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United States Technology

Mass Transit Meets The Incredibles 583

Posted by michael from the no-monorail-jokes-please dept.
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."
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Mass Transit Meets The Incredibles More

Mass Transit Meets The Incredibles

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  • Monoooooooorail (Score:4, Funny)

    by allowat76 ( 583315 ) on Friday November 19, 2004 @01:16PM (#10866227)
    Mono-doh!

    • Re:Monoooooooorail (Score:5, Funny)

      by syynnapse ( 781681 ) on Friday November 19, 2004 @01:33PM (#10866504) Homepage
      I find it funny that this why my first thought upon reading the blurb.

      formula goes as such:
      new slashdot article
      race to think of relevant nerd-culture reference
      try to post before another nerd gets to it.

      clearly, i've lost this round.

    • Sounds more like... (Score:5, Interesting)

      by r00t ( 33219 ) on Friday November 19, 2004 @01:47PM (#10866712) Journal
      the Denver International Airport baggage handling
      system. While they worked the bugs out of that,
      baggage got destroyed, dumped into strange places,
      put on the wrong flights, and so on.

      You too can experience this now, personally.

  • Flexible? (Score:4, Funny)

    by mfh ( 56 ) on Friday November 19, 2004 @01:17PM (#10866240) Homepage Journal
    Apparently, the system is relatively cheap to install, cost efficient per passenger mile, and much more flexible than traditional mass transit.

    Flexible it would be if Elastigirl helped to invent it!

  • Why Sky*Web*? (Score:4, Funny)

    by Takeel ( 155086 ) <v32gd4r02@sne[ ]mail.com ['ake' in gap]> on Friday November 19, 2004 @01:18PM (#10866255) Homepage Journal
    Why in the heck is the word "Web" in SkyWeb?

    "Ha ha! We will put the word 'web' in our product's name! It has a computer! From the future!"
    • Web isn't limited to the internet. It probably refers to many branches eminating from a central location.

    • Okay, I'll bite... (Score:2, Insightful)

      by PMJ2kx ( 828679 )
      Perhaps when all is said and done, the transit routes will be connected to each other, in the same sense of the "world-wide web" and computers.
    • What, you think there was not such word as web before the internet or computers?

    • Re:Why Sky*Web*? (Score:5, Interesting)

      by Ungrounded Lightning ( 62228 ) on Friday November 19, 2004 @01:27PM (#10866408) Journal
      Because they intend to install it in a grid pattern rather than a line. They can manage this because of the relatively low price per mile for the rail.

      But they're still talking about the stations being a mile apart. Which means an average of a one-mile hike and a max of a two mile hike if your starting location and destination are exactly between stations.

      It's twice as expensive per mile to install as a fleet of busses, which can stop every block and cost more per passenger-mile than passenger cars (even if you DON'T include the extra security costs to put police on them to deal with gang activity).

      You still need roads everywhere, anyhow, to deliver heavy goods (like building material and furniture). And a car can go anywhere there's a decent road (and an SUV where the roads are truly rotten and many places where they're just dirt paths or nonexistent), rather than being limited to the pricey rails.

      So while it's a very pretty utopian dream, it's not as practical as the current, heavily-debugged, individualized technology.

      • Little problem with your math. (Score:4, Interesting)

        by Jdodge99 ( 695972 ) on Friday November 19, 2004 @01:38PM (#10866573)
        Erm -- If the stations are a mile apart -- that puts you a maximum of a HALF-Mile away from any given station. That is of course using linear measurement. If it's a 1 mile grid and you're in the exact center, then you've got a 0.707107 mile to any of four stations. So from the exact center of one to the exact center of another would be a 1.414214 mile walk. The theory is that there would always be cars in each station -- so while you would have to walk .7 (max) to your station, you would be able to get in a car and head for your destination immediately. The tracks are set up to be one way -- so you may need to do some looping around (longer trip) but it should be non-stop -- trip time should be much shorter than bus. Is this workable? Maybe, it probably depends in large part upon location. To me it seems like a possible solution to road expansion in certain areas. Will the road construction lobby work hard to make sure it's stillborn? You bet. (Check the funding for debt -- derail the bullet train group in florida)
        • If the stations are a mile apart -- that puts you a maximum of a HALF-Mile away from any given station.

          Right. Divide my oopsie by two.

          If it's a 1 mile grid and you're in the exact center, then you've got a 0.707107 mile to any of four stations.

          Only if you can fly - or your neighbors don't mind you tromping over their flower beds and roof, or you can walk through the skyscrapers. (And if you can "leap tall buildings in a single bound" you don't need the train. B-) )

          Otherwise you're stuck on the st

      • Re:Why Sky*Web*? (Score:5, Informative)

        by twilightzero ( 244291 ) <mrolfs@gmai[ ]om ['l.c' in gap]> on Friday November 19, 2004 @02:31PM (#10867305) Homepage Journal
        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!

    • Re:Why Sky*Web*? (Score:5, Insightful)

      by nwbvt ( 768631 ) on Friday November 19, 2004 @01:28PM (#10866427)
      How sad is it that we have gotten to the point where we have forgotten that the word 'web' has meanings other than the World Wide Web?
  • an eeeeevil monorail?

  • Hmmmm (Score:5, Funny)

    by Dorsai42 ( 738671 ) on Friday November 19, 2004 @01:18PM (#10866268)
    "travel independently between stations", "cheap to install "cost efficient per passenger mile" "much more flexible than traditional mass transit" Gauranteed to never be implemented anywhere

    • Except Here (Score:5, Informative)

      by Red Rocket ( 473003 ) on Friday November 19, 2004 @01:39PM (#10866582)

      WVU PRT [wvu.edu]

    • Re:Hmmmm (Score:4, Interesting)

      by schtum ( 166052 ) on Friday November 19, 2004 @02:08PM (#10867004)
      There are some serious arguments to be made against it. Any city large enough to consider mass transit will have its share of inconsiderate assholes. The private nature of the pods will encourage these individuals, especially when they're drunk, to deposit various bodily excretions (semen, piss, vomit and the occasional turd). Perhaps a camera could be installed to let people know these are not meant to be anybody's private space.

      What do you do about homeless people who decide to live in one of these pods? You'd have to arrest them. They'd likely be back on the street within 24 hours, and angry enough to contribute to the excretion problem described above.

      What if one breaks down between stations? How easy is it to get a service technician out there? How easy is it to evacuate the pod between stations in case of an emergency?

      That's just off the top of my head. I don't work with mass transit, but I do use it every day.

      • Re:Hmmmm (Score:5, Informative)

        by twilightzero ( 244291 ) <mrolfs@gmai[ ]om ['l.c' in gap]> on Friday November 19, 2004 @02:46PM (#10867481) Homepage Journal
        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 :)

      • Re:Hmmmm (Score:5, Informative)

        by drinkypoo ( 153816 ) <drink@hyperlogos.org> on Friday November 19, 2004 @06:12PM (#10870417) Homepage Journal
        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.

  • No Simpsons Jokes yet... Come on.... (Score:5, Funny)

    by Graemee ( 524726 ) on Friday November 19, 2004 @01:19PM (#10866273)
    Maybe Lenard Nimoy is available for the opening.

  • Good concept if it scales well. (Score:3, Interesting)

    by YrWrstNtmr ( 564987 ) on Friday November 19, 2004 @01:19PM (#10866280)
    This is what the 'self driving car' [slashdot.org] should be.

  • Three passengers (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Ctrl-Z ( 28806 ) <tim&timcoleman,com> on Friday November 19, 2004 @01:19PM (#10866282) Homepage Journal
    I'm sure that I recall reading about this a couple of months ago, and the question that immediately came to my mind is: what do you do if you have more than three or four passengers? Families of five need not apply and so on.
    • Probably the same thing people do when they have lots of people and want to take a normal car.. take more then one. Or overstuff the vehicle with more people then it can handle safely.

      • Many people don't have the brains to figure it out. That's why they buy SUVs that you can fit 7+ people in. Just in case. Like that Chukcha, who placed two glasses on the bedside table - one with water and one without. Why do they need it, people asked? Just in case I want to drink at night. Yeah, but why the empty glass? Just in case I don't.
    • Take two. Or, nothing says the max size on those cars is 4 passengers. No reason why a few six passenger models couldn't be sprinkled into the mix.
      • While, in theory, you could construct such a vehicle in a variety of different sizes, the article does say "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."
      • It seems to me like they could even have some 'utility' versions in the mix-- as in the 'utility' in 'Sports Utility Vehicle'-- for those times when you need to cart something that's not passengers. I speak from experience when I say, moving furnature or bicycles or whatever on the subway is a pain for the mover and an annoyance for the other passengers. Part of what seems nice about having individual cars is, you could pick the right car for the job.

    • The reason for Three (Score:5, Interesting)

      by zipwow ( 1695 ) <zipwow@g[ ]l.com ['mai' in gap]> on Friday November 19, 2004 @01:30PM (#10866454) Homepage Journal
      First, there is more than one car on the system. If you have more than three, take extra cars.

      But why three, and not four, or five? The reason I've read in the past is this:

      Three is the smallest number of occupants that guarantees that no members of a group need to ride alone.

      If the cars held two, and your group of three arrived, then someone would have to ride by themselves. Not fun, and socially difficult.

      It's true that if the cars held four, the same system would work (five people go in three and two). There is, however, significant expense to adding another passenger space. You'd either have to make them wider. This would increase the space between the railings, and the overall construction cost in addition to the car cost. You could add another row of seats, but that would increase the complexity and cost of the car.

      Three is the right number.

      -Zipwow
    • Because 3 is the magic number [schoolhouserock.tv].
    • Take two cars? One parent in each? Families larger than 6 probably have at least one kid old enough to handle a ride in such a system by themselves. Maybe a system to "link" two or more cars together to form a family chain or something? Or we could all just try to have fewer kids. In fact, I'd be hard pressed to find a family with more than two or three kids in the kind of urban areas where these would most likely see the most use. It's probably a non- or trivial issue.
    • Besides using two cars, given the size you could probably fit one adult and three children in as well. Some of the designs differ, but I think SkyWeb just uses a bench seat, so it's flexible depending on how cozy everyone wants to get. A single parent with four kids might have a problem.

      It's also fairly friendly to families compared to normal public transportation, because you pay one fare no matter how many people use the car. Normal public transportation tends to be very family unfriendly, because it

  • a.k.a. Personal Rapid Transit (PRT) (Score:5, Informative)

    by indros13 ( 531405 ) * on Friday November 19, 2004 @01:21PM (#10866308) Homepage Journal
    For the curious, some information on PRT from the University of Washington [washington.edu]. It includes design ideas, prototypes, and places where PRT is being built. Enjoy!

    • And for anyone else who would like to see a PRT system older than the hills (older than me anyway), you cancheck out the service and description manual [wvu.edu] for my hometown PRT system (also home to Mepis for anyone that cares).

      • I'll speak up for the PRT at WVU-
        I grew up in Morgantown. The system was first developed and built in the 1970s- 1972 to be exact- although the project was orginially concived in 1969.

        Having ridden on the system I can talk about the times it's broken down while being on it (more than once), or the ease at which I was able to get from my student parking lot to my class downtown in under 30 minutes (if you've been to Morgantown you'll realize that this is a big, big deal as traffic flows like an ice pack).

  • Cars are 2000lbs. poorly guided bombs. (Score:5, Interesting)

    by F34nor ( 321515 ) * on Friday November 19, 2004 @01:21PM (#10866309)
    This is far better than both a "mass transit" train or a car.

    For a better and simpler solution look to Curbita's bus system in Brazil. They just set aside roads for bus only, give them chrome boxes so they always get a green light, and make the bus stop the pay station so you can load and unload quickly. A system like Curbita requires nothing more than a better bus stop and large doors and moves more people than a subway at a fraction of the cost. Their system cost $.25 a ride and makes a profit.

  • Never do a monorail system on a desert island (Score:4, Funny)

    by Himring ( 646324 ) on Friday November 19, 2004 @01:22PM (#10866329) Homepage Journal
    The other is, never do a movie when Vicini is a manager over insurance agents!!! Hahahahahah!!! *gasp* /dead

  • Instead of monorails, how about railguns? (Score:4, Funny)

    by physicsphairy ( 720718 ) on Friday November 19, 2004 @01:23PM (#10866335)

    Sure, part of your vehicle would vaporize and you would probably be centrifuged into your constituent molecules on turns, but just think how fast you could get where you wanted to go?

    P.S. I loved "The Incredibles". Thank you pixar for consistently violating the Hollywood tradition of making sucky movies.

  • Bristol (Score:4, Interesting)

    by lxt ( 724570 ) on Friday November 19, 2004 @01:24PM (#10866351) Journal
    Several (at least 5) years ago there was talk of a similar system to serve Bristol, a largish city in the UK. The idea was for small "pods" (as they were called) to carry around 5 passengers at a time to various destinations along a tram line. Aside from concerns about vandalism, I believe at the time it was thought impractical, and shoved away in favour of a normal tram (which was then denied funding...).

  • Logans Run (Score:2, Interesting)

    by grassy_knoll ( 412409 )
    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.

    Seems like it's out of Logans Run. Nice idea, bringing the convenience of personal transportation with the benefits of mass transit.

  • Show me the money. (Score:5, Insightful)

    by JessLeah ( 625838 ) on Friday November 19, 2004 @01:27PM (#10866404)
    When will technology like this actually be put into production in a major American city?

    2020? 2030? Never?

    I'm really getting completely jaded by hearing of all of these wonderful things being developed, which will be put into production Real Soon Now(TM)...

    What about those machines that make just about anything into oil? How many plants based on those things are currently operating in the US? One? Two? Maybe THREE? What percentage of our oil production does that account for? 0.01%? Maybe 0.02%? Maybe less?

    Color me skeptical, but inertia has taken such a hold in human endeavors (at least, here in the US) that I get really upset whenever I read of all of these wonderful things which are supposedly coming up "just along the pike", as it were, but which I have to remind myself I will never see in operation in my life.

    • Sorry I couldn't get this to you... (Score:4, Funny)

      by Red Rocket ( 473003 ) on Friday November 19, 2004 @01:36PM (#10866551)

      but which I have to remind myself I will never see in operation in my life.

      ...before you passed away.
      WVU PRT [wvu.edu]
    • Time works in funny ways.

      Look at Apollo. JFK challenged the nation to go to the Moon before 1970, and we did it. It was incredibly quick. Yet, it still took eight years to do. If you were setting there in 1965, looking at all of the cool stuff promised for Apollo, would you feel the same way? Would you feel the same way in 1993, looking at all the things promised for the internet? In 1903, looking at the promises for the airplane?

      The turkey-guts -> oil plants are new. The concept was just introduced in
    • First, Disney. Then, next time there's a major economic boom and everyone is feeling rich, a few small metropolises will try to draw publicity with half-assed implementations. Finally after five or six such failures, someone will get it right in maybe fifty years.

      But that's the US! There's tremendous room for such a system in developing nations, european cities, and especially in command economies like China where occasionally over-powered leaders get big ideas and throw loads of taxpayer money at things l

  • Emergency Exits? (Score:3, Interesting)

    by ewhac ( 5844 ) on Friday November 19, 2004 @01:27PM (#10866406) Homepage Journal

    It looks cool, but what happens if your car breaks down? There doesn't appear to be an emergency exit walkway.

    But that may be moot: If your car breaks down or comes to an abrupt halt, do you get smashed by the car behind you?

    Make no mistake; I think it's cool as hell. But I'd want to know how their system, "handles exceptions."

    Schwab

    • I would imagine they have contingencies for this as they are the obvious questions people would ask.

      I would be more interested in how the system handles busy junctions since the tracks must join and intersect. Also its a one way system so trips could be quite convolted and time consuming.
    • I imagine that it would "handle exceptions" in the same way that other train systems do. What happens if your subway train breaks down?

    • Re:Emergency Exits? (Score:5, Informative)

      by zthx1138 ( 586648 ) <{jeremyminer} {at} {gmail.com}> on Friday November 19, 2004 @01:47PM (#10866714)
      From http://kinetic.seattle.wa.us/~prt-q.html#chaos

      "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

    • I think they want to avoid walkways, as it adds to the cost and visual impact of the guideway. There would be an emergency stop button that would take you to the nearest station, which should always be close by.

      In case the system or car shuts down, there would be some radio system to signal the problem and communicate with the central office, and someone would probably have to come to fetch you. I think they'd rather work on making that extremely uncommon than build up more infrastructure. Anyway, the

  • Probably popular with teenagers (Score:3, Funny)

    by PIPBoy3000 ( 619296 ) on Friday November 19, 2004 @01:30PM (#10866457)
    I can already see teenagers "renting" a pod, covering the windows and circling the city over and over and over . . .

  • So futuristic! (Score:2, Insightful)

    by Anonymous Coward
    Seriously, this might be one of those things like monorails that are built simply because they look futuristic. But they've had a pretty bad record in actual operation, especially in the sort of constant intense daily service that is needed for public transportation. And their cost estimates tend to be somewhat off, though they may just be optimistic for lack of sufficient examples. But monorails, such as the Las Vegas monorail, tend to cost about as much as elevated light rail, if not more. The Las Vegas m

    • Re:So futuristic! (Score:3, Insightful)

      by HeghmoH ( 13204 )
      Also, it would be a handy terrorist tool. Just put the bomb in and set the car to go to the target.

      Everything is a handy terrorist tool, to the extent that this is not a useful argument against anything.

  • Congestion (Score:5, Interesting)

    by 955301 ( 209856 ) on Friday November 19, 2004 @01:31PM (#10866480) Journal
    It would be interesting to see how they design stations which have a large amount of congestion at various times of the day. I'm guess their graphic is a typical station, but the waiting traffic would easily overrun the main track in even the smallest city.

    Perhaps they can just get away with making the station rail longer? A by-passible loop or two that are introduced during rush hour? (Or when someone cracks into the control system :)

    • Re:Congestion (Score:2, Informative)

      by zthx1138 ( 586648 )
      yeah.. you've got the right idea. This is from teh skywebexpress website: Station Capacity (Stations can be sized from one to about 15 berths) 450 Vehicles per hour for a 3 berth station 750 Vehicles per hour for a 6 berth station 950 Vehicles per hour for a 9 berth station 1250 Vehicles per hour for a 12 berth station 1500 Vehicles per hour for a 15 berth station All assume a normal time distribution for passenger boarding and deboarding in the stations http://www.skywebexpress.com/150f_capacity.s
    • re: your sig

      Don't tell me the answer if that one's wrong, though :-)

    • Re:Congestion (Score:5, Informative)

      by Ian Bicking ( 980 ) <ianb@colPASCALorstudy.com minus language> on Friday November 19, 2004 @02:02PM (#10866928) Homepage
      Generally it would be better to add more stations instead of making the stations larger. Unlike normal rail, more stations don't slow the entire system down, and they add convenience as well as capacity. So high traffic can be met with a high density of rails and stations. The entire idea of PRT is to support a dense network instead of high capacity single-line hauls.

      Simulations seem to show that's it's not too bad. iTS [unibo.it] is a neat graphical simulation program for PRT, and this simpler simulation [slc.ut.us] 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).

  • no pollution? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Gwenna ( 763131 ) on Friday November 19, 2004 @01:32PM (#10866490)
    The article states that because the cars are powered with electricity, there is no pollution. This really irks me. While there may be no local pollution or emissions, that doesn't mean that the source of the electricity isn't polluting. If the source is solar or wind power, that's great, but in many (most?) cases the source is more likely to be a coal or gas plant, which are definitely not non-polluting.

    I'm not saying I don't think this is a great idea, because I think it's terrific. But to say that it is non-polluting probably isn't true.

  • my humble opinion... (Score:4, Interesting)

    by lpangelrob2 ( 721920 ) on Friday November 19, 2004 @01:32PM (#10866493) Journal
    Great for small cities, great for medium cities, poor for large cities.

    Small cities (cities up to 150,000 people) -- generally are contained within a three or so mile radius, so it would make sense to connect malls, grocery stores, and civil services with the system. Some people could use it without having to use a car, some would be able to use it just for the daily commute.

    Medium cities (cities up to 500,000 people) -- still a good option, but would probably be used differently. More reliance on cars to get to parking lots that would then use these things to shuttle passengers between the most often visited places (mass transit, some shopping centers, airports, city center). Good coverage of downtown areas would reduce traffic issues there.

    Large cities (cities over 500,000 people) -- Too expensive to build and too many places to potentially have to get to. Light rail is a better option for transporting this many people. Other mass transit systems may overlap (water taxis, buses). System would probably only end up serving a small fraction of the city for a small fraction of destinations. Commercial centers are far too large (and distributed) to serve effectively.

    Comments, questions, flames?

    • Re:my humble opinion... (Score:3, Informative)

      by danila ( 69889 )
      From their frontpage: "an area-wide feeder to light rail or buses". In big cities this would collect people to subway/light rail/bus/whatever systems, then ship them in bulk to their destination and use another SkyWebExpress system to deliver them more precisely to their target. If ticket systems are integrated and wait times are minimized, this can work in cities of arbitrary size.

    • Re:my humble opinion... (Score:3, Insightful)

      by Peyna ( 14792 )
      Small cities in the midwest and west tend to actually be spread out a lot more than a three or so mile radius, because there is so much open space to work with. People have bigger yards, and want to live further away from their neighbors. Look at cities like Ft Wayne for an example. Everyone is spread out around the edges, and continue to spread further away.

      This seems most appropriate for an application like intraurban transportation and not commuter transportion.
    • You've got a good point, but there is nothing saying that this has to be a stand alone solution, and not integrated with other systems.

      Also, a system like this would be really cool for airports, where the trend has become to place parking lots further away from the terminals for security reasons.

    • Re:my humble opinion... (Score:4, Informative)

      by Ian Bicking ( 980 ) <ianb@colPASCALorstudy.com minus language> on Friday November 19, 2004 @02:08PM (#10867011) Homepage
      Large cities (cities over 500,000 people) -- Too expensive to build and too many places to potentially have to get to.
      That seems to lead to the opposite claim. Rail is obscenely expensive, and hard to extend because you have to pay for the right of way. That's expensive in a large, dense city -- PRT could use existing right of ways (i.e., going about a road). Also, it can scale in ways that normal transit can't; as you add more stations and transfers to a normal system, everyone's ride time goes up. It's a pain in the butt in Chicago (for instance) that you can take the train downtown, or along a single line, but you can't traverse the city from one non-downtown location to another; this wouldn't be as much of an issue with PRT, as there aren't any transfers (which take time), and there aren't any specific lines, just a network of lines that all work together.

      The other problem with big-city transit is that repairs and upgrades are hard, because there's these incredibly essential lines, and you can't just take them down. Instead you have people working at night and putting everything in place for the morning, or shuttles to deal with missing service, or whatnot. With PRT there's builtin redundancy, so individual lines could be taken off without impacting the entire network.

      That said, PRT should work fine alongside other transit options, potentially as a feeder to get people the last mile or two to their actual destination.

  • Maze Cars (Score:2, Funny)

    by codefool ( 189025 )
    This sounds very much like the maze cars of Logan's Run [amazon.com] fame.
  • I remember doing a paper on Ultra-Light Rail Vehicles back in the early 90's, and that paper (I was an engineering student at the time) was itself based on a system that was being tested in Detroit or Chicago (I forget which.) This "SkyWeb" system is another implementation of that concept.

    I honestly wish them luck. While it's a great concept, there's a lot of issues they don't go into (that I could see on the site) such as how a single breakdown can choke a chunk of the system. How they deal with gettin
  • It's like the self driving car except it needs a massive infrastructure to make it work less efficiently.

    Trains are cool, but why do people automatically see rails and assume they are looking at efficient transportation. When are people going to realize that wheels simply work better on tar roads than they do on metal rails.

    That said, this could be a great alternative in smaller cities that typically make the mistake of dumping huge money into insolvent inefficient subway systems that do little to help a

  • Rush Hour (Score:4, Interesting)

    by kingfinny ( 806477 ) on Friday November 19, 2004 @01:35PM (#10866535) Homepage
    My first thought about a weakness here is during rush hour. 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, and room on the side-track? Seems this would back up the transit track. It just doesn't seem like the system could handle the sheer volume of a metropolitan rush hour (I'm using Wash., D.C. and the METRO system as my point-of-reference).
  • This is really interesting. I haven't dug into their number (beyond looking at the pretty graphs) to see what "cost effecient to operate", and "cheap to install" really means. But this system would appear to scale much better than traditional mass transit, perhaps making it economical for suburban mass transit.

    That is the biggest problem with mass transit in the US - we are so spread out. Either you have a convienient transit schedule and end up running a whole bunch of buses/trains that would be empty mos
  • I see an excellent opportunity for public sex, sort of like the Mile High Club! I mean, 3 person glass bubbles speeding along congested public thorofares? Can't get any better than that!

  • Oy, That Video... (Score:5, Insightful)

    by ewhac ( 5844 ) on Friday November 19, 2004 @01:46PM (#10866691) Homepage Journal

    Note to SkyWeb PR division: I downloaded and saw your video. Some notes:

    • Hire professional voice talent. Unless you have an employee with an exceptionally talented voice, you're better off farming this out. The result will be superior. (I'd nominate Harry Shearer, but then I've got an obscure sense of humor.)
    • Drop the soundtrack. Using the theme to the film Gone With The Wind is entirely inappropriate. (Gone With The Wind enjoys almost religious status in the deep south, and they will be deeply offended by its use as the background to a corporate promotional video. Hell, I'm an $(GOD)less heathen Californian, and I thought it was tacky.)
    • Get better animation. It's okay as it stands, but it might be cooler if you overlaid a synthetic SkyWeb system on top of a real city, so planners can get a more accurate feel for how it might impact their cityscape.

    Basically, it needs better production values.

    Schwab

  • ...about 5 years ago (or maybe even longer) there was talk about a pilot program for something like this out near me (just west of Washington DC). I'm glad to hear that the concept hasn't been lost.

    I haven't read the article yet, but here are the thoughts I've had about it in the past:
    • Run the cars in the street, just like old (wait for it) streetcars.
    • Obviously, they'll need proximity sensors and some way to follow traffic signals, etc.
    • Put stations at Elementary Schools. In my area, at least, these are

  • people packets (Score:3, Insightful)

    by Doc Ruby ( 173196 ) on Friday November 19, 2004 @01:49PM (#10866750) Homepage Journal
    This SkyWeb system is the application of packet-switched networks to material transport. Just as trains and telegraph/phone networks were circuit switched, and changed the world by globalizing the industrial revolution, so can these transport networks change the world again, just like ethernet/Internet changed the world of telecom.

    The real changes will come once we've got new applications for these rails, not just adaptations that fix bugs in the old rail circuit apps. One real improvement could be in deliveries: the city could charge vendors bulk rates for off-peak delivery capacity. That could link rail/ship terminals to an intracity network of automated deliveries. You could schedule delivieries to your local station, and pick up the cargo after tracking its realtime delivery, from a locker with your onetime password. That kind of "bulk mail" fee could subsidize the entire system, just as bulk mail now subsidizes the postal system. Leveraging the efficiency of the municipal network to cut costs and increase reliability. And the people routing apps, like emailing an invite, with a prepaid routeplan attached, which is messaged to the car with the push of an embedded button, could get all attendees to and from your event without confusion, delay or complication. Let's get this 21st Century on!

  • Vandalism and graffiti magnet (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Eric Smith ( 4379 ) * on Friday November 19, 2004 @02:05PM (#10866957) Homepage Journal
    And you probably thought that today's mass transit has too much vandalism and graffiti. Just wait until the losers who don't have anything better to do than damage or deface public property get their own private car for each trip.

    My theory of graffiti is that it's from people who have low self esteem and don't think that they can leave a mark on the world in any but the most literal sense.

  • Parking Lots? (Score:4, Interesting)

    by ek_adam ( 442283 ) on Friday November 19, 2004 @02:14PM (#10867087) Homepage
    Step 1: Look at the size of the stations shown in the article or the animation.

    Step 2: Look at the size of the typical shopping center parking lot, or the size of a typical commuter rail parking garage.

    At certain times of the day you are going to need a lot more cars leaving one of these stations than you have arriving. At other times of the day you are going to have a lot more cars arriving at a station. You either need very large stations at some locations, or you need empty cars moving around all the time, or you need one or more large storage/maintenance areas with an efficient dispatch system.

  • PRT in West Va for 20 some years (Score:3, Informative)

    by CottonThePirate ( 769463 ) on Friday November 19, 2004 @02:21PM (#10867185) Homepage
    A system similar to this is in operation at WVU: Pictures [geocities.com] and story [progressiveengineer.com] This is a good system, but it's slow, and showing it's age. But as a prior student at WVU I can say it works much nicer than a bus or other option.

  • Mass transit isn't about transit (Score:3, Interesting)

    by radtea ( 464814 ) on Friday November 19, 2004 @03:04PM (#10867764)
    The design of many existing mass transit systems suggests that moving people efficiently and conveniently is not a goal of mass transit. A friend who used to live in Princeton pointed out this anomaly to me many years ago: Princeton had excellent train service to New York City, and no parking at the train station. His inference was that the people who designed the system really didn't want people to travel. They just hated cars.

    I'm not so sure about that--they may just have been really stupid people, a possibility which can never be discounted. However, a quick Google search on "mass transit social agenda" comes up with gems like this:

    I hate the fact that my city, San Jose, put in a politically correct light rail system that is not compatible with anything else. It can't share tracks or vehicles with either BART or Amtrak or CalTrain or any other mass transit system. And it doesn't quite reach any airports or terminals of the other nearby mass transit systems. You can take a bicycle on the San Jose Light Rail, but it's not very convenient. If you don't live very near one station and work very near another station, it's very difficult to dream up an idea why you'd want to ride the thing. At the very least, it should have been built on BART standards so that maybe one day it could connect to other systems, but instead it is a totally distinct island of useless rail.


    We do have municipal bus routes that include stops at the train station, but the bus route schedules are not synchronized with the train schedules. This is yet another example of how our systems of mass transportation have not reasonably considered the needs of the masses.


    It isn't hard to find these sorts of problems, as anyone who has ever ridden a bus to work regularly knows.

    --Tom

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