SkyTran – Individual Maglev System
The American company UniModal Transport Solutions developed a concept for a very high-capacity and high-speed Personal Rapid Transport (PRT) network. Pictures and informations of this sky transportation vehicle are showed below.
This SkyTran system operates with individual, two-passenger vehicles, which are propelled and suspended by a maglev system from overhead guideways. These are laid out in a one mile by one mile networked grid throughout the city. A large number of small departure and exit portals are placed underneath the guideways at approximately every 400 metres or at every city block. Read the rest at Dark Roasted Blend
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I had the same thought at first, but take another look at the last rendering. There appear to be two separate rails, one a main line and another that acts as a sort of “exit ramp” for loading and unloading. If the system is laid out in 1-mile grids, as proposed, with dozens of these loading stations throughout the city, it should be a fairly efficient system. Plus you have to take into consideration people like me who would be too scared to even go near a tiny little car that flies around the city at hundreds of KPH…
There are some serious problems in this design. I see it only being a good fantacy but nowhere near practicable.
2 passengers per car is a silly idea. How does Mom get her 3 kids downtown and back again?
A lot of problems pop up in my mind.
First off, those cars look really cramped for larger passengers and there seems to be no place for even a little cargo – like a few shopping bags.
Second, having such private cars is a massive safety and maintenance problem – this is a big problem for public toilet as well. In inner cities people will use them for drug deals, drug use, perhaps even urinals. Internal graffitti and window etching.
Finally what happens to the entire system when a single car fails on the express track?
why don´t you make a 3D animation, or ask the community to help you out with one? Pictures are good, movies are great and with the community help, that would cost you close to zero.
And please don´t have it required to give you me email.
To be practical it needs more seats (in a different arrangement)for parents with small kids.
They need to build one of those in my city.
You’re wrong Dustin, the system would work well even in a dense urban environment because you could have multiple stations etc. This looks like the best available solution for solving oil dependency. Combining this type of transit system with renewable power would mean free transportation and increased efficiency for our society. I hope Barack Obama will be our next president and acting as such, invest in this important technological development.
pretty cool stuff. needs some improvements.
for crowded areas, it’ll provide great relief.
I believe the idea is that instead of servicing a 5 or 10 ( or more ) block radius as a subway does it is only servicing a 1 – 2 block radius. Also unlike current mass transit which has large capacity vehicles which travel a predetermined route, here you have small vehicles with the freedom to go anywhere on the network. No doubt there would be bottle-necks in certain areas, and the kinks would take some working on. Over all, however, I think that a system like this is best equipped to support our current urban lifestyles.
This is so cool!
Bottleneck? lets test that with some math. In the case where everyone in the city wanted to go somewhere at once: Say upto 6 people could board and depart per minute and you had one station every 400m (6.25 stations per km2)
Hong Kong = 6,407 people per km2. It would take just under 3 hours to move everyone. Too long perhaps if everyone went home at the same time but they don’t in Hong Kong.
How about the 20th most populaous area in the world (Mayotte, France) 499 people per km2? about 13 and a half minutes to clear that bottleneck. I would say noone would be complaining about that!
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_countries_by_population_density
it’d be slow if the queue is super long and each pod can only sit two. maybe sitting four per pod is more practical.
Safety issues will cost too much.. You would nee cameras on every single car..
What would you do with drunk idiots throwing empty bottles at them?
Overall concept is ok, a bit bottlenecked and i wonder how much it will take to see them all around…
Looks good, except that they need to be 4 person sized instead of 2… For situations like; A parent with more than 1 young child, Two people with baggage, etc. Also agree with Dustin, the loading areas (at least in high traffic areas) definitely need to be able to handle multiple vehicles at once.
two-seat mass transit. makes a lot of sense. NOT
Considering how far it goes, it would make more sense to build a monorail. I don’t see why public transit needs to be disguised as a car before people use it.
Wheelchair accessible?
Not to mention, the inside of those things would be trashed within a week. Great idea, though. Probably be cheaper than those boondoggle regional railroads that cities are wasting money on.
Since it is not wheel chair accessible, it will be pronounced dead on arrival be bureaucrats and lawyers.
Great idea, my wife and four young kids will fit nicely into a two seater car! It’s sure to be a great success (NOT)
What happens if someone pukes/defecates/etc. in the car you were due to get into?
Dustin … you’re mistaken. See high speed detatchable lifts (skiing). Or a freeway.
Wow~~looks in the 2050
This is just gona freak out/confuse the old people even more.
It looks great, but we have to wait until it is implemented.
The main problem here i think is, how they sync with the each individual block. What makes it different from Railways?
Thanks & Regards,
Uday
http://udayfun.blogspot.com/
Everyone is just too doggone literal here. These are CONCEPT drawings. They are not blueprints. They’re meant to convey the overall feel of the project, not serve as zoning and planning proposals. Could they be made wheelchair accessible? Of course (elevators, seats that fold down into the floor like a mini-van, loading at ground level, etc.).
The correct parallel to draw is to taxi cabs. These are not cars, they’re not trains, and they’re not a subway system. They serve the same purpose as taxis. Just like you can’t leave your groceries in a taxi and expect them to be there when you come back, you can’t do that here. You probably wouldn’t plan a 3-store grocery trip using a taxi, either. Just like most taxis are not especially wheelchair capable, so are these. Just like people defile taxis, it will happen here, too. Surely it’s possible to have at least some of these things load at ground level and then be elevated up to the maglev rail (like a ski lift).
It is interesting that most people saw the lack of accessibility quickly. That’s good feedback to the designers. But to write the whole thing off because the concept drawings didn’t include elevators is stupid and shortsighted.
And the guy who whines about ‘queues’ instead of lines just reinforces the dumb stereotype that Americans are parochial and cannot cope with anything vaguely foreign.
Great idea!
Paco Hope: my sentiments exactly.
I agree with Paco hope. its a CONCEPT. not a final plan, they can easily make it wheelchair accessible AND make changes for different population density’s of area’s inside ANY city. you people need to think about all the possibilities. and just because it won’t be in America, doesn’t mean it won’t have any success at all. and you’re not the designer. you need to look at it from an average person point of view. “i want to get to work on time” well this is a good answer. “i want to go somewhere without spending 20 odd dollars on a taxi, or being on a crowded bus” fair enough, this can DO IT. just sit back and think of the POSITIVE things. sure there are some things that need changing but just think. where i live (Melbourne Australia), they come out with new bus’s or trains all the time. they work better than the old ones and still serve it’s original purpose. they can always come out with new cost effective ideas that help everyone.
P.S really good concept. hope it gets accepted in every country, once it reaches its final design.
LINK
Excuse me, these could be a fine possibility. Add in a ramp and take out the back seat, leave the space so a guy can roll his wheel chair in there. Up the size a little and through in a small storage compartment and it’d be nearly perfect. The US does in fact have “lines” and “queues” EVERYWHERE has lines and queues, Patrick, you made yourself look like a complete idiot. Meters are another we have in the US, like a meter stick, or the other side of a ruler, or, and I know it’s amazing Zippy, we could convert the meters! Wow! That’s to you Patrick.
It is still a concept, and it is a PERSONAL transportation system not a system to pick you up after you have a bunch of bags or to take you along your shopping route. It’s not there to replace a car but to replace a bus.
Could we see a diagram of the entire system interconnections? Seems very complicated.
one cable vehicle for two seats… it seems
you cant bring any heavy luggage
It’s been ten years since Doug Malewicki first proposed Skytran, but in that time absolutely NOTHING has been done. They can’t even find the money to build a toy, yet alone a 50 foot demo system.
It seems that the specs have changed recently. The price has more than doubled and the speed reduced from 100 MPH to a mere 45 MPH (see unimodal.com)
This thing will never happen
The issues about cargo and disabled access are easily solved with this system. You could even have a docking system where a small battery-powered vehicle (or disabled persons wheelchair) would automatically be loaded into the pod, so you could carry heavy packages. You wouldn’t even need to own the vehicle, since it could drive itself back to the stop when it is done.
This is the ultimate system. It isn’t pie in the sky, The technology has finally arrived to do something that people would accept as public transportation, that doesn’t care about hills, that is esthetically attractive, and doesn’t cost anywhere near as much as roads and freeways.
“They look way too small for overweight people, and the steps with no elevators probably violate the Americans with Disabilities Act.”
Thats why its called a prototype. Do you have any idea how many drafts there are of a particular design before something is finalized?
Its a great idea, especially for city transport. The addition of “family cars” that could sit 4-5 could add to the beneficence.
Great place to take a shit & will look cool covered with graffiti.
As I understood it, you can Order two of these to whatever station you are at. Put your luggage in the second one, and put it to slave after which one you are driving. So you can sit in one, and your kids/whatever sits in the other one.
I’ve been following this for several years, this is a very well thought-out system. The ADA issue has long-since been addressed by a patent-pending system (although not presented in this article). If a rider happens to come across a vandalized car, it can be sent to a central location for cleaning. Since the system knows which access card last used the car, that card can be immediately revoked, locking the vandal out of the system on a first offense. This is not meant to replace ordinary automobiles completely, but it can replace 80% or more of the trips. I wrote to Doug Malewicki about two years ago and actually received a personal reply. Basically, he and two other engineers put a lot of time and effort into this system because they are passionate about it. However, there is a LOT of political crap that needs to be navigated when trying to bring a system like this into reality and Doug has decided he just doesn’t want to deal with it. He’d rather spend his time enjoying his life. He knows this is by-far the best system, he believes in it but he’s just tired of trying to get others to understand it.
The first time I noticed this system was 7 or 8 years ago. I think it is a great idea. A few things I would like to explain:
1) compare everyone drive to work, this system saves a lot of energy because the car is much less than a private vehivle with lower efficiency. Greenhouse problem.
2) door to door, no waiting time, not stop etc. Save time.
3) have a rest onboard and no worries about the car accident. Recharge yourself
4) cheaper especilly for todays high petrol price. Keep your money in your pocket.
5) 7 days 24 hours service. You do not need to pay taxi fare but enjoy the same service.
6) …
Oh, too many. But something I still wondering:
1) is the view in the city there are many lines in sky (about 4 ~ 6 meter abiove) accepable?
2) is it effecient in semirural area to build a line for the local people?
3) how to make the people especially the local goverment accept this?
Personally I prefer 2 passages instead of 4. The reasons is less weight in each individual moving unit and need a lighter system than running 4 passages car.
If there is an overweight person, he can occupy the car himself.
For the people who use the service, they pay one price from point to point regardless one or two, with or without bagage, just like a taxi.
For a busy station such as a big shopping center, multi-platform and boarding port is necessary.
For the disabled person I suggest using speciall design car without seat or just one seat. In each station there could be a special button for such special enquire and the car can come as required in few minutes. The wheelchair can be moved or drived into the car and locked firmly.
As no need to share with strengers, safty is not a big issue. Offcouse the video camera is still necessary but how much you pay for it today? $10?
I also suggest a “return” or “maintainence” button should be put inside the car. When the car is dirty, the last passenger just need push the return button and then the car goes to the nearby service station to have a service.
One of my friendy ask me if there is a car suddenly stopped on the way, what can we do? If it is a 4 wheels car it can be pushed to next stop by the following car but if it is MEV, how to solve the problem?
i had a similar idea, only the cars would actually be operational vehicles that users can drive to their house, thereby maintaining autonomy. they would be charged while on the grid, there would be no ‘bus stops’, drive from your home to the grid and back again.
The sky train is a great idea. Privacy with no need for a car. Plus the environment becomes cleaner.
thanks from tony
All the fatties couldn’t use it, and they’d be all like “We are people too, not just fatties!” F*kn fatties…
I cannot believe the denseness of some of the people that have left comments here.
This is an excellent idea based on an amazing principle – magnetic levitation.
The technology is more efficient and lower energy than a monorail, so it isn’t one.
A two-seater ‘car’ can be modified as a one-seater for a larger person.
Families: The system is computer controlled! you book up THREE cars online, put your
card in the dash of the cars and the system knows to keep them together until destination.
one parent rides with one child each and free telephone conversation between vehicles
on the trip. the third car is for your shopping!
disabled: amazingly the cars can be optimized before mass production to accept a wheelchair.
the access platforms will obviously be modified to accept wheelchairs. once again this information will be known by the control systems.
P*ss, graffiti & other niceties: Every person will have to register to use the system. simple. If you dont like that then dont use it.
When you get to step in a car that has been fouled by the previous occupant, this gets registered and the car get’s sent off to the local ‘cleaning bay’, wherever that is!
Meanwhile you get in the next available clean car and head off. the fouler of the car get’s the bill automatically debited form his account. This way everyone would immediately own up if the car was anything but pristine when they got in.
I do believe these access points need to be manned though.
the point is it’s an idea for the future. Not a finished spec for the system that’s being built in your neighbourhood next month.
And if it can’t take your particular size/situation/baggage, well then sorry, but it’s a Personal mass transit system; there has to be limits on size, number & weight because our world is influenced by gravity, air and light. I mean how stupid would it look, if we replaced the cars in this scenario for buses? The whole infrastructure would have to be massive to support it. There would be no daylight! And it would take four times the power to run it. but you’ll be able to get any amount of shopping onboard plus your extended family and dog….while a queue built up behind you waiting to get on the next bus!
at the end of the day it’s not supposed to replace all other modes of transport; if these were in use all over the country, you ‘d have a CHOICE of taking the family out in the car, because the roads would be less populated
nice
[...] The Contaminated [...]
This seems to be an ingenious project. With the small footprint and small pods this could easily replace or perfect bus or rail lines. I would like to use the product to commute to reduce my 30 minute drive down to a manageable ten minutes (of E-mail reading). I could use one vehicle instead of two for the family and I would imagine would reduce insurance costs for the locations it is located. Would it be perfect? Of course not the car has had a hundred years and still needs some work, but this seems like a viable system that could eventually replace car traffic altogether. I think the first city to implement it would definitely grow at a staggering rate as more people could work in remote locations or more valuable properties can be used for the building instead of the parking lot size required to support it. Being in California I would prefer this system to the High speed rail they are funding. Less speeding tickets too.