Slashdot Mirror
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."
Under capitalism man exploits man. Under communism it's the other way around.
For those of us who don't have a premium subscription and don't want to watch an ad:
Car ports
How those eerily beautiful bubble cars in "The Incredibles" may well appear in our not-too-distant future.
By Priya Jain
Nov. 19, 2004 | In "The Incredibles," the eponymous superhero family spends much of the movie trying to either escape or infiltrate the villain's high-tech island lair. Among the creepy sci-fi elements -- parrots with camera eyes, a destructive robot that can strategize -- is the beautifully eerie monorail that silently glides around the volcano, transporting the villain's henchmen in small round cars. The heroes occasionally hitch a ride on one of these moving pods while battling the forces of evil.
In real life, we may not have superheroes, but soon we will have those little monorail cars, zipping commuters and shoppers (and maybe an occasional henchman) from point A to point B. They're part of a system called Personal Rapid Transit, or PRT, which is poised to replace the more expensive, less environmentally friendly and frequently less convenient mass transit systems of old.
What really makes PRT different from mass transit is that it combines the convenience and luxury of a taxi with the efficiency of subway and bus travel: Rather than packing into a large carriage with a hundred smelly strangers, with PRT you get a private car. Instead of stopping at every station on the line, you zip straight to your final destination. And the visual impact -- replacing the bulky steel trains and buses with sleek bubbles that look like mid-century creations from the designer Arne Jacobsen -- appeals to any kid who dreamt of being a Jetson, or now, an Incredible.
Leading the way in the PRT revolution is the Minnesota-based Taxi 2000 Corporation, founded in 1983 by Dr. J. Edward Anderson, a former NASA engineer who turned his attention to transit in 1968. After studying the problems with conventional mass transit, he developed SkyWeb Express, which is poised to be the first commercial PRT system in the world.
Anderson claims SkyWeb Express beats mass transit in every way: It's greener, more convenient, safer and visually more acceptable, since the cars and rail are streamlined and small (observe this comparison between the New York subway and a SkyWeb system). The cars, unlike the round pods in "The Incredibles," are egg-shaped, and allow enough room for three to four people plus their shopping bags, luggage and wheelchair or bicycle. They run on synthetic rubber tires, which reduce noise pollution, along a monorail guideway that's 3 feet wide by 3 feet deep. And because the system is powered by 600-volt DC electricity, it produces no emissions.
As Taxi 2000 imagines the scenario, commuters would enter the station, purchase a fare card and head to the platform -- just as one does now with most rail systems. But instead of waiting for a train to come by, passengers would hop into one of the empty cars that are idling in the station, swipe their card and enter a destination code. Because stations are positioned "offline" -- that is, the rail runs next to the station, not through it -- cars can pull into stops without slowing down traffic.
SkyWeb Express may also be the answer to the seemingly impossible quandary that every environmental advocate faces: how to make green technologies cost-effective. Taxi 2000 estimates that installation of SkyWeb Express would cost $10 million per mile -- nearly five times less than the cost of light rail and 10 times less than heavy rail. And operating costs at 38 cents per passenger mile (compared to $3.43 for heavy rail and $1.42 for light rail) mean that SkyWeb Express could operate on a break-even basis -- and therefore without the government subsidies that mass transit, which operates at a loss, relies on. The guideway also weighs less and is easier to assemble than light or heavy rail, and in fact the guideway can be installed by an ordinary fork-lift truck, only minimally disrupting regular traffic and there
WVU PRT
- Hail to our fearless misleader! Fool speed ahead!
"No rear-end or merging collisions, because the vehicles are not operating independently. All are communicating with a central computer system that keeps tabs on traffic throughout the network. In principal it works like this: Cars continuously report their positions (every 40 milliseconds in Taxi 2000), and the central computer system tracks their location; the two sets of data are continuously compared. If a vehicle does something it's not supposed to do (such as follow too close, stop unexpectedly, a mechanical breakdown, or even if the vehicle's reporting signal is interrupted), the central system will send commands to fix or avoid problems-- "deccelerate for 3 seconds", for example. This system is always in operation, ensuring safe distances between vehicles whether on straightaways or at junctions."
With regard to getting out of a stopped car,
"There are over 70 elevated automated transit systems operating in the world today that prove that a vehicle stopping when not intended is a very rare event. If a vehicle does stop between stations, Central Control will talk with the passengers through an intercom system and guide the rescue operation. The vehicle behind will soft engage and push the disabled vehicle to the nearest station. In the very unlikely event that the vehicle can't be moved, a rescue team will come with a ladder and help the passengers out of the vehicle."
http://www.skywebexpress.com/1414_between_stations .shtml
Simulations seem to show that's it's not too bad. iTS is a neat graphical simulation program for PRT, and this simpler simulation shows what happens with a backup at a single station (that one also has a movie of the simulation, though I believe both are fairly easy to install).
I actually went to a presentation put on by IEEE in which the chief inventor guy for the project did a big talk and spiel on this exact system. The major problem with buses is that, from a practical perspective, they're slower than my ass getting out of bed in the morning. Sure they may be ABLE to travel at 55 mph, but they never DO. If, as you suggested, they stop at every single block, then their average speed slows to almost zero.
On the practical side, people only want to ride transportation that's convenient and relatively fast. While the buses ARE relatively convenient, they're definitely NOT fast, especially for traveling any decent length.
What the skyweb does is about halfway between bus, taxi, and subway/monorail. It has stations and set track routes, like monorails and subways, but unlike them the skyweb requires only the footprint of a telephone-pole size support to put up (so no massive "rail corridors that need to be cleared), the cost of putting the tracks and stations up is a small fraction of the cost for a monorail/subway, and each individual trip is a point to point trip with no stops in the middle. This makes it:
a) Much cheaper and easier to install/build than subways
b) Fast like a taxi without the traffic congestion and smoking, swearing drivers
c) Also quick to put up, since the track is very simple and small
The other big advantage of this system is that all of the cars are controlled by a central traffic computer. This keeps them all at the ideal speed and spacing to avoid traffic jams, accidents, and other things that make regular roadways so frequently clogged.
I hope I've been clear and understandable. The system is pretty amazing from what I saw, I really hope they're able to get it off the ground (haha) soon!
"Christ what a design! I could eat a handful of iron filings and PUKE a better emergency pump than that!"
I can answer at least some of these questions. I went to a big IEEE presentation about half a year ago where the chief engineer from this company did a big spiel on the system.
:)
A) I believe a camera would be installed in the cars, but I don't know all that much more about that part.
B) Homeless people wouldn't live there - you have to pay to get IN to the pod, then it travels to the destination you tell it, then it opens at the station to let you out and won't go anywhere until you leave. Now you could just set the pod to do a long distance but from what I understand the fare system would be distance-based. So homeless people would doubtfully have the money necessary to use one for any length of time.
C) The likelihood of any one car breaking down between stations is extremely slim. The drivetrain is a dual induction motor and I believe it also has an onboard battery pack in case power to the track gets cut. If one motor goes out the other one takes over. If both motors go out or something horrible like that, the central computer knows where it is and instructs the car behind it to enter "push mode" and push the car to the next available station so the occupants can get out and receive a new pod.
As far as actual evacuation from the pod mid-trip, I honestly don't know. That wasn't something we really covered at the presentation, it was more about the technology and logistics of the system as a whole.
Hope I made some version of sense
"Christ what a design! I could eat a handful of iron filings and PUKE a better emergency pump than that!"
If you read the site you'd know that they intend to have cameras in all vehicles with an IR sensor to determine when the pod is occupied so the monitors know when to watch them. There will also be a button to notify the monitors when you find a car which has been vandalized, and you can veto a vehicle which it's happened to. If it breaks down between stations then another vehicle can push it to the next station, but they have redundant motors in them so they are unlikely to fail. If they do fail, you can get people down from the cars via a ladder or a high-lift. Read the website! Your comment would be more interesting (it certainly doesn't deserve score 5) if the answer to every question you ask wasn't on their webpage.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"