"Podcar" Transit

[WhoozOn1st]

An op-ed piece from the 9-8-08 Los Angeles Times:

Seeding the future with 'podcars'

Wasn't quite sure where to put this, but since it involves commuting, and podcars presumably run on rails of some sort, settled on this forum.

The paper itself includes a rendition of overhead podcars in downtown L.A. which is missing online. The graphic kinda gives the lie to the author's assertion that "the small scale of podcar guideways makes them unobtrusive over city streets and sidewalks."

ULTra at London's Heathrow airport.

 

[Loren Petrich]

Someone at lightrailnow.org has slammed that concept rather hard in Personal Rapid Transit – Cyberspace Dream Keeps Colliding With Reality.

Furthermore, it would be easier to run such vehicles on regular routes, which is what is done in existing "people-mover" systems.

The Morgantown, WV one comes closest to the PRT ideal. Each station has through tracks and sidings for its passenger platforms, so a vehicle need not get in the way of other vehicles when passengers are entering or leaving it. But even that system does not quite fit the PRT ideal of an interconnected network; it is a single line.

All the other ones operate in more typical transit fashion, with the vehicles following regular routes and stopping while on the right of way. The only urban US ones are:

Detroit People Mover (Detroit, MI)

Miami Metromover (Miami, FL)

Jacksonville Skyway (Jacksonville, FL)

The Las Colinas Area Personal Transit System (Las Colinas area of Irving, near Dallas, TX, now mostly a lunch train)

They look much like the airport light-rail systems that several airports have, complete with vehicles with the capacity of small buses.

 

[Guest_George Harris_*]

And if people are nervous or fearful about getting on a bus with strangers or strange people, whichever, when the bus has a driver, what do you think will be the response to these things when it means getting in a smaller vehicle with no driver? As airport people movers where the distances are short and the clientelly somewhat restricted, these sorts of things seem to be OK. As a functional substitute for automobiles, no chance whatsoever.

 

[Joel N. Weber II]

And if people are nervous or fearful about getting on a bus with strangers or strange people, whichever, when the bus has a driver, what do you think will be the response to these things when it means getting in a smaller vehicle with no driver? As airport people movers where the distances are short and the clientelly somewhat restricted, these sorts of things seem to be OK. As a functional substitute for automobiles, no chance whatsoever.

The majority of the time I ride an MBTA subway train, there is probably no MBTA employee in the car I'm in. (Occasionally I even get the whole car to myself on the Red Line.)

 

[Green Maned Lion]

The concept of PRT is a demonstration of in-the-box innovation. That is, if we are used to cars, and need an electric power base, why not this? Some other examples are Disney's early experimentation with 3D animation in movies such as Beauty & the Beast and Aladdin. Didn't know it had 3D animation? Thats my point. They applied the technology to what they already knew, rather than using it innovatively. A second one is horseless carriages- that is, early cars. They involved putting a motor into a horse carriage. It had not yet occurred to people that the lack of needing a horse changes the plausible design parameters.

People are thinking of ways to innovate cars to make them more environmentally friendly, rather than thinking of ways to more efficiently move people.

 

[Joel N. Weber II]

People are thinking of ways to innovate cars to make them more environmentally friendly, rather than thinking of ways to more efficiently move people.

You mean, to make cars a slightly less severe economic and environmental disaster.

Part of moving people more efficiently requires moving them into more densely populated areas, which requires rebuilding an awful lot of buildings (but that means a lot of American jobs, so it may not all be bad).

Though I would also love to see electric trolleybuses along all of the numbered Massachusetts state highways that are two lane roads that have people's driveways connected directly to them. (A California resident would probably think of these as local roads and not highways if they saw pictures and weren't given any indication that they were regarded as highways. But, for example, pretty much the full length of Massachusetts highway 117 is a two lane road with driveways connecting to it; it may be more than two lanes at its eastern end in Waltham, I don't remember exactly.)

 

[zoltan]

People are thinking of ways to innovate cars to make them more environmentally friendly, rather than thinking of ways to more efficiently move people.

This has come up in many conversations to people to whom I've explained that I minor in Transport planning. People can't get their head around the fact that they'll have to let go of their little metal boxes, because little metal boxes involve a lot of metal - which weighs a lot, and the more weight, the more fuel - for not very much human, and therefore are disastrously inefficient.

"But, of course, electricity transmitted through conventional overhead wires is far more efficient than power stored through a Hydrogen fuel cell"

"But then you'd have to have wires over everyone's driveway and every little road, because people want their personal mobility".

"In the future, personal mobility simply won't be sustainable"

"er..."

This is not to mention the fact two lanes of podcars near enough equals two lanes of road, and the roads don't have enough room as it is, which is why we have light rail.

So as you quite rightly say, no transport problems will be solved by trying to fiddle around with the things that got us into this mess in the first place; they'll be solved by abandoning the problems, and replacing them with more of the solutions.

 

[Joel N. Weber II]

"But, of course, electricity transmitted through conventional overhead wires is far more efficient than power stored through a Hydrogen fuel cell""But then you'd have to have wires over everyone's driveway and every little road, because people want their personal mobility".

"In the future, personal mobility simply won't be sustainable"

"er..."

Note that we currently do have wires on just about every little road and to just about everybody's home, to distribute electricity to houses. If we can afford to build that power distribution network, it's not obvious to me that we couldn't afford to also build the power distribution network for the single occupancy trolleybus (trolleycar, really). But of course, there is still the problem of how many people per hour that can be moved in a single lane, and I get the impression that the trolley pole and wire technlogy used by trolleybuses is a bit too finicky to work well if every single average driver had to use it. Then again, technologies can get more reliable with time; a four year old automobile required a lot more maintenance in the 1980s than it would today, and if trolleybus style power distribution became more common, the design might improve in ways that would make it more reliable.

Most Americans think mass transit can't be high quality because they haven't experienced reasonably good mass transit.

 

[zoltan]

But of course, there is still the problem of how many people per hour that can be moved in a single lane, and I get the impression that the trolley pole and wire technlogy used by trolleybuses is a bit too finicky to work well if every single average driver had to use it.

The inability to overtake would be the big problem here, plus, as I mentioned before, the "a lot of metal for not very much human" - Think of the power generation capacity you'd need to carry all these single occupancy metal boxes around!

Most Americans think mass transit can't be high quality because they haven't experienced reasonably good mass transit.

This pretty much hits the nail on the head. People think that in a car-free society, everyone would have to use the same public transport as they have now. Of course, public transport would necessarily much, much better. I tell people to think of how many cars travel along their local main road every hour, and divide that by 40 for the number of buses you'd have to have if none of those were there, by 150 for trams, or 400 for conventional heavy rail.

Would the entire city of South Portland, ME all fit onto their two every-45-minutes bus routes? Of course not. Could all those people fit onto a train every 3 hours or so when they wanted to go to Boston? Of course not.

But forget the dream of a car-free society. Even with the 8% bus market share in Leeds, England, the main roads tend to have a bus service between every 2.5 minutes and every 5 minutes. Headingley Lane drops down to a 5-minute bus service on late evening and sundays! And on most of these corridors the buses are modern in appearance and have padded seats, which seem a luxury in North America. And a similar market share in nearby Nottingham has bought modern, comfortable trams every 7.5 minutes.

But naturally, Americans, and much of the rest of the world, are enamoured with their idea of personal mobility, and those people had better brace themselves for a future in which that can't be sustained.

 

[Loren Petrich]

There was a podcar conference in Ithaca, NY last September. Ithaca is a college town in upstate New York, home of Cornell University and Ithaca College, but I could not find much on that conference in either the Cornell Daily Sun or the Ithaca Journal. The page on Ithaca, the town describes getting there, and at the bottom shows a map of some proposed lines and stations.

They covered the downtown flatland area and Cornell University to the east of it, with lines out to Ithaca College in the southeast and Tompkins County Community Hospital in the northwest. I found it odd that there were no lines northward to Pyramid Mall, Langmuir Lab, and Ithaca's airport. Several of the proposed stations had a "P" at them, suggesting that they were park-and-ride stations.

I must concede that I got a chuckle out of that.

I estimate that the proposal features 20 route miles of podcar line, and my extensions to the mall, lab, and airport would add 7 additional route miles.

Now plug in some cost for building those lines, about $20 million/mile to be optimistic, and one gets $400 million total, with $140 million more to northern Ithaca.

 

[Green Maned Lion]

These are one of those ideas that sound good to the person unfamiliar with efficiency concepts, is easy to sell with a load of nonsense, and gets built. 10 years later, when the concept cost 2 arms, 3 legs, and a head, and the system is largely unused, you sit back and wonder what the hell you were thinking.

 

[Joel N. Weber II]

But of course, there is still the problem of how many people per hour that can be moved in a single lane, and I get the impression that the trolley pole and wire technlogy used by trolleybuses is a bit too finicky to work well if every single average driver had to use it.

The inability to overtake would be the big problem here, plus, as I mentioned before, the "a lot of metal for not very much human" - Think of the power generation capacity you'd need to carry all these single occupancy metal boxes around!

The overtaking problem exists on a lot of the two lane state highways in western Massachusetts, too. And for roads with two or more lanes in each direction, a separate set of trolley wires for each lane is certainly possible, and then the question is just whether a system could be designed to automatically lower and raise the trolley poles during a lane change.

As for power generation capacity, I bet if everyone switched to a 6000 pound personal automobile powered by trolley poles, the expansion we'd need would be less than doubling the total US generating capacity.

But forget the dream of a car-free society. Even with the 8% bus market share in Leeds, England, the main roads tend to have a bus service between every 2.5 minutes and every 5 minutes. Headingley Lane drops down to a 5-minute bus service on late evening and sundays! And on most of these corridors the buses are modern in appearance and have padded seats, which seem a luxury in North America. And a similar market share in nearby Nottingham has bought modern, comfortable trams every 7.5 minutes.
But naturally, Americans, and much of the rest of the world, are enamoured with their idea of personal mobility, and those people had better brace themselves for a future in which that can't be sustained.

That's an interesting point about the comfortable seats. I've experienced 20 year old automobiles with worn out seats having more comfortable seats than modern MBTA buses.

Personal automobiles are still going to remain useful for shopping trips that involve large purchases.

 

[Mattyoung]

I follow all the Podcar discussions and take the time to correct some misconceptions.

1) Podcars do not need tracks or guide ways, they work just fine on existing roads.

2) Podcars do not have to be electric by any means.

3) Cities can buy Podcars, or Podtaxis one or two at a time. There is very little infrastructure cost.

4) Podcars can notive when people are around, they are friendly to people and can move as slow as they need; even beep the little horm to move the people out of the way.

5) Podcars use svision systems and can spot and record criminal activity. They would be safe.

6) PodVans deliver groceries to your house. They beep you then using their robotic arm will drop off a box of groceries in the marked loading zone.

7) PodCars, PodVans, and PodTaxis all mix quitewell with bicyclists and pedestrians.

Cities need to understand the Green Paint rule. Whenever green lanes are painted, robotic cars are expected to roam. This helps pedestrians and manually driven cars watch out for the little buggers. In fact, that is the only stimulus we really need to fix the oil efficiency problem is some Green Paint and a DMV rule change.

For long haul transport, chains of PodWagons can link up, be powered by a diesel electric locomotives on rubber via electrical tethering. Twenty to thirty in a row, asphalt trains eliminating all the cargo handling of rail trains. On their own, any PodWagon can maneuver around a parking lot and link up in different groups. Thus, for no cost whatsoever, freight yards are constructed from parking lots.

Hence, zero infrastructure costs (reuse asphalt) Cargo, passenger, home delivery, automated surveillance, trash pick up; the entire range of transportation problems fixed with 1/3 to 1/8 the gasoline usage.

 

[George Harris]

Surely you jest. Much of what is here is at considerable variance with the picture of the podcar that led off this thread, and some of the rest simply is not rational.

I follow all the Podcar discussions and take the time to correct some misconceptions.
1) Podcars do not need tracks or guide ways, they work just fine on existing roads.

Not what is shown

2) Podcars do not have to be electric by any means.

Then, what is there advantage over the current automobile?

3) Cities can buy Podcars, or Podtaxis one or two at a time. There is very little infrastructure cost.

which means that there is also no increase in street capacity

4) Podcars can notive when people are around, they are friendly to people and can move as slow as they need; even beep the little horm to move the people out of the way.

a. What about the one following that wants to go faster? b. And if the people don't move?

5) Podcars use svision systems and can spot and record criminal activity. They would be safe.

No, what it means is that it might make it easier to catch the perps.

6) PodVans deliver groceries to your house. They beep you then using their robotic arm will drop off a box of groceries in the marked loading zone.

There are a lot of steps missing here

7) PodCars, PodVans, and PodTaxis all mix quitewell with bicyclists and pedestrians.

How is this so? Some proofs are needed.

Cities need to understand the Green Paint rule. Whenever green lanes are painted, robotic cars are expected to roam. This helps pedestrians and manually driven cars watch out for the little buggers. In fact, that is the only stimulus we really need to fix the oil efficiency problem is some Green Paint and a DMV rule change.

Much is missing in the way this happens. There is NO green paint rule now. Witness the rash of accidents that occur immediately post opening in hew light rail systems. You do not simply flip a switch to change people's habits.

For long haul transport, chains of PodWagons can link up, be powered by a diesel electric locomotives on rubber via electrical tethering. Twenty to thirty in a row, asphalt trains eliminating all the cargo handling of rail trains. On their own, any PodWagon can maneuver around a parking lot and link up in different groups. Thus, for no cost whatsoever, freight yards are constructed from parking lots.

This statement is so far from any likely reality I would not know where to begin.

Hence, zero infrastructure costs (reuse asphalt) Cargo, passenger, home delivery, automated surveillance, trash pick up; the entire range of transportation problems fixed with 1/3 to 1/8 the gasoline usage.

Highly utopian, and highly unrealistic. No way "zero infrastructure cost" is even possible.

 

[WhoozOn1st]

Bad ideas never die. An update:

Pod Cars Start to Gain Traction in Some Cities

"Just get in the car, punch in a destination and the pod car travels directly there without stopping at other stations along the way. An advanced control system ensures each pod car follows the fastest route between origin and destination without bumping into other cars on the system."

Podcars at London Heathrow airport. BAA Ltd. photo

​

 

[George Harris]

Bad ideas never die. An update:

Pod Cars Start to Gain Traction in Some Cities

"Just get in the car, punch in a destination and the pod car travels directly there without stopping at other stations along the way. An advanced control system ensures each pod car follows the fastest route between origin and destination without bumping into other cars on the system."

Many times it seems that nothing else has the durability and longevity of a bad idea, except possibly a really bad idea.

 

[Green Maned Lion]

For every problem there is a solution that is simple, painless, easy, and wrong.

 

[George Harris]

For every problem there is a solution that is simple, painless, easy, and wrong.

Oh, if ony that were even partly true. Quite commonly a solution is conceived that is complex, painful, difficult and still wrong. Unfortunately, quite a few of these are even implemented.