Talk:Automated transport systems

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This 'discussion page' is currently used to hold notes for the development of this website (however it can still be used for discussion)
  • Trains
    • Light rail
    • [1][2] Trains could be a lot cheaper to build if high-tension cables are used instead of tracks
    • Gravity vacuum maglev (almost no energy required)
  • Aircraft
  • Human powered - International Human-Powered Vehicle Association is a dynamic organization of hobbyists designing and testing human powered land, air and water vehicles and even submarines. Some of the stuff there is pretty amazing: somebody flew 74 miles in a pedal-powered plane, somebody else broke 82mph in a recumbent bicycle. What's more, the community of people doing this are very much in favour of free and open design. Human powered vehicles will probably remain something people do mostly for fun and for short commutes, rather than as part of an economic infrastructure.


Light vehicles for urban commutes

A huge percentage of car-travel (find stats) is short urban commutes with only one passenger. If we can take these journeys in small (one or two passenger), safe, quiet, quick, clean vehicles, we can make cities much more pleasant. Traffic congestion can probably be wholly eliminated, certainly if these vehicles are driven by sophisticated AI. To get around comfortably, you only need a vehicle the size of an armchair; why are we using these huge things to get everywhere?

  • Bicycles with the possibility of hydraulic transmission 11px-Wikipedia_logo.jpg
  • Velomobiles. The main factor against their adoption is the cost, but 3D printing could greatly reduce that. A car body has been 3D printed, so why not a velomobile?
  • E-bikes [3]
  • Electric scooters like RoboScooter
  • Enclosed motorcycles/ tiny cars like the Audi Snook, MIT City Car, X-tracer etc

Vehicles that tilt like the Audi Snook concept or the X-Tracer can take corners much tighter


Ownership structures

Possibility of shared vehicles (similar to the bicycle sharing schemes 11px-Wikipedia_logo.jpg that exist in many cities.) The winner of the 2009 Buckminster Fuller challenge was a system of small electric cars and scooters which would be docked at points around a city (where they could charge). You swipe a card and one of the vehicles unlocks and you drive it and drop it off at another dock. There are plans to bring this in for several cities [4].

Shared vehicles could solve the parking problem. Cars are parked 96% of the time, and that whole time they're doing nothing but wasting valuable urban space. If vehicles were smaller and were in use a greater percentage of the time, we'd win back all that dead land that is used for parking. Think how much nicer cities would be with clean air and no parking or traffic problems! We need a way of sharing vehicles that minimizes the time they spend sitting around. This could be arranged through smartphones (in fact, has been)

Cars

Financial cost of road traffic accidents estimated at over $120 billion in the US and over $193 billion in the Europe Union. (Found in slideshow from Delphi Automotive Integrated Safety Systems - need to find source).

Efficiency

Third generation photovoltaics in windows and paint will allow cars to produce their own energy on-the-move. The roof of a car can hold about 1m2 of solar cells, which might receive a thousand watts a day.

Driverless cars

Center for Automotive Research Stanford (CARS) doing a lot of work in this area, including cars that are driven by humans, but have smart systems so they "cannot crash"

Impressive video of an autonomous car doing controlled high-speed parking

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