Mass Transit Meets The Incredibles

Chuckstar writes "Salon.com has an article about SkyWeb Express, a futuristic-looking mass transit system similar to the monorail in the evil villain's secret lair in The Incredibles. What is unique about this system is that individual 3-passenger cars travel independently between stations, which are located on side-tracks so cars only need to stop at the final destination. Apparently, the system is relatively cheap to install, cost efficient per passenger mile, and much more flexible than traditional mass transit. The New York Post covered the topic last month."

Comments

Cargo

[Compuser]

Where is room for that wardrobe or bookcase or
heck even two weeks worth of groceries. This is
maybe useful for amusement parks and such but
for real world use you need a large storage
space on wheels. And even if these "cars" could be
enlarged about threefold to be useful, they'd
still need to allow loading stations where people
would load their stuff (like lumber) for an hour.
Face it, there is no streamlining what is naturally
a distributed system.

Nice idea but...

[Sai Babu]

"Rather than packing into a large carriage with a hundred smelly strangers, with PRT you get a private car."
Yes, you get a private car with a feces and vomit smeared interior or maybe even a dead hobo in it. Hell, this happens on commuter trains now, even with cameras and conductors. The only fix is a complete lack of privacy as to where you're going and when.