The most bike-friendly transportation system possible
01-07-14, 01:02 PM
#26
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I idea of rail seems hopeless to me. Conversion to rail would require installing rail down every single residential, commercial, and industrial street in the subject area. Now, since the railcars are to be community owned, we have to get ride of all the privetly owned vehicles, and purchase the common use vehicles. Now that we have spent untold trillions doing all that, there is the maintenace issues that alwys come with community goods. Looked at a bus station restroom lately?
Since we only have rail cars, we have to have in rural areas a transition place, unless we want to install those same rails on all rural roads, so huge city/rural transition zone parking areas are needed. How are deliveries accomplished? Oh i see more trucks on rails, once again publicly funded?
This idea to me is beyond mere utopian, its flat out poorly thought out and not doable in any current society. Basically its a rehash of many science fiction cities of the 1950's and 60's.
Sorry, but you asked.
Since we only have rail cars, we have to have in rural areas a transition place, unless we want to install those same rails on all rural roads, so huge city/rural transition zone parking areas are needed. How are deliveries accomplished? Oh i see more trucks on rails, once again publicly funded?
This idea to me is beyond mere utopian, its flat out poorly thought out and not doable in any current society. Basically its a rehash of many science fiction cities of the 1950's and 60's.
Sorry, but you asked.
01-07-14, 01:03 PM
#27
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That's clearly the direction we're heading. And that alone will save LOTS of lives. And help with congestion. I'm just taking the further step of comparing energy usage, maintenance, etc between that vision and one where the vehicles are restricted to rails. Although rails might sound more restrictive, my contention is that they're really not, unless you spend a lot of time offroad.
Remove the tracks and go to autonomous self driving cars... this IS the prediction of the future... and we are moving toward that prediction with self parking cars, smart cruise control and collision avoidance systems in cars... in maybe 20 years or so, we won't need the tracks and will have a system that is just as predictable.
01-07-14, 01:06 PM
#28
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One point of clarification...it's really a "curb to curb" service, not "door to door". The video should make that more clear.
Vehicles will travel in either direction.
Vehicles will travel in either direction.
01-07-14, 01:08 PM
#29
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Clarification...by both exist, I don't mean sharing the same road. I mean both exist as in some regions have been converted, some not yet.
Oh, yah, I realize that your proposition is intended to replace cars. However, even you admit to the intermediate stage where both would exist.
Doing this as the proper way to make such a crossing:
On the open road with cars is also known as a "suicide swerve" if a car behind you rams on the gas and tries to pass you when you pull to the right to line yourself up to cross perpendicularly to the rails gliding across the lane to its middle to left side while doing so. Experienced cyclists are smart enough to realized this danger and position themselves to prevent it but its a death trap for what in my personal opinion are the majority of cyclists who don't think that far ahead and realize that when they pull to the right to line up for the crossing a car behind them (or even another cyclist) will try to pass them suddenly and unexpectedly right when they are gliding across the lane at the angle necessary to make the crossing ---- CRUNCH !!! Cyclist down !!!
Doing this as the proper way to make such a crossing:
On the open road with cars is also known as a "suicide swerve" if a car behind you rams on the gas and tries to pass you when you pull to the right to line yourself up to cross perpendicularly to the rails gliding across the lane to its middle to left side while doing so. Experienced cyclists are smart enough to realized this danger and position themselves to prevent it but its a death trap for what in my personal opinion are the majority of cyclists who don't think that far ahead and realize that when they pull to the right to line up for the crossing a car behind them (or even another cyclist) will try to pass them suddenly and unexpectedly right when they are gliding across the lane at the angle necessary to make the crossing ---- CRUNCH !!! Cyclist down !!!
01-07-14, 01:08 PM
#30
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Please clarify on how and why you would not be stopping at an intersection, would rail cars traveling in different directions (say for example directly perpendicular to one another while approaching an intersection) be at different height elevations so that they can both pass freely through the intersection or will there be some sort of master computer conductor that monitors and manages all travel so that no rail cars are in the same intersection at the same time?
It's a little more complicated when you start introducing other elements such as bicycles and peds. and conventional motor vehicles crossing as well but if all you want to do is make the cars themselves not hit each other and continuous traffic streams cross each other without incident in created gaps in the streams of traffic. Piece of cake easy programming and as I said you could do it with and old Apple-II computer much less modern computing capabilities.
01-07-14, 01:11 PM
#31
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@ OP
Got to run at the moment, and I should have already got my rear off the coach with the laptop and in gear and getting stuff done so I can still make the post office before mail cut off time but later this evening I run your video again and pop some screen shots for you showing some of the diagonal crossing situations created I saw.
Got to run at the moment, and I should have already got my rear off the coach with the laptop and in gear and getting stuff done so I can still make the post office before mail cut off time but later this evening I run your video again and pop some screen shots for you showing some of the diagonal crossing situations created I saw.
01-07-14, 01:13 PM
#32
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Currently you stop at intersections, either stop signs or stop lights, regardless of whether you need to. Those stops are eliminated. In situations where two vehicles approach an intersection at right angles, the velocity of both would be adjusted well before the intersection to avoid stops. Remember...these vehicles know where EVERY other vehicle in the system is, so pre-adjusting speeds would be almost imperceptible.
Each vehicle has it's own computer. And there would be a central routing system. Neither would trust the other fully and either would have the ability to force vehicles to stop. A human passenger would also have a big red stop button should the need arise.
Each vehicle has it's own computer. And there would be a central routing system. Neither would trust the other fully and either would have the ability to force vehicles to stop. A human passenger would also have a big red stop button should the need arise.
Please clarify on how and why you would not be stopping at an intersection, would rail cars traveling in different directions (say for example directly perpendicular to one another while approaching an intersection) be at different height elevations so that they can both pass freely through the intersection or will there be some sort of master computer conductor that monitors and manages all travel so that no rail cars are in the same intersection at the same time?
01-07-14, 01:16 PM
#33
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Let's leave the nuclear (unless someone cracks the fusion secret) out of it as much as possible, dead burned dino crud in the air or radioactive poisoning that lasts for millions of years and causes permanent global genetic degradation in all species? If I must choose between the two I'll take the dead dino crud which eventually nature cleans up which is a much shorter eventuality then the millions of years of radioactivity.
I understand that there are some applications where nuclear power is the only thing capable of doing the job, deep space probes being one of them (once you get far enough out beyond the outer planets that solar cells don't work any more) but short of those super critical situations conventional dirty fission nuclear power is way worse then burning dead dino crud.
I understand that there are some applications where nuclear power is the only thing capable of doing the job, deep space probes being one of them (once you get far enough out beyond the outer planets that solar cells don't work any more) but short of those super critical situations conventional dirty fission nuclear power is way worse then burning dead dino crud.
01-07-14, 01:17 PM
#34
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The flaw in the logic is assuming that individualized vehicles (car-sized) have the same braking rate as heavy rail. There's no engineering reason preventing individualized vehicles from stopping just as fast as we want them to, most likely similar to an automobile's braking rate. The difference is that, unlike human drivers, an automated system knows exactly how much braking force to apply. And unlike automobiles, vehicles would not spin out of control. And each vehicle would have awareness of every other vehicle in the system. If one vehicle sees a child on the street, every vehicle sees the child. And nobody would speed or drive drunk. And the list of advantages goes on and on.
01-07-14, 01:20 PM
#35
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It would cost trillions. And it's essentially socialized transportation. But it wouldn't mean trashing perfectly good automobiles. You could sell them to people who still live where the new system hasn't been implemented. Also, keep in mind that you don't need the same number of PRT vehicles as you had automobiles. Look out your window. MOST automobiles are parked at any given time. You just need enough to get the job done.
As for rural areas, it's unreasonable to assume that you would convert them at the same time as cities. So most likely you'd pick some large parking garage with easy freeway access and use that as the transition point when traveling out of town.
Maintenance of community goods is not an engineering challenge. It's a governance challenge. If you don't approve of how your public restrooms are maintained, I'm afraid you need to vote for someone else.
As for rural areas, it's unreasonable to assume that you would convert them at the same time as cities. So most likely you'd pick some large parking garage with easy freeway access and use that as the transition point when traveling out of town.
Maintenance of community goods is not an engineering challenge. It's a governance challenge. If you don't approve of how your public restrooms are maintained, I'm afraid you need to vote for someone else.
I idea of rail seems hopeless to me. Conversion to rail would require installing rail down every single residential, commercial, and industrial street in the subject area. Now, since the railcars are to be community owned, we have to get ride of all the privetly owned vehicles, and purchase the common use vehicles. Now that we have spent untold trillions doing all that, there is the maintenace issues that alwys come with community goods. Looked at a bus station restroom lately?
Since we only have rail cars, we have to have in rural areas a transition place, unless we want to install those same rails on all rural roads, so huge city/rural transition zone parking areas are needed. How are deliveries accomplished? Oh i see more trucks on rails, once again publicly funded?
This idea to me is beyond mere utopian, its flat out poorly thought out and not doable in any current society. Basically its a rehash of many science fiction cities of the 1950's and 60's.
Sorry, but you asked.
Since we only have rail cars, we have to have in rural areas a transition place, unless we want to install those same rails on all rural roads, so huge city/rural transition zone parking areas are needed. How are deliveries accomplished? Oh i see more trucks on rails, once again publicly funded?
This idea to me is beyond mere utopian, its flat out poorly thought out and not doable in any current society. Basically its a rehash of many science fiction cities of the 1950's and 60's.
Sorry, but you asked.
01-07-14, 01:23 PM
#36
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You must be old! So am I. My first programming assignment out of college was creating a game for the Atari 2600. 8k of assembly code to create an entire game, including graphics and audio.
I'm no the OP but I think I can answer your question after watching his video at least to some extent. You don't need a master computer, just small individual computers in each unit that talk to other cars in the area around them and they work together to plan gaps that allow crossing each others paths without ever stopping or hitting each other. It's actually a really simple system to program if everything runs on fixed rails or tracks. You can do it on an old 8-bit computer with only 32-K ram memory and old school 5-1/4" floppy magnetic disks in old DOS programming, a freeking old Apple-II computer could handle it. Today a single chip smaller then your finger nail could do it. Very simple, the cars each being aware of the others in the surrounding area and their relative position and speed plan gaps in traffic that literally let all the cars go right through intersection crossings each slipping through created gaps in the other line of traffic.
It's a little more complicated when you start introducing other elements such as bicycles and peds. and conventional motor vehicles crossing as well but if all you want to do is make the cars themselves not hit each other and continuous traffic streams cross each other without incident in created gaps in the streams of traffic. Piece of cake easy programming and as I said you could do it with and old Apple-II computer much less modern computing capabilities.
It's a little more complicated when you start introducing other elements such as bicycles and peds. and conventional motor vehicles crossing as well but if all you want to do is make the cars themselves not hit each other and continuous traffic streams cross each other without incident in created gaps in the streams of traffic. Piece of cake easy programming and as I said you could do it with and old Apple-II computer much less modern computing capabilities.
01-07-14, 01:26 PM
#37
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The assumption is that you don't mix the system's vehicles with automobiles. In fact, it wouldn't be designed to handle automobile collisions. Or falling meteors. Or plane crashes.
Is this based on the assumption that there will be absolutely no personal driven automobiles on the road which can and will affect the "flawless" operation factor of the rail cars (rubbernecking, poor distance judgment, miscalculated braking, etc)? For example, you have a rail car traveling along without a worry in the world and then some meth head who jacked a car comes from out of the blue going over 100 mph and slams into the rail car, knocking it off its track, what happens then? Properly applied braking would not even apply in this situation. How would this type of accident impact all the other rail cars? My assumption here is that the rail car is off the rails and therefore deprived of its power source/communication.
01-07-14, 01:31 PM
#38
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You implied the conversion could happen in days in your film. Clearly it cannot, and now you are saying its along term implementation, making the conversion even more difficult. On maintenance of public goods really is not an issue of poor government, as much as its an issue of the lack of care by individuals of public goods. First time you get into a a shared car thats been puked in you will have a better idea of the difficulties.
Or in a more mundane case, what about a car that the previous occupant smoked in? Think that smell will either go away or that some percent of people will not complain bitterly, especially since they don't have to directly pay for the clean-up?
In the US, government is to some extent going more private market provided goods, proposing a huge, huge public program to install millions of miles of rail and purchasing millions of electric robocars not only will not fly politically, but is totally unaffordable.
By restricting this system to urban areas, you have mostly defined a bus system that is more like taxis.and I cannot see it either being affordable, nor desirable.
Thats my opinion.
Or in a more mundane case, what about a car that the previous occupant smoked in? Think that smell will either go away or that some percent of people will not complain bitterly, especially since they don't have to directly pay for the clean-up?
In the US, government is to some extent going more private market provided goods, proposing a huge, huge public program to install millions of miles of rail and purchasing millions of electric robocars not only will not fly politically, but is totally unaffordable.
By restricting this system to urban areas, you have mostly defined a bus system that is more like taxis.and I cannot see it either being affordable, nor desirable.
Thats my opinion.
01-07-14, 02:12 PM
#39
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By happen in days, I mean a quadrant could be converted in days, maybe an 8x8 block region. You're the second person who's pointed this out, so I need to make that more clear.
Vehicles would have an interior camera, so detecting a dirty vehicle would be possible. Smoking would not be allowed (also detectable). If you accidentally leave your laptop on the vehicle, it would alert you. If you call up a vehicle and determine that it's dirty, you can wait for another, sending the dirty one for cleaning.
Affordable is definitely an issue. It would be an investment since the end result would be a much more efficient system. Imagine the impact on the economy if transportation efficiency was greatly increased. So ultimately the question might be can you afford not to. On the specifics of the US government, my impression is that we're bankrupt and that IS a problem. But it's not an engineering problem, which is the focus of this proposal. I claim no fixes for poor governance.
I can't speak for you, but I rarely go out of the city...maybe every two or three week I might take a trip to the coast. So for the vast majority of my travel this system would work fine. And since the San Francisco bay area is so congested I don't think I'd need to wait long before they connect where I live to the coast with the system. So I'm not really "restricting it to urban areas" so much as I am mapping out the implementation strategy. Ultimately ANYWHERE that lots of automobiles travel would make sense to convert.
Vehicles would have an interior camera, so detecting a dirty vehicle would be possible. Smoking would not be allowed (also detectable). If you accidentally leave your laptop on the vehicle, it would alert you. If you call up a vehicle and determine that it's dirty, you can wait for another, sending the dirty one for cleaning.
Affordable is definitely an issue. It would be an investment since the end result would be a much more efficient system. Imagine the impact on the economy if transportation efficiency was greatly increased. So ultimately the question might be can you afford not to. On the specifics of the US government, my impression is that we're bankrupt and that IS a problem. But it's not an engineering problem, which is the focus of this proposal. I claim no fixes for poor governance.
I can't speak for you, but I rarely go out of the city...maybe every two or three week I might take a trip to the coast. So for the vast majority of my travel this system would work fine. And since the San Francisco bay area is so congested I don't think I'd need to wait long before they connect where I live to the coast with the system. So I'm not really "restricting it to urban areas" so much as I am mapping out the implementation strategy. Ultimately ANYWHERE that lots of automobiles travel would make sense to convert.
You implied the conversion could happen in days in your film. Clearly it cannot, and now you are saying its along term implementation, making the conversion even more difficult. On maintenance of public goods really is not an issue of poor government, as much as its an issue of the lack of care by individuals of public goods. First time you get into a a shared car thats been puked in you will have a better idea of the difficulties.
Or in a more mundane case, what about a car that the previous occupant smoked in? Think that smell will either go away or that some percent of people will not complain bitterly, especially since they don't have to directly pay for the clean-up?
In the US, government is to some extent going more private market provided goods, proposing a huge, huge public program to install millions of miles of rail and purchasing millions of electric robocars not only will not fly politically, but is totally unaffordable.
By restricting this system to urban areas, you have mostly defined a bus system that is more like taxis.and I cannot see it either being affordable, nor desirable.
Thats my opinion.
Or in a more mundane case, what about a car that the previous occupant smoked in? Think that smell will either go away or that some percent of people will not complain bitterly, especially since they don't have to directly pay for the clean-up?
In the US, government is to some extent going more private market provided goods, proposing a huge, huge public program to install millions of miles of rail and purchasing millions of electric robocars not only will not fly politically, but is totally unaffordable.
By restricting this system to urban areas, you have mostly defined a bus system that is more like taxis.and I cannot see it either being affordable, nor desirable.
Thats my opinion.
01-07-14, 02:35 PM
#40
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I cannot imagine public transportation completely or mostly replacing personal transportation, much less one that uses solely rails.
-Rails have to be built and maintained in nearly every block in a city
-If a pod stops at a residence, ALL pods behind the track will be stopped. Building additional rails to go around this is impossible.
-Computing power/technology to smoothly, quickly, and safely drive all these cars. If the city can't even install intelligent street lights, what makes you think this can be implemented anytime soon? We're JUST starting to test self-driving cars. TEST. We don't know how well they'll do in real use yet.
-For those who want to drive outdoors to a national park or wherever, what then? If the city is full of rails I assume there's no room for cars and will be a nightmare navigating through all the rails.
-Cyclists riding alongside rails will still "get in the way" of rail-cars in intersections, stop points, etc.
-Looking at the conditions of BART and buses in the city, I have little hope of truly comfortable and clean cars.
-The ownership problem. People want to own things. This is essentially stripping them access to use their own cars if the system isn't completely getting rid of vehicle ownership in the first place.
-Lastly, can you imagine a city FILLED with rails? At a parking garage, say at Costco, all the spaces are now rails?
-Good luck walking without tripping over a rail, or slipping if embedded in the asphalt. Heaven help those on wheelchairs, skateboarders, cyclists, scooters, etc.
Really, what this all-rail system achieves is the seemingly removal of streetlights as cars whiz by. Would you personally trust a computer to drive you at a fast speed through intersections feet away from other pods whizzing by? I'd be nervous as all hell. Personally I believe a highly sophisticated street light system will work much better to get cars flowing more efficiently. In the future, maybe skyways and of course, flying machines. Just look at London's proposed bike skyway on another thread.
-Rails have to be built and maintained in nearly every block in a city
-If a pod stops at a residence, ALL pods behind the track will be stopped. Building additional rails to go around this is impossible.
-Computing power/technology to smoothly, quickly, and safely drive all these cars. If the city can't even install intelligent street lights, what makes you think this can be implemented anytime soon? We're JUST starting to test self-driving cars. TEST. We don't know how well they'll do in real use yet.
-For those who want to drive outdoors to a national park or wherever, what then? If the city is full of rails I assume there's no room for cars and will be a nightmare navigating through all the rails.
-Cyclists riding alongside rails will still "get in the way" of rail-cars in intersections, stop points, etc.
-Looking at the conditions of BART and buses in the city, I have little hope of truly comfortable and clean cars.
-The ownership problem. People want to own things. This is essentially stripping them access to use their own cars if the system isn't completely getting rid of vehicle ownership in the first place.
-Lastly, can you imagine a city FILLED with rails? At a parking garage, say at Costco, all the spaces are now rails?
-Good luck walking without tripping over a rail, or slipping if embedded in the asphalt. Heaven help those on wheelchairs, skateboarders, cyclists, scooters, etc.
Really, what this all-rail system achieves is the seemingly removal of streetlights as cars whiz by. Would you personally trust a computer to drive you at a fast speed through intersections feet away from other pods whizzing by? I'd be nervous as all hell. Personally I believe a highly sophisticated street light system will work much better to get cars flowing more efficiently. In the future, maybe skyways and of course, flying machines. Just look at London's proposed bike skyway on another thread.
Last edited by rolliepollie; 01-07-14 at 02:40 PM.
01-07-14, 02:55 PM
#41
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> I cannot imagine public transportation completely or mostly replacing personal transportation, much less one that uses solely rails.
It is hard to imagine, but many great technological changes were hard to imagine.
-Rails have to be built and maintained in nearly every block in a city
True, but rails are much easier to maintain than asphalt. And if the remaining asphalt was reserved for bicycles, it would last much longer.
-If a pod stops at a residence, ALL pods behind the track will be stopped. Building additional rails to go around this is impossible.
Obviously you need more than one rail line down each street to prevent this problem.
-Computing power/technology to smoothly, quickly, and safely drive all these cars. If the city can't even install intelligent street lights, what makes you think this can be implemented anytime soon? We're JUST starting to test self-driving cars. TEST. We don't know how well they'll do in real use yet.
Actually software development is my expertise and I assure you it's possible. Actually programming vehicles to run on asphalt (like the google cars) is a much harder programming task.
-For those who want to drive outdoors to a national park or wherever, what then? If the city is full of rails I assume there's no room for cars and will be a nightmare navigating through all the rails.
I took my girls camping many times, so agree that we wouldn't want to lose that experience. However it's more about being there, experiencing the outdoor, not about driving. I wish I had been a passenger in some of the places I've visited so I could have better enjoyed the sites. Having said that, people do like to drive, so the more scenic routes should probably continue to offer that experience. Just like there are places that only bicycles can do, there will be places that only automobiles can go.
-Cyclists riding alongside rails will still "get in the way" of rail-cars in intersections, stop points, etc.
These vehicles will track you on your bike, adjusting speeds accordingly so that they don't get in YOUR way. Since bicycles give people exercise, they should have priority.
-Looking at the conditions of BART and buses in the city, I have little hope of truly comfortable and clean cars.
Yes, but that's a governance / social issue. This is intentionally an engineering proposal. Perhaps people who tend to leave litter on vehicles will be given lower priority in the system
-The ownership problem. People want to own things. This is essentially stripping them access to use their own cars if the system isn't completely getting rid of vehicle ownership in the first place.
If it means species going extinct, or polluting our air, I have no sympathy for people's love of owning things.
-Lastly, can you imagine a city FILLED with rails? At a parking garage, say at Costco, all the spaces are now rails?
No, no, no. When you get off at Costco, the vehicle doesn't park and wait for you. It moves on to the next passenger. All those ugly Costco parking lots could be converted into parks or open space. That's actually one of the great beauties of this concept.
-Good luck walking without tripping over a rail, or slipping if embedded in the asphalt. Heaven help those on wheelchairs, skateboarders, cyclists, scooters, etc.
It's a challenge, and we've been discussing that at length in these posts. Ramps were appropriate.
It is hard to imagine, but many great technological changes were hard to imagine.
-Rails have to be built and maintained in nearly every block in a city
True, but rails are much easier to maintain than asphalt. And if the remaining asphalt was reserved for bicycles, it would last much longer.
-If a pod stops at a residence, ALL pods behind the track will be stopped. Building additional rails to go around this is impossible.
Obviously you need more than one rail line down each street to prevent this problem.
-Computing power/technology to smoothly, quickly, and safely drive all these cars. If the city can't even install intelligent street lights, what makes you think this can be implemented anytime soon? We're JUST starting to test self-driving cars. TEST. We don't know how well they'll do in real use yet.
Actually software development is my expertise and I assure you it's possible. Actually programming vehicles to run on asphalt (like the google cars) is a much harder programming task.
-For those who want to drive outdoors to a national park or wherever, what then? If the city is full of rails I assume there's no room for cars and will be a nightmare navigating through all the rails.
I took my girls camping many times, so agree that we wouldn't want to lose that experience. However it's more about being there, experiencing the outdoor, not about driving. I wish I had been a passenger in some of the places I've visited so I could have better enjoyed the sites. Having said that, people do like to drive, so the more scenic routes should probably continue to offer that experience. Just like there are places that only bicycles can do, there will be places that only automobiles can go.
-Cyclists riding alongside rails will still "get in the way" of rail-cars in intersections, stop points, etc.
These vehicles will track you on your bike, adjusting speeds accordingly so that they don't get in YOUR way. Since bicycles give people exercise, they should have priority.
-Looking at the conditions of BART and buses in the city, I have little hope of truly comfortable and clean cars.
Yes, but that's a governance / social issue. This is intentionally an engineering proposal. Perhaps people who tend to leave litter on vehicles will be given lower priority in the system
-The ownership problem. People want to own things. This is essentially stripping them access to use their own cars if the system isn't completely getting rid of vehicle ownership in the first place.
If it means species going extinct, or polluting our air, I have no sympathy for people's love of owning things.
-Lastly, can you imagine a city FILLED with rails? At a parking garage, say at Costco, all the spaces are now rails?
No, no, no. When you get off at Costco, the vehicle doesn't park and wait for you. It moves on to the next passenger. All those ugly Costco parking lots could be converted into parks or open space. That's actually one of the great beauties of this concept.
-Good luck walking without tripping over a rail, or slipping if embedded in the asphalt. Heaven help those on wheelchairs, skateboarders, cyclists, scooters, etc.
It's a challenge, and we've been discussing that at length in these posts. Ramps were appropriate.
01-07-14, 02:57 PM
#42
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From your reply, I get it now. This would work for you, so it must be ideal for all. Sure. We'll have to agree to disagree.
01-07-14, 03:07 PM
#43
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The flaw in the logic is assuming that individualized vehicles (car-sized) have the same braking rate as heavy rail. There's no engineering reason preventing individualized vehicles from stopping just as fast as we want them to, most likely similar to an automobile's braking rate.
Braking requires friction between the wheel and the rail. The friction between two surfaces is: K x F, where K is the coefficient of static friction and F is the normal force applied to the surface. So long as the braking force remains less than K x F, then the wheel will not skid and the vehicle will come to a controlled stop.
Let m be the vehicle mass, g the gravitational acceleration, a the braking rate (acceleration) and K the coefficient of friction for steel wheel on steel rail. Then:
m a < K(m g)
OR a < K g.
K is a constant that depends on the two substances in contact and g is the gravitational acceleration. You may recall that Galileo demonstrated that all objects, regardless of weight, fall at the same rate. Gravitational acceleration is nominally 32 ft/sec/sec. The coefficient of static friction for steel wheel on steel rail is typically 0.35.
This means the braking rate must remain less than 0.35 x 32 ft/sec/sec or 7.6 mph/sec.
The coefficient of kinetic friction is significantly less than the coefficient of static friction. Therefore, extraordinary care is taken to make sure the wheels never lock and start skidding. That's why braking rates are typically around 3.0 mph/sec.
The difference is that, unlike human drivers, an automated system knows exactly how much braking force to apply. And unlike automobiles, vehicles would not spin out of control. And each vehicle would have awareness of every other vehicle in the system. If one vehicle sees a child on the street, every vehicle sees the child. And nobody would speed or drive drunk. And the list of advantages goes on and on.
01-07-14, 03:12 PM
#44
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Are you assuming that braking is entirely a function of slowing down the wheels?
Here's the engineering reason why individual cars and heavy rail have the same maximum braking rate.
Braking requires friction between the wheel and the rail. The friction between two surfaces is: K x F, where K is the coefficient of static friction and F is the normal force applied to the surface. So long as the braking force remains less than K x F, then the wheel will not skid and the vehicle will come to a controlled stop.
Let m be the vehicle mass, g the gravitational acceleration, a the braking rate (acceleration) and K the coefficient of friction for steel wheel on steel rail. Then:
m a < K(m g)
OR a < K g.
K is a constant that depends on the two substances in contact and g is the gravitational acceleration. You may recall that Galileo demonstrated that all objects, regardless of weight, fall at the same rate. Gravitational acceleration is nominally 32 ft/sec/sec. The coefficient of static friction for steel wheel on steel rail is typically 0.35.
This means the braking rate must remain less than 0.35 x 32 ft/sec/sec or 7.6 mph/sec.
The coefficient of kinetic friction is significantly less than the coefficient of static friction. Therefore, extraordinary care is taken to make sure the wheels never lock and start skidding. That's why braking rates are typically around 3.0 mph/sec.
As previously mentioned, an automated system must provide safety in the event of its own failure. These failures include its inability to detect obstacles and its inability to transmit or receive signals. This results in maintaining a safe distance between vehicles. This distance is relatively insensitive to vehicle weight because braking rates are likewise insensitive to vehicle weight.
Braking requires friction between the wheel and the rail. The friction between two surfaces is: K x F, where K is the coefficient of static friction and F is the normal force applied to the surface. So long as the braking force remains less than K x F, then the wheel will not skid and the vehicle will come to a controlled stop.
Let m be the vehicle mass, g the gravitational acceleration, a the braking rate (acceleration) and K the coefficient of friction for steel wheel on steel rail. Then:
m a < K(m g)
OR a < K g.
K is a constant that depends on the two substances in contact and g is the gravitational acceleration. You may recall that Galileo demonstrated that all objects, regardless of weight, fall at the same rate. Gravitational acceleration is nominally 32 ft/sec/sec. The coefficient of static friction for steel wheel on steel rail is typically 0.35.
This means the braking rate must remain less than 0.35 x 32 ft/sec/sec or 7.6 mph/sec.
The coefficient of kinetic friction is significantly less than the coefficient of static friction. Therefore, extraordinary care is taken to make sure the wheels never lock and start skidding. That's why braking rates are typically around 3.0 mph/sec.
As previously mentioned, an automated system must provide safety in the event of its own failure. These failures include its inability to detect obstacles and its inability to transmit or receive signals. This results in maintaining a safe distance between vehicles. This distance is relatively insensitive to vehicle weight because braking rates are likewise insensitive to vehicle weight.
01-07-14, 03:14 PM
#45
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What makes this more bike friendly than outright banning cars in the Urban core areas? Both are equally unlikely.
01-07-14, 03:24 PM
#46
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01-07-14, 04:30 PM
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I'm no the OP but I think I can answer your question after watching his video at least to some extent. You don't need a master computer, just small individual computers in each unit that talk to other cars in the area around them and they work together to plan gaps that allow crossing each others paths without ever stopping or hitting each other. It's actually a really simple system to program if everything runs on fixed rails or tracks. You can do it on an old 8-bit computer with only 32-K ram memory and old school 5-1/4" floppy magnetic disks in old DOS programming, a freeking old Apple-II computer could handle it. Today a single chip smaller then your finger nail could do it. Very simple, the cars each being aware of the others in the surrounding area and their relative position and speed plan gaps in traffic that literally let all the cars go right through intersection crossings each slipping through created gaps in the other line of traffic.
It's a little more complicated when you start introducing other elements such as bicycles and peds. and conventional motor vehicles crossing as well but if all you want to do is make the cars themselves not hit each other and continuous traffic streams cross each other without incident in created gaps in the streams of traffic. Piece of cake easy programming and as I said you could do it with and old Apple-II computer much less modern computing capabilities.
It's a little more complicated when you start introducing other elements such as bicycles and peds. and conventional motor vehicles crossing as well but if all you want to do is make the cars themselves not hit each other and continuous traffic streams cross each other without incident in created gaps in the streams of traffic. Piece of cake easy programming and as I said you could do it with and old Apple-II computer much less modern computing capabilities.
01-07-14, 04:36 PM
#48
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Great question! And having worked on security software before, I've given this a lot of thought. Each vehicle has it's own computer which can ONLY be updated via physical connection back at the shop (not wirelessly). On top of that is the fact that EITHER of three independent systems can bring vehicles to an emergency stop should dangerous conditions be detected..
1) onboard computer
2) central routing system (also a distributed processing system for redundancy)
3) human hitting big red "emergency stop" button
So even if one of the computer systems was totally compromised, the overall system is still protected (meaning no mass collisions), basically a layered approach to security.
1) onboard computer
2) central routing system (also a distributed processing system for redundancy)
3) human hitting big red "emergency stop" button
So even if one of the computer systems was totally compromised, the overall system is still protected (meaning no mass collisions), basically a layered approach to security.
01-07-14, 04:41 PM
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