They would have to make sure they had the heat expansion of the rails under control. ;-)
Posted on 10/14/2009 3:04:48 AM PDT by Willie Green
Traffic, congestion and related pollution in large cities could be problems of the past with the implementation of a futuristic, personal rapid transit system called SkyTran, according to the system’s designers.
Unimodal Inc., the project’s overarching company, originally looked at ASU’s Polytechnic campus as a possible site for the first track, said Jon Fink, director of ASU’s Global Institute of Sustainability.
The plan fell through because the details weren’t sorted out fast enough to meet the pending deadline for a federal grant Unimodal intended to apply for.
“This summer, when stimulus fund grants became available from the U.S. Department of Transportation, Unimodal suggested that we jointly apply for one,” Fink said. “During our discussions, the focus shifted to the ASU Tempe campus, although in the end there wasn’t enough time to get organized before the deadline.”
Still, if Unimodal receives the federal grant money it applied for last month, construction of the first public line will begin in St. Tammany Parish La., and be completed by 2012.
Once that line is operational, Unimodal has its sights on Arizona and California as its next destinations because of the environmentally friendly power options their climates provide.
“Arizona and California are the perfect places to use solar and wind power, which is something we are interested in,” Unimodal’s Arizona representative Jerry Spellman said. “That is where we will likely go next.”
Behind the concept
The design for the automated system consists of small individual vehicles that operate using magnetic levitation — maglev — and take one or two passengers directly to the destination of their choice, Spellman said.
“SkyTran doesn’t stop except where your destination is, so passengers are carried at high speeds directly to the place they designate,” he said. “For example, if you board at ASU and want to go to Gilbert, you don’t have to go through Mesa first or stop every half-mile along the way.”
Stations, referred to as portals, will be placed every quarter- to half-mile, depending on the traffic density of the area.
The track, called a guideway, will be elevated above roads and pedestrian areas by support poles and can run in one or two directions.
The SkyTran track is thin enough to run above a bike lane, which Spellman said will allow it to operate almost anywhere.
“The seats are tandem seating, so it’s a very narrow vehicle that can operate in small areas like ASU’s malls, for example. It can be put pretty much anywhere,” he said. “It can be attached to buildings and even go inside buildings eventually, like into an airport terminal or hospital emergency room.”
Vehicles move along the guideways at speeds up to 150 mph, and average 70 mph within cities, Spellman said.
In order to stop and allow passengers to disembark, vehicles pull off the main guideway into portals so they don’t slow down traffic.
“It works kind of like an on-and-off ramp of a highway, but it’s automated so it doesn’t slow other vehicles down at all,” he said.
Students react
Direct routes combined with high speeds appeal to many ASU students, like microbiology sophomore Brian Klein, who said he currently finds these qualities lacking in Tempe’s transit system.
“The light rail isn’t really near my house, so accessibility [is an issue],” he said. “Plus I don’t really go to downtown Phoenix that much.”
He said he would use SkyTran based on the benefits of accessibility and speed alone.
“Since SkyTran would be able to pick me up essentially from my house and it doesn’t have any designated stops, I’d get to go where I want to go quickly,” Klein said.
Not all Tempe residents agree the city needs such an elaborate, futuristic system, however.
Sustainability junior Jared Regan, who takes the light rail to class daily, said he thinks the light rail is sufficient for the Valley.
“I love riding [the light rail]. I think it’s a great system and it’s never made me late,” he said. “I think simple systems like the light rail functioning around existing and developed transportation hubs work [for Tempe]. It’s reasonably energy efficient and with the subsidized fare it promotes public transportation well.”
A safer alternative
SkyTran officials say the system has many benefits beside speed and direct routes that other mass transit systems don’t.
The cars drive and park themselves, so passengers don’t have to worry about being distracted, which poses a serious safety hazard on roads, according to the U.S. Department of Transportation.
The use of maglev also increases safety by eliminating all moving parts.
With no wheels or parts of the track being subjected to regular wear-and-tear damage, the risk of breakdowns and crashes due to mechanical failure is almost nonexistent, Spellman said.
Not having to repair such damages also helps cut costs.
Maglev also makes derailing impossible, increasing safety even further, Spellman said.
“The magnetic force lifts the vehicles so they are virtually floating through the guideway, and the energy to do that can come from almost any source,” Spellman said. “The vehicles are so lightweight that solar power would be enough. You couldn’t run a light rail on just solar [energy].”
Other advantages include being environmentally friendly, high capacity and inexpensive to construct compared to other mass transit systems, he said.
The support poles are also able to incorporate telecommunication and fiber optics, enabling cable and Wi-Fi in the cars.
Building the SkyTran
Spellman said this design simplifies construction compared to other systems like light rails and streetcars by incorporating all parts of the system into one above-ground line.
“It doesn’t require tearing up streets or other heavy construction work,” he said. “All that goes up are the poles that support the guideway, so it never comes in contact with intersections or traffic at all.”
Some students who now utilize the light rail on a daily basis remember the hassle of construction.
“I remember [construction] took years and killed all the businesses along the light rail,” Regan said. “A lot of old businesses went under, and it was a real shame.”
Metro Light Rail spokeswoman Hillary Foose, however, said light rail construction didn’t hurt businesses along the track.
“In May 2000, before we even started construction, and also during construction, we saw a large amount of investment by both public and private investors along the track,” she said. “Since then, there’s been $7 billion in investments. That’s from a mixture of things, including ASU’s Downtown campus, residential complexes, mixed-use buildings and more.”
Foose said this is an unusual trend for new mass transit lines.
“We saw [the investments] before the light rail opened, which is kind of unusual because people typically wait to see what the ridership is first,” she said. “I think this is in part because public transit is becoming a national issue and more and more people are starting to [utilize] it.”
Funding the project
As far as funding for the light rail itself, about half the money came from federal grants and the rest from sales taxes throughout the Valley.
This is one other argument Unimodal has for its system over other mass transit systems: SkyTran costs $10 million to $15 million per mile to build, compared to about $70 million per mile for the light rail. As a result, SkyTran could be fully funded by government grants and private investors, Spellman said.
In September, Unimodal applied to receive the federal Transportation Investment Generating Economic Recovery grant to build the first functional public system.
Currently, the only line is a short test track at NASA’s Ames Research Center in Mountain View, Calif.
Unimodal applied for the grant with several partners in St. Tammany Parish, La. which is where the first fully.
According to information distributed by the U.S. Department of Transportation, the grant is part of the federal stimulus money, the American Recovery and Reinvestment Act of 2009 and is designed to provide funds for transportation-related capital investments that significantly impact the city where they are built.
Up to $1.5 billion have been allotted to the program and will be distributed among the applicants as the Secretary of Transportation sees fit.
Unimodal has requested $75 million to build the demo track.
If Unimodal receives the grant, which will be announced in February 2010, Spellman said it would be enough funding to have the Louisiana system up and running by February 2012.
“We think this is our strongest proposal yet, and we have a lot of good partners in Louisiana including NASA, so hopefully it will work out,” Spellman said.
If this happens as planned, additional grant money from both federal and local governments interested in implementing SkyTran in their cities should be accessible once the demo is up and running, Spellman said.
The company also plans to recruit private investors.
After the Louisiana experiment, Unimodal intends to construct SkyTran in several other cities, including Phoenix and Los Angeles as soon as enough funding is acquired.
Spellman said it is unclear when this will be, however.
Once it’s built, the costs to keep SkyTran running should be low enough to be paid for through fares.
“SkyTran doesn’t have to be subsidized by taxpayers because it’s an automated system,” Spellman said. “It’s operated by autonomous computers in each car so it doesn’t have labor costs like other systems.”
This would allow the system to run 24 hours a day without increasing costs.
Spellman also mentioned potential for sending small freight on the same passenger lines, which would increase income and help offset operation expenses.
Looking forward
Unimodal is not the only company working on such advanced personal rapid transit systems.
Companies in the U.S. and Europe are working to develop similar systems as well as automated systems that use existing cars and roads.
ASU faculty is also beginning to investigate possibilities for personal rapid transit around campus and the greater Phoenix area, Fink said.
“ASU has lots of relevant expertise among our transportation faculty, computer scientists, geographers, mechanical engineers and architects,” he said. “I’ve begun organizing this group into a team that can take a systems approach to evaluating the future of [personal rapid transit] for ASU, Arizona and beyond.”
Fink also said he is optimistic about the future of such systems.
“I think that Personal Rapid Transit systems like Skytran represent an important component of future sustainability solutions. They are relatively inexpensive and very energy efficient,” he said. “Overall, I’m quite enthusiastic about PRT systems.”
But I can't help wonder why Arizona State would want to build this thing in St. Tammany Parish, Louisiana???
Heck, that's one of the most conservative and affluent parishes in Louisiana.
And Chevron even moved it's regional corporate headquarters there after Katrina hit New Orleans!
I wonder if Bobby Jindal knows anything about this "boondoggle"???
It certainly isn't as pragmatic as the LV to Anaheim proposal, and I prefer DesertXpress for that route anyway.
Something smells awful fishy here!!!
And where is necessary the massive power supply to run this “bright idea” coming from? Are they building a new nuclear reactor? And don’t you love it when they raises taxes on eveyone to pay for their “bright ideas”?
Great way to get folks to the unemployment office quicker.
Systems can be build in weeks at a small fraction of the cost of a freeway or rail project.
And where is necessary the massive power supply to run this “bright idea” coming from? Are they building a new nuclear reactor?
Nuclear would be nice, but it makes too much sense.
No, it's apparent that St. Tammany Parish, Louisiana OIl Industry executives think they're living in Dubai or someplace like that.
So I bet that this particular maglev project will be powered by Oil or Liquid Natural Gas pumped in from OPEC somewhere.
LOL!!!
Systems can be build in weeks at a small fraction of the cost of a freeway or rail project.
LOL! Yeah... the Oil Industry lobbyists aren't smart enough to come up with a realistic plan.
vehicles pull off the main guideway into portals so they don’t slow down traffic.
I'm struggling on this aspect of the regarding egress and access.
(the whole thing smells like BS to me)
It's poorly put together, full of misspellings, and appears to be built on some sort of low-end build-your-own website offering --- maybe a Google offering? I reached some sort of "Build Your Own Google Website" when I clicked on one of the links on the site.
The Wikipedia page does have some interesting background that I didn't see in the company webpages: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Skytran.
I think that if the technology were available that perhaps some system along these lines might be viable in some urban settings. Certainly it will be interesting to see what actually gets put up in Louisiana and how it is used.
(the whole thing smells like BS to me)
Well this particular project certainly is.
Oil Industry lobbyists (and I suspect airlines as well) are desperate to keep pragmatic high-speed rail and maglev systems out of the American market. So they're muddying the water with outlandish, exotic proposals AND a loud campaign of vocal luddite naysayers.
Gotta keep the price of gas at the pump jacked up somehow!!!!
I think that if the technology were available that perhaps some system along these lines might be viable in some urban settings.
As an engineer, I agree that it's certainly a fascinating concept that merits some kind of R&D funding at a University. It should keep a couple of professors and their grad students busy for many years, trying to refine the details.
But it's also way too exotic to be actually built right now. Current funding should go to more pragmatic implementations. We have to learn how to "walk" with Maglev before we can become Olympic hurdlers... and this one is just too far out there.
I have a very dear friend, an engineer, who has developed a high-speed system called SkyTrain
He developed this years ago and tried for the longest time to get it up and running here in the Tampa area. Maybe, just maybe, the time is right. They could outfit existing buses to use for the cars... Plus, it is great for evacuations for hurricanes. Peeps could get out fast and furious from impact zones and not bog down the roadways. It’s been a long time coming, folks and let’s face it - there’s only one way to go with transportation and that’s up.
“speeds up to 150 mph, and average 70 mph within cities”
Anyone ever been on the underground subway at Denver International? Not for the faint of heart.
It’s been a long time coming, folks and let’s face it - there’s only one way to go with transportation and that’s up.
Thank-you for the link!
Although I'm not familiar with that particular system, I do believe that traditional monorails have significant advantages over ground-level light rail and trolley systems for local urban commuting.
SkyTrain looks interesting because it's suspended below the monorail rather than riding on top. But it's going to take me a while to dig through the details to figure out why one way might be better than the other.
But it's a "cool" idea... I hope that your friend has success with it.
No it gets welfare cheats to different states faster.
SkyTrain looks interesting because it's suspended below the monorail rather than riding on top. But it's going to take me a while to dig through the details to figure out why one way might be better than the other.
OTOH, I just can't resist the temptation to take a wild guess. LOL!
Off the top of my head, I'd guess that suspending underneath might cost a little extra... but has the additional benefit that the track itself is better protected against harsh weather like snow and ice.
Maybe I'm wrong... but it certainly looks like an alternative that many communities might want to consider among the options.
Every community is "different", and there's no such thing as one perfect solution for everybody.
Are they trying to say that this project will come in at or below projected budget like most other goveco wet dreams?
The main benefits of PRT systems, compared to light rail or other traditional transportation systems, are that they are generally more energy-efficient (due to not having to start/stop heavy vehicles at each station along the path), quicker, and easier to expand. On the last point, each stop/station added to a PRT system increases both its utility and its efficiency, while adding stops/stations to a rail or bus line decreases that route's efficiency.
The main drawback to PRT systems, at this time, is that they're regulated as rail systems, which means that the ride vehicles cannot run closely enough together to provide the throughput necessary to make the system practical on a large scale. In order to really make PRT work, the ride vehicles would need to be able to run less than a second apart.
All of this is irrespective of the actual drive system used, whether it's maglev or a more traditional guided rail (including monorail).
“The plan fell through because the details weren’t sorted out fast enough to meet the pending deadline for a federal grant...”
I think the operative issues are right here...
I commute 40 miles to work each way each day. To be honest, I would much rather sleep in a pod than drive.
Interesting presentation by one of the partners...
Not addressed in the document, the fast build time for a relatively light weight system is due to the fact that you plant a string of poles along the route and then connect them up overhead. You avoid most of the right-of-way issues and you have no at-grade crossings. You run it right past a building you want to serve and “portals” can be built in an exterior wall on the second floor.
It would be interesting to see how big an incline the system could go up (or down!). Also not really described is how they do the Maglev. Not superconducting apparently.
The big problem with may of these systems is egress of the passengers in the event of a power failure. What are they going to do, slide down a rope? Grandma will love that.
Amen. The traffic problems in Western St. Tammany Parish is almost exclusively commuting.
If you live in North St. Tammany, you have a handful of state highways. There’s few “major roads” that run long distances that aren’t highways. Of those few highways, only 1 is multiple lanes. The others are all single lane.
So if you live in Lake Ramsey and need to drive to Covington to work at the Chevron building you have to wait for a line of cars going down Hwy 25 to have a break because there’s no stoplights within miles of it. Then you gun it. Then you sit in bumper to bumper traffic going a steady 50mph till you hit Collins Blvd (it’s just a small single lane road with a turning lane that connects Hwy 25 to Hwy 190). Then you hit several lights while never getting above 40 mph while there’s a complete standstill at the end of Collins. Finally you get the Hwy 190 then you’re in 3 lanes of traffic. Total trip is about 8 miles and on some days it’ll take you 30 minutes.
And that’s the only route you can conceivably take. Hwy 21 was finally widened but it’s still a traffic nightmare. Hwy 59 regularly is backed up to the interstate at the end of the day.
If there’s some way to sink a pole and get people from one part of the parish to another in a few minutes, it’ll be as popular as Reagan down here. Especially since it seems like everything is all in certain areas. Hell, they can build it alongside the St. Tammany Trace. It runs 26 miles from one end of the parish to another.
I wonder if many would apply considering how hot it is in Phoenix and the desert southwest in summertime.
Also, would the heat have an effect on the safety of these high speed trains?
They would have to make sure they had the heat expansion of the rails under control. ;-)
I imagine because it’s magnetic you could leave small gaps between segments that wouldn’t compromise field integrity.
I’ve often hoped for a mag system like this with an automated control system. But the problem is getting it started. To get to where people want you need to lay out a ton of cash. If you try and start small it’ll never catch on enough to be viable.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.