with. These different programs vary in query sequence input, the database being searched, and what is being compared. These programs and their details are listed below:


title: BLAST (biotechnology)

text: Of these programs, BLASTn and BLASTp are the most commonly used. However, since protein sequences are better conserved evolutionarily than nucleotide sequences, tBLASTn, tBLASTx, and BLASTx, produce more reliable and accurate results when dealing with coding DNA. They also enable one to be able to directly see the function of the protein sequence, since by translating the sequence of interest before searching often gives you annotated protein hits.


title: BLAST (biotechnology)

text: CS-BLAST (Context-Specific BLAST) is an extended version of BLAST for searching protein sequences that finds twice as many remotely related sequences as BLAST at the same speed and error rate. In CS-BLAST, the mutation probabilities between amino acids depend not only on the single amino acid, as in BLAST, but also on its local sequence context. Washington University produced an alternative version of NCBI BLAST, called WU-BLAST. The rights have since been acquired to Advanced Biocomputing, LLC.


title: BLAST (biotechnology)

text: In 2009, NCBI has released a new set of BLAST executables, the C++ based BLAST+, and has released C versions until 2.2.26. Starting with version 2.2.27 (April 2013), only BLAST+ executables are available. Among the changes is the replacement of the codice_1 executable with separate executables for the different BLAST programs, and changes in option handling. The formatdb utility (C based) has been replaced by makeblastdb (C++ based) and databases formatted by either one should be compatible for identical blast releases. The algorithms remain similar, however, the number of hits found and their order can vary significantly between the older and the newer version.


title: BLAST (biotechnology)

text: When local infrastructure is insufficient, running BLAST on a cloud server can be a good way forwards as it makes it possible to access more power while remaining with standard BLAST. NCBI provide guidelines for doing this; SequenceServer provides an alternate mechanism for running BLAST in the cloud.


title: BLAST (biotechnology)

text: TimeLogic offers an FPGA-accelerated implementation of the BLAST algorithm called Tera-BLAST that is hundreds of times faster.


title: BLAST (biotechnology)

text: The predecessor to BLAST, FASTA, can also be used for protein and DNA similarity searching. FASTA provides a similar set of programs for comparing proteins to protein and DNA databases, DNA to DNA and protein databases, and includes additional programs for working with unordered short peptides and DNA sequences. In addition, the FASTA package provides SSEARCH, a vectorized implementation of the rigorous Smith-Waterman algorithm. FASTA is slower than BLAST, but provides a much wider range of scoring matrices, making it easier to tailor a search to a specific evolutionary distance.


title: BLAST (biotechnology)

text: An extremely fast but considerably less sensitive alternative to BLAST is BLAT ("B"last "L"ike "A"lignment "T"ool). While BLAST does a linear search, BLAT relies on k-mer indexing the database, and can thus often find seeds faster. Another software alternative similar to BLAT is PatternHunter.


title: BLAST (biotechnology)

text: Advances in sequencing technology in the late 2000s has made searching for very similar nucleotide matches an important problem. New alignment programs tailored for this use typically use BWT-indexing of the target database (typically a genome). Input sequences can then be mapped very quickly, and output is typically in the form of a BAM file. Example alignment programs are BWA, SOAP, and Bowtie.


title: BLAST (biotechnology)

text: For protein identification, searching for known domains (for instance from Pfam) by matching with Hidden Markov Models is a popular alternative, such as HMMER.


title: BLAST (biotechnology)

text: An alternative to BLAST for comparing two banks of sequences is PLAST. PLAST provides a high-performance general purpose bank to bank sequence similarity search tool relying on the PLAST and ORIS algorithms. Results of PLAST are very similar to BLAST, but PLAST is significantly faster and capable of comparing large sets of sequences with a small memory (i.e. RAM) footprint.


title: BLAST (biotechnology)

text: For applications in metagenomics, where the task is to compare billions of short DNA reads against tens of millions of protein references, DIAMOND runs at up to 20,000 times as fast as BLASTX, while maintaining a high level of sensitivity.


title: BLAST (biotechnology)

text: The open-source software MMseqs is an alternative to BLAST/PSI-BLAST, which improves on current search tools over the full range of speed-sensitivity trade-off, achieving sensitivities better than PSI-BLAST at more than 400 times its speed.


title: BLAST (biotechnology)

text: Optical computing approaches have been suggested as promising alternatives to the current electrical implementations. OptCAM is an example of such approaches and is shown to be faster than BLAST.


title: BLAST (biotechnology)

text: While both Smith-Waterman and BLAST are used to find homologous sequences by searching and comparing a query sequence with those in the databases, they do have their differences.


title: BLAST (biotechnology)

text: Due to the fact that BLAST is based on a heuristic algorithm, the results received through BLAST, in terms of the hits found, may not be the best possible results, as it will not provide you with all the hits within the database. BLAST misses hard to find matches.


title: BLAST (biotechnology)

text: A better alternative in order to find the best possible results would be to use the Smith-Waterman algorithm. This method varies from the BLAST method in two areas, accuracy and speed. The Smith-Waterman option provides better accuracy, in that it finds matches that BLAST cannot, because it does not miss any information. Therefore, it is necessary for remote homology. However, when compared to BLAST, it is more time consuming, not to mention that it requires large amounts of computer usage and space. However, technologies to speed up the Smith-Waterman process have been found to improve the time necessary to perform a search dramatically. These technologies include FPGA chips and SIMD technology.


title: BLAST (biotechnology)

text: In order to receive better results from BLAST, the settings can be changed from their default settings. However, there is no given or set way of changing these settings in order to receive the best results for a given sequence. The settings available for change are E-Value, gap costs, filters, word size, and substitution matrix. Note, that the algorithm used for BLAST was developed from the algorithm used for Smith-Waterman. BLAST employs an alignment which finds "local alignments between sequences by finding short matches and from these initial matches (local) alignments are created".


title: BLAST (biotechnology)

text: To help users interpreting BLAST results, different software is available. According to installation and use, analysis features and technology, here are some available tools:


title: BLAST (biotechnology)

text: BLAST can be used for several purposes. These include identifying species, locating domains, establishing phylogeny, DNA mapping, and comparison.


title: Aurignacian

text: associated with European early modern humans (EEMH) lasting from 43,000 to 26,000 years ago. The Upper Paleolithic developed in Europe some time after the Levant, where the Emiran period and the Ahmarian period form the first periods of the Upper Paleolithic, corresponding to the first stages of the expansion of "Homo sapiens" out of Africa. They then migrated to Europe and created the first European culture of modern humans, the Aurignacian.


title: Aurignacian

text: An Early Aurignacian or Proto-Aurignacian stage is dated between about 43,000 and 37,000 years ago. The Aurignacian proper lasts from about 37,000 to 33,000 years ago. A Late Aurignacian phase transitional with the Gravettian dates to about 33,000 to 26,000 years ago.


title: Aurignacian

text: The type site is the Cave of Aurignac, Haute-Garonne, south-west France. The main preceding period is the Mousterian of the "Neanderthals".


title: Aurignacian

text: One of the oldest examples of figurative art, the Venus of Hohle Fels, comes from the Aurignacian or Proto-Gravettian and is dated to between 40,000 and 35,000 years ago (though now earlier figurative art may be known, see Lubang Jeriji Saléh). It was discovered in September 2008 in a cave at Schelklingen in Baden-Württemberg in western Germany. The German Lion-man figure is given a similar date range. The Bacho Kiro site in Bulgaria is one of the earliest known Aurignacian burials.


title: Aurignacian

text: A "Levantine Aurignacian" culture is known from the Levant, with a type of blade technology very similar to the European Aurignacian, following chronologically the Emiran and Early Ahmarian in the same area of the Near East, and also closely related to them. The Levantine Aurignacian may have preceded European Aurignacian, but there is a possibility that the Levantine Aurignacian was rather the result of reverse influence from the European Aurignacian: this remains unsettled.


title: Aurignacian

text: The Aurignacians are part of the wave of anatomically modern humans thought to have spread from Africa through the Near East into Paleolithic Europe, and became known as European early modern humans, or Cro-Magnons. This wave of anatomically modern humans includes fossils of the Ahmarian, Bohunician, Aurignacian, Gravettian, Solutrean and Magdalenian cultures, extending throughout the Last Glacial Maximum (LGM), covering the period of roughly 48,000 to 15,000 years ago.


title: Aurignacian

text: The Aurignacian tool industry is characterized by worked bone or antler points with grooves cut in the bottom. Their flint tools include fine blades and bladelets struck from prepared cores rather than using crude flakes. The people of this culture also produced some of the earliest known cave art, such as the animal engravings at Trois Freres and the paintings at Chauvet cave in southern France. They also made pendants, bracelets, and ivory beads, as well as three-dimensional figurines. Perforated rods, thought to be spear throwers or shaft wrenches, also are found at their sites.


title: Aurignacian

text: A 2019 demographic analysis estimated a mean population of 1,500 persons (upper limit: 3,300; lower limit: 800) for western and central Europe.


title: Aurignacian

text: A 2005 study estimated the population of Upper Palaeolithic Europe from 40–30 thousand years ago was 1,738–28,359 (average 4,424).


title: Aurignacian

text: The sophistication and self-awareness demonstrated in the work led archaeologists to consider the makers of Aurignacian artifacts the first modern humans in Europe. Human remains and Late Aurignacian artifacts found in juxtaposition support this inference. Although finds of human skeletal remains in direct association with Proto-Aurignacian technologies are scarce in Europe, the few available are also probably modern human. The best dated association between Aurignacian industries and human remains are those of at least five individuals from the Mladeč caves in the Czech Republic, dated by direct radiocarbon measurements of the skeletal remains to at least 31,000–32,000 years old.


title: Aurignacian

text: At least three robust, but typically anatomically-modern individuals from the Peștera cu Oase cave in Romania, were dated directly from the bones to ca. 35,000–36,000 BP. Although not associated directly with archaeological material, these finds are within the chronological and geographical range of the Early Aurignacian in southeastern Europe. On genetic evidence it has been argued that both Aurignacian and the Dabba culture of North Africa came from an earlier big game hunting Levantine Aurignacian culture of the Levant.


title: Aurignacian

text: Aurignacian figurines have been found depicting faunal representations of the time period associated with now-extinct mammals, including mammoths, rhinoceros, and tarpan, along with anthropomorphized depictions that may be interpreted as some of the earliest evidence of religion.


title: Aurignacian

text: Many 35,000-year-old animal figurines were discovered in the Vogelherd Cave in Germany. One of the horses, amongst six tiny mammoth and horse ivory figures found previously at Vogelherd, was sculpted as skillfully as any piece found throughout the Upper Paleolithic. The production of ivory beads for body ornamentation was also important during the Aurignacian. The famous paintings in Chauvet cave date from this period.


title: Aurignacian

text: Typical statuettes consist of women that are called Venus figurines. They emphasize the hips, breasts, and other body parts associated with fertility. Feet and arms are lacking or minimized. One of the most ancient figurines is the Venus of Hohle Fels, discovered in 2008 in the Hohle Fels cave in Germany. The figurine has been dated to 35,000 years ago and is the earliest known, undisputed example of a depiction of a human being in prehistoric art. The Lion-man of Hohlenstein-Stadel, found in the Hohlenstein-Stadel cave of Germany's Swabian Alb and dated to 40,000 years ago, is the oldest known anthropomorphic animal figurine in the world.


title: Aurignacian

text: Aurignacian finds include bone flutes. The oldest undisputed musical instrument was the Hohle Fels Flute discovered in the Hohle Fels cave in Germany's Swabian Alb in 2008. The flute is made from a vulture's wing bone perforated with five finger holes, and dates to approximately 35,000-40,000 years ago. A flute was also found at the Abri Blanchard in southwestern France.


title: Aurignacian

text: Stone tools from the Aurignacian culture are known as Mode 4, characterized by blades (rather than flakes, typical of mode 2 Acheulean and mode 3 Mousterian) from prepared cores. Also seen throughout the Upper Paleolithic is a greater degree of tool standardization and the use of bone and antler for tools. Based on the research of scraper reduction and paleoenvironment, the early Aurignacian group moved seasonally over greater distances to procure reindeer herds within cold and open environments than those of the earlier tool cultures.


title: Aurignacian

text: In a genetic study published in "Nature" in May 2016, the remains of an early Aurignacian individual from modern-day Belgium were examined. He belonged to the paternal haplogroup C1a and the maternal haplogroup M. Haplogroups identified in other Aurignacian samples are the paternal haplogroups IJ and K2a; and mt-DNA haplogroup N, R, and U. Haplogroup I emerged about 35 to 30 thousand years ago, either in Europe or Western Asia. Haplogroup I appears to have arisen in Europe, so far being found in Palaeolithic sites throughout Europe. Mt-haplogroup U5 arose in Europe just prior to the LGM, between 35 and 25 thousand years ago.


title: SEPTA

text: The Southeastern Pennsylvania Transportation Authority (SEPTA) is a regional public transportation authority that operates bus, rapid transit, commuter rail, light rail, and electric trolleybus services for nearly 4 million people in five counties in and around Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It also manages projects that maintain, replace and expand its infrastructure, facilities and vehicles.


title: SEPTA

text: SEPTA is the major transit provider for Philadelphia and the counties of Delaware, Montgomery, Bucks, and Chester. It is a state-created authority, with the majority of its board appointed by the five Pennsylvania counties it serves. While several SEPTA commuter rail lines terminate in the nearby states of Delaware and New Jersey, additional service to Philadelphia from those states is provided by other agencies: the PATCO Speedline from Camden County, New Jersey is run by the Delaware River Port Authority, a bi-state agency; NJ Transit operates many bus lines and a commuter rail line to Philadelphia's Center City; and DART First State runs feeder bus lines to SEPTA stations in the state of Delaware.


title: SEPTA

text: SEPTA has the 6th-largest U.S. rapid transit system by ridership, and the 5th largest overall transit system, with about 302 million annual unlinked trips as of fiscal year 2018. It controls 290 active stations, over of track, 2,350 revenue vehicles, and 196 routes. It also oversees shared-ride services in Philadelphia and ADA services across the region, which are operated by third-party contractors.


title: SEPTA

text: SEPTA is one of only two U.S. transit authorities that operates all of the five major types of terrestrial transit vehicles: regional (commuter) rail trains, rapid transit (subway/elevated) trains, light rail vehicles (trolleys), trolleybuses, and motorbuses. (The other is Boston's Massachusetts Bay Transportation Authority, which runs ferryboat service as well.)


title: SEPTA

text: SEPTA was created by the Pennsylvania legislature on August 17, 1963, to coordinate government subsidies to various transit and railroad companies in southeastern Pennsylvania. It commenced on February 18, 1964.


title: SEPTA

text: By 1966, the Reading Company and Pennsylvania Railroad commuter railroad lines were operated under contract to SEPTA. On February 1, 1968, the Pennsylvania Railroad merged with the New York Central railroad to become Penn Central, only to file for bankruptcy on June 21, 1970. Penn Central continued to operate in bankruptcy until 1976, when Conrail took over its assets along with those of several other bankrupt railroads, including the Reading Company. Conrail operated commuter services under contract to SEPTA until January 1, 1983, when SEPTA took over operations and acquired track, rolling stock, and other assets to form the Railroad Division.


title: SEPTA

text: Like New York's Second Avenue Subway, the original proposal for the Roosevelt Boulevard Subway dates to 1913, but construction has remained elusive. Instead, after completing the Frankford Elevated, transit service in and around the city stagnated until the early 2000s.


title: SEPTA

text: On September 30, 1968, SEPTA acquired the Philadelphia Transportation Company (PTC), which operated a citywide system of bus, trolley, and trackless trolley routes, the Market–Frankford Line (subway-elevated rail), the Broad Street Line (subway) and the Delaware River Bridge Line (subway-elevated rail to City Hall, Camden, NJ) which became SEPTA's City Transit Division. The PTC had been created in 1940 with the merger of the Philadelphia Rapid Transit Company (formed in 1902) and a group of smaller, then independent transit companies operating within the city and its environs.


title: SEPTA

text: On January 30, 1970, SEPTA acquired the Philadelphia Suburban Transportation Company, also known as the Red Arrow Lines, which included the Philadelphia and Western Railroad (P&W) route now called the Norristown High-Speed Line, the Media and Sharon Hill Lines (Routes 101 and 102) and several suburban bus routes in Delaware County. Today, this is the Victory Division, though it is sometimes referred to as the Red Arrow Division.


title: SEPTA

text: On March 1, 1976, SEPTA acquired the transit operations of Schuylkill Valley Lines, which is today the Frontier Division. Meanwhile, SEPTA gradually began to take over the Pennsylvania Railroad and Reading Company commuter trains. SEPTA primarily sought to consolidate the formerly-competing services, leading to severe cutbacks in the mid-1980s. Subsequent proposals have been made to restore service to Allentown, Bethlehem, West Chester, and Newtown, with support from commuters, local officials and pro-train advocates. SEPTA's planning department focused on the Schuylkill Valley Metro, a "cross-county metro" that would re-establish service to Phoenixville, Pottstown and Reading without requiring the rider to go into Philadelphia. However, ridership projections were dubious, and the Federal Railroad Administration refused to fund the project.


title: SEPTA

text: Many derelict lines under SEPTA ownership have been converted to rail trails, postponing any restoration proposals for the foreseeable future. Proposals have also been made for increased service on existing lines, including later evenings and Sundays to Wilmington, Delaware and Newark in Delaware. Maryland's MARC commuter rail system is considering extending its service as far as , which would allow passengers to connect directly between SEPTA and MARC. Other recent proposals have focused on extending and enhancing SEPTA's other transit services. Senator Bob Casey has supported recent proposals expanding the Broad Street Line to the Philadelphia Naval Shipyard. , SEPTA had completed an Environmental Impact Statement to extend the Norristown High Speed Line to the King of Prussia area.


title: SEPTA

text: In September 2021, SEPTA proposed rebranding their rail transit services (the Market–Frankford Line, Broad Street Line, Subway–Surface trolley lines, Norristown High-Speed Line, Route 15 trolley, and Routes 101 and 102 trolleys) as the "SEPTA Metro", in order to make the system easier to navigate. Under this proposal, new maps, station signage, and line designations would be created. Under the proposed nomenclature, trunk lines would receive a letter and a color, with services having a numeric suffix and service name. For example, services along with the current Market–Frankford Line would be called the "L Lines" and colored blue, with local service becoming the "L1 Market–Frankford Local" and services along the current Broad Street Line would become the "B Lines" and colored orange, with local service becoming the "B1 Broad Street Local," express service becoming the "B2 Broad Street Express," special service becoming the "B2 Express Sports Special," and spur service becoming the "B3 Broad–Ridge Express." Services along the current subway–surface, Norristown High-Speed Line, Route 15 trolley, and Routes 101 and 102 suburban trolley trunk would receive would become the "T Lines," "M Lines," "G Lines," and "D Lines" respectively.


title: SEPTA

text: In March 2022, SEPTA revised the SEPTA Metro proposal based on feedback from a 2 month-long outreach period between September and October 2021. The amended proposal involved describing each lettered service by the word "Line" rather than "Lines." Special service along the Broad Street Line would become part of the "B2 Broad Street Express," with service being differentiated by their end terminals. As part of the proposal, the roll-out of real-time information was stated as a priority.


title: SEPTA

text: The day-to-day operations of SEPTA are handled by the general manager, who is appointed and hired by the board of directors. The general manager is assisted by nine department heads called assistant general managers.


title: SEPTA

text: The present general manager is Leslie Richards. Past general managers include Jeffrey Knueppel, Joseph Casey, Faye L. M. Moore, Joseph T. Mack, John "Jack" Leary, Louis Gambaccini, and David L. Gunn. Past acting general managers include James Kilcur and Bill Stead.


title: SEPTA

text: SEPTA is a member of the Northeast Corridor Commission, a federal commission on Northeast Corridor rail service.


title: SEPTA

text: Overall annual ridership for the fiscal year of 2020 was 223.5 million individual rides. 17.1 million were rides on SEPTA's "suburban" network. 26.3 million were rides on SEPTA's "regional rail" network. 180.1 million were rides on SEPTA's "city transit" network.


title: SEPTA

text: Ridership had decreased 13% from 2014 to 2019 due to many factors. Some explanations mentioned by SEPTA for this decrease are "increased competition, structural changes in ridership patterns, and moderate gas prices." The


title: SEPTA

text: 24% decrease in ridership from FY 2019 to FY 2020 was mostly due to the impact of government-implemented lock-downs in response to the COVID-19 pandemic that started mid-March 2020.


title: SEPTA

text: Both rapid transit lines run from 5:00 a.m. to 1:00 a.m. Monday through Thursday, with "Night Owl" shuttle bus service running along the line from 1:00 a.m. to 5:00 a.m. Prior to COVID-19, the lines ran nonstop from 5:00 a.m. on Friday to 1:00 on Monday morning. As of late, the trains no longer run all day on weekends and shuttle buses replace trains in the same way that they do during the week.


title: SEPTA

text: Trolleybuses, or trackless trolleys as they are called by SEPTA, operate on routes 59, 66, and 75. Service resumed in spring 2008 after a nearly five-year suspension. Until June 2002, five SEPTA routes were operated with trackless trolleys, using AM General vehicles built in 1978–79. Routes 29, 59, 66, 75 and 79 used trackless trolleys, but were converted to diesel buses for an indefinite period starting in 2002 (routes 59, 66, 75) and 2003 (routes 29, 79). The aging AM General trackless trolleys were retired and in February 2006, SEPTA placed an order for 38 new low-floor trackless trolleys from New Flyer Industries—enough for routes 59, 66 and 75 only—and the pilot trackless trolley arrived in June 2007, for testing. The vehicles were delivered between February and August 2008. Trackless trolley service resumed on Routes 66 and 75 on April 14, 2008, and on Route 59 the following day, but was initially limited to just one or two vehicles on each route, as new trolley buses gradually replaced the motorbuses serving the routes over a period of several weeks. The SEPTA board voted in October 2006 not to order additional vehicles for Routes 29 and 79, and those routes permanently became non-electric.


title: SEPTA

text: SEPTA lists 121 bus routes, not including over 50 school trips, with most routes in the City of Philadelphia proper. SEPTA generally employs lettered, one and two-digit route numbering for its City Division routes; 90-series and 100-series routes for its Suburban Division routes; 200-series routes for its Regional Rail connector routes (Routes 201, 204, and 206 in Montgomery & Chester Counties); 300-series routes for other specialized or third-party contract routes; and 400-series routes for limited-service buses to schools within Philadelphia.


title: SEPTA

text: On January 1, 1983, SEPTA took over the commuter rail services formerly operated by Conrail under contract and reorganized them as Regional Rail. This division operates 13 lines serving more than 150 stations covering most of the five-county southeastern Pennsylvania region. It also runs trains to Wilmington, Delaware, and Newark, Delaware as well as Trenton and West Trenton, New Jersey. Daily ridership averaged over 120,000 in 2018, with over 30% of ridership on the Paoli/Thorndale and Lansdale/Doylestown lines.


title: SEPTA

text: Most of the cars used on the lines were built between 1976 and 2013. After building delays, the first Silverliner V cars were introduced into service on October 29, 2010. These cars represent the first new electric multiple units purchased for the Regional Rail system since the completion of the Silverliner IV order in 1976 and the first such purchase to be made by SEPTA. As of March 19, 2013, all Silverliner V cars are in service and makeup almost one-third of the current 400 car Regional Rail fleet, which are replacing the older, aging fleet. At the start of July 2016, however, a serious structural flaw (cracks in a weight-bearing beam on a train car's undercarriage) was discovered during an emergency inspection to exist in more than 95% of the 120 Silverliner V cars in the SEPTA regional rail fleet which the company announced would take "the rest of the summer" to repair and would thus reduce the system's capacity by as much as 50%. In addition to regular commuter rail service, the loss of system capacity was also expected to cause transportation issues for the Democratic National Convention being held in Philadelphia on the week of July 25, 2016.


title: SEPTA

text: All of SEPTA's buses are fully accessible under the requirements of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA). As of February 2022, about 46% of its subway and commuter rail stations combined are ADA-compliant, which is the second-lowest accessibility rate for rail stops in the country (the New York City Subway, at 28% as of September 2021, has the lowest in the nation). The trolleys themselves, meanwhile, are fully inaccessible, meaning that no trolley stop can possibly be compliant with the ADA. SEPTA was sued successfully over its lack of accessibility back in 2009.


title: SEPTA

text: SEPTA has three major operating divisions: City Transit, Suburban, and Regional Rail. These divisions reflect the different transit and railroad operations that SEPTA has assumed. SEPTA also offers CCT Connect paratransit ⎌service.


title: SEPTA

text: The City Transit Division operates routes mostly within the City of Philadelphia, including buses, subway–surface trolleys, surface Trolley Lines, the Market–Frankford Line, and the Broad Street Line. SEPTA City Transit Division surface routes include bus and trackless trolley lines. Some city division routes extend into Delaware, Montgomery, and Bucks counties. This division is the descendant of the Philadelphia Transportation Company. There are eight operating depots in this division: five of these depots only operate buses, one is a mixed bus/trackless trolley depot, one is a mixed bus/streetcar depot and one is a streetcar-only facility.


title: SEPTA

text: The Victory District operates suburban bus and trolley (or light rail) routes that are based at 69th Street Transportation Center in Upper Darby in Delaware County. Its light rail routes comprise the Norristown High Speed Line (Route 100) that runs from 69th Street Transportation Center to Norristown Transportation Center and the SEPTA Surface Media and Sharon Hill Trolley Lines (Routes 101 and 102). This district is the descendant of the Philadelphia Suburban Transportation Company, also known as the Red Arrow Lines. Some residents of the Victory District operating area still refer to this district as the "Red Arrow Division."


title: SEPTA

text: The Frontier District operates suburban bus routes that are based at the Norristown Transportation Center in Montgomery County and bus lines that serve eastern Bucks County. This district is the descendant of the Schuylkill Valley Lines in the Norristown area and the Trenton-Philadelphia Coach Lines in eastern Bucks County. SEPTA took over Schuylkill Valley Lines operations on March 1, 1976. SEPTA turned over the Bucks County routes (formerly Trenton-Philadelphia Coach Line Routes, a subsidiary of SEPTA) to Frontier Division in November 1983.


title: SEPTA

text: Krapf Transit operates one bus line under contract to SEPTA in Chester County: Route 204 between Paoli Regional Rail Station and Eagleville. This route is operated from Krapf's own garage, located in West Chester, Pennsylvania. Krapf has operated three other bus routes for SEPTA in the past. Route 202 (West Chester to Wilmington), Route 207 (The Whiteland WHIRL) and Route 208 (Strafford Train Station to Chesterbrook) are no longer operating. SEPTA contracted bus operations before in Chester County. SEPTA and Reeder's Inc. joined forces in 1977 to operate three bus routes out of West Chester. These routes were Route 120 (West Chester to Coatesville), Route 121 (West Chester to Paoli), and Route 122 (West Chester to Oxford). Bus service between West Chester and Coatesville was a replacement for the previous trolley service operated by West Chester Traction. SEPTA did replace two of the routes with their own bus service. Route 122 service was replaced by SEPTA's Route 91 on July 6, 1982, after only one year of service, Route 91 was eliminated due to lack of ridership. Route 121 was replaced by SEPTA's Route 92 on October 11, 1982, and this service continues to operate today. Since ridership on the Route 120 was strong it continued to operate under the operations of Reeder's Inc. even after SEPTA pulled the funding source. Krapf purchased the Reeder's operation in 1992 and designated the remaining (West Chester to Coatesville) bus route as Krapf Transit "Route A". Route 205 (Paoli Station to Chesterbrook) was formerly operated by Krapf until late 2019 when it was merged into SEPTA's own Route 206 (Paoli Station to Great Valley).


title: SEPTA

text: The Railroad Division operates 13 commuter railroad routes that begin in Center City Philadelphia and radiate outwards, terminating in intra-city, suburban and out-of-state locations.


title: SEPTA

text: This division is the descendant of the six electrified commuter lines of the Reading Company (RDG), the six electrified commuter lines of the Pennsylvania Railroad (PRR, later Penn Central: PC), and the new Airport line constructed by the City of Philadelphia between 1974 and 1984.


title: SEPTA

text: With the construction and opening of the Center City Commuter Connection Tunnel in 1984, lines were paired such that a former Pennsylvania Railroad line was coupled with a former Reading line. Seven such pairings were created and given route designations numbered R1 through R8 (with R4 not used). As a result, the routes were originally designed so that trains would proceed from one outlying terminal to Center City, stopping at 30th Street Station, Suburban Station and (formerly Market East Station), then proceed out to the other outlying terminal assigned to the route. Since ridership patterns have changed since the implementation of this plan, SEPTA removed the R-numbers from the lines in July 2010 and instead refers to the lines by the names of their termini.


title: SEPTA

text: The out-of-state terminals offer connections with other transit agencies. The Trenton Line offers connections in Trenton, New Jersey to NJ Transit (NJT) or Amtrak for travel to New York City. Plans exist to restore NJT service to West Trenton, New Jersey, thus offering a future alternate to New York via the West Trenton Line and NJT. Another plan offers a connection for travel to Baltimore and Washington, D.C. via MARC, involving extensions of the SEPTA Wilmington/Newark Line from Newark, Delaware, an extension of MARC's Penn service from Perryville, Maryland, or both.


title: SEPTA

text: CCT Connect is a paratransit service from SEPTA that offers a Shared-Ride Program for senior citizens and ADA Paratransit Service for people with disabilities. The Shared-Ride Program provides a door-to-door ridesharing service through advance reservations for senior citizens age 65 or older in the city of Philadelphia for travel within the city and to points within of the city's borders. The ADA Paratransit Service provides door-to-door service through advance reservations for people with disabilities in accordance with the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA), allowing for travel across the SEPTA service area within of fixed-route transit service when such service operates. CCT Connect is operated by third-party contractors for SEPTA. Easton Coach, First Transit, MV Transportation, and Total Transit Corp. operate CCT Connect service in Philadelphia County; Easton Coach operates CCT Connect service in Bucks County; Krapf Transit operates CCT Connect service in Chester County; Community Transit of Delaware County operates CCT Connect service in Delaware County; and First Transit operates CCT Connect service in Montgomery County.


title: SEPTA

text: SEPTA is considered a non-profit. SEPTA gets income from passenger fares, investments, and multiple government agencies to cover operating costs.


title: SEPTA

text: SEPTA had $1,530,984,000 in total operating expenses for the fiscal year of 2021. $1,088,773,000 (71.1%) of those expenses are considered "Labor and Fringe Benefits." $331,432,000 (21.6%) of those expenses are "Material and Services" costs. $27,313,000 (1.8%) are due to "Propulsion Power" costs. $26,026,000 (1.7%) are due to "Fuel" costs. $24,711,000 (1.6%) are for "Injury and Damage Claims." $23,875,000 (1.6%) are due to "Depreciation/Contributed Capital" costs. The last $8,854,000 (.5%) in costs are due to "Vehicle and Facility Rentals".


title: SEPTA

text: To cover 35% of their operating costs, SEPTA receives $541,768,000 in operating revenue, which includes: $480,574,000 (88.7%) from passenger revenue, $16,250,000 (3%) from SEPTA's "Shared Ride Program," $42,188,000 (7.8%) from "Other Income," and $2,756,000 (.5%) from "Investment Income".


title: SEPTA

text: To make up for the $989,200,000 gap in operating expenses for FY2021, SEPTA receives 65% of its FY2021 income from federal, state, and local government subsidies. SEPTA receives this financial support in the form of direct subsidies, grants, income from a Pennsylvanian sales tax, proceeds from state bond programs, and lease subsidies.


title: SEPTA

text: $779,842,000 (78.8%) of SEPTA's funding short-fall is covered by a combination of state government subsidies. $111,986,000 (11.3%) of SEPTA's funding short-fall is covered by local government programs. $93,028,000 (9.4%) of SEPTA's funding short-fall is covered by the Federal government. $4,360,000 (.5%) of the gap is covered by "Other" means.


title: SEPTA

text: As of June 2022, SEPTA will no longer receive $180,000,000 annually from the Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission as a result of Act 89, signed into law in 2013. Under Act 89, this subsidy will become $50,000,000 for the 2023 fiscal year, and then eventually nothing.


title: SEPTA

text: The SEPTA Key card is a smart card that can be used for fares and passes on SEPTA's transit services and Regional Rail. The card replaced tokens, paper tickets, and paper passes.


title: SEPTA

text: The cash fare to ride on SEPTA's transit services (buses, rapid transit, trolleys, trackless trolleys) is $2.50, which must be paid in exact change. SEPTA offered tokens as a discount to cash, with each token costing $2; tokens could only be purchased in packs of 2, 5, or 10. Token sales were discontinued in 2018 with an exception for CCT users but are still accepted on transit services. The Travel Wallet on the SEPTA Key card offers single rides on transit for $2. Transfers from one SEPTA transit service to another are available with a SEPTA Key card with money loaded on the Travel Wallet; the first transfer is free while the second transfer costs $1. A number of interchanges between rapid transit lines can be used for free, without a transfer. Fares for CCT Connect service cost $4.25.


title: SEPTA

text: On Regional Rail, fares can be paid with the Travel Wallet on a SEPTA Key card or onboard the train from a conductor using cash or credit card. Sales of paper tickets were discontinued in 2020; however, valid tickets were still accepted on trains until April 1, 2021. As of April 2, 2021, previously purchased paper tickets were no longer accepted on Regional Rail. Fares using a SEPTA Key card are cheaper than fares purchased on board. Fares on Regional Rail are based on fare zones reflecting the station's distance from Center City Philadelphia. Fares are higher during the day on weekdays and lower on evenings and weekends. SEPTA also offers intermediate fares for trips on Regional Rail that do not go through Center City Philadelphia along with via Center City Philadelphia fares that can be used between two outlying stations that require travel through Center City Philadelphia.


title: SEPTA

text: Various passes are offered by SEPTA that can be used on transit and Regional Rail services. These passes are available on a SEPTA Key card. The TransPass costs $25.50 weekly and $96 monthly and can be used for all transit rides within the time period. The TransPass is not valid on Regional Rail. The TrailPass is available either weekly or monthly and can be used on Regional Rail up to the zone printed on the pass along with all transit rides within the time period. Prices for the TrailPass are based on fare zones reflecting distance from Center City Philadelphia. TrailPasses have anywhere privileges on weekends and holidays. The Cross County Pass costs $30.75 weekly and $115 monthly and can be used for all transit rides and all Regional Rail trips outside Center City Philadelphia within the time period. The pass can be used with a payment of an additional Zone 1 fare for travel into Center City Philadelphia. Cross County Passes have anywhere privileges on weekends and holidays. The One-Day Independence Pass can be used for up to 10 trips in one day on transit and Regional Rail services, with an individual pass $13 and a three-pass bundle $36. An additional charge of $3.75 per individual pass must be paid for Regional Rail travel in New Jersey. The One-Day Convenience Pass allows for 8 rides on transit services in one day for $9, while the Three-Day Convenience Pass allows for 24 rides on transit services in a 72-hour period for $18.00.


title: SEPTA

text: SEPTA allows senior citizens to ride transit services and Regional Rail trains in Pennsylvania for free with identification; fares on Regional Rail trains operating to Delaware or New Jersey are half the weekday fare. Disabled persons may ride transit services for half price and Regional Rail trains for half the weekday fare with identification. SEPTA allows all children under the age of 12 to ride for free with a fare-paying adult; children riding alone must pay regular fares.


title: SEPTA

text: SEPTA offers special fares for students in K–12 schools who ride SEPTA to get to school. The SEPTA Key Student Fare Card program provides students with a SEPTA Key card that can be used for up to 8 trips per school day. Cards can be upgraded to be used on Regional Rail. SEPTA offers the SEPTA Key University Pass as a discount transit pass for college students at participating colleges. Colleges participating in the SEPTA Key University Pass program include University of Pennsylvania, Temple University, Drexel University, University of the Arts, and University of the Sciences.


title: SEPTA

text: The Freedom Share Card farecard used by PATCO Speedline is accepted on all SEPTA services except Regional Rail. The card is read at SEPTA Key card readers.


title: SEPTA

text: SEPTA established the current Transit Police Department in 1981. It now has about 260 officers operating in seven patrol zones. It maintains a patrol, bicycle and police dog unit, as well as a "Special Operations Response Team" trained to deal with hostage situations.


title: SEPTA

text: In 1982, SEPTA ordered buses from Neoplan USA, a purchase that was both the largest for Neoplan at the time and SEPTA's largest to date. These buses were used throughout the SEPTA service area. SEPTA changed its specifications on new bus orders each year. The Neoplan AK's (numbered 8285–8410), which was SEPTA's first Neoplan order, had longitudinal seating: all of the seats face towards the aisle. However, their suburban counterparts (8411–8434) had longitudinal seating only in the rear of the bus. The back door has a wheelchair ramp, which forced SEPTA officials to limit its use and specify wheelchair lifts in their next order. These buses had a nine-liter 6v92 engine and Allison HT-747 transmission.


title: SEPTA

text: In 1983, SEPTA, along with other transit operators in Pennsylvania, ordered 1,000 Neoplan buses of various lengths. SEPTA ultimately received 450 buses from this order: 425 were buses (BD 8435–8584 and CD 8601–8875), which came without wheelchair lifts, and 25 buses (BP 1301–1325).


title: SEPTA

text: SEPTA purchased additional Neoplans in 1986. The first two groups (3000–3131 and 3132–3251) came without rear wheelchair lifts; the last two groups, one in late 1987 (3252–3371) and another in 1989 (3372–3491), included them. All Neoplans built between 1986 and 1989 were equipped with a ZF 4HP-590 transmission.


title: SEPTA

text: By the early 1990s, SEPTA had 1,092 Neoplan AN440 coaches in active service, making it the largest transit system in North America with a fleet primarily manufactured by Neoplan USA. These buses dominated the streets of Philadelphia through late 1997 when the earlier fleet of AK and BD Neoplans (8285–8581) was replaced by 400 buses built by American Ikarus and – the same company after a 1996 reorganization – North American Bus Industries. The older GMC RTS 35- and 40-foot buses were also replaced in this order, with the sole remaining exception of No. 4462, a 35-foot coach. More replacements occurred when SEPTA received its first low-floor fleet and retired the last AN440 buses on June 20, 2008.


title: SEPTA

text: The Neoplan model had not entirely vanished from Philadelphia's streets by the start of the 21st century; in 1998, SEPTA ordered 155 articulated buses from the company. These buses replaced the 1984 Volvo 10BM 60-foot articulated buses. These buses have now been retired since late 2015, replaced by the 2013–2016 NovaBus LFS-A HEV.


title: SEPTA

text: The 1998 purchase also included 89 29-foot Transmark-29 buses from National-Eldorado (4501–4580, 4581 received later), the first of which began to arrive in late 2000. Most of these buses ran on suburban routes occasionally entering the city, but some are in the "LUCY" service in the University City section of West Philadelphia, in a special paint scheme, and others on lighter lines within Philadelphia. SEPTA had decided to buy from Metrotrans Legacy, SEPTA's first choice in small buses, but the company filed for bankruptcy in 1999.


title: SEPTA

text: A fleet of buses known as "cutaways" were also purchased. These buses were built on Ford van chassis, with bodies similar to those seen on car rental shuttles at various airports. These buses were retired around 2003 and replaced with slightly larger cutaway buses on a Freightliner truck chassis.


title: SEPTA

text: After evaluating sample buses from New Flyer and NovaBus in 1994–96, SEPTA ordered 100 low-floor buses (nos. 5401–5500) from New Flyer in 2001.


title: SEPTA

text: Trackless trolley (trolley bus) service was suspended in 2003 and the 110 AM General vehicles that had provided service on SEPTA's five trackless trolley routes never returned to service. However, in early 2006 SEPTA ordered 38 new low-floor trackless trolleys from New Flyer, which entered service in 2008, restoring trackless service on routes 59, 66 and 75. These buses replaced SEPTA Neoplan EZs, ending Neoplan's 26-year domination.


title: SEPTA

text: SEPTA placed an order with delivery starting in 2008 for 400 New Flyer hybrid buses—with options for up to 80 additional buses to replace the NABI Ikarus buses at the end of their 12-year life. These will not be the first hybrid buses, since SEPTA purchased two small groups of hybrids, 5601H–5612H, which arrived in 2003, and 5831H–5850H in 2004. Before the 2008 purchase, SEPTA borrowed an MTA New York City Transit Orion VII hybrid bus # 6365 to evaluate it in service. SEPTA was the first to purchase New Flyer DE40LFs equipped with rooftop HVAC units. SEPTA delivered 525 2017–2022 NFI XDE40 hybrid buses to replace all the diesel buses that were delivered between 2001 and 2004. Additionally, SEPTA is replacing cloth seats with plastic seats on their buses that were delivered since and after 2008 in an effort to combat bed bug infestations.


title: SEPTA

text: SEPTA's revenue from advertisements on the backs of its buses leads the authority to order mainly buses equipped with a rooftop HVAC and with their rear route-number sign mounted on the roof, especially on 2008–2009 New Flyer DE40LFs and future orders.


title: SEPTA

text: In 2016, SEPTA launched a pilot program that would see battery electric buses replace diesel buses on former trackless trolley routes 29 and 79. Using a $2.6-million Federal Transit Administration grant, the agency ordered 25 such buses from Proterra, Inc. of California, together with two overhead fast-charging stations. They are expected to enter service in 2017, returning electric propulsion to these routes after nearly 15 years of diesel operation. However, these same busses were sidelined in February, 2020 for an undisclosed reason, but multiple agency sources blamed a defect in the buses’ plastic chassis that led to a cracking problem.


title: SEPTA

text: The Broad Street Line uses cars built by Kawasaki between 1982 and 1984. These cars, known as B-IV as they are the fourth generation used on the line, are stainless steel and include some cars with operating cabs at both ends, as well as some with only a single cab. These cars use the standard gauge of .