[sustran] Re: Will the real PRT please stand up

[E T 3 Space Travel On Earth tm]

Dave and Eric, you are both on to something here -- M2W
(scooters/motorcycles/mopeds) are gaining share in many emerging
markets, AND they have some problems too as both of you have pointed
out.

Compared to a car, a motorcycle or freeway capable scooter can achieve
much higher efficiencies and load factors (as proven by motorcycles in
California (where lane splitting is legal) doubles lane capacity
compared to single occupant cars). Consider a car with an empty weight
of 1000kg, a 1500cc 5 cylinder engine capable of safely seating 5
persons.  Now consider 5 scooters each with a single cylinder
(identical to the car's cylinder of 300cc each).  The scooters each
have two seats of capacity *5 = 10 total seats capacity, and have a
mass of 150kg * 5 = 750kg (250kg less material).

At 100% load factor (all seats filled) the car gets 40mpg * 5 =
200pmpg, the scooters get 100mpg *2 = 200pmpg (no change in energy
efficiency) BUT the scooters have double the capacity and 5 times the
granularity. AND it is clear that the emissions would be about the
same (remember we are using the same cylinder).

Now add Daves ideas of: fully enclosed road PRT (oops i mean scooters)
that use electric or hybrid power.  Such vehicles (we call them MoPods
tm (instead of mopeds) can have much better aerodynamics (and less
weight too) offering further energy and material savings compared to
cars and scooters.  In the rain, the MoPod occupants do not get their
hair and suit messed up on the way to their up-and-coming professional
job.

(Stay with me now) -- As proven by the California PATH program (of
automating car lane following / speed / spacing / merge / diverge /
braking / etc.) lane capacity can be increased by up to 5 times, and
rush-hour speed doubled by using automation or "intelligent
transportation" (IT).  Applying this to the "MoPods" could yield
similar benefits.

Now, hopefully you are all still with me -- now things can get real
interesting.  Instead of competing with non IT vehicles on roads, what
if we borrow from what is proven technology in the for-profit ski
industry?

1st some BACKGROUND INFO:
In the early days of down-hill ski areas in the EU and USA, a road was
built to the top of the mountain and a bus would haul the skiers to
the top of the hill.  Then it was discovered that a couple of cables
with a bunch glorified lawn chairs tied on could do a much faster and
more convenient job of moving people to the top of the hill at much
less cost than a road, bus, and driver.  Ski areas adopting cable
suspended automated people movers made a lot more money, and soon that
was all that survived.  Skiers were happy (no waiting for another 29
skiers to fill the bus, much faster, cheaper ticket cost, and they did
not have to risk catching the flu from the one sick guy on the hill).

What if such "ski lift" cables could be suspended across cities, on
existing buildings, electric poles, bridges, and light poles?  What if
such cable suspended systems had means for automatically attaching to
the top of a MoPod such that the MoPod could be carried several km
across the city -- above all the cars and buses competing for space of
the streets below?  What if the MoPods could be released from the
cable on to a ramp at any bus stop along the cable route without
disrupting the trip of 29 other users?  What if they could be "picked
up" in like manner from any "bus stop"?  What if the cable would
charge your batteries as it carried you in your own MoPod?   What if
this could be built for less than a tenth of the cost of building a
special bus lane?

Some of the many cost advantages compared to buses and trains are:
less labor, less energy, less infrastructure, less maintenance, less
cost per seat (and the user pays this cost -- not the tax payer who
may not be able to use the system).  From the users perspective, they
use their own MoPod vehicle for the entire trip -- only using the
system when it makes sense for them (energy cost, lower per-mile cost,
and time savings are the main reasons to use the cable suspended
public part).  Parking is much less of a problem than with cars
(MoPods are so light weight they can be stood up vertical for minimal
parking footprint for not much more space needs than a bike).

This is NOT rocket science (but rocket science can be applied too --
see our ET3 system), aPRT is NOT what it was 30 years ago.   You all
owe it to your selves as transportation professionals to FULLY
understand what many of you are unreasonably opposed to -- you might
even get to keep or improve your jobs (unless you are secretly on the
payroll of outmoded train or bus manufactures)!

Now what if your MoPod could drive into an empty ET3 capsule and be
automatically routed to any major city on earth in 4 hours or less
(while using less than 1/50th as much electrical energy per passenger
as the most efficient electric train or electric car)? THE "REAL" aPRT
STANDS UP!  Don't just blast it with emotion based arguments -- get
out you calculators (or slide rules if i have some of you pegged
right), and prove that trains, buses, and bikes are better than the
real PRT.

-- 
Best regards,

Daryl Oster
(c) 2011 all rights reserved. ETT, et3, MoPod, "space travel on earth",
e-tube, e-tubes, & the logos thereof are trademarks & service marks of
et3.com Inc. For licensing contact:POB 1423 Crystal River FL 34423-1423
cell:(352)257-1310 Skype:daryl.oster  et3 at et3.com  www.et3.com  et3.net
All information included or attached is intended only for the recipient
and is confidential unless otherwise noted.




On Sat, Apr 30, 2011 at 2:50 AM, eric britton <eric.britton at ecoplan.org> wrote:
> Nice Dave, Couple of quick points to your observations follow:
>
> 1.       The W/S reference on this is
> http://worldstreets.wordpress.com/2011/04/29/op-ed-will-the-real-prt-please-
> stand-up/
>
>
>
> 2.       I hope that I did not say that I thought that the M2W solution was
> Nirvana, in terms of energy efficiency, emissions, driver behavior,
> encumbrance, safety or whatever of these zooming beasts. What I was trying
> to convey is that they are a fact, that their modal share is growing, that
> people chose to go with them for their own excellent individual reasons, and
> that warts and all they get their owner/passengers where they want to do,
> when they want to go there, and at a price that defies all competition. I
> was trying to be descriptive, neutral,  and non-judgmental. But also not
> entirely blind to their reality.
>
>
>
> 3.       What I would dearly like to see now is a certain number of cities
> giving the example for making what the people have voted for with their
> wallets and their bottoms, a better deal all around.  This will of course
> take them to matters such as size, type and performance of the engines,
> provision of road space for safety and efficiency when they are moving, some
> kind of rationalization when it comes to parking, and a real policy about
> enforcement.
>
> I have often maintained  that, like it or not, that people are smarter than
> government, and that the wise government will realize that and is ready to
> work with the people and their expressed interests, not only as individuals
> and today, but for society as a whole and for the long term.  That's our
> responsibility as policy makers/advisors, and that's a job that really does
> need to be done.
>
>
>
> Will the real city ready to take the lead and show the way please stand up.
>
>
>
> Eric Britton
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> Eric,
>
>
>
> You do like to throw out these zingers on Friday, don' t you?
>
>
>
> You make a VERY good point about bicycles and scooters being the original
> PRT.  Traffic congestion in these cities is NOT being caused by scooters.
>
>
>
> That said, I think you're being too charitable calling scooter engines
> "pretty efficient".   Possibly, "relatively fuel efficient" compared to a 1
> or 2 ton automobile but even 100 mpg for a scooter compared to 30 mpg for a
> small car doesn't seem very efficient to me (sorry all, I don't have the
> Liters per 100 KM conversion).  But the worst thing that even the 4 cycle
> engines pollute like crazy compared to any current generation gasoline
> vehicle!
>
>
>
> Given the large numbers of very similar scooter designs, it has always
> baffled me that Asian governments haven't provided some incentives for some
> to sell retrofit kits for the biggest selling models for electricity or at
> least natural gas, and, of course, provide incentives for people to buy them
> (or offer a scooter scrap program).
>
>
>
> I understand that in the middle point of the economic ladder people don't
> want the wind (and sun and rain) in their hair when they're traveling.  So
> why aren't there aren't more partially enclosed scooter designs to serve the
> lower end of the market?
>
>
>
> For better and worse, we (in every country) are constrained by the
> categories of vehicles that get defined in our laws.  In the US we could use
> a legal definition of a practical medium speed vehicle that could be
> manufactured and sold for $6,000 - $8,000 (remember the itMoves?
> http://itmoves.us/pages/product
>
>
>
> That's my 2¢ for Friday!
>
>
>
> Dave Brook
>
> Portland, Oregon
>
> Web: www.carsharing.us
>
> Twitter: carsharing_us
>
>
>
> On Apr 29, 2011, at 12:42 AM, eric britton wrote:
>
> Somebody wake me up on this please.
>
> 1.       If we look on the streets of any city in the Global South, we see
> PRT, personal rapid transport, all over the place.
>
> 2.       In the form of cheap motorized two wheelers with pretty
> energy-efficient engines, enough road space to get the trip done,  and free
> parking right next to where you want to go.
>
> 3.       There is no way that the old mid-20th century PRT folks can even
> start to compete with that.
>
> 4.       But if this is the on-street reality, which of course it is, please
> show me the city or research program that is showing the way in getting the
> most out of this stubborn reality.
>
> 5.       Who is making the best things about it better yet?
>
> 6.       And who is getting some kind of control of the worst?
>
> We need a new policy paradigm for this, let's call it, the people's PRT.  Of
> course it's part of the problem, but it is also clear that it is a major
> part of the solution, as anyone with even an ounce of experience and common
> sense can see.  And policy makers, advisors and proponents of sustainable
> cities we will continue to ignore it at our peril.
>
> Take the city of Kaohsiung as just one salient example: 1.5 million people,
> 1.2 million scooters, and something like three quarters of the modal split.
> And all this in parallel with an absolutely gorgeous new state of the art
> six billion dollar metro that started to go out of business on Day 1 of its
> opening and ever since, because it simply cannot compete in terms of trip
> time, convenient or price.
>
> Shouldn't we be working on this – along with the on-street reality options
> such as BRT, HOV access, parking control, strategic speed control, safe
> walking and cycling, and all that we know are parts of the solution --
> instead of wasting our time with these long disproven, whack-a-mole PRT
> proposals that clearly have no place in our cities
>
> How to get the message across to the policy makers and politicians?
>
> This has been good fun, but Brendan Finn has it right. These PRT enthusiasts
> are distracting us at a time when we need all our brains and focus for the
> real stuff.  Out they go.
>
> Eric Britton
>
> Some reference points:
>
> ·         Sustran list comments -
> http://groups.yahoo.com/group/sustran-discuss/message/6637
>
> ·         World Streets article of 26 April- http://wp.me/psKUY-1A9
>
> ·         CityFix article of 27 April-
> http://thecityfix.com/can-pod-cars-transform-traffic-in-delhi/
>
> ·         Facebook group -
> http://www.facebook.com/home.php?sk=group_217653324914604
>
> ·         World Streets Poll -
> http://worldstreets.wordpress.com/2011/04/27/prt-proposal-for-delhi-convince
> s-chief-minister-but-does-it-convince-you-see-poll-results/
>
> (Note on the poll results: It has in the last 24 hours been contaminated by
> no less than 106 visits from a single Comcast Cable site in one city in the
> United States, with the result that  exactly 65 votes have been recorded in
> favor of PRT as a solution from the one site. Now that's interesting.)
>
>
>
>
>
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