"A) I believe a camera would be installed in the cars, but I don't know all that much more about that part."
The design will allow for a camera, but it is not manditory. It is up to the city buying the system. They leave it up to the city because of the privacy issues involved. As for vomit and otherwise dirty cars, the user will have the option to press a button and send the car to a cleaning station.
P.S. I see that you're a U of M student. The system was actually developed at the University of Minnesota by Dr. Ed Anderson. The prototype is about 20min North of the Twin Cities campus in Fridley. If you want to try it out, stop by their next open house.
"How will the system handle a very popula destination station where there are more vehicles waiting to unload their passengers than the station has spots at the terminal for"
Easy, add more births to a station and more stations for a block. It's really quite a fexible system.
Here's a simulation of a Cincinnati Reds baseball game getting out. The average wait time ended up being less than one minute, and a maximum wait time under 5 minutes. I'd say that's a pretty heavy load for only a few stations.
Here's a simulation of a Cincinnati Reds baseball game getting out. The average wait time ended up being less than one minute, and a maximum wait time under 5 minutes. http://www.skyloop.org/sims-video.htm
I guess you could consider the elevated guideway a rail. I was really thinking more trains when I wrote that. Sorry, I should have said that.
I'd have to say that PRT is vastly different from rail systems in use today though. Existing rail systems all have huge cars and inline stops, wheras PRT uses very small cars and all the stops are offline. Those are the key elements to it. A Train is just too wasteful when only a handful of people are on it, so they're only efficient in areas of very dense population. For example, here in Minneapolis we have huge subsidies for our new light rail, but PRT could operate with little or no subsidies.
Yeah, this coule be a little off topic, but it really does seem like the obvious solution to the mass transit problem to me. It was incredibly quiet when I took a ride in the prototype. I've never heard a MagLev though.
I just wanted to take a moment and say nice job you guys. This is very impressive to me. Each one of you are working hard to improve your lives and your country. I have a huge amount of respect for that. Very nice work!
It's basically your own personal train that takes you non-stop to your destination.
I don't see why everyone wants to see more trains/subways in cities. They just seem like large busses that are restricted to rails. Their passengers still have to make numerous stops before they reach their destination, plus they claim to be much cheaper than the subway, bus, and light rail.
"I do not know if kids that young can make a discernable difference between the two. Should we be giving kids a long list of what "OK" drugs are what "bad" drugs are?"
It really doesn't matter if young kids can make a discernable difference between the two. The fact is, they think they can. As long as they think that they can make that decision, whether they can or not is beside the point. The decision to do each drug is in their hands alone, we can't force them to make the right one. All we can do is teach them the goods and bads about each drug, and we can never lie, otherwise they will stop listening completely. I know this, because when I was young, I was very outspoken in my disgust with the government and the lies it put out.
>>All this does is increase the number names companies will HAVE to buy, to protect their trademarks. Actually, the proposal is to make it so companies cannot buy their own name. It is designed to help people find both views on an issue/company quickly. Personally, I'm all for it, because the only way to make an informed decision on something is to learn about both views on the issue. Sounds like a great idea! Pee-Wee
Slashdot Mirror
"A) I believe a camera would be installed in the cars, but I don't know all that much more about that part."
The design will allow for a camera, but it is not manditory. It is up to the city buying the system. They leave it up to the city because of the privacy issues involved. As for vomit and otherwise dirty cars, the user will have the option to press a button and send the car to a cleaning station.
More on vandalism:
http://skywebexpress.com/1417_vandalism.shtml
Brian
If anyone is interested in helping promote this system, check out
Citizens for Personal Rapid Transit.
They're based in Minneapolis, MN, but they do have links to other groups trying to get the system started in their areas.
Brian
"there isn't much way to know as of yet whether these will turn out to be real problems or not, since no systems have been built yet"
s html
Yeah, no systems have been built, but they do have a prototype in Minneapolis! I've taken a ride in it, it's really kind of cool.
http://skywebexpress.com/news/news-2003-04-10-pl.
P.S. I see that you're a U of M student. The system was actually developed at the University of Minnesota by Dr. Ed Anderson. The prototype is about 20min North of the Twin Cities campus in Fridley. If you want to try it out, stop by their next open house.
Brian
"How will the system handle a very popula destination station where there are more vehicles waiting to unload their passengers than the station has spots at the terminal for"
Easy, add more births to a station and more stations for a block. It's really quite a fexible system.
Here's a simulation of a Cincinnati Reds baseball game getting out. The average wait time ended up being less than one minute, and a maximum wait time under 5 minutes. I'd say that's a pretty heavy load for only a few stations.
http://www.skyloop.org/sims-video.htm
Brian
Here's a simulation of a Cincinnati Reds baseball game getting out. The average wait time ended up being less than one minute, and a maximum wait time under 5 minutes.
http://www.skyloop.org/sims-video.htm
Brian Maddy
The answer is on their site.
2. What happens if a SkyWeb Express vehicle stops on an elevated guideway between stations?
Brian Maddy
I guess you could consider the elevated guideway a rail. I was really thinking more trains when I wrote that. Sorry, I should have said that.
I'd have to say that PRT is vastly different from rail systems in use today though. Existing rail systems all have huge cars and inline stops, wheras PRT uses very small cars and all the stops are offline. Those are the key elements to it. A Train is just too wasteful when only a handful of people are on it, so they're only efficient in areas of very dense population. For example, here in Minneapolis we have huge subsidies for our new light rail, but PRT could operate with little or no subsidies.
I know that the SkywebExpress people aren't planning on directly competing with busses/subways. They really view their system as complimenting them.
Can SkyWeb Express be complementary to other transit systems?
public mass transit != rail
There are definately better options out there. The best one I have seen is Personal Rapid Transit (PRT).
http://skywebexpress.com/
I can't believe I no one has commented about user testing yet. It's so simple to do...
http://www.hcibib.org/tcuid/
For those who are interested in the physics of sports, here's a pretty in depth one on billiards:s /apapp.pdf
http://www.physics.ohio-state.edu/~penningt/262/p
Yeah, this coule be a little off topic, but it really does seem like the obvious solution to the mass transit problem to me. It was incredibly quiet when I took a ride in the prototype. I've never heard a MagLev though.
SkyWeb Express Personal Rapid Transit:
http://skywebexpress.com/
I just wanted to take a moment and say nice job you guys. This is very impressive to me. Each one of you are working hard to improve your lives and your country. I have a huge amount of respect for that. Very nice work!
Brian
Ya know, I would completely agree with you if we all had access to some kind of Bush-firewall.
iptables -A INPUT -s PRES_BUSH -j DROP
You mean something like this?
http://taxi2000.com/
It's basically your own personal train that takes you non-stop to your destination.
I don't see why everyone wants to see more trains/subways in cities. They just seem like large busses that are restricted to rails. Their passengers still have to make numerous stops before they reach their destination, plus they claim to be much cheaper than the subway, bus, and light rail.
It really doesn't matter if young kids can make a discernable difference between the two. The fact is, they think they can. As long as they think that they can make that decision, whether they can or not is beside the point. The decision to do each drug is in their hands alone, we can't force them to make the right one. All we can do is teach them the goods and bads about each drug, and we can never lie, otherwise they will stop listening completely. I know this, because when I was young, I was very outspoken in my disgust with the government and the lies it put out.
Brian
>>All this does is increase the number names companies will HAVE to buy, to protect their trademarks. Actually, the proposal is to make it so companies cannot buy their own name. It is designed to help people find both views on an issue/company quickly. Personally, I'm all for it, because the only way to make an informed decision on something is to learn about both views on the issue. Sounds like a great idea! Pee-Wee