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Fiddler on the RUF
CNN has a story on an innovative transportation concept, a cross between a car and a train. It's an electric car which can also ride on elevated railways for long-distance, automated travel. The company website has some more information and pictures of their prototype.
Railways are already availible, yet most people choose to travel in their automobiles. Why? Because they value their autonomy.
Once you strap your vehicle to a rail, you lose control. If you feel like stopping, too bad, you're stuck until you get to the destination. People like having the freedom to choose their own adventure, though, and this is why the book series was so popular. The traditional novel doesn't give enough control to the reader. I predict that choose your own adventure type fiction will shortly displace the traditional novel.
This trend is not an evil to be struggled against. Rather, it is a natural evolution of literature.
So I sez to him, I ain't givin' you no damn three-fity.
Small, efficient, non-polluting cars
rails
It'll take America by storm!
This is a very smart idea, although it is not dissimilar to PRT (personal rapid transit), a sort of fringe and relatively unimplemented technology. As a public sector planner, I see three things to think about with this sort of 'personalized rail' approach:
(1) Capacity - These personal rail car concepts tend to fail when it comes to extremely dense corridors. As you can imagine, heavy rail can push many more people through a single rail corridor than this sort of technology. Right now you can push about 2K cars/lane/hour, compared to densities of nearly 10K for heavy rail systems. With this technology, you could decrease headways and maybe squeeze another few K through, but:
(2) Cost - these rail systems still cost on the order of $5M US/km to build, while each highway lane only costs about $200K to build. So, you are still getting less for your tax money with this stuff. Not that I am totally against this, though. Essen (Germany) has a clever system that does this, except the cars are busses that turn into light rail. I can see these applied intelligently for mid-range suburban corridors where other forms of transit are not applicable, but this brings us to the final issue:
(3) Consumer Adoption - when you are trying to get customers to change modes and you are asking them to make large capital outlays to do so, you are asking for trouble. This is the main issue with automated highways (like those prototyped at Berkeley). You can build the public infrastructure, but without private investment on a large scale, it does not fly.
For these reasons, I think that this might be a great transit technology, but will have a hard climb to become an accepted mode in urban areas. I guess that we will have to wait for the super-magical-mysterious panacea that is IT!
Let us be fair here. The concept is nice. Not particularly original, but nice. As far as practicality is concerned, it would be easier (and safer?) to land a man on the sun.
How on earth can one expect 10,000 vehicles (an exceedingly SMALL estimate for a major metropolitan area) to line up on tracks leading into a city?? The vehicles need to merge in order to be mounted the tracks in an orderly manner behind eachother in an interlocking fashion.
Merging in traffic is the slowest aspect of a commute, and this system makes it slower and more complicated. There's a reason cities like Los Angeles and New York have multiple 16 lane highways and double merge lanes. Expecting an increase in traffic flow from a decrease in merge efficiency is not just silly.
To quote the egg wave informerical man "it's flippin impossible".
...shown in their "artist's concept" that make me wonder:
1) The "slot" in the car looks like it would make the chassis of the vehicle *really* weak.
2) The same "slot" forces a complete redesign of any current vehicle's chassis *and* drivetrain. Driveshaft? Cross-body bracing? Hello? Even the current "hybrid" and "alternative fuel" vehicles use the same chassis designs that have been in use for the last fifty years or so. We all know how much the automakers *love* to innovate with their main structural details - NOT!
These two points alone make me think that the company's going to have a *lot* of convincing to do in Detroit and Japan before any auto manufacturer even *considers* building to this spec.
Specialization is for insects. - R.A.H.
Come the first good sized earthquake or uplifting wind shear, these light weight vehicles will be flying off the track. If there's not a flange at the top of the rail (hard to tell), there needs to be.
Otherwise, very cool idea, although the top speed needs to be about doubled for longer routes. 50 mph is way too slow.
This is no different (in the respect you object to) than an interstate, and people use them all the time. Once you get on the on-ramp, there's no exit until, um, the next exit. In the side bar, the inventor says that the train will stop every three miles and disassemble itself.
-russ
Don't piss off The Angry Economist
- Pollution and
- The need for the driver to pay attention
- Suspected increase in safety (while on rail system)
Solving such problems are great, but we must look at the problems caused. Here they are- Massive investment on car railways (Chicken and egg too)
- How do you monitor energy usage for each vehicle. Do you get to travel for free?
- Similarly, hell, California can't power light bulbs--powering millions of cars would be overwhelming
- Few people really buy cars for particular functions...People don't want to spend thousands of dollars on a car that is soley for local travel and travel on certain railways
- Introduction of "compatibility problems" into automobiles. Sorry sir, you can no longer ride on Microrail, you're car is version B this is verion C rail.
- The rail must take you close to your DESTINATION too
- Similarly, we'll have ugly suburbia rear its ugly head everywhere where it's possible to get to the rail system
- People don't like to give up control of their vehicle.
- The Washington Metro system had to have its trains opperated manually for a REALLY long time recently because ot tech problems etc. Would this happen with this new system?
- Merging on rail sucks
- Do you really buy that the cars would be cheap? They need guidance computers, big batteries etc.
- I'm bored of typing...sorry i'm stopping
If you really wan to save the enviornment just drive a moped. Not only does it use little gas, but when you die in a horrific accident with a hummer, you stop using up our valuable rescources.So close and yet so far from the world's perfect ID number
What's your average speed on a congested highway? Probably 30 mph.
Also, these cars will have a control system API, a standard width, and are presumably a way to carry power from the track to the cars. Other than that, they can be as individual as, well, individuals, right down to including a small engine to recharge the batteries.
-russ
Don't piss off The Angry Economist
Here's a picture of the working prototype. Pretty advanced stuff.
droool, drooool.
2 moving parts in their basic form, est. 250K miles w/o ANY service, vastly superior tourqe curve, no pollution or toxic waste at the point of use, no more coolant or oil (or drips of same).
if some genius could just solve the energy density problems of current battery technology, we'd all be driving vastly superior vehicles.
Treatment, not tyranny. End the drug war and free our American POWs.
See my user info for links.
I remember reading an article in Popular Science magazine circa 1965 that described a "rail system" for cars that would allow you to drive to a rail station, accelerate on a upramp rail, switch into the main line rail with all the other cars that are travelling, switch off onto a deacceleration rail at your destination, and back on the road.
Sound familiar?
Now, that particular system used dual rails so that existing suspension systems and wheel assemblies would have lightweight solid wheels to ride the rails. (It's been so long since I saw the article I don't remember the rail gauge, but it was supposed to be wide enough to handle small trucks...but not semis.) There would be no need to redesign auto bodies other than have clearance for the two rails.
The article in PS was well-balanced, because it also listed the "unsolved problems" with such a system. What's interesting is that in my reading of this article, I didn't see mention of the problems, let alone the solutions. From memory:
This last is an excellent question. Do we use tax dollars, or is there a use fee when you roll onto the rail? In the 60's the instant answer was "taxes, taxes, taxes" but in today's environment the trend is toward pay-per-use of the enhanced system, or don't use the enhancement and roll on the side road for no extra fee. (See what NJ is doing with private toll roads, for example.)
Are there answers to these concerns? I think there are. Is the rail system practical? For some parts of the world where traffic congestion is linear, such as in LA, but not where the traffic congestion is more two-dimension such as in England or Japan.
It seems many /.ers are quite skeptical to this new design.
True, it may not be suitable to a big city.
True, it may be slow if too many traffics merge.
True, it may be expensive to build.
But, it's energy efficient. I don't know, and I don't care much about environmental issue... I just know that if gasoline prices are 4 times higher than today's price, I will definitely switch to electric car. Given the trouble of electric car can't go too far, this is a nice and practical idea.
Running cost is usually more important than the initial outlay. And, infrastructure should be build for the future, not for now coz' it takes year to build.
A sig is redundant.
There have been a number of dual-mode proposals. The most practical one was a scheme for equipping buses with the ability to run on rails, so they could have their own trackway, narrower than a road lane, in freeway medians. This was proposed back when freeways had medians instead of barriers.
My idea for personal transportation is automated parking. You drive to your destination, select "auto park", and get out. The car contacts the net, finds and reserves a slot in a parking garage somewhere nearby, goes there, slowly (maybe 15MPH top speed, flashers blinking), and parks. When you want your car back, you call it on your cell phone, and it comes and picks you up.
The way to get this going would be to put it in rental cars, and have airports wired for the auto guidance system. Rental car return then consists of driving up to the terminal, getting out, and letting the car turn itself in. That alone would be a big seller. Over time, common business destinations like convention centers and hotels could be added to the system, so at those places you get automated parking. Once the infrastructure is in place for rental cars, private owners can use it too. That's how auto map displays were deployed; the first installations (by Etak, in the 1980s) were in rental cars, and the consumer version came later.
The advantage of this approach is that cars can be parked a mile or two from their destinations, instead of a block or two. This allows concentrating car parking into big multistory garages near downtown areas, instead of spreading it all over the place in little lots and on the street.
A key idea here is that top speed in auto mode is so slow that most problems can be dealt with by doing an emergency stop. You don't have to have a system smart enough to drive its way out of trouble. You're going to get failures that cause an emergency stop and a stalled vehicle now and then, but the infrastructure should detect this and dispatch a tow truck, while routing other vehicles around the problem.
I think it makes more economic sense to provide some decent car-by-rail service: you drive your (regular) car onto a train in NYC and arrive a few hours later in Boston, with your own car and no driving hassles. You save money on car rentals at your destination, you save gasoline, and you save wear-and-tear on your car; all of that offsets the price of the train ticket.
Actually, we already have this system. In fact, the personal vehicles are cheaper, healthier, and don't have any parking problems. You can see the personal vehicles here. And here is more information about one of the many US rail systems that are compatible with those personal vehicles.
Actually, I wish I had mod points--having done
;)
a lot of commuting since jr. high, some on
trains and some driving, I'd pick the train
anyday. Can't use my notebook and drive at the
same time...or read a magazine, or...or...
This sort of thing is so Trek that I can't help
but love it. 'course, I'm one o' those
Canadian commies.
Lets see now..
The cato institute has an article by an avoved enemy of the environmentalists and democrats.
In this article there is the phrase "One survey shows they outnumber Democrats two-to-one.". No further attempt is made to identify the survey.
You then are convinced beyond any doubt that this fact is true despite coming from a biased author who works for a biased "think tank" AKA fund raising arm of the republican party. And despite the fact that the survey is not even mentioned by name.
Are all republicans as gullable as you?
War is necrophilia.
All of these "automated road" concepts share a similar difficulty: handing control back to the driver at the end of the automated portion of the journey.
You can beep and flash lights all you want, but if the driver is asleep, passed out from drink, or engaged in coitus, there's a good chance that you'll have to bring the vehicle to a full stop and wait a few moments for zir to resume control.
In fact, I would expect that safety concerns would very quickly result in a requirement that each vehicle must be brought to a complete stop before handing control back to the driver.
That in turn means that each off-ramp will need a landing zone capable of stacking up a few cars while their drivers get their acts together.
This would, perhaps, not be dissimilar to what happens with some downtown off-ramps today, which have traffic lights at the bottom, resulting in cars sitting idle on the ramp, waiting for the light to change. The difference is that every RUF off-ramp would have that sort of built-in delay.
Another problem, specific to RUF, is that there is no equivalent to the passing lane. So whenever there is a blockage -- for example, when an accident occurs or an off-ramp backs up -- it will block the entire flow of traffic, which could very quickly bring the whole system to a standstill.
These may not be insurmountable problems, but they would have to be addressed before implementing a system such as this.
-deane
Gooroos Software: plugging you in to Maya
-deane
Oo, a mass-transit proposal which requires 1) huge investments in infrastructure and 2) every user to buy a special car, seeking investors, and with no committed government support.
Where do I place my pre-order?
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The short summary. Yes, it is possible using various techniques (flexible/segmented sections of monorail beam, beam replacement, etc.).
The page also explains that the "monorails can't switch" myth was due to a particularly bad and bulky implementation at Wuppertal, and that the myth has since been perpetuated by various shady sources such as Microsoft Encarta.
Consider: You have to drive to a centralized station to enter the system, and you depart from a similar centralized station. Now, there are one of two possible scenarios:
Consider a city like LA: spread out all over the place, no centralized industrial area. Yes, you could use a system like this to reduce traffic on the I5, but you still have miles to go from the station to where you are going. You will have a traffic jam at the terminus, you will still have parking problems. The only advantage is that the cars can be electricly powered since their independant range is reduced. OK, save one little problem - LA HASN"T ANY JUICE TO POWER THE CARS!
What many people overlook is that many American cities are very spread out, having no centralized industrial area and no centralized residential area. Many of the standard masstrans solutions that work in Europe don't work in the US for that reason.
Now, an idea the Europeans have that I wish would catch on here in the US is the RO-RO train: Roll On, Roll Off (say it in a Pat Morita voice...) You drive your car on the train, then you go into the train and cover some serious miles. Then, you reclaim your car, and on you go. It's a five hour drive from where I sit to Dallas - If I could hop onto a train, roll the five hours in a mode where I could sleep/eat/surf/work/whatever, and arrive in Dallas ready to go, I'd be all over it. Let alone how nice it would be when going to the coasts (20 hr), the Black Hills (14 hr), or the southwest (14 hr).
However, the problem is that train service in the US is being slowly castrated with a dull knife. Certain organizations want all freight to run by truck, and without freight to subsidise passenger service, passenger rail is dying a slow an painful death in the US.
www.eFax.com are spammers
The problem inherent with a transportation system like this is the huge overhead to lay out the track system. They talk about being able to drive from a home to a RUF station, so that means that there's some way for the car to get onto the track? How is this supposed to be accomplished? I can see two ways. 1) Lay track to every persons house (which let's be realistic, this is pretty much impossible). 2) The RUF vehicle is pretty much like what we have in the railway now. A set of retractable wheels that are added to a car to rail-enable it. Realistically, this isn't something the average person is going to want. We already have roads. Why would you want to ride on RUF. And RUF is what it'll be. Ever drive over a RR crossing at 60mph. It's not a smooth ride.
The second flaw in this system is the fact that someone has to be responsible for traffic control. In traditional road safety, you can ALWAYS pull off the road if trouble is ahead (not easy in winter, but at least you have some options). On a track system, you're at the mercy of the operators or other drivers. There is no way to simply turn off to avoid an accident. Not only that but you're also at the mercy of following someone. There is no way to pass easily, unless they lay double rail and have crossovers at various junctions. I write software for train control systems and know how difficult it is just to keep trains separated. This is a common problem in railroads today. Knowing where everything is and keeping things safe by positive train separation. Now multiply that by 10,000 or more in an average city. Sheesh, I wouldn't want to be the person to write that system or use it for that matter.
The third flaw is the huge cost associated with providing these rails. They're going to have to be all new elevated rails (or whatever they're proposing) however right now it costs us $1 million a mile to lay signaled track. I can't see it being much cheaper for this system so who's going to pay for a $1 billion dollar road system when they already have one that needs to be maintained at a fairly large cost as well.
Dumb, dumb, dumb.
liB
Monorail switches are *STILL* more complex than "normal" bi-rail switches. Their moving parts are such an important proportion of the total infrastructure that their mechanism will always be more onerous, complex, slow-moving and cumbersome than bi-rail switches.
This has profound impacts on many aspects, who all eventually touch safety:
A mainline bi-rail switch can be turned and secured in less than 30 seconds.
Birail switches mechanisms are wholly contained within the track cross section, and their actuating mechanism be very unobtrusive.
The French Train à Grande Vitesse switches can be taken as fast as 150 miles per hour in reverse position.
Birail derailments can be as benign as a wheel on the ground that can be re-railed within minutes by the train crew using a re-railer frog (the yellow Y-shaped tool near the rear of the engine - sorry, that's the best I could find in 10 minutes on Google). And birail viaduct tracks are required to have guard rails inside the track anyway to prevent derailed cars to leave the track.
Access to rails (unlike public roads) could require more comprehensive and regular inspections, all built into the cost of rail access. Modern methods of identification could id each car that entered the rail system and ensure that it is up to standards. I'm quite sure that before any system like this is implemented issues like this will be well discussed and planned for. A "system ready for abuse". I don't know of anyone who intentionally disables their brake pads so they can go around causing mayhem and abuse. Or perhaps thats not quite how you meant it. Spyky
The cato institute is a money laundering operation for the republican party. People get around campaign finance laws by contributing to these so called think tanks and then the think tanks funels the money to the political party or takes out independent ads. The donors stay private because the think tank is not required to publish the names of the donors.
I am not trying to single out the cato institute here all thinks tanks are formed for this purpose. The cato institute on the other hand is one of the biggest and most well funded which is no surprise considering the amount of millionaires and bilionaires who are also republicans.
War is necrophilia.
Because the rails can go up in the air above existing highway medians (and perhaps also above major surface roads), the land-acquisition costs for this system would be nil.
You're making some bad assumptions:
First, that the medians are available. Here in Orlando, they're already spoken for, there won't be medians soon.
Second, you're forgetting that the interchanges to get the RUFs on and off this thing will be HUGE in the US.
Third, you're assuming that while this is being built, we won't have to keep expanding the roads. The fact is we'll be expanding the roads the entire time this is built, *AND* for quite a while afterwards, until it's adopted by a large portion of the population, which is very unlikely.
In Denmark, where the whole country only has 5 million people, this makes sense. In the US, where we've got individual cities larger than that, and lots of cities of comparable population (like Orlando, which is 1/3 the population of Denmark), it's just bewilderingly orders of magnitude harder to integrate.
I think it's completely infeasible. Nobody is going to want to buy another car *AND* pay an extra $10,000 a year in taxes, just so they can sit in a dinky little weird-ass car with a wall in the middle and a pussy engine.
If you don't charge an arm and a leg in increased taxes, then it'll take 40 years to build the damn thing.
Let me see this work in London, and I'll believe it. Until then, keep it on that side of the pond, thanks.
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Why would they be so big? They're one lane in each direction, so two lanes wide. At worst they'd need to be like a short section of elevated freeway.
Yeah, that's another thing; you think you can turn the existing multi-lane 70mph entrances into one lane of 18mph, and this will IMPROVE things?
It'll be backed up for several miles behind each entrance, and *THAT* will require lots of new road capacity for several miles behind each entrance.
And at the exits, same deal; you'll be stacking them up at 18mph. The traffic heading for those exits can't go 70mph, it'll have to slow down to 18.
Gridlock, only now it's in one lane and can't be bypassed.
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The biggest reasons to like PRT are lost on something like RUF. Efficiency, price, and consistency are too important and central to PRT for it to work without. PRT would be great when there's a station less than a half mile from anywhere I want to go. You could never do that with RUF. It would be an elevated rail you could ride your car on. Elevated rails suck (at least from my experience), and they are horribly expensive.
What backs it up, when the number of vehicles on the system won't be enough to congest it for some time?
You can't have it both ways; either you are wrong in your argument that everybody will use it right away (thus eliminating the need for continuing to expand the Interstates in parallel, thus necessitating tax increases) or you are wrong in your argument that they WON'T use it right away (thus eliminating the need for expanding the entrance system).
Which is it?
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And so, we have to expand both, and taxes skyrocket.
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