links for 2007-11-14
Posted by akaDruid @ del.icio.us on 14 Nov 2007 at 01:11 am
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Foldable, Stackable Car? – I don’t think so.
So, MIT has ‘Reinvented’ Transportation With Foldable, Stackable Car. It will not work. Public sharing is the problem with all these dumb schemes. If people wanted to share their vehicles with others there are much simpler ways of doing it. They don’t, and for similar reasons most people want a private house, not a commune of some sort.
Privately owned, privately controlled vehicles running on publicly owned infrastructure (cars, trucks, bikes etc) is a proven solution. Public owned, public controlled vehicles on public infrastructure (trains, buses etc) is a proven soloution, although largely only for people/places where the first solution has failed for some reason.
This article advocates a switch to publicly owned vehicles, with a small architectural change to the vehicles being the only incentive. It will never catch on, since it provides little benefit over the current system, to end users or authorities – even fully deployed, let alone up to that point.
Here’s my solution: Keep running private vehicles on public infrastructure, but switch them to public control. It can be done incrementally, and in such a way as to provide huge incentives. Here’s how I would implement it:
Upgrade a primary section of the road network to support grade-separated driverless vehicles, with a central control system and external power feed. My suggestion would be to start with something in very heavy use – something like the M40 say, and link either end to major rail stations in London and Birmingham. Charge per mile, and for weight, but only at eventual running costs – plenty of time to subside future infrastructure once it takes off. Publish standards for vehicles, and enforce inspections much like MOTs. Contract a large auto maker to build reference designs for hireable vehicles, both cab-like vehicles for between 1 and say 8 occupants, and car transporter vehicles suitable for putting a single car onto the network. Purchase a large number of each design and make them available fore hire at an additional charge – leaving plenty of space for private companies to undercut you, and for heavy users to save money by purchasing their own smaller vehicles. Implement vehicle storage on the network – it does not need to be anywhere near embarkation points since computer controlled vehicles can be easily relocated before and after the trip.
This has the following attractions for users:
- Speed. Central computerized control means much lower tolerences are acceptable. Vehicles can run bumper to bumper, intersections can run at full speed, and top speeds can be much higher. No reason why it should be slower than existing high speed rail at present – average speeds of 180mph should be simple without trying to use any unproven technology, and throughput can be made much higher than the existing M40 in a narrower corridor.
- Ease of use – existing rail passengers between London and Birmingham can now travel in the comfort, privacy and convenience of their own vehicles, or at least in the privacy of hired vehicles. Vehicle storage is handled by the network, your vehicle accessed by booking via the net or simply waiting a couple of mins when you arrive at a rail terminal. For car drivers wanting to enter London or Birmingham, you have high speed, stress free access to either city from any of the embarkation points along the route, and you can either disembark with your vehicle at a major road junction outside the city, or disembark on foot at the rail terminals, leaving your vehicle to be stored by the network, at no cost – much better than parking in either city.
- Cost – for various reasons, the per mile costs should be much less than driving a car.
For authorities looking to implement this, you have the following attractions:
- Congestion can be virtually eliminated, thanks to the much reduced land requirement of the system over traditional road networks.
- Pollution can also be much reduced. Since the vehicles draw power from the network, the power can be sourced in the greenest fashion you can afford. Also massively reduce dependence on foreign oil.
- Safety should be much improved. Existing roads are a major killer, this system could be made the safest known way of travelling.
- Incremental approach based on existing technology means low rollout costs. The system can be made self supporting, and even cover the costs of expansion after the initial pilot projects since the running costs should be much lower than the existing car network.
- Once pilot projects have proven the value of the system, existing rail services can be rapidly dismantled and replaced with the system. This would be a cheaper way of implementing the systems, since rights of way and access, and power distribution systems, are already in place, and existing trains have nothing to offer compared to this system.
- Once one country has a wide spread system like this, the take up costs should be much lower, and other countries who cannot afford the risks (and rewards) of being first with a technology like this can benefit. This is particularly true of counties with very poor infrastructure at present, who can take a leap-frog approach, benefiting in much the same way as countries who never built a telephone network and jumped straight to a cellular network.
As far as I can see, this system combines the best existing public transport options, with some of the key selling points of car ownership, and is not technologically or financially challenging.
Of course no system is without it’s downsides. Here’s some potential problems:
- Capital investment. I think the system could be made to pay, but even small sections useful for pilot projects would probably have to be vastly expensive, and could take years to construct. Rolling the system out to the point where it would have a significant impaction on pollution, congestion etc could be one of the most expensive projects you can imagine, and although it might be pay back one day, you would probably be looking at 20 or 30 years before it became very clear. That is a long time when governments rise and fall in four yearly election cycles. But we built our current rail network, so it can be done. We should have the growing environment/green/climate/freak lobby on our side for this one (but not all of them, there is always an irrational element that will profess themselves happy to put their advanced civilization back to the stone age for the sake of the environment).
- Selling a system which requires loss of control. While the good integration possibilities with the existing road network mean that the convenience, speed and cost of travel should be better than car use, people enjoy being in control of a car, and this system little more control than a train (only the start time and stops can now be controlled).
- The command and control systems for a network like this would be non-trivial to build, and the bulk of this would have to be in place before the initial pilot project could go live. There is nothing required that is not available with current technology but the design of the system to ensure maximum safety would be complicated and expensive, and large projects of this nature have a history of failing due to poor designs being accepted, corners being cut, etc.
There are probably more problems associated with this I have yet to think of, and if anyone has anything to add, I would love to hear it. Please leave me a comment below.
One day I would love to write a science fiction short on this subject.
Posted by akaDruid on 10 Nov 2007 at 01:11 pm
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TalkTalk broadband slow?
Here’s how to speed up your TalkTalk broadband. If you are seeing messages ‘looking up google.co.uk’ in the bottom left corner of your screen when you are surfing, it’s because TalkTalk have very slow DNS servers. But don’t panic – it’s very easy to use different DNS servers, which will make everything faster.
I recommend using OpenDNS which is much faster, and has nice clear simple instructions for getting things going.
Posted by akaDruid on 10 Nov 2007 at 09:11 am
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Ubuntu Gutsy losing DNS settings
I had a problem with Ubuntu Gutsy losing my DNS settings whenever I rebooted. This is the solution:
OpenDNS > Get Started > Enable OpenDNS: Unix/Linux Ubuntu
Posted by akaDruid on 10 Nov 2007 at 09:11 am
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links for 2007-11-10
Posted by akaDruid @ del.icio.us on 10 Nov 2007 at 01:11 am
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links for 2007-11-09
Posted by akaDruid @ del.icio.us on 09 Nov 2007 at 01:11 am
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links for 2007-11-07
Posted by akaDruid @ del.icio.us on 07 Nov 2007 at 01:11 am
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links for 2007-11-06
Posted by akaDruid @ del.icio.us on 06 Nov 2007 at 01:11 am
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links for 2007-11-01
Posted by akaDruid @ del.icio.us on 01 Nov 2007 at 01:11 am
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