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New Thoughts in Public Transportation
Matthew Shaylor writes "The BBC has the following article about an ultramodern public transport system to be tested in Cardif. Unlike conventional public transport, this consists of small cars that running on tracks can automatically take themselves to the correct destination. This allows there to be a mesh of tracks and stations thoughout a city, as opposed to traditional transport which tends to run along corridor routes to a city center. An interesting paper is available. Future versions may have dual control to allow people to drive the cars from the nearest station off the track to their homes. A true replacement for the car!"
Larger cities have no way of building such infrastructure and already have subways which can carry far more people than this system. It is a good replacement for light rails suitable for the sprawling suburbs, but since taking one means you won't have access to your car it probably will never take off.
The best solution is really robotic cars. We should enact legislation so that all new roads built have some sort of simple radio emitters in them to help guide the robotic cars. Then we can all read slashdot on our wireless neighboor LANs while we ride to work every day.
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So... you swipe a card, punch in a destination, and suddenly they have a very neat record of where you've gone using public transportation. Nice.
Aside from that, it's an interesting idea; you don't necessarily have the hassle of figuring out bus schedules. And you don't have to deal with a cab driver who barely speaks English and is quite willing to drive you around New York for two hours because you don't know that your destination is really only a fifteen-minute drive from the airport. So in that sense, it's nice.
I especially appreciated the photo that shows a bike will easily fit into these vehicles... good call! Heck, that means fitting a Segway in there would be pretty easy...
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This is really the self driving cars question, taken from the oppisite approach.
I still think that the best way to tackle this would be a solution that relies as little as possible on things built into the ground. It's 2002, and we have fast computers and fairly accurate GPS guidance. I don't see any reason why the earth part of the system should be more than stipes of whatever color reflective paint on the ground. It's easy and cheap, and it won't ever need upgrading. Then car computer guides itself with the paint lines, but uses GPS to ditermine it's location and to make decisions about turning and stuff. Maybe some kind of WAP based thing where cars close to each other share location and velocity information. Of course, this all comes in a box under the hood with a couple cables sticking out. The WAP could accept software upgrades, and if new hardware is neccessary than you just have to take all the cars to the shop rather than dig in half your roads.
> Nothing beats the freedom of hopping into my car, when I want to and not waiting for public transportation, on their schedule
... yadda yadda. Yes, I'm pragmatic, but it bothers me when people are quick to shoot down new ideas because they're too damn lazy/comfortable with what they already have.
... and as it stands, once you get out on the road, it's You vs Them. But Them are your friends and neighbours once you get outta the car ..
Nothing beats having what I want, when I want, for how much I want it! Seriously, thats the kind of selfish approach that inhibits the adoption of technologies that would make the world better for people less fortunate than you; nevermind the evironment, noise pollution
With western technology and population desities being what they are, people have the ability to isolate themselves via technology. Cars are an excellent example. Think of how many people, in your city, go from one 4 block arena to the exact same 4 block area somewhere else. Think of how efficient it would be to co-ordinate and co-operate with them! But alas, you're already spoiled
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What kind of volume will it handle? From the looks of the things you'll need almost as many of those little driverless cabs as you do cars in a given urban area. That's going to cost! So what do we do to pay for the system, give up our cars and contribute the money that we spend on them to this system? Then what are we supposed to do if we want/need to travel outside the area serviced by this or other public transit systems? Ride our bikes? What if it's 300 miles away? Pouring rain? I don't think so Vern! I'm sorry but while it's a good attempt at replacing the automobile, it has a ways to go before it replaces the automobile's freedomof movement that our society's become accustomed to to the point of being dependant on it.
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Err Cardiff has been there quite a bit longer than either NewYork or LA. Of course it can be done if the city wants it to be done.
The Underground in London probably got a similar response when they first built it. Then they built one in Paris and the rest is history.
Cardiff isn't a new town, which is why it has problems, it was started a long long time before cars and hence it needs new solutions as its not been built for cars ala NewYork and LA.
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The real problem is going to be pissed people on the way back from the pub throwing up in it.
If yer in a taxi they can hit you lots until you clear it up any pay for cleaning.
On a bus, well sort of the same.
Can you imagine getting aboard one of this and smelling a 2 hour old pool of vomit?
We could have high speed acrross the US, and have "Johnny Cars" like this in every city.
Watch the road sometime, and notice how many thousands of dollars drive by in 4+ person vehicals, each carrying 1 person.
Americans fight in the middle east, so that someday every city can be like LA.
With the demise of netvan and the undesirability of purchasing a car solely to go to the grocery store I, for one, would find a mass transit system that would drop me off at my front curb very useful. Add to that the fact that getting a cab at my local food store is next to impossible (while finding one 6 blocks away is easy, go figure), and the physical challenges (read:impossibility) of carrying 15 bags of groceries on foot, and even the most casual, non-knee-jerk-cynical observer can see the usefulness of such a system.
... making traffic a little worse in the short run might be just the kind of incentive that would help speed adoption of such a system.
As for it being "out of the question" that such could track systems could be laid down in a major city, don't be absurd (not you, but another poster in this thread). Major cities are exactly where this kind of thing would be most useful. Like Europe, they could be integrated into the existing streetplans a la streetcars. If the traffic implications are too significant (possible during the installation and early use, likely the opposite once such a system were adopted widely) they could be built on an elevated track. Personally, I'd just take lanes away from old-style cars
Of course, entrenched interests such as automobile manufacturers and taxi drivers are likely to raise a stink and do everything they can to slow adoption of such a system, but that sort of thing should be resisted and fought, not pandered to. Alas, in an age where the government spends more time and money trying to preserve the business models of buggie whip manufacturers (c.f RIAA, MPAA, DMCA, SSSCA, Copyright extentions, etc.) rather than promoting the adoption of new technologies and the new capabilities they promise (c.f. universally accessible, virtually cost-free libraries, free sharing of information, etc.) the future we face, at least in the short term, is not an optomistic one at all.
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What an idea. We take peoples car's away and replace them with these other cars. But the new cars run on tracks sort of like trains instead of the far less expensive roads that we currently have.
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I believe there is a significant amount of research going on in a retrofitting of regular automobiles, where a computer system can keep track of all freeway traffic, and manuever them in the most efficient way in order to not cause clogging on the roads, like anticipating traffic merging from onramps, preventing unnecessary weaving, adjusting for breakdowns or accidents (accidents should be significantly lessened by this system, though), etc.
On the heaviest travelled highways, I see all too often people doing dumb things just for their personal perception of getting home faster, like madly weaving in between lanes, or passing traffic in the auxiliary (onramp/offramp merging) lanes, or semi-trucks gaining a whole 1MPH by passing another truck. Things like these make an already-congested road worse. This is the best shorter-term solution. We ain't going to see very many alternatives in the next 10-20 years, believe me. Instead of kidding ourselves with environmentally-friendly space-age pipe dreams, we need a system that is more affordable and fits in with our lifestyle.
No single mode of transportation is advantageous in every area of the world.
"but rather the fact of 100% of taxpayers being forced to pay insane amounts of money for a project that will benefit roughly 5% of the state's population"
That is an incorrect assumption! The benefits of a well designed and implemented mass transit system are much more far reaching than solely to the individuals actually using the system.
For example:
There is less traffic so the SUV drivers have an easier time squandering our non-renewable resources.
There are less emissions so the same SUV driving folks have cleaner air
These are only a few advantages that everyone could enjoy if only a few more Americans ease up on there death grip on their SUV' s and preconceptions on mass transit.
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All of these have a disadvantage, but it is a system that exists now in most European cities. Even some UK cities are reintroducing the tram now.
However what really makes it work in Europe is the integrated transport policy which links the different types of public transport together.
What is discussed here is a blue sky project for te distant future. It may be created in some new purpose-built 'city' like Milton Keynes, but otherwise creating that network of lines would be a nightmare.
Just using a mixture of conventional public transport technologies can reduce road loading by an incredible degree. Having a policy of integration means that I can use different types as a simple way of getting from A to B.
Here in Germany, I can hit the web site of the transport system (it is also in English so have a look) and it can give me the right mixture of trains/trams/metro/buses to get between A and B throughout the region.
This isn't rocket science, but perhaps if we could drag the UK's tansport system to the level of other major European countries, then we can start to look at more radical technologies.
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