Slashdot Mirror
Japanese Researchers Test Flying Trains
An anonymous reader writes "As an alternative to maglev trains, Japanese researchers are working on ground-effect vehicles. A ground-effect vehicle takes advantage of fast-moving air and uses some stubby little wings to fly just above the ground, like a maglev without the mag. This is a tricky thing to do, since you have to control the vehicle more like an airplane than a train: you have to deal with pitch, roll, and yaw and not just the throttle. A Japanese research group has built a robotic prototype of a free flying ground-effect vehicle that they're using to test an autonomous three axis stabilization system."
1. Very low energy consumption because of metal to metal rolling friction. Car tyres bend to become a plane of rubber in contact with sticky tar causing very high friction. Yes, the packet switching analogy is nice and best for computers but not for people. Because people will use the car more and more. See the bad points below.
2. A thousand cars driven by thousand individuals has a far bigger probability of accident simply because 1000 minds are involved without any central oversight. Who knows what these minds are doing on the road. A train is centrally controlled with professional crew.
3. When you have a car and the road is free and there is parking space, you will use it to go the next street to buy milk. In effect we will use a hammer all the time for all the jobs because the hammer is easy to hold and use. The moment public transport has to be used, you will make a trade-off analysis and use it only when required. Saves the planet, saves your limbs from degeneration.
4. Trains uses far lesser space. Compare a 8 lane highway with a two-lane railway track. Not only do cars need lot of space while moving, they lot of space at both origin and destination. Since destination can be anywhere, you need lot of space everywhere. What a sheer waste of resources.
5. You can be a zombie in a car or enjoy relaxing and eating and sleeping and reading and listening in a train.
First of all, no one should shop at Walmart period. It is a soulless evil company at all respects that hurts all of us on a daily basis. Second of all, thanks to their tax cheating ways, no one lives down the street from a Walmart anyway. There are plenty of grocery stores in reasonably built areas that are walking distance. Many of them even deliver.
Second of all, you absolutely can buy groceries on foot -- ever heard of a cart?
Third, sunk money? All of the road maintenance and fuel and costs to the environment are on-going. Slowly moving to a model that makes economic and efficient use of space will save money in the long run.
Really, all of your problems have been solved already: people not living in places that are less dense than streetcar suburbs. Raise the price of gas over time, people will move, and we don't have to deal with all off this robot cockery.