Public transportation currently suffers from a lack of funding and a bad image. Wider use would lead to better profitability – and the need to compete for dollars in an economic downturn would be less. The more public transit can act like a car, the higher level of comfort a larger group of people would have. The proposed modular train system makes the train: on demand, more private, and expand flexibly.
The modification presented here – a sort of public/private hybrid transportation scheme – can be applied to rail lines, be they tram, subway, trolley, light rail, or commuter/regional rail.
The means of this is simple, integrate a computer system into a mini-car rail line, that delivers trains on demand and only stops when passengers need it to. Make it accessible and convenient, and allow those who like their personal space to keep their personal space.
An innovative way to make public transport personal.
This idea will make public transportation appealing to many more people.
Very innovative.
All the disadvantages of the car (congestion, high cost), all the disadvantages of transit (complicated rail infrastructure, distance from origin or destination and the station… Been done before.
This has practical and efficiency appeal. I think that the flexibility would be especially attractive as the cost of individual transportation increases. It appears to be a sound environmental concept.
I take the train daily and having it arrive on demand would be wonderful! I also love the idea of private space.
The flexibility feature is key. Rather than getting onto a traditional bus or train the computerized system will allow the most efficient use of the transport. Very forward thinking concept.
Wow! Sounds very cool. Might get a bunch of cars off the road.
It’s called ZipCar.
FAIL.
Hi Cormac – I’m going to have to give you the retread. I guess I didn’t do my homework.
But really, throwing in the Right-wing political thing is just outrageous. Assuming someone’s political position based on a design concept is bad news. I’m not trying to promote “straw-man nonsense”, nor did I have a political axe to grind, just an idea, that you have exposed as having surfaced before.
This entry is great; I am impressed with the drop-off queue and bleed track. Beautiful design and execution.
It seems unfair for Cormac and others to brashly denounce this idea simply because it has not been successfully implemented in the past.
What were the specific circumstances of failure? Did the other systems integrate advanced computer systems?
It’s hard to turn my nose up merely at the idea of modular rail travel when I’ve been to so many cities with terribly run “standard” public transportation.
Every public transportation system is far from perfect, so it seems silly at best and a clever troll at worst to shout this idea down on the weaknesses of its prior designs.
How many cities employ wasteful (economically and environmentally) bus routes? How many cities lose money and ridership every year on regional rail lines, and still have the firm promise from government that they’ll continue to exist in perpetuity?
If only the first airlines had a Cormac to guide their misbegotten dreams…
Just imagine 200000 people all using individual pods rushing to work at first time in the morning. We are just exchanging privet cars problems -congestion!- by public transport. Plus we need new infrastructures to find the same problems…
Not practical at all. It could work in cities with low population density.
For those of us who have taken the train/subway/bus during off peak times (which compromise the greater part of the day) probably have noticed how empty the trains are, and yet they still run just as frequently, using up much unnecessary energy and space. On more than one occasion I have found myself on a nearly empty train or bus, freezing cold from blasting air conditioning, watching the chattering teeth of my fellow passengers. Now that, to me, sounds impractical. A more efficient “on demand” transportation system really IS the future, like it or not. Of course similar ideas have been proposed, energy efficiency must be the primary focus these days when it comes to transportation. If these similar ideas have not worked before (see Cormac above), do we just throw our hands up in FAILURE (see O2 above)? Or do we hope that younger brighter thinkers (perhaps Helene McElroy) will continue to think about more environmentally friendly transportation solutions, maybe refining some past suggestions and definitely adding new creative ones, until something works?
If this eliminates the need to transfer from train to train and also having to understand all of the different rain routes (like in Europe), then I love the idea. And having room for a bike sounds like influence from your spouse
A good concept to attract the single occupant car drivers. With this concept there could be better networks of tracks so more areas are covered and people can offload closer to their destination, almost like taking a cab. Great idea.
I think this could be useful for lightly-used transit systems, or for the very off-peak hours of heavily used systems. However, I seriously doubt it is feasibly for anything approach peak usage in a major system.
Providing “car-like” features means that the amount of space required per person transported has to approach car-like densities. The amount of track and storage space required would therefore approach the amount of road and parking space required to transport the equivalent number of people by car.
If you look at, for example, a crowded subway line in New York City during rush hour you can find densities approaching one person per square foot of vehicle space. In order to move the equivalent amount of people in the equivalent amount of time, even if your modular trains are significantly more space-efficient than private cars, you would still need rail and storage space orders of magnitude greater than existing infrastructure (i.e. 10x to 100x the amt of current road space dedicated to rails for modular trains.) This is not possible.
J:Lai raises some interesting points, but not necessarily ones that couldn’t be overcome. Just as we have high-capacity buses run on the same roads as single-passenger cars, this design could potentially accommodate larger high-density vehicles where passengers stand. The stations could have two queues: one for the regular “car” and a cheaper (and probably faster moving queue) one for the “bus”.
Also, if the tracks were elevated above existing roads, that would reduce the infrastructure costs associated with buying new rights-of-way.
i think that ultimately we’ll see something like this in the form of automated, driverless cabs.
building all the rail infrastructure to make this work would be expensive, and it would not coexist well with existing automobile infrastructure.
but the idea of a car like system where you need fewer cars because they are all being shared is a good one. the problem with Zip Car is that the car doesn’t show up in your drive way and isn’t as convenient as owning your own. automated systems like this one are much better in that regard – i just think the advances in robotic automobiles will render the expensive rail infrastructure that this project requires irrelevant.
robo-cars are a while down the road, but are coming sooner than you might think. check out the DARPA challenge robo-cars, they’re getting pretty good: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BSS0MZvoltw
Wouldn’t this nearly eliminate the need for parking lots? Wouldn’t that be something.
Public transport doesn’t suffer an image problem, it suffers a slowness problem. It takes me about three times longer to take public transport than to drive; turning a 2-hour round trip commute into a 6-hour commute just isn’t desirable.
I see that someone with authority at this competition and a strong liking for censorship has removed my previous critical comments. I protest. Although provocative, the comments were rude, shouting, foul-mouthed, hateful or even (and this shouldn’t matter anyway in an opinion forum) unfair.
Well, the truth is a complete defense and the truth remains:
1. That this concept Personal Rapid Transit, or PRT, or Pod transit or Pod cars, has been seriously looked at for half a century, and pilot plans built. This is just not an original or visionary idea. It is a ride at a Nostalgialand! theme park.
2. It is unworkable as a matter of physics for dense communities and a needless inflexible boondoggle for more sparsely populated ones. (For a devastating case against it, see the work of distinguished transit engineer Vukan R. Vuchic.)
3. It is a wildly irresponsible proposal on its face from an environmental standpoint. The energy and resources necessary to create the system would far outweigh any carbon benefits from it implementation (if such an implementation was even possible).
4. It is a frequent cause celebre among the anti-Urban, anti-transit political right-wing who have used it – on multiple occasions – to divert public money and effort from the improvement of public transit. It is an old political tactic to devote money to the study of a pie-in-the-sky unworkable alternative in order to stall progress on something you oppose. And that has been the primary purpose of (and source of funding for) the promotion of PRT over the last two decades. (Just google “Mark Olson” PRT to see what I mean.)
I reiterate my view that this is an irresponsible proposal and all involved in putting it on the finalist list should been ashamed of themselves. They should also be ashamed of their indefensible censorship of my earlier comments, which raises serious questions about the legitimacy of the competition in my mind.
No doubt they will censor this comment too. But I’ll be back.
NOT “rude, shouting, foul-mouthed, hateful or even (and this shouldn’t matter anyway in an opinion forum) unfair.” Is obviously what I meant to say. Took out “neither” when the list got longer than two and never put “not” back in.
Can dogs ride on it? If so, I’m totally down!
I currently enjoy public transportation. But I do have some issues.
1. I can’t bring my bike on the train.
2. I feel really bad for people struggling with luggage, wheelcares and or strollers
3. Where I live, I can easilty get to the center of the city and home but I can’t get from my house to a non central city location without a great deal of time, patience and creativity.
4. Sometimes CORMAC is on the train
I see some potential problems with Helene’s design
1. People may use their private car for private purposes like releiving their bowels and or bladder or passing gas
2. People might get lonely riding a car by themselves
3. They had something like this in Logan’s Run (how is it possible that Helene didn’t see this movie)- in Logan’s Run it seemed like it was free – why isn’t it free here?
4. CORMAC thinks it’s a terrible idea. Therefore, it will fail
I don’t know who Helene McElroy is but before she submits another design, she had better get more up to speed on sci fi movies. In fact, if she were more responsible, she would have watched every science fiction movie ever before attempting to design anything else.
we call them wheelcares where I live, not wheelchairs – it’s because we are more caring
the best idea in the competition… “individualized mass transportation” or “IMT” as i call it. i’ve been dreaming about this since i was a kid (1950s). i think that this is how all current transportation rights-of-way (roads, railbeds, etc.) will evenutually be used… though the roads and railbeds will probably be “grassed-over” and the “rail” will likely be suspended above ground between pylons. i’ve always pictured “passenger pods” shaped like spheres with the outer skin independent of the inner skin… and traveling along three equally spaced rails.
anywho, this entry gets my vote for the blue ribbon. very creative and well presented.
I left a critical / negative review here and mine got deleted too…. the POD PEOPLE are Invading!
We have these on melmac and they’re great! sorry cormac
Clearly, Cormac, someone who proposes this design is a right wing hatemonger. That’s how you formulate a cogent argument: paint your opponent with the Nazi brush.
Is there any question that most if not all current public transportation systems are a money drain and environmentally disastrous by design? If so, does that not only make them degrees better than any less-efficient system? Is it a hate-crime to design a system that 1) only runs when a passenger requires it to and 2) relies on an idea that has yet to be proven as viable?
I’m sure modular rail lines failed magnificently over the past 50 years, but they’re joined by every single other government venture you can point to outside of military dalliances.
Cormac, it was your political statement, not your pointing out that the entry was a retread and didn’t defend itself against its similars that got your former post removed.
To your point about being anti-urban and anti-transit: We may all want those in the burbs to be more urban and transit minded – but they’re not. People CHOOSE to live in the burbs for various reasons, one reason for many is that they want their space and privacy. This may not be a lifestyle that you like or enjoy, but for many this is what is wanted. A strong arm approach (conform to an urban lifestyle or else!) just isn’t going to work.
I think there should be flying robotic cars that run on human feces
I’m sorry I missed Cormac’s earlier post. I’m going to echo the sentiments of others here in gentle opposition.
Another source this week noted a 10-12 car subway carrying over 1,000 passengers enters New York’s Central Business District every six minutes during the morning rush (likely double this for commuter rail). Given its low capacity, PRT as a solution for our current commute doesn’t seem practical. And in a suburb (the point!) there is a cost benefit analysis that would make conversion and vast expansion of fixed guide way PRT unworkable. Sorry about that!
As noted above, for the ‘burbs, more likely we’ll see the evolution of today’s automobile into redesigned (smaller footprint) environmentally sustainable, self navigating (and parking), networked form of transport. Our new “aware” vehicles will be able to safely travel on a coordinated basis – and much more closely; eventually returning millions of acres of roadbed for more productive uses. These vehicles will either deliver the passenger to a sub-urban hub for transfer to a higher density mode during commuting hours or directly to the destination during off peak periods (should we city dwellers agree).
DARPA’s urban challenge was a success (a major step) in mechanized navigation. And Ford Motor Co. is taking bringing consumers forward next year with radar adaptive cruise control for the Taurus, a system previously only available on high end luxury vehicles.
Cormac has another point. PRT is a persistent poster child for some who oppose transit improvements. PRT doesn’t stand up well to fundamentals. (though if you put the metrics/obstacles aside – its a nice concept to think about)
Finally, Suburbs are inextricably tied to the central urbs – unable to function independently nor impose their space model on the core with much success. Think of the ludicrous traffic jams and urban crossings every day and you get my point. McElroy’s vision is to bring the suburban ideal “space and privacy” to transit – yet Helene, let’s consider your words from yesterday (and reverse): “people CHOOSE to live in the city for various reasons, one reason for many is they want to ENGAGE others. This may not be lifestyle you like or enjoy but for many MORE this is what is wanted.
So, may I suggest you do as the Roman’s do when in Rome.
Kevin:
If memory serves, I never said that anyone “who proposes this design is a right wing hatemonger.” What I said was that the idea of PRT/Pod transit is actively supported by right-wing political groups for ulterior motives, and that it was irresponsible for the designer and the editors to give it space in this forum. The first statement is simply factually accurate and the second is an opinion that is surely not out of bounds. None of my comments came even close to the offensive language you now employ. “Hatemonger?” “Nazi?” Surely those are epithets inappropriate for this board.
Indeed, there is a certain irony in your using those slurs given that I am the one whose strong but civil opinions have been censored by this board. Usually it is those who have suffered the outrage of censorship who – understandably – start making such incendiary analogies. I prefer a more elevated discourse.
It is also illuminating that my tough but civil comments were censored while your two posts snidely mocking me by name – and now using words like “nazi” and “hatemonger” – remain. It is hard to avoid the logical conclusion that it was not the style of my comments that led to their removal, but the substance – the ideas expressed. This is the very essence of censorship. Apparently someone in authority at this board does not like to hear opinions contrary to their own or facts that challenge the comfortable narrative in their head.
That’s how you formulate a cogent argument: paint your opponent with the Nazi brush
I apologize for the appearance at the close of the above of the offending fragment from Kevin’s post. I cut and pasted it for reference to the text box and apparently it was still somewhere off screen when I submitted comment.
Helene,
I do not recall making a political statement in my original post.
I recall saying that PRT/Pod car advocacy is supported by right-wing politicians and anti-transit interests. Which is a fact anyone could find out with just an hour or two Internet surfing – no real research needed. Indeed, my “statement” would not even be offensive to most of the right-wingers I reference.
Although I was quite incensed by the really shameful inclusion of this proposal in the finalist list, I also recall giving you the benefit of the doubt both about the fact that idea totally lacked originality and about its louch history. I said I didn’t know you and avoided speculating on your specific personal views or motivations. So it seems totally unfair of you to accuse me of “Assuming… [your]… political position based on a design concept…”
I also said that you should be ashamed of yourself for putting this proposal up and I stand by that. You now say “you didn’t do your homework.” No kidding. It wouldn’t have taken 15 minutes to know that your idea was hardly new and not very long to find the troubling history. Entering a national design competition without doing even that much homework? I’d be ashamed.
Even excepting that, promoting a fabrication and construction heavy boondoggle in a world of strained resources and a climate crisis also seems shameful and irresponsible to me. You may disagree, but it is my opinion. Is this the kind of “political statement” that is off-sides on the board? What, they only want applause in this “competition?”
After your first post, I was favorably disposed to you. I took (and still take) your mea culpa at face value. You were someone who made a mistake and didn’t do your homework. Who hasn’t been there? It doesn’t make you a bad person. Given your defensiveness on the history of the idea I felt a little bad about having to be the messenger who woke you up to these unpleasant facts. You seemed to be exhibiting the defensiveness of someone embarrassed in public by their own behavior and, again, who hasn’t been there?
But now this? Defense of censorship? Misleading comments about un-enumerated “political statements?” (Not to mention straw-man arguments about strong-arming suburban residents.) In light of all this, I have to ask: Did you have anything to do with the censoring of this forum? If not, do you approve of it?
Another thought, Helene: SInce you are so determined to avoid any kind of “political statements,”I’d like you to comment on you fan Kevin’s posts. Or is “Nazi” not a political statement somehow?
By the way, is Kevin the abusive poster a relative of yours? Say the Kevin McElroy of “Kevin’s Brew?” Just askin’
Some useful information on this concept can be found here: http://www.advancedtransit.org, and here: http://faculty.washington.edu/jbs/itrans/
As someone pointed out before, it has been studied for a long time and is going on line at Heathrow airport and in Masdar, UAE. The main reasons that these two sites chose the technology was low cost, low environmental impact, and ability to fit into smaller spaces than many other forms of transport.
Not a new idea! See Bruno Latour’s “Aramis, or the Love of Technology” for a similar system under consideration in Paris in the 1980’s.
I love PRT – Personal Rapid Transit because it answers all my annoyances with cars-driving AND with public transit. But I agree that this should not have been a finalist because it is a pre-existing idea. http://ottawaveg.com/PRT/ They are installing modern systems at Heathrow airport and a community wide one in Masdar, currently under construction in the UAE. It would be great if they used the same system all across a nation so you can get in one by your house, stop for lunch or site-seeing along the way on-demand, and be dropped off near your hotel in another city, without having to learn that cities multi-layered public transit system. But I also like HIGH-speed rail for travel from city to city- but there is just no stopping along the way.
This would have been better if you went beyond the technology that already exists and showed some realistic cross-city/suburb integration in a pre-existing city. I guess I thought this competition would require a greater overview and combination of ideas than I’m seeing in the finalists that appear to stick to one issue in a way.
I suspect this would be less energy efficient, and provide a less good service to passengers, than proper PRT.
This is the same as the Cardiff ULTRA (among other projects…)
I enjoy the idea. A very similar proposition was actually proposed in 1999 in Cincinnati of all places. Four person cars would be summoned to your location along the track via a swipe card station then take you where ever you wanted to go.
I encourage you to look up this past attempt, aptly named “Taxi 2000,” and I look forward to the integration of such ideas into our current transporation networks…
*transportation
Please pardon the typo.
I have a better solutions to the transportation issue. I built this computer system that scans a person, breaks them down into sub-atomic particles, and puts them back together in the desired destination.
I don’t know who Helene McElroy is but it seems like she might be married to Kevin McElroy. They do have the same last name….
I think taking public transportation, should remain public for a few reason. and this is not the best solution.
1 it keeps them safe, more eyes less problems.
2 this is another way to isolate the people of our already lonely modern society.
3 Its the same as a car but with a lot less freedom.
I think the reason why cars are popular is the novelty of going really fast and where ever you want. the negative side is the gross environmental impact it has on our earth. this solution doesn’t thrill people with the prospect of independence, nor does reduce embodied energy usage all that much since you still have this modular system with the same amount of material. and it has to be powered some how, from somewhere.
This transit technology is already in use at West Virginia University in Morgantown.
Personal Rapid Transit may be appropriate for moving people within suburban areas. However, conventional transit technologies (bus, light rail, subway/rail rapid and commuter rail) are better suited to bring large numbers of people from suburban communities into urban core areas as well as moving people within cities.
Here is what is wrong with cars (zip car and other car share programs included)that the modular solution fixes
1. the driver issue: someone has to drive the car and that person is probably going to be human. Human’s driving performance is weakened when they are intoxicated or tired resulting in a situation that is dangerous to themselves and others.
2. parking: when you drive a car somewhere, you have to park it. Sometimes parking can definately become an issue.
3. extreme liability: cars can easily become lethal.
this is the future of sustainable transportation