Transportation is Broken

[Peter Muller]

http://www.prtconsulting.com/blog/index.php/2009/09/15/transportation-is-broken-a-new-solution-is-needed/

[Jerry Roane]

Peter

Excellent logical progression.  Since I advocate for dual mode I would like to see dual mode as in the TriTrack approach on your comparison chart.  Other than the deletion of dual mode, pretty good article.

Jerry Roane (TriTrack)

On Tue, Sep 15, 2009 at 3:38 PM, Peter Muller <pmu...@prtconsulting.com> wrote:

http://www.prtconsulting.com/blog/index.php/2009/09/15/transportation-is-broken-a-new-solution-is-needed/

[Dennis Manning]

Peter:

Nice concise piece on the need to recognize that there has been decades of
the deteriorating of our transportation system, and a clear argument for a
solution.

Dennis

----- Original Message -----
From: "Peter Muller" <pmu...@prtconsulting.com>
To: "transport-innovators" <transport-...@googlegroups.com>
Sent: Tuesday, September 15, 2009 1:38 PM
Subject: [t-i] Transportation is Broken


>
> http://www.prtconsulting.com/blog/index.php/2009/09/15/transportation-is-broken-a-new-solution-is-needed/
> >
>

[Peter Muller]

Jerry, I anticipated your reaction and have my answer ready. PRT is
easier to develop and implement than dual mode. It is already being
implemented and becoming commercially available. It is easier and less
confusing to make the case for PRT initially. Once PRT becomes
established, it will be easier to push for dual mode.

Also, the blog was already too long and I did not feel I had the space
to introduce yet another mode.

Peter

On Sep 15, 3:56 pm, Jerry Roane <jerry.ro...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Peter
>
> Excellent logical progression.  Since I advocate for dual mode I would like
> to see dual mode as in the TriTrack approach on your comparison chart.
> Other than the deletion of dual mode, pretty good article.
>
> Jerry Roane (TriTrack)
>

> On Tue, Sep 15, 2009 at 3:38 PM, Peter Muller <pmul...@prtconsulting.com>wrote:
>
>
>
>
>
> >http://www.prtconsulting.com/blog/index.php/2009/09/15/transportation...

[Jerry Roane]

Peter

Fair enough.  I have proposed PRT to those who use the term first to me as a quick way to introduce the hardware in the conversation.  The flexibility of dual mode can come as a fleshed out detail but before any thoughts of construction.  It would be a shame to preclude the choice of unhooking the car and just drive home over a sequential communication technique.  I still think a column in your chart would still be appropriate even if it was not explained in this document.  The other modes in the comparison are not described in this paper yet they are in the chart.  It is always a balancing act to educate an audience to some level.  If you drop off the slower ones by accident trying to explain the bigger concept at some point you drop the ones that make the decisions.  In a one on one situation you can use facial indicators to adjust the message to that individual. 

PRT is not easier to develop.  It has a lot of stations and it requires you get your customer to the station with a missing solution.  The last important person I told about TriTrack style dual mode got it in less than 45 seconds.  She (big shot Hollywood casting director) was telling her coworker all about it correctly after just 45 seconds of contact.  PRT takes a while to grasp that you really expect to build so much rail and so many stations without using up the available funds.  Our version of guideway control where you get on the guideway that is the length you want to travel that direction, is much easier to produce the control computer network.  The car either goes off the end of the continuous metal you ride on or you emergency brake.  Just like Chutes and Ladders even a child can get it.  You hop past all the squares the other players have to roll dice to get past slugging it out on the ground.  If the PRT only message is sold as a brand then it will be another effort to sell the next concept.  Twice the work. 

Jerry Roane

[Dennis Manning]

You are talking past each other. The dual mode Peter is talking about is very different than the dual mode Jerry talks about. Peter's DM is about the vehicles operating in a true network involving the guideway. Tri-Track has no guideway network. The network portion is the street. In a sense you are both right. Tri-Track DM is simpler than network SM PRT. However, DM that operates on a guideway network is more complex than SM.

 

Dennis 

[Walter Brewer]

I seem to be the only one with at least the question. Shouldn't dual mode
come first?
This assumes the more complex design is managable, and is based upon user
requirements. Mainly the first and last mile which will require significant
activity because the area coverage of early nets at an affordable price will
be very limited compared to what autos now provide.
If and when success brings very dense nets and easy walk to the station the
DM capability can be reduced and eliminated.

Walt Brewer

----- Original Message -----
From: "Peter Muller" <pmu...@prtconsulting.com>

To: "transport-innovators" <transport-...@googlegroups.com>
Sent: Tuesday, September 15, 2009 6:25 PM
Subject: [t-i] Re: Transportation is Broken

[Walter Brewer]

"PRT is not easier to develop.  It has a lot of stations and it requires you get your customer to the station with a missing solution. "

 

My point. And how do riders get to the stations for the first few years? What happened to the seamless single vehicle trip concept?

 

 Walt Brewer

----- Original Message -----

From: Jerry Roane

To: transport-...@googlegroups.com

Sent: Tuesday, September 15, 2009 7:39 PM

Subject: [t-i] Re: Transportation is Broken

[eph]

DM augmented by street-based low speed podcars (2getthere) would
creates a very impressive SM network. The podcars could have elevated
(or underground) sections in the city.

F.

[Walter Brewer]

"However, DM that operates on a guideway network is more complex than SM."

Expensive maybe, but no higher state of the art.

 

 Walt Brewer

[Jerry Schneider]

At 05:08 PM 9/15/2009, you wrote:
>You are talking past each other. The dual mode Peter is talking
>about is very different than the dual mode Jerry talks about.
>Peter's DM is about the vehicles operating in a true network
>involving the guideway. Tri-Track has no guideway network. The
>network portion is the street. In a sense you are both right.
>Tri-Track DM is simpler than network SM PRT. However, DM that
>operates on a guideway network is more complex than SM.

Yes, it's difficult to have a sensible discussion about DM vs SM
without first identifying what kind of DM you're thinking about.
The variety is great.

I like the study done by Peter Benjamin, some time ago, using Boston
as his case city. He shows how both DM and SM can be integrated into
an overall areawide system, similar to the comments by eph.
Benjamin's approach is to use each system where its functional
capabilities can be maximized:
http://faculty.washington.edu/jbs/itrans/peterdm.htm

Does it still present some problems that need to be solved - yes -
but substantial technological progress has been made since this study
was done.

Some would argue (e.g. Walt) that we don't have a lot of time to make
some very major improvements in our broken transportation system -
and neither do other countries, especially those that are trying so
hard to repeat our automobility experiences.
Maybe we don't have the money anymore, except for HSR investments.

- Jerry Schneider -
Innovative Transportation Technologies
http://faculty.washington.edu/jbs/itrans

[Kirston Henderson]

on 9/15/09 5:25 PM, Peter Muller at pmu...@prtconsulting.com wrote:

> Jerry, I anticipated your reaction and have my answer ready. PRT is
> easier to develop and implement than dual mode. It is already being
> implemented and becoming commercially available. It is easier and less
> confusing to make the case for PRT initially. Once PRT becomes
> established, it will be easier to push for dual mode.
>
> Also, the blog was already too long and I did not feel I had the space
> to introduce yet another mode.
>

Peter,

Come to Fort Worth and I will show you a dualmode system that is really
no more complex than a PRT.

Kirston Henderson
MegaRail®

[Jerry Roane]

Dennis

That is why I specifically use TriTrack with dual mode defined as a car that drives on the street then converts and goes up on a petite monorail dropping its street specific baggage in the instant it enters the start of the guideway.  If we were to use self driving technology to replace the driver you are correct that would be more complex but certainly not out of the realm of working systems in use today.  By going back to a flat driving surface we open up the options for how to maneuver these cars to their destination.  Since the driver is already there, the cheapest is to get them to steer.  Drivers are highly complex but come for free.  Complexity really has no meaning until you associate dollars with the particular complexity.  Until the network gets near full there is not a need to manage traffic even.  This is analogous to filling up a hard drive.  No problems till you get down to the last megabyte then fragmentation goes nuts and system performance goes unstable.  The routing complexity can be added much later.  It is just a coordinated nav system so it can grow off of the present nav systems that have become very cheap. 

Jerry Roane 

[eph]

So, 36 years ago, a 4 volume report to USDOT stated that DM was a
great idea and nothing happened.

On one hand it's nice to get confirmation that DM makes sense on the
other, it's disheartening to read that it's not happening and it's
difficult to see what has changed in the past 36 years that would make
DM reality. Maybe climate change?

F.

[Kirston Henderson]

on 9/15/09 11:40 PM, eph at rhaps...@yahoo.com wrote:

> So, 36 years ago, a 4 volume report to USDOT stated that DM was a
> great idea and nothing happened.
>
> On one hand it's nice to get confirmation that DM makes sense on the
> other, it's disheartening to read that it's not happening and it's
> difficult to see what has changed in the past 36 years that would make

> DM reality. Maybe climate change.

I realize that few of you pay much attention to my post, but I feel that
I have an important contribution to this DM discussion. Our company is now
operating a true dualmode vehicle that can be driven on the street and
drives itself when on the electrically-powered guideway. This vehicle has
only very slight differences to a pure guideway vehicle. One difference is
that in order to traverse the streets, it has a combination of on-board
batteries and a gasoline-powered generator to recharge the batteries during
extended off-rail operations. We know of some very sound and practical
applications for this type of vehicle and that is why it was designed and
built. However, we do not see this vehicle as being practical for the
average user of DM vehicles for the following reasons. 1. Means must be
provided at each entry ramp to fully test the vehicle before entering the
guideway and means must be provided for washing the wheels,
power-collectors, rail position sensors and the portions of the last resort
steering system of any colleted mud, snow, ice, etc. 2. The owner of such
vehicles must pay a rather hefty price for the guideay-unique features that
are used only during guideway operation.

The sort of dualmode vehicle that we see as practical and affordable is
ordinary cars, or even better, electric cars that can recharge their
ownboard batters while travelling the guideway on our CarFerries that allow
the driver to drive on at a station, select his or her exit and then drive
off of the ferry at that exit. Our design shows that such entry and exit
stations are relatively simple and can generally be installed over road
right of ways in conjunction with the basic guideway. Our smaller
MicroRail for urban LRT type service will be able to carry smaller vehicles
suitable for in-city driving for those critical last miles. Our larger
MegaRail® vehicles are able to carry full-sized automobiles and small SUVs.
(Sorry, no pickup trucks can be allowed because of the tendency of wind from
blowing objects from the beds that would be hazards to other users and the
general public along the guideways.

The CarFerry is a very simple PRT type vehicle with only a car carriage
rack on top instead of a passenger cabin. Otherwise, they are functional
equivalents.

Now you have my rather unique concept of DM, but one that I consider is
fully practical and can be implemented in the very near term.

Kirston Henderson
MegaRail®

[Jack Slade]

I don't remember any "seamless single vehicle concept", not even by the people who gave us the cars we now drive. Their concept was "if I make it easier for people to travel, I will earn money".   The concept you mention just appeared today, devised by somebody who has never invented or produced anything. I don't accept that as criteria to make it my goal.   Jack Slade   Jack Slade --- On Wed, 9/16/09, Walter Brewer <catc...@verizon.net> wrote:

[Dennis Manning]

I feel I'm drifting into the much hammered DM/SM debate which I promised
myself I wouldn't do, so I will resist. I'll just go with Peter's
observation. SM is first out of the chute. I'll get interested in DM when it
gets some real world application underway. You've a lot of catching up to
do.

Dennis

----- Original Message -----
From: "Kirston Henderson" <kirston....@megarail.com>
To: <transport-...@googlegroups.com>
Sent: Tuesday, September 15, 2009 10:07 PM
Subject: [t-i] Re: Transportation is Broken

[Dennis Manning]

We don't have the money for HSR any more either. There is no plan for how to
raise the funds for the supposed $500b next authorization.

The recent $8b bandided about is a drop in the HSR bucket. The Chinese have
earmarked $50b short term for HSR and look to something on the order of
$300b to flesh it out. We aren't even in the game.

Dennis


----- Original Message -----
From: "Jerry Schneider" <j...@peak.org>
To: <transport-...@googlegroups.com>
Sent: Tuesday, September 15, 2009 8:21 PM
Subject: [t-i] Re: Transportation is Broken


>

[eph]

I like the concept of pallets for podcars and DM. I believe an
integrated urban and high speed inter-urban system is needed. We have
discussed this before, MicroRail has limited speed and MegaRail is too
wide for some city applications. If there were a path to high-speed
MicroRail, then it would be a complete inter and intra city solution.
I'm sold on the concept of door to door delivery of people and things
even between cities.

F.

On Sep 16, 1:07 am, Kirston Henderson <kirston.hender...@megarail.com>
wrote:

[Walter Brewer]

Maybe the "seamless words" are different than say the ATRA PRT definition.

But with a few exceptions, like nuclear weapons, hasn't the profit motive been successful for developing and making available goods and services for what most consider improved standard of living? Isn't that the process now underway for making PRT available?

[Walter Brewer]

Yes. And it creates a seamless journey better than using PRT to collect
transfers to LRT etc. There will be a debate concerning need for pallets vs
putting the pods, including intra-city, directly on guideways.

Walt Brewer

----- Original Message -----
From: "eph" <rhaps...@yahoo.com>
To: "transport-innovators" <transport-...@googlegroups.com>
Sent: Wednesday, September 16, 2009 8:46 AM
Subject: [t-i] Re: Transportation is Broken

[Jerry Roane]

Kirston

Your dual mode approach is valid to take ordinary cars and roll them onto a skateboard for cars.  The drawback to that approach is the weight of these vehicles will be the traditional car plus.  This will make your guideway more expensive than a a dual mode guideway where there is a tightly defined weight budget.  If the city ever goes out for bids (That will be the day!) how will a more expensive guideway win the contract? 

Our dual mode patent describes the extra wheels so that the street grit will not be rolling on the guideway precision surfaces.  These small high RPM wheels are small and cheap and replace the need some have for maglev at a minuscule price in comparison.  The structure inside the car to hold these wheels around the tiny guideway is small because the guideway is small and thus the whole dual mode spare set of wheels is low cost, light weight and does not interact with the street mud, snow or gravel embedded into the tread pattern.  The guideway is machine-tool precise so there is a short suspension travel requirement for the guideway wheel bogies.  With this short travel we can power the suspension rather than just passive like cars are now. 

Going into the future energy will most likely be more of an issue and unless you can design both your skateboard and car as one (meaning you design both pieces) I think your aerodynamics will be inferior to a design where the components are designed in harmony.  What do you think your energy cost will be using a carrier holding the biggest allowed car loaded to the weight limit you must set?  I agree that electric power will improve over driving those cars on the street using crude oil as the source but in this discussion we need to flesh out the energy requirements so they can be compared.

Our cross country generator will be in a towable trailer.  It will run on propane using the exchanged bar-b-que pit sized tanks.  Running the generator on propane is much cleaner than gasoline or diesel.  Many big box stores have these tanks so the network of this alternative fuel in this form is already in place thanks to the popularity of outdoor cooking.  Naturally choosing this size tank means the car has to be energy efficient but if we are switching out the transportation fleet (which I am suggesting over a few years time) we might as well go to an efficient design using aircraft construction knowledge.  Also propane will make the engine last 25% longer because it keeps the grit down inside the engine that wears it out.  Propane is also superior in intermittent use because it will not turn to jelly in the carburetor.  This is a standard emergency hurricane power generator so it doubles as your home power outage generator as well as your "hybrid" car engine.  These units are used at construction sites for power till they string the temporary power pole.  If the car gets too heavy these standard low cost high volume units will no longer work and instead of them being $350 they can go into the thousands with higher wattage output.  The price curve is very nonlinear on larger than normal propane powered electric generators.

I didn't want you to think you were being ignored.  

Jerry Roane

[Jerry Roane]

Dennis

Welcome to the assent into the third world.  We do not have to go there but we seem to be paralyzed with our own lack of foresight.  The we don't have the money line is pure bullshit.  We have all the money we have.  Congress chooses what money gets spent where.  They just make bad choices. We are not in the game but we need to be in the right game. 

Jerry Roane

[Michael Weidler]

Nope. You need the guideway in the "activity centers" first or you are just moving congestion around. Then there is the issue of mixing SM and DM on the same guideway. Is it technically doable? Yes. Is it practical? I don't think so. Look at it from the perspective of who takes the wait time hit.

--- On Tue, 9/15/09, Walter Brewer <catc...@verizon.net> wrote:

[Michael Weidler]

Broken transportation system? Broken transit maybe. The biggest problem with the rest of US transportation is aging infrastructure. Let's fix the bridges already! If you are worried about CO2, simply use something else to power your vehicles. We do not need to be shackled to petroleum unless we want to be shackled.

[Kirston Henderson]

on 9/16/09 7:46 AM, eph at rhaps...@yahoo.com wrote:

> I like the concept of pallets for podcars and DM. I believe an
> integrated urban and high speed inter-urban system is needed. We have
> discussed this before, MicroRail has limited speed and MegaRail is too
> wide for some city applications. If there were a path to high-speed
> MicroRail, then it would be a complete inter and intra city solution.
> I'm sold on the concept of door to door delivery of people and things
> even between cities.

Any automobile that can be carried within a city by a MicroRail
CarFerry can also be carried on an intercity basis by the 120-mph MegaRail®
CarFerry. The only slight problem that a driver must exit one system and
drive onto the other to change between systems.

As for high-speed MicroRail, a couple of the limits are that the smaller
MicroRail wheels are not really suitable for the higher speeds and that
these small wheels and tires are not adequate for the significantly higher
loads that are considered necessary for the high-speed lines that must also
transport significant amounts of cargo to enable the system to be successful
from a financial standpoint.

Kirston Henderson
MegaRail®

[eph]

What's missing in your analysis of extra cost for weight is the
benefit. A stronger, slightly more expensive guideway allows
collective vehicles and freight to make use of the guideway. Cities
are currently spending the cash on Collective vehicle only
"guideways" (rails) so value is already established. This is value
added.

F.

> kirston.hender...@megarail.com> wrote:

[eph]

Why? Collective vehicles dump pedestrians into the activity centre.
It's fairly clear to me that the privilege of parking your DM car in
the activity centre will come at a cost (e.g. $430/month in a
Manhattan type setting).

F.

On Sep 16, 10:47 am, Michael Weidler <pstran...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> Nope. You need the guideway in the "activity centers" first or you are just moving congestion around.
>
> Then there is the issue of mixing SM and DM on the same guideway. Is it technically doable? Yes. Is it practical? I don't think so. Look at it from the perspective of who takes the wait time hit.
>

> --- On Tue, 9/15/09, Walter Brewer <catca...@verizon.net> wrote:

[Dennis Manning]

Jerry:

 

You are right. There's always money out there. More accurately I should have said they haven't figured out the source of funds for next 6 year program. They don't want to raise the gas tax, or get into heavy tollong. They have some Mickey Mouse ideas that fall way short of what's needed.

 

I'm not advocating for HSR. Just the opposite. Trains simply are not the best way to go however they are powered.

[Kirston Henderson]

on 9/16/09 9:33 AM, Jerry Roane at jerry...@gmail.com wrote:

> Kirston
>
> Your dual mode approach is valid to take ordinary cars and roll them onto a
> skateboard for cars. The drawback to that approach is the weight of these
> vehicles will be the traditional car plus. This will make your guideway
> more expensive than a a dual mode guideway where there is a tightly defined
> weight budget. If the city ever goes out for bids (That will be the day!)
> how will a more expensive guideway win the contract?

Jerry,

I'm not going to argue the merits of the two approaches, but our design
was developed as a practical means of avoiding the chicken or egg problem by
starting from where we are and also allowing both

Kirston Henderson
MegaRail®

the user-owned vehicles to be as low in complexity as possible and existent
vehicles to make use of the guideway system as it becomes available. I also
acknowledge that our guideways also use more material than those that you
have described for your design. By the way, the guideway cost variation
with load does not vary over nearly as wide a range as one might expect from
MicroRail to MegaRail® because of all of factors other than material cost.

[eph]

Applied Levitation's maglev solution would work well with MicroRail.
The wrap-around guideway would protect the neodymium magnet array from
attracting debris. I don't know what the cost per km would be (a bed
of magnets sounds expensive), but the extra weight penalty of pallets
would be nullified and there seems to be money available for maglev
magic.
http://www.appliedlevitation.com/index.shtml

F.

On Sep 16, 11:10 am, Kirston Henderson
<kirston.hender...@megarail.com> wrote:

[Jerry Roane]

Michael

Capacity is how you solve your problem with sharing.  You may be thinking poor when you should be thinking abundantly.  If there are more functions derived from the guideway network the network effect takes over and the more guideway that gets installed significantly more value comes to the city.  Sharing between dual mode and PRT would be super simple once both are available and with thermal water delivery sharing that guideway in pure PRT mode your home heating and cooling will be cheaper and you will be polluting less because of the guideway.  By sharing each function is boosted by the other so rather than thinking as the present guys do how can we under build and piss off the least influential folks lets build enough plus a little.  This does require that the guideway be low cost of course.  Low cost guideway can be built in enough length and enough parallel lines to satisfy your concerns in any zone.  The traffic congestion is not inside these activity zones like you are assuming.  Try observing these zones and count some cars and filled seats on buses.  Do not consider cities that already have subways as they will be the last places to get advanced transportation. 

Jerry Roane

[Jerry Schneider]

At 09:40 PM 9/15/2009, eph wrote:

>So, 36 years ago, a 4 volume report to USDOT stated that DM was a
>great idea and nothing happened.
>
>On one hand it's nice to get confirmation that DM makes sense on the
>other, it's disheartening to read that it's not happening and it's
>difficult to see what has changed in the past 36 years that would make
>DM reality. Maybe climate change?

Nothing? It seems to me that many of the functions that MegaRail concepts
have are highly similar to those described in the Benjamin study. The same
may be said of RUF, altho car ferries are not currently part of that concept.
And the vehicle infrastructure integration activities that have occurred are
also similar to those identified in the Benjamin study.

[eph]

Neither of those systems is operating, no federal money has been put
into them, they are still in design. I don't think it's a technology
problem since back in 1973 all the pieces needed were there had the
will been there. When you think about the Big Dig that was to solve
transportation problems in Boston, you wonder where we would be had
the money been poured into DM technology.

F.

[Dennis Manning]

Applied Levitation maglev concept isn't a wrap around guideway.

Dennis

----- Original Message -----
From: "eph" <rhaps...@yahoo.com>
To: "transport-innovators" <transport-...@googlegroups.com>
Sent: Wednesday, September 16, 2009 9:38 AM
Subject: [t-i] Re: Transportation is Broken

[eph]

No, the MicroRail guideway would wrap around the Applied Levitation
magnet array, protecting it from debris. As it stands, the Applied
Levitation system seems vulnerable to steel being attracted to the
guideway. I suppose it depends on the strength of the magnet array
and all...

Another way to get MicroRail to high speeds might be to replace rubber
tires with steel wheels on rail (without flanges), also reducing
rolling resistance and allowing higher speeds with smaller wheels.
Track brakes might be needed to maintain short headways.

F.

On Sep 16, 1:41 pm, "Dennis Manning" <john.manni...@comcast.net>
wrote:

> Applied Levitation maglev concept isn't a wrap around guideway.
>
> Dennis
>
> ----- Original Message -----
> From: "eph" <rhapsodi...@yahoo.com>
> To: "transport-innovators" <transport-...@googlegroups.com>
> Sent: Wednesday, September 16, 2009 9:38 AM
> Subject: [t-i] Re: Transportation is Broken
>
> Applied Levitation's maglev solution would work well with MicroRail.
> The wrap-around guideway would protect the neodymium magnet array from
> attracting debris.  I don't know what the cost per km would be (a bed
> of magnets sounds expensive), but the extra weight penalty of pallets
> would be nullified and there seems to be money available for maglev

> magic.http://www.appliedlevitation.com/index.shtml

[Jerry Schneider]

At 10:17 AM 9/16/2009, you wrote:

>Neither of those systems is operating, no federal money has been put
>into them, they are still in design. I don't think it's a technology
>problem since back in 1973 all the pieces needed were there had the
>will been there. When you think about the Big Dig that was to solve
>transportation problems in Boston, you wonder where we would be had
>the money been poured into DM technology.

True, partially. Design is a continuing process. Development begins
when you have some working hardware and software (as MegaRail
currently has) and a test program underway. MegaRail has stated
that they don't want any federal money, unless it is a pass-through
of development/demo funds to the TxDOT. I disagree that all the
functional technology needed was available at a reasonable price in 1973.

"If only" thinking is always interesting and fun. But, I would
argue that your "nothing has been done" is an inappropriate conclusion.
Will is still the biggest missing component. Perhaps if the PRT "purists"
would adopt a cooperative strategy and advocate for a larger vision, more
"will" would develop as more benefits would flow to more stakeholders.
For a large scale transportation vision to succeed, there have to be
a large number of
stakeholders who believe that they would benefit from it. Who are the
stakeholders
who would benefit from the adoption of the kind of integrated transport system
defined by the Benjamin report? Identify them, get them interested and some
"will" might develop.

[Walter Brewer]

Explain why we disagree?

[eph]

I'll take you on your word about the state of technology at the time.

It's looking like the $5B boondoggle will be funded. Knowing there
are better ideas and even systems out there
and that what they propose to do is expensive and relatively useless
is frustrating... I'm doing what I can, but new (untested by time)
technology is a tough sell.

F.

[Jerry Schneider]

At 12:24 PM 9/16/2009, you wrote:

>I'll take you on your word about the state of technology at the time.
>
>It's looking like the $5B boondoggle will be funded. Knowing there
>are better ideas and even systems out there
>and that what they propose to do is expensive and relatively useless
>is frustrating... I'm doing what I can, but new (untested by time)
>technology is a tough sell.

I would hope it is a bit easier in sensible Canada, but still uphill, I'm sure.

[Jerry Roane]

F

You mean like Ipods (173,000,000) and Iphones (10,800,000)?  They seem to sell to the non government sector by the millions.  Selling the $5B boondoggle is just as tough to sell.  They are just funded under the table better so in that sense yes they will win if they don't get caught feeding back the cash.

I can speak to the technology at the time since that is in my field.  The technology existed at the time to build an automated guideway network.  Elevators have been tested for decades.  Amusement park rides have been tested for just as long.  The marriage of the two was well within the available technology at that time.  Texas Instruments (founded 1941) had the computing power as well as Wang.  Dec sold minicomputers in 1965 the PDP8.  Cheap microprocessor in 1971.  It is possible that government suppliers had not yet discovered what was out there at the time.  The untested by time line is no more than a word game.  How tested and how much time is needed to test is more important.  The minds behind the network under test is even more important.  Putting together the minds to do the control is key.  It is possible that those designing transportation system had the same mental block against using new technology and passed on using the obvious choice for such control.  The BetaMax was a marvel of automation and invention that had significantly more complexity than a transportation network.  I think the technology was there.  Programmable controllers were also around for controlling power plants and such.  I do not buy the idea that technology was not available. 

Jerry Roane

[eph]

Well, the investment and test period is much shorter for things like
ipods. People were really pissed off when they found out that
batteries in their ipods could not be replaced rendering their devices
unusable in a few years.

Transit systems such as the ones we propose are in the order of maybe
50 years for the guideway and 20 to 30 years for the vehicles. A bad
choice becomes a very expensive proposition, so one can see the
reluctance to be the first. On the other hand, progress needs to be
made, so some risk must be taken for innovation. Ipods delivered on
the whole and the innovation spread like wildfire. That first step is
the toughest though.

F.

[Kirston Henderson]

on 9/16/09 11:38 AM, eph at rhaps...@yahoo.com wrote:

> Applied Levitation's maglev solution would work well with MicroRail.
> The wrap-around guideway would protect the neodymium magnet array from
> attracting debris. I don't know what the cost per km would be (a bed
> of magnets sounds expensive), but the extra weight penalty of pallets
> would be nullified and there seems to be money available for maglev
> magic.
> http://www.appliedlevitation.com/index.shtml

Thanks for the suggestion, but we have our own patented maglev version
of MicroRail but, for now, are not proceeding with development because we
can do the rubber tire version at much lower cost and with less noise. Our
version does not use any permanent magnets in the guideway, but the guideway
and linear motor costs are the problem. We believe that we have a good
means for vertical and lateral stabilization, problems that have plagued
some other maglev systems.

Kirston Henderson
MegaRail®

[Kirston Henderson]

on 9/16/09 12:17 PM, eph at rhaps...@yahoo.com wrote:

> Neither of those systems is operating, no federal money has been put
> into them, they are still in design. I don't think it's a technology
> problem since back in 1973 all the pieces needed were there had the
> will been there. When you think about the Big Dig that was to solve
> transportation problems in Boston, you wonder where we would be had
> the money been poured into DM technology.

Sorry to disappoint you, but the MegaRail® system has already been
designed and a prototype system is working now and without any Federal
money. We are just know started to market our systems and believe that some
will start being installed soon. You should bear in mind that even if we
were to receive a contract today, it would be about three years before a
system would start public service.

Kirston Henderson
MegaRail®

[eph]

OK. Just to finish the thread, Applied Levitation claim:
# Low capital cost — SPM guideways can be built, mile for mile, for
about the same cost as one lane of freeway with twenty times the
carrying capacity.

We all know how long it takes to get an idea off the page and into
testing then to an operating system.
"Together with our partners, LaunchPoint Technologies and Fastransit
Inc., we have recently finished Phase 2 of our technology development
and are now ready to build a full-scale prototype and short
demonstration track."

F.

On Sep 16, 5:18 pm, Kirston Henderson <kirston.hender...@megarail.com>
wrote:

[eph]

I'm not disappointed you will be building an operational (deployed
or ??? to mean people are using it) system. It's good news. I'll be
following the development with interest.

F.

On Sep 16, 5:23 pm, Kirston Henderson <kirston.hender...@megarail.com>
wrote:

[Kirston Henderson]

on 9/16/09 4:35 PM, eph at rhaps...@yahoo.com wrote:

> I'm not disappointed you will be building an operational (deployed
> or ??? to mean people are using it) system. It's good news. I'll be
> following the development with interest.

We are giving it the good old college try and our plan is to build
people-carrying systems ASAP. We expect that the first system will probably
be the MicroRail version for in-city uses. That does not mean that we are
not working very hard to sell the high-speed MegaRail® systems as well.

Kirston Henderson
MegaRail®

[Jerry Roane]

F

I could not be more opposed to your statement about 20 30 50 years.  That does not account for the increasing rate of change in the rate of change.  "many shall run to and fro, and knowledge shall be increased." -- Daniel 12-4.  We know more now than we did 50 years ago. 

Jerry Roane  

[eph]

Here's what I was saying in different words... Guideways
(infrastructure) is expected to last for 50+ years and is financed
that way, same idea for vehicles (closer to 20 years depending on the
type). If an untested (by time) system under-performs and falls short
of it's expectation, the capital invested will be lost. You buy a
$500 ipod expecting to keep it for 10 years ($50/year) but after 2
years, the batteries don't hold a charge very long anymore so you buy
a new one ($250/year).

If your reply was to this thought, I didn't get it.

F.

On Sep 16, 6:26 pm, Jerry Roane <jerry.ro...@gmail.com> wrote:
> F
>

> I could not be more opposed to your statement about 20 30 50 years.  That
> does not account for the increasing rate of change in the rate of
> change.  "many
> shall run to and fro, and knowledge shall be increased." -- Daniel 12-4.  We
> know more now than we did 50 years ago.
>
> Jerry Roane
>

[Jerry Roane]

F

OK yes guideway should last for a very long time. 

As for the battery repair on your ipod.  Just open it up and get out your soldering iron.  Our cars will be customer repairable.  No more being held hostage by the mechanic.  The modules will be refurbished at the depot and your refurbished replacement module will pass your dead one in the mail.  With a high speed network enabling twice a day ground mail you will send in your dead module at 8:00 AM and have the replacement in your car by lunch.  With modularity there is no one time when the thing dies unlike today's devices that are encouraged to be thrown away with a single component (battery) failing.  We do have to transition away from a throw away society.  That is a huge cultural change that has to occur soon. 

Anything can be repaired and the idea that some part might fall short ignores the likelihood that it will be repaired.  The investment will not be lost just like the songs in your ipod will not be lost when your ipod dies.  They will either be backed up ahead of time and play again or you can unsolder your ipod memory components and retrieve the songs from the components.  The difference is looking at a complete system versus looking at it as a series of sub-modules. 

My last reply was down a whole different path. 

Jerry Roane

[eph]

Thanks Jerry, I never bought one of those Ipods, I bought a cheap one
I expect to replace when the battery dies.

So what happens then is what happened to the Seattle monorail
project. They want a bond to guarantee the vehicles (and the
guideways) for the expected lifetime. Problem is that this balloons
the sticker price to a level that is no longer affordable. Modularity
and ease of repair will help reduce that amount as will any other
measures to reduce risk, perhaps accelerated environment testing - run
the vehicles 24/7 through all their cycles in varying conditions.
Something car companies do I gather, along with crash tests. Others
I'm sure have more knowledge in this area.

DM also has potential to spread the risk to vehicle owners (as you
mentioned) instead of placing all the risk on the single system buyer.

F.

On Sep 16, 8:02 pm, Jerry Roane <jerry.ro...@gmail.com> wrote:
> F
>

> OK yes guideway should last for a very long time.
>
> As for the battery repair on your ipod.  Just open it up and get out your

> soldering iron.  Our cars will be *customer repairable*.  No more being held

> hostage by the mechanic.  The modules will be refurbished at the depot and
> your refurbished replacement module will pass your dead one in the mail.
> With a high speed network enabling twice a day ground mail you will send in
> your dead module at 8:00 AM and have the replacement in your car by lunch.
> With modularity there is no one time when the thing dies unlike today's
> devices that are encouraged to be thrown away with a single component
> (battery) failing.  We do have to transition away from a throw away
> society.  That is a huge cultural change that has to occur soon.
>
> Anything can be repaired and the idea that some part might fall short
> ignores the likelihood that it will be repaired.  The investment will not be
> lost just like the songs in your ipod will not be lost when your ipod dies.
> They will either be backed up ahead of time and play again or you can
> unsolder your ipod memory components and retrieve the songs from the
> components.  The difference is looking at a complete system versus looking
> at it as a series of sub-modules.
>
> My last reply was down a whole different path.
>
> Jerry Roane
>

[Edward Sax]

Yes,  the technology was there at the time,  but susceptible to very small amounts of static or emp electricity.    Until those problems were resolved,  solid state control systems that worked in the lab often died in the field. --- On Wed, 9/16/09, Jerry Roane <jerry...@gmail.com> wrote:

From: Jerry Roane <jerry...@gmail.com> Subject: [t-i] Re: Transportation is Broken To: transport-...@googlegroups.com

[Jerry Roane]

Edward

I have spent a lot of my career undoing this misunderstood property of electronics.  Modern ICs all have internal on-chip protection circuits to avoid this.  The problem was not so much the parts being blown up in the final circuit but that they were blown up before they were assembled into circuits where the inputs and outputs were tied to something.  If you let the leads just float they would build up high voltages and burn the tiny components in two.  Unless you have a specific part in mind once these static sensitive parts were placed in a functional circuit with all loads connected this was not a problem.  It may be that a designer messed up and forgot to terminate all the leads on his parts in the circuit.  It is also true that maintenance guys could go poking around inside the circuits and induce static voltages enough to blast them into bit heaven but the "in the lab" story is probably myth based on this very misunderstood phenomenon. 

The simple answer for production even today is to add an ion generator just above the assembly station.  The ions shunt the static charges that you make moving around.  I have juicier stories about production workers and the cotton versus synthetic fabrics but I will save it for another day.  I contend that circuits of that day were sufficient for control of guideway cars.  Static electricity was well known long before then.

Jerry Roane

[Jack Slade]

I don't think so. It is possible for many of us to provide systems that will ease the problem of transportable fuel, congestion, and convenience. Convenience we need, if we are going to persuade people to use our systems.   The convenience of door-to-door can only happen with PRT when the first systems operate profitably for a number of years, so that money is available to extend lines to residential areas.   Those of you who are insisting that we have to invent something to replace the automobile, totally, are wishing for too much, which causes the arguments we are having, and may be delaying success for anything.   The money is there, if you calculate the yearly cost of 20% of all the household budgets in the Country, but it will not be available for low-density areas first.   Remember also: Continuing with any system that operates on roads partially means continuing the upkeep of those roads forever. At whose expense??   Jack Slade

--- On Wed, 9/16/09, Walter Brewer <catc...@verizon.net> wrote:

From: Walter Brewer <catc...@verizon.net> Subject: [t-i] Re: Transportation is Broken To: transport-...@googlegroups.com

Received: Wednesday, September 16, 2009, 1:04 PM Maybe the "seamless words" are different than say the ATRA PRT definition. But with a few exceptions, like nuclear weapons, hasn't the profit motive been successful for developing and making available goods and services for what most consider improved standard of living? Isn't that the process now underway for making PRT available?    Walt Brewer

----- Original Message ----- From: Jack Slade To: transport-...@googlegroups.com

Sent: Wednesday, September 16, 2009 2:50 AM Subject: [t-i] Re: Transportation is Broken

I don't remember any "seamless single vehicle concept", not even by the people who gave us the cars we now drive. Their concept was "if I make it easier for people to travel, I will earn money".   The concept you mention just appeared today, devised by somebody who has never invented or produced anything. I don't accept that as criteria to make it my goal.   Jack Slade   Jack Slade

--- On Wed, 9/16/09, Walter Brewer <catc...@verizon.net> wrote:

From: Walter Brewer <catc...@verizon.net> Subject: [t-i] Re: Transportation is Broken To: transport-...@googlegroups.com

Received: Wednesday, September 16, 2009, 1:59 AM "PRT is not easier to develop.  It has a lot of stations and it requires you get your customer to the station with a missing solution. "   My point. And how do riders get to the stations for the first few years? What happened to the seamless single vehicle trip concept?    Walt Brewer

----- Original Message ----- From: Jerry Roane To: transport-...@googlegroups.com Sent: Tuesday, September 15, 2009 7:39 PM Subject: [t-i] Re: Transportation is Broken

Peter Fair enough.  I have proposed PRT to those who use the term first to me as a quick way to introduce the hardware in the conversation.  The flexibility of dual mode can come as a fleshed out detail but before any thoughts of construction.  It would be a shame to preclude the choice of unhooking the car and just drive home over a sequential communication technique.  I still think a column in your chart would still be appropriate even if it was not explained in this document.  The other modes in the comparison are not described in this paper yet they are in the chart.  It is always a balancing act to educate an audience to some level.  If you drop off the slower ones by accident trying to explain the bigger concept at some point you drop the ones that make the decisions.  In a one on one situation you can use facial indicators to adjust the message to that individual.  PRT is not easier to develop.  It has a lot of stations and it requires you get your customer to the station with a missing solution.  The last important person I told about TriTrack style dual mode got it in less than 45 seconds.  She (big shot Hollywood casting director) was telling her coworker all about it correctly after just 45 seconds of contact.  PRT takes a while to grasp that you really expect to build so much rail and so many stations without using up the available funds.  Our version of guideway control where you get on the guideway that is the length you want to travel that direction, is much easier to produce the control computer network.  The car either goes off the end of the continuous metal you ride on or you emergency brake.  Just like Chutes and Ladders even a child can get it.  You hop past all the squares the other players have to roll dice to get past slugging it out on the ground.  If the PRT only message is sold as a brand then it will be another effort to sell the next concept.  Twice the work.  Jerry Roane

[Michael Weidler]

Because the ground traffic doesn't just magically disappear even with DM. If you want more on this, go back a month or so and read the long debate Jay, Jerry R, and I had about this subject. The bottom line is that once you get a vehicle out of the ground-level plane you need to keep it out - especially in areas where traffic congragates (aka acitvity centers). --- On Wed, 9/16/09, eph <rhaps...@yahoo.com> wrote:

From: eph <rhaps...@yahoo.com> Subject: [t-i] Re: Transportation is Broken

To: "transport-innovators" <transport-...@googlegroups.com> Date: Wednesday, September 16, 2009, 8:16 AM Why?  Collective vehicles dump pedestrians into the activity centre. It's fairly clear to me that the privilege of parking your DM car in the activity centre will come at a cost (e.g. $430/month in a Manhattan type setting). F.

On Sep 16, 10:47 am, Michael Weidler <pstran...@yahoo.com> wrote: > Nope. You need the guideway in the "activity centers" first or you are just moving congestion around. > > Then there is the issue of mixing SM and DM on the same guideway. Is it technically doable? Yes. Is it practical? I don't think so. Look at it from the perspective of who takes the wait time hit. >

> --- On Tue, 9/15/09, Walter Brewer <catca...@verizon.net> wrote:

> > From: Walter Brewer <catca...@verizon.net> > Subject: [t-i] Re: Transportation is Broken > To: transport-...@googlegroups.com

> Date: Tuesday, September 15, 2009, 6:41 PM > > I seem to be the only one with at least the question. Shouldn't dual mode > come first? > This assumes the more complex design is managable, and is based upon user > requirements. Mainly the first and last mile which will require significant > activity because the area coverage of early nets at an affordable price will > be very limited compared to what autos now provide. > If and when success brings very dense nets and easy walk to the station the > DM capability can be reduced and eliminated. >

>  Walt Brewer > > ----- Original Message ----- > From: "Peter Muller" <pmul...@prtconsulting.com> > To: "transport-innovators" <transport-...@googlegroups.com> > Sent: Tuesday, September 15, 2009 6:25 PM > Subject: [t-i] Re: Transportation is Broken >

[eph]

And I'm saying that parking rates will keep enough people out so that
they will choose either SM (drop-off) or mass transit, both of which
are available with DM (typically).

F.

On Sep 17, 1:28 pm, Michael Weidler <pstran...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> Because the ground traffic doesn't just magically disappear even with DM. If you want more on this, go back a month or so and read the long debate Jay, Jerry R, and I had about this subject. The bottom line is that once you get a vehicle out of the ground-level plane you need to keep it out - especially in areas where traffic congragates (aka acitvity centers).
>

> --- On Wed, 9/16/09, eph <rhapsodi...@yahoo.com> wrote:

[Jerry Schneider]

At 11:12 AM 9/17/2009, you wrote:

>And I'm saying that parking rates will keep enough people out so that
>they will choose either SM (drop-off) or mass transit, both of which
>are available with DM (typically).

If you insist on locating your DM parking facilities on high cost
land in high density areas, it will probably cost a lot.
If you don't do this, it should cost less and the connecting
transport, if needed, will take a little longer. Of course,
you could do both and keep everyone happy, except MW.

[eph]

Our transit system already has Park&Ride lots (in the suburbs).
Someone here posted the idea of terminating DM into a parking
structure in the activity centre which can create both a solution to
congestion and a captive market. :) Ottawa is about to get funding
for a 3.2 km tunnel (with 3 stations) that will be 9 storeys below
ground. That could mean huge parking structures by the time you get
to the surface! A less draconian idea would be proof of parking
(parking assignment) before entering the activity centre zone. This
would reduce the amount of driving around looking for parking too.

F.

[Walter Brewer]

Suppose the DM vehicle is rented to include periods off the guideway
including overnights and thus not any different from SM vehicles in the
congested area.

Walt Brewer
----- Original Message -----

From: "eph" <rhaps...@yahoo.com>
To: "transport-innovators" <transport-...@googlegroups.com>

[Jerry Schneider]

At 11:52 AM 9/17/2009, you wrote:

>Our transit system already has Park&Ride lots (in the suburbs).
>Someone here posted the idea of terminating DM into a parking
>structure in the activity centre which can create both a solution to
>congestion and a captive market. :) Ottawa is about to get funding
>for a 3.2 km tunnel (with 3 stations) that will be 9 storeys below
>ground. That could mean huge parking structures by the time you get
>to the surface! A less draconian idea would be proof of parking
>(parking assignment) before entering the activity centre zone. This
>would reduce the amount of driving around looking for parking too.

If you insist on being able to park "in" the major activity center, then
you will have to pay a high price for it. If you park "near" the MAC,
you will pay more for it in monetary terms and have to endure a transfer
to a PRT, shuttle bus, moving sidewalk or some other mode to get
to your door of choice. If the transfer is "seamless" then the endurance
test would be minor. I believe that current technology exists that can
tell you about available parking spaces on your cell phone. How well
it works, I don't know. If you deboard a mass transit vehicle in a tunnel,
9 stories below the surface, why would you need to be concerned about
finding a parking space?

[Roy Reynolds]

Could the iPhone change the way we travel?

September 17, 2009

In his Transport column in Slate, Tom Vanderbilt looks at the “most intriguing” iPhone applications for all modes of transportation — driving, parking, transit, carpooling, bicycling, and walking. He writes about the appeal of the iPhone as a source of transportation information:

Rival smartphones, of course, are equipped with GPS, Internet access, etc., but none corral quite so many of the features that delight transpo geeks (an accelerometer, a compass, etc.) into one device. And rival phones can only envy the iPhone’s flourishing app market, which includes some 65,000 options, many at least peripherally related to transportation (that is, if you include parallel parking games and the like).

Link to full story in Slate.

 

Roy Reynolds

www.prtstrategies.com

[eph]

Because the mass transit line 9 storeys below grade can also be the DM/
SM guideway. I suppose if you have to build a ramp that will take you
(your vehicle) up 9 storeys, you may as well build a parking garage.

Mass transit users would use the escalator, up to surface PRT
(2getthere style) or buses, SM users could continue their trip to the
surface in their automated 2getthere style vehicle (different from DM
vehicles) - other combinations are possible.

So different ideas - one where a parking garage is built and imposed
on DM riders and another where anyone entering the MAC (in a car) must
show proof of parking.

F.

[Michael Weidler]

Good luck with that one (raising parking fees).

--- On Thu, 9/17/09, eph <rhaps...@yahoo.com> wrote:

[Michael Weidler]

Sounds to me like we're talking about park&rides rather than DM. Driving or using transit to get to a "PRT" system is not DM.   DM takes non-guideway vehicles attaches them to a guideway (by various means) and then deposits them somewhere else. It is this depositing somewhere esle which is causing (some of) the arguments between myself and DM advocates. --- On Thu, 9/17/09, Jerry Schneider <j...@peak.org> wrote:

[Michael Weidler]

And this is another area where DM advocates and I differ. I think public ownership (rentals) of vehicles is the only good way to combine DM and SM on the same guideway. DM advocates seem to be against public ownership.

--- On Thu, 9/17/09, Walter Brewer <catc...@verizon.net> wrote:

[eph]

I think that if you have a pallet based DM system (and others like
RUF), guideways must be stronger to support the extra weight so it
makes sense to have mass-transit, PRT and DM availability. Some
people may choose to rent out their vehicles while they are at the
office (and get paid for use of the vehicle) and others may choose not
to. The point is that these DM system allows many ways to use the
guideway, it's not homogeneous like PRT.

F.

On Sep 19, 11:17 am, Michael Weidler <pstran...@yahoo.com> wrote:
> And this is another area where DM advocates and I differ. I think public ownership (rentals) of vehicles is the only good way to combine DM and SM on the same guideway. DM advocates seem to be against public ownership.
>

[Jerry Schneider]

At 08:17 AM 9/19/2009, you wrote:
>And this is another area where DM advocates and I differ. I think
>public ownership (rentals) of vehicles is the only good way to
>combine DM and SM on the same guideway. DM advocates seem to be
>against public ownership.

Care to provide any evidence for this assertion?

[Sergey Prokhorenko]

The list of vendors is arbitrary limited and therefore not credible on this website. No real comparison of different concepts/projects against stated criteria. Groupthink.

 

Sergey Prokhorenko

SkyTaxi

 

----- Original Message -----

From: Jerry Roane

To: transport-...@googlegroups.com

Sent: Wednesday, September 16, 2009 1:56 AM

Subject: [t-i] Re: Transportation is Broken

Peter

Excellent logical progression.  Since I advocate for dual mode I would like to see dual mode as in the TriTrack approach on your comparison chart.  Other than the deletion of dual mode, pretty good article.

Jerry Roane (TriTrack)

On Tue, Sep 15, 2009 at 3:38 PM, Peter Muller <pmu...@prtconsulting.com> wrote:

http://www.prtconsulting.com/blog/index.php/2009/09/15/transportation-is-broken-a-new-solution-is-needed/

[Michael Weidler]

Just all the conversations and debate we've had on the list regarding the subject over the last 3 or 4 years.

--- On Sat, 9/19/09, Jerry Schneider <j...@peak.org> wrote:

From: Jerry Schneider <j...@peak.org> Subject: [t-i] Re: Transportation is Broken

[Jerry Roane]

Sergey

I think a concise organization of the information is in order.  The problem I have with my arrangement is that I do not have firm completed pricing.  I am working hard on that topic and when my vehicle is rolling down the street we will have costs on TriTrack Street and its high volume production costs but for the guideway in a particular site that cost is going to be extremely variable based on the hoops that the city will make the vendor jump through like environmental studies and right of way negotiations.  One thing that is often left off comparisons of systems is cost yet that is probably the most important.  Again the problem at this stage for TriTrack is that is most vague.  The other performance parameters are easy to tabulate and compare in a spreadsheet of course and the TTI study did an table like (but did not include the names of the systems for fear but A through N) this with that $100K study.  They compared 14 in their comparison table and yours is listed in the back of the document.  I count 101 entries of which yours is one in their "Comparison Matrix of Ready and Emerging Innovative Transportation Technologies.  They list the source as Dr. Schneider's site.  From this 2001information it looks like they show us with incorrect information for this 2007 study look. 

Speed
Cost per car
Cost per mile guideway hardware (sans right of way)
Type DM pure PRT Line Haul or whatever
Energy per passenger mile full
Energy per passenger mile projected average
Status of project
Projected debut of vehicle
Projected debut of guideway segment
Projected debut of two point working demo
Pollution per passenger mile projected average SO2 CO2 CO NOx PM10 PM2.5
Vehicles per hour maximum
Distance average from door to rolling stock plus polling stock to destination door
Noise level at 20 feet distance from passing vehicle
Pounds of vehicle per passenger
Energy cost per passenger mile projected average
Vehicle Cd X frontal area
Total cost of ownership per mile
Number of average mode transfers
Time average of a transfer
Fully air conditioned percent of time of travel 100 -> 1%


Not trying to be US concentric too much the chart should have columns for metric equivalents of course but list both English and Metric to aid the reader in understanding the information.  To help the casual observer it needs to have 5 million per lane mile for a highway with a capacity of 2174 vehicles per hour to provide a base from which to compare. 

Please add your thoughts on this list of parameters and perhaps we can put together a useful cost centric comparison.

Jerry Roane

[Sergey Prokhorenko]

I have some statistics data on this matter:

 

DM advocate	Country	Concept/Project	Ownership	Carriers (pallets)
Frank Randak	USA	AVT	Private Dual Mode vehicles	Dual Mode with carriers (pallets)
Jan-Erik Nowacki	Sweden	FlyWay	Private Dual Mode vehicles	Dual Mode with carriers (pallets)
Tad Winiecki	USA	Higherway	Private Dual Mode vehicles	Dual Mode with carriers (pallets)
Arno Mong Daastoel	Norway	?	Private Dual Mode vehicles	Dual Mode with carriers (pallets)
Jerry Roane	USA	TriTrack	Private Dual Mode vehicles	True Dual Mode
Willi Eichholz	Germany	Computer-Taxi-Bahn	Private Dual Mode vehicles	True Dual Mode
Francis Reynolds	USA	HiLoMag	Private Dual Mode vehicles	True Dual Mode
Andrew Atkin	New Zealand	ATN	Private Dual Mode vehicles	True Dual Mode
Kirston Henderson	USA	MicroRail	Private Dual Mode vehicles	?
Chris Muir	USA	SkyTran	Private Dual Mode vehicles	?
Ian Ford	USA	?	?	Dual Mode with carriers (pallets)
Gary Penn	USA	SkyWeb Express/Taxi2000	?	Dual Mode with carriers (pallets)
Daryl Oster	USA	ETT	?	Dual Mode with carriers (pallets)
Bruce McHenry	USA	?	?	True Dual Mode
Palle Jensen	Denmark	RUF	?	True Dual Mode
John Stegmann	South Africa	Capsi	?	?
Sergey Prokhorenko	Russia	SkyTaxi	One trip rented Dual Mode vehicles	Dual Mode with carriers (pallets)
William Haught	USA	?	One trip rented Dual Mode vehicles	Dual Mode with carriers (pallets)
Dennis Manning	USA	?	One trip rented Dual Mode vehicles	?

 

Most, but NOT ALL (!!!) DM advocates prefer private Dual Mode vehicles, but they should think again.

 

Note: the more DM advocate prefers carriers (pallets), the more he prefers public Dual Mode vehicles. Therefore I come to a conclusion that "TRUE Dual Mode" advocates think about private cars with intelligent cruise-control on elevated highway, not about absolutely new type of transport.

 

Sergey Prokhorenko,

SkyTaxi

[eph]

"Most, but NOT ALL (!!!) DM advocates prefer private Dual Mode
vehicles, but they should think again."

Why is it an either/or not a both/and?

F.

On Sep 21, 3:13 pm, "Sergey Prokhorenko"

[Sergey Prokhorenko]

Jerry,

 

I think it's too early to calculate costs, because all cost predictions would be deceptive at this stage. We can only estimate approximate comparative costs of technologies and designs on the basis of engineering experience. We should also estimate viability and future capabilities of technologies and designs and goals of designers, but not the exact level of parameters. I mean 150 kph or 230 kph are both HIGH speed, and 30 kph or 50 kph are both LOW speed, but exact level is not so important for comparisons at this early stage.

 

I also think that "status of project", "projected debut" and wasted money for R&D mean NOTHING. We all know about many PRT projects that were suspended at late stages because of their congenital defects. Some of projects have low scalability, and their test track or niche application does not show capability for city wide service.

 

I also think that first we should list (groups of) criteria, and after that we should list numeral and qualitative parameters for those criteria.

 

I advice you to place the list of criteria at ATRA wiki, so that everybody could add new criteria.

 

The criteria could be for example:

 

• Speed
• Power consumption
• Traffic capacity
• Capital cost
• Maintenance cost
• Weatherproof
• Noise
• Scalability
• Fault-tolerance
• Comfort
• Accessibility
• Dual Mode (door-to-door) capability
• Trackside and turning radius

... and so on...

 

Sergey Prokhorenko,

[Sergey Prokhorenko]

Sorry, I don't understand your question.

Sergey Prokhorenko

[eph]

On palleted DM systems, why does there have to be a choice of public
or private vehicles? If a system can handle private vehicles, why
can't it handle public (shared) vehicles?

F.

On Sep 21, 4:58 pm, "Sergey Prokhorenko"

[Jerry Schneider]

At 08:33 AM 9/21/2009, you wrote:
>Just all the conversations and debate we've had on the list
>regarding the subject over the last 3 or 4 years.

Any chance that your memory is being "selective"?
----------------------------------

>--- On Sat, 9/19/09, Jerry Schneider <j...@peak.org> wrote:
>
>From: Jerry Schneider <j...@peak.org>
>Subject: [t-i] Re: Transportation is Broken
>To: transport-...@googlegroups.com
>Date: Saturday, September 19, 2009, 9:53 AM
>
>
>At 08:17 AM 9/19/2009, you wrote:
> >And this is another area where DM advocates and I differ. I think
> >public ownership (rentals) of vehicles is the only good way to
> >combine DM and SM on the same guideway. DM advocates seem to be
> >against public ownership.
>
>Care to provide any evidence for this assertion?

[Kirston Henderson]

on 9/21/09 4:16 PM, eph at rhaps...@yahoo.com wrote:

> On palleted DM systems, why does there have to be a choice of public
> or private vehicles? If a system can handle private vehicles, why
> can't it handle public (shared) vehicles?

Our MicroRail and MegaRail® system intermix both.

Kirston Henderson
MegaRail®

[Kirston Henderson]

on 9/21/09 3:56 PM, Sergey Prokhorenko at sergeypr...@yahoo.com.au wrote:

Jerry,

I think it's too early to calculate costs, because all cost predictions would be deceptive at this stage. We can only estimate approximate comparative costs of technologies and designs on the basis of engineering experience. We should also estimate viability and future capabilities of technologies and designs and goals of designers, but not the exact level of parameters. I mean 150 kph or 230 kph are both HIGH speed, and 30 kph or 50 kph are both LOW speed, but exact level is not so important for comparisons at this early stage.

Sergey,

   I don't understand you contention that it is too early to calculate costs.  In our own case, we have a demonstrator system that has been built and is available for demonstrations and have done in-depth cost analysis for various configurations and have even go so far to provide firm, fixed-price quotes for customers.  We are in a position to provide accurate cost data for every aspect of our systems.  In several cases, we have published what we consider upper limit costs for systems both large and small.  You can't get serious with customers without being able to tell them what a system is going to cost.

Kirston Henderson
MegaRail®

[Kirston Henderson]

on 9/21/09 2:13 PM, Sergey Prokhorenko at sergeypr...@yahoo.com.au wrote:

I have some statistics data on this matter:

DM advocate Country Concept/Project Ownership Carriers (pallets) Frank Randak USA AVT Private Dual Mode vehicles Dual Mode with carriers (pallets) Jan-Erik Nowacki Sweden FlyWay Private Dual Mode vehicles Dual Mode with carriers (pallets) Tad Winiecki USA Higherway Private Dual Mode vehicles Dual Mode with carriers (pallets) Arno Mong Daastoel Norway ? Private Dual Mode vehicles Dual Mode with carriers (pallets) Jerry Roane USA TriTrack Private Dual Mode vehicles True Dual Mode Willi Eichholz Germany Computer-Taxi-Bahn Private Dual Mode vehicles True Dual Mode Francis Reynolds USA HiLoMag Private Dual Mode vehicles True Dual Mode Andrew Atkin New Zealand ATN Private Dual Mode vehicles True Dual Mode Kirston Henderson USA MicroRail Private Dual Mode vehicles ? Chris Muir USA SkyTran Private Dual Mode vehicles ? Ian Ford USA ? ? Dual Mode with carriers (pallets) Gary Penn USA SkyWeb Express/Taxi2000 ? Dual Mode with carriers (pallets) Daryl Oster USA ETT ? Dual Mode with carriers (pallets) Bruce McHenry USA ? ? True Dual Mode Palle Jensen Denmark RUF ? True Dual Mode John Stegmann South Africa Capsi ? ? Sergey Prokhorenko Russia SkyTaxi One trip rented Dual Mode vehicles Dual Mode with carriers (pallets) William Haught USA ? One trip rented Dual Mode vehicles Dual Mode with carriers (pallets) Dennis Manning USA ? One trip rented Dual Mode vehicles ?

Most, but NOT ALL (!!!) DM advocates prefer private Dual Mode vehicles, but they should think again.

Note: the more DM advocate prefers carriers (pallets), the more he prefers public Dual Mode vehicles. Therefore I come to a conclusion that "TRUE Dual Mode" advocates think about private cars with intelligent cruise-control on elevated highway, not about absolutely new type of transport.

Sergey,

   With regard to the table that you included, you should have separate lines for MicroRail and MegaRail® as they are similar systems, but significantly different in size and speed capability.  Both system can carry dualmode vehicles and guideway-only vehicles intermixed on the same guideways.  They can carry both "true" dualmode vehicles that operate both on streets and on the guideway.  A second dualmode capability for both is our CarFerry" that is a guideway-only vehicle that carries either standard automobiles or electric vehicles and can provide for electric vehicle battery (or flywheel) energy storage during guideway travel.  The latter two types of vehicles are driven onto and off of our CarFerries at appropriate entry and exit stations.

   We have absolutely no interest in developing any type of vehicle that runs on standard highways using "intelligent cruse control" on elevated guideways because we believe that any guideway system must be entirely weatherproof that such vehicles don't fit that requirement.

Kirston Henderson
MegaRail®

[Jack Slade]

I have thought about this, also, and there is one problem that nobody has mentioned:: As soon as the vehicle leaves the guideway and moves to the street, it has to have proper insurance. Who pays it, and how?   Jack Slade --- On Tue, 9/22/09, Kirston Henderson <kirston....@megarail.com> wrote:

From: Kirston Henderson <kirston....@megarail.com> Subject: [t-i] Re: Public vs. private DM vehicles (was "Transportation is Broken")

[Gary Penn]

I am somewhat surprised to see myself listed as an advocate for a dual mode Skyweb Express/ Taxi2000. As far as I know no one has proposed a Taxi2000-based DM. Any dual model vehicle transported on this light weight system would have to be quite small indeed. I do continue to admire the Taxi2000 design and the openness about it that resulted in more information being available than about any other system, which in turn made it seem closer to being "real" than most of PRT/PAT systems. At least up until construction began on Heathrow.

While I think the Taxi2000 design is sound and "buildable" the company apparently has never had a fund raiser, salesman or evangelist capable of getting anywhere near a paying customer or enough money to do the mass of detail engineering all of these paper systems need to become real. That is no different than nearly  all of these other ideas looking for a funded design office but it seems a shame since the published design had so many desirable future: LIM in the vehicle, a single seating row facing a big airbag, switching, traction and braking separate from the pneumatic tires and a speed range that was said to be capable of up to 80 MPH, maybe with modifications,  on long straight runs that would make area coverage plausible in American sprawl cities. Vectus looks like (IMHO) a workaround Taxi2000 patents although it is not clear, to me anyway, whether those patents are still in effect or who controls them. 

It is great to see the battery-powered wheel traction, steering and guidance systems actually getting built but it is difficult to see how they can be expanded to cover even moderately large areas or how they can operate reliably  out in the open in areas subject to cold weather. 

About DM: it seems to me that its advocates are trading the high cost of building a lot of closely spaced PRT guideway for the high costs of building a lot of relatively expensive DM capable vehicles. While the DM guideway grid spacing can be larger and the area served as much larger than the guideway provided area as the DM cars can transverse on their own, someone has to pay for a much larger number of vehicles if the customers are to continue to drive alone in personally-owned cars. If the cars are owned by the system operator and rented it is hard to see how far flung low density suburbs can be served unless the vehicles can drive themselves back to the guideway after delivering the customer to his large lot home. And, again in my opinion, introducing self driving vastly complicates the set of problems to be solved. Without it the customer has to buy the DM car even though at the beginning there would be very limited guideway coverage and the DM vehicles would be expensive and burdened by design compromises. Palletized transport of standard or slightly modified vehicles is the only approach that would seem to make sense and there the minimum combined vehicle weight is dramatically higher than SM, most, if not all, of the energy saving while on the guideway disappear and the present congestion remains at both ends of the guideway, pollution and energy wastage too if the pallet-transported cars are fossil fuel burners. 

It is not obvious that the Total cost of providing in-route automated, elevated, electrified guideway transportation in a metropolitan area would be lower with fewer miles of DM guideways and many more DM vehicles vs. more miles of smaller SM guideways and many fewer, smaller, lighter, simpler SM vehicles plus a short healthful walk at either end of the trip. Since those who might have real cost figures on unbuilt systems are keeping them to themselves it doesn't appear that a definitive analysis is likely to be made anytime soon.

Gary Penn

Austin, Texas

[eph]

Jack Slade,
There are already car sharing schemes in different places (Ontario for
one), so the insurance "problem" can be sorted out. Insurance
companies will figure out how to take our money.

Gary,
The energy use on palleted DM systems can still be lower than regular
driving despite higher weight by having low rolling resistance. This
can be accomplished by using low rolling resistance tires (which may
be a traction problem on regular roads) on concrete (or even steel) or
using steel on steel or even a maglev system. Deceleration energy
should be recovered for the most part with regenerative braking and
stops should be limited on guideways.

Heathrow type systems offer low cost infrastructure for that "last
mile" in a DM system effectively creating a SM system with wide
coverage. When weather issues are sorted out and interaction
reliability improves, it will be fantastic.

A system like flexitrain with it's retractable coupler could be used
by an operator to redistribute shared DM vehicles and could also be
used to securely connect to the Pallet system - until cars can drive
themselves more cheaply.

F.

On Sep 22, 2:21 am, Jack Slade <skytrek_...@rogers.com> wrote:
> I have thought about this, also, and there is one problem that nobody has mentioned::
> As soon as the vehicle leaves the guideway and moves to the street, it has to have proper insurance. Who pays it, and how?
>  
> Jack Slade
>

> --- On Tue, 9/22/09, Kirston Henderson <kirston.hender...@megarail.com> wrote:

>
> From: Kirston Henderson <kirston.hender...@megarail.com>
> Subject: [t-i] Re: Public vs. private DM vehicles (was "Transportation is Broken")
> To: transport-...@googlegroups.com
> Received: Tuesday, September 22, 2009, 3:04 AM
>

[Jerry Roane]

Sergey

I think cost is the most important piece of information so to leave it off would diminish the value of any comparison to the point of being near useless.  If a complex system has enough money to solve everything the hard way it would conceivably solve all the issues the most expensive and most difficult way.  In a fair competition for a city-wide project it would not get the job ever, so what would be the point?   Kirston suggested an upper limit which is a valid engineering concept.  Another way to derive a relative cost parameter is to list raw material tons per mile of each of the elements of the guideway and pounds of each metal or composite of the car.  This way a lower limit can be calculated based on raw materials suggested by the approach.  Obviously the cost cannot be lower than the raw materials it is made of and creating an upper limit for cost to the customer would be higher but possibly somewhat related to the raw materials used. 

I think it is important in a comparison to have a scope of the prices anticipated if not a firm fixed price quote for all components and raw materials.  For a wiki we could easily add the daily commodity prices for steel, aluminum and oil using the Internet for what it is good for.  These instantly floating numbers can be found and plugged in each time someone looks up the wiki site.  If the price of steel goes down 30% all the prices on the price estimate or firm fixed price would shift with the change.  This automation of commodity prices would also let politicians know the longer they delay in a decision the price penalty/gain they have paid on behalf of their constituents.  As the rest of the world economy turns around these raw material prices will go up before the US economy rebounds so the best price of everything will most likely be a bargain if it is bought now rather than later.  Your economy will do something different but historically prices seem to go up not down for most commodities. 

Jerry Roane

[Sergey Prokhorenko]

On the contrary, the system that can handle public vehicles is much cheaper
and viable, but it cannot properly handle private vehicles.

Sergey Prokhorenko,
SkyTaxi


----- Original Message -----

From: "eph" <rhaps...@yahoo.com>
To: "transport-innovators" <transport-...@googlegroups.com>

[Sergey Prokhorenko]

Kirston,

 

1. You cannot compare cost of your system with cost of other concepts that don't have good cost analysis, but can be better. Most concepts with good designs have not enough money for good marketing, because there is not plenty of venture investors for PRT yet.

2. I am sure your system is not absolutely ready for use (remember how long did it take for ULTra). Therefore you could miss some unexpected future costs.

3. I don't see any real independent customer at all. Customer and investor are the same person, and he (not you) prescribes the design. There is no market and customers for PRT yet.

4. There is a high risk that accepted design will not become a de facto standard, and replacement cost will be extremely high. Much higher than all your upper limit costs.

 

Sergey Prokhorenko,

SkyTaxi

 

----- Original Message -----

From: Kirston Henderson

To: transport-...@googlegroups.com

Sent: Tuesday, September 22, 2009 8:55 AM

Subject: [t-i] Re: Transportation is Broken

[Kirston Henderson]

on 9/22/09 1:21 AM, Jack Slade at skytr...@rogers.com wrote:

> I have thought about this, also, and there is one problem that nobody has
> mentioned::
> As soon as the vehicle leaves the guideway and moves to the street, it has to
> have proper insurance. Who pays it, and how?

I can't see that the situation is any different from any other road
vehicle. The insurance is the responsibility of the vehicle owner.

Kirston Henderson
MegaRail®

[Walter Brewer]

I would think the public vehicles leaving the guideway would be the
resposibility of the community charging the fare, as with buses etc?

Walt Brewer

----- Original Message -----
From: "Kirston Henderson" <kirston....@megarail.com>
To: <transport-...@googlegroups.com>

Sent: Tuesday, September 22, 2009 2:58 PM
Subject: [t-i] Re: Public vs. private DM vehicles (was "Transportation is
Broken")

[Sergey Prokhorenko]

What about huge LRT line costs with tiny raw material costs?

 

Sergey Prokhorenko

[Jerry Roane]

Sergey

Light rail has a huge mass of materials for the gravel road bed, the ties, timbers, crossing barriers and steel rail.  It is compact steel but significant weight per foot.  The train itself is very heavy from iron content so I do not understand your concern with raw material cost comparison.  I do get it that prime right of way is required for LRT and that dwarfs all other costs except graft and corruption but this is an attempt at comparing systems with some measure.  Perhaps you are thinking that I meant only the guideway but it has to include the rolling stock to be a system. 

Jerry Roane

[Jack Slade]

I was thinking about the insurance companies policy to zap it to the owners of vehicles for rental use.  My personal rate would probably quadruple (or more) if I operated my car as a rental.   Jack Slade

--- On Tue, 9/22/09, Kirston Henderson <kirston....@megarail.com> wrote:

From: Kirston Henderson <kirston....@megarail.com> Subject: [t-i] Re: Public vs. private DM vehicles (was "Transportation is Broken")

[Kirston Henderson]

on 9/22/09 1:23 AM, Gary Penn at gary...@mac.com wrote:

> Palletized transport of standard or slightly modified vehicles is the only
> approach that would seem to make sense and there the minimum combined vehicle
> weight is dramatically higher than SM, most, if not all, of the energy saving
> while on the guideway disappear and the present congestion remains at both
> ends of the guideway, pollution and energy wastage too if the
> pallet-transported cars are fossil fuel burners.
>
> It is not obvious that the Total cost of providing in-route
> automated, elevated, electrified guideway transportation in a
> metropolitan area would be lower with fewer miles of DM guideways and
> many more DM vehicles vs. more miles of smaller SM guideways and many
> fewer, smaller, lighter, simpler SM vehicles plus a short healthful
> walk at either end of the trip. Since those who might have real cost
> figures on unbuilt systems are keeping them to themselves it doesn't
> appear that a definitive analysis is likely to be made anytime soon.
>

Gary,

I believe that our CarFerry fits within what you called "palletized
transport." I agree that the combined weight of this type of system is
greater than that of a SM PRT system vehicle. For one reason, most of the
early users would be driving their own personal compact cars that weigh more
because of all the items needed in an ordinary street car. The CarFerry
weight also adds, but the amount of weight added by the lightweight CarFerry
is relatively small in comparison to the car itself. You are correct that
the present congestion may still remain, at least in central business
districts unless the system has stations built inside some of the large
parking garages. The most serious congestion that results in most of the
time and energy waste appears to be on the freeways where most of the travel
miles are typically driven and that congestion is eliminated by this sort of
systems. The same guideways can also provide GRT and PRT services
intermixed with CarFerry traffic.

As for your second paragraph above, we expect most of our own DM service
to be provided by relatively inexpensive CarFerries. Consequently, we can
provide this type of service plus limited GRT and PRT service with a lot
less expensive guideway.

As for cost figures on typical systems being offered by our company,
total system costs are provided for some of the systems for which they have
been developed in some of the downloadable pdf files available on our web
site. We aren't hiding anything.

Kirston Henderson
MegaRail®

[Jerry Roane]

Jack

You could not afford to rent out your personal car and still pay the premiums.  Imagine asking your potential customer if they want the full coverage insurance for $10 on a $2 rental of your car.  Imagine how much blame the true owner of the car could shift to the insurance adjuster.  I want a new interior so I take a knife to the cloth and blame my renter.  etc.  Not a pretty picture.  http://allinsuranceinfo.org/travel/rental-car.html  Here is a taste of the legal entanglement you would have with a random individual.  In a free for all mass rental scheme you would have to rent to the closest available potential rider and the stats for who that may be as a legally bound litigant would overshadow the $2 you might collect wearing out your car faster.  If you always drive a car till death like I do there is no advantage to wearing out the car faster by renting it out.  Your still paying the mortgage on it and you are taking all the risk for the deductible on any insurance claim.  If the renter steals the radio Texas law makes it near impossible to get the police to go get your radio back because you did rent it out.  To get compensation for your stolen radio you would have to hire a lawyer and sue them in court for the dollar value of the radio.  If the thief is sneaky he would concoct a story about how you stiffed him to the judge so you may loose both your radio and the court case and be liable for court costs even though it was your radio that was lifted. 

The insurance policy would be as expensive as a dealer test drive rate because you are not qualifying the driver or his driving record.  Since the insurance company could not know what percentage it was driven by a safe driver versus a very dangerous risky driver your premium would have to be the highest rate allowed in the state or higher if like Texas many illegals don't have insurance but have a lot of claims and wrecks.  The insurance industry would need to sign off on such a scheme and I see nothing that protects them from either the uninsurable or theft by insurance claim. 

Damage to your suspension as a rental is driven over a small curb at 40 mph would be impossible to know about.  The internal damage would show up in badly wearing tires for thousands of miles and the irresponsible party would never pay, insurance or not. 

Good point Jack!

Jerry Roane

[eph]

How VRTUCAR does it:
http://www.vrtucar.com/faq.html#10

F.

On Sep 22, 5:55 pm, Jerry Roane <jerry.ro...@gmail.com> wrote:
> Jack
>
> You could not afford to rent out your personal car and still pay the
> premiums.  Imagine asking your potential customer if they want the full
> coverage insurance for $10 on a $2 rental of your car.  Imagine how much
> blame the true owner of the car could shift to the insurance adjuster.  I
> want a new interior so I take a knife to the cloth and blame my renter.

> etc.  Not a pretty picture.http://allinsuranceinfo.org/travel/rental-car.html Here is a taste of the

> On Tue, Sep 22, 2009 at 3:30 PM, Jack Slade <skytrek_...@rogers.com> wrote:
> > I was thinking about the insurance companies policy to zap it to the owners
> > of vehicles for rental use.  My personal rate would probably quadruple (or
> > more) if I operated my car as a rental.
>
> > Jack Slade
>

> > --- On *Tue, 9/22/09, Kirston Henderson <kirston.hender...@megarail.com>*wrote:

>
> > From: Kirston Henderson <kirston.hender...@megarail.com>
> > Subject: [t-i] Re: Public vs. private DM vehicles (was "Transportation is
> > Broken")
> > To: transport-...@googlegroups.com
> > Received: Tuesday, September 22, 2009, 6:58 PM
>

> > on 9/22/09 1:21 AM, Jack Slade at skytrek_...@rogers.com<http://ca.mc882.mail.yahoo.com/mc/compose?to=skytrek_...@rogers.com>wrote:

[Kirston Henderson]

on 9/22/09 2:20 PM, Walter Brewer at catc...@verizon.net wrote:

> I would think the public vehicles leaving the guideway would be the
> resposibility of the community charging the fare, as with buses etc?

Correct.

Kirston Henderson
MegaRail®

[Jerry Roane]

F

Thanks for that information.

On responsibility and liability---  "This is no different than if you had your own vehicle. " except for the higher premium than if you are a responsible driver.  With this agreement they are forming a private ownership coop and only good drivers are allowed.  These cars sound like they float so they don't belong to anyone in particular so if they get damaged for just under $5000 self-insurance they just won't get fixed because you don't want to admit to the insurance companby you wrecked it.  My daughter did this through high school with half of her wrecks.  I would pay them off with cash and begging and she was one claim away from no insurance.  Also you are allowed to bring your cat inside the car and if the next driver has cat dander allergies --- too bad!  This deletes the random driver and allows select drivers only so not a universal rental idea for transit.  anyone under 23 can't use it.  They have only found one insurance company that will insure them.  They have sold 800 memberships and they have 500 now with 30 Echo Toyota cars to show for it.  none of the cars in the videos had hubcaps.  A private car would have hub caps and have something besides the lowest cost vehicle Toyota sells.  They show a Honda hybrid on the video where they say that have a fleet of Echos with no hub caps.  They have told their $500 "deposit" (coop dues) that they are being green when in fact they use the car till it is used up just like you would if you owned it so their sales tactic works but the underlying thought does not hold water.  The reservations and fines would make me crazy personally.  The example guy in the video said he pays about $300 a month to drive a hubcapless beater.  You could buy that beater for two months worth of these fees.  Canada probably has the same insurance mess we have here with significant profits going to the companies at the expense of the drivers covered.  You need a three year driving record and a class "G" I think they said drivers license.  The example guy walks either 5 minutes or I am guessing from his face 15 minutes to get a car depending on whether the parking space near him has a car available or not. 

Making a reservation to drive a car would be a whole different experience and $300 a month is no bargain.  Perhaps the example guy is "that guy" in the commercial and is intimidated by manly work. 

If they want to decrease their car life cycle footprint they should buy TriTrack cars and drive them on guideway.   Perhaps they could buy the house closest to the merge zone to minimize the street driving.  TriTrack Oriented Development.

Jerry Roane 

[Jack Slade]

I read it, but I don't see the price the Ins Co would charge, per vehicle, for multiple drivers. Is that info available?   Jack Slade --- On Tue, 9/22/09, eph <rhaps...@yahoo.com> wrote:

[eph]

The hubcap thing is typical for snow tires - why let the salt damage
your good rims. Summer tires mounted on nice rims, snow tires on
cheap black steel rims.

I got the impression that they repaired damage under $5,000 that
didn't need to be reported.

I wasn't advocating the service, just showing that insurance can be
arranged.

F.

On Sep 22, 8:17 pm, Jerry Roane <jerry.ro...@gmail.com> wrote:
> F
>
> Thanks for that information.
>
> On responsibility and liability---  "This is no different than if you had
> your own vehicle. " except for the higher premium than if you are a
> responsible driver.  With this agreement they are forming a private

> ownership coop and *only good drivers* are allowed.  These cars sound like

> On Tue, Sep 22, 2009 at 5:18 PM, eph <rhapsodi...@yahoo.com> wrote:
>
> > How VRTUCAR does it:
> >http://www.vrtucar.com/faq.html#10
>
> > F.
>
> > On Sep 22, 5:55 pm, Jerry Roane <jerry.ro...@gmail.com> wrote:
> > > Jack
>
> > > You could not afford to rent out your personal car and still pay the
> > > premiums.  Imagine asking your potential customer if they want the full
> > > coverage insurance for $10 on a $2 rental of your car.  Imagine how much
> > > blame the true owner of the car could shift to the insurance adjuster.  I
> > > want a new interior so I take a knife to the cloth and blame my renter.
> > > etc.  Not a pretty picture.

> >http://allinsuranceinfo.org/travel/rental-car.htmlHere is a taste of the

[Jerry Roane]

Jack

I could not find that.  The system operator was vague on that cost but he did say the insurance company they used were the only ones who would sell him insurance.  Obviously the other insurers have doubts that he can control who is driving these cars.  There are rules about not letting someone drive the car besides the member but once the car leaves the parking space they have no control other than the honor system.  It only works with honest members remaining honest.  They have 30 cars so that is not a lot of data to support the insurability of open rental cars.  There was a $3.00 insurance charge in there somewhere.  I assume that is each use but I got bored with it after a while. 

Jerry Roane

[Walter Brewer]

Car rental companies are reasonably profitable.

 

 Walt Brewer

----- Original Message -----

From: Jerry Roane

To: transport-...@googlegroups.com

[Kirston Henderson]

on 9/22/09 1:58 PM, Sergey Prokhorenko at sergeypr...@yahoo.com.au wrote:

Kirston,

1. You cannot compare cost of your system with cost of other concepts that don't have good cost analysis, but can be better. Most concepts with good designs have not enough money for good marketing, because there is not plenty of venture investors for PRT yet.
2. I am sure your system is not absolutely ready for use (remember how long did it take for ULTra). Therefore you could miss some unexpected future costs.

Sergy,

   I agree with you that there does not seem to be many venture capitalists getting in line to invest in PRT systems.  I suspect that it is difficult to convince any hard-nosed venture capitalist that sufficient market and profit would ensue from such a development effort.  In our own case, we refused to even consider venture capitalist, but raised our development funds from those interested in long-term investment that we were able to convince those investors that we had a product with significant future profit potential to make the investment worth the risk.  (By the way, we currently have several million dollars invested in our development by such investors.)

   I am not going to try to compare our cost with those of other advanced systems because we have no data base on other systems.  We will compare the cost our systems to widely-used systems such as LRT and various types of heavy rail because those costs are reasonably known from published data.  We know that our cost beats all of the above.  I also generally do not make it practice of offering my own assessments of other evolving systems.

   With regard to readiness of our system for full production, there are some changes that we expect to make based upon our production prototype experience, but we already have a good understanding of the cost involved and have these costs built into our prices.  With our highly experienced team of engineers and production people, we have a great deal of experience in estimating costs for new systems.

   You cite ULTra time from start to testing of a supposedly nearly ready to carry passengers and that time is not unreasonable.  For our systems, we not offer to field any production system for public use for three years from date of contract and that is not far from what it took to get ULTra to the point that they appear to be at this point.

Kirston Henderson
MegaRail®