It’s Time for the Car of the Future

[Sal Ammoniac]

Well, here it is, the good ol’ 21st century, and I want it to start feeling like the 21th century. Specifically, I’m tired of the bad old 20th-century conception of the car that is still the reality of our transportation systems. Don’t get me wrong, the car is a wonderful thing in many ways, and has changed the world, for good or for ill, more than just about any other technology of the 20th century.

These days, though, the way our technology stands, we’re in a position to do better. In other words, almost everything that’s bad about the car is addressable through high technology. So let’s give a partial list of the things that are bad about our cars: environmental degradation (which hardly begins at the tailpipe); traffic accidents; traffic jams; traffic tickets; drunk driving; getting lost; potholes; finding a parking space; car insurance; gas stations...

So let me sketch out some elements of a car of the future:

1. Guidance: If an airplane can fly itself on autopilot, why can’t a car do the same? There should be a massive electronic brain that guides all cars to their destinations, maintaining safe distances between cars and routing traffic efficiently.

2. Propulsion: There has to be something better than the internal combustion engine, for reasons of cost, efficiency, and environmental protection. To me it makes more sense to have the propulsion mechanism as part of the road. Maglev, maybe? Meter cars by miles traveled, and bill electronically.

3. Roads: Roads are one of the weakest links in our current transportation system. They’re vulnerable to weather, to degradation, to obstruction. They carve up habitat, and cause massive environmental damage. I think a better arrangement is a kind of tube, incorporating some form of propulsion. Road sections can be modular, assembled in the factory. They would be quick to install, and quick to swap out for repair. They could be introduced into the landscape in a way that is much less destructive than roads currently are.

So that’s the brief sketch. I don’t even think we need a technological revolution to make any of this happen. It would use mostly off-the-shelf technology, with some wrinkles. It’s expensive as hell, of course. But then think how much we spend today on our cars, and much of it is waste – the time and gas we spend sitting in traffic jams or looking for a parking spot, the death and destruction caused by accidents, the huge judicial framework we have around enforcing traffic laws. There’s money there, it’s just a matter of choices.

So who’s with me on the barricades?

[carnivorousplant]

Gull wing doors.

[Bosda Di'Chi of Tricor]

So who’s with me on the barricades?

Most Tanks are also made by car companies, who hate innovation IMHO.

I'll skip the barricades, thanks.

[XT]

I think a lot of the things the OP is talking about are ALREADY in development by various private companies. What more needs to be done? Is the OP proposing that the Government drive through the programs? I'd definitely be against that.

1. Guidance: If an airplane can fly itself on autopilot, why can’t a car do the same? There should be a massive electronic brain that guides all cars to their destinations, maintaining safe distances between cars and routing traffic efficiently.

Its much more difficult than it seems...and the analogy between flight control guidance and landing and driving a car from one place to another doesn't really hold. One has but to look at the DARPA challenge to see that this problem is much more difficult to solve than autopiloted flight and landing.

However, its something that IS being worked on, both by private industry AND the government (especially the military).

2. Propulsion: There has to be something better than the internal combustion engine, for reasons of cost, efficiency, and environmental protection. To me it makes more sense to have the propulsion mechanism as part of the road. Maglev, maybe? Meter cars by miles traveled, and bill electronically.

Again, this is something that several private companies (and even a few foreign governments) are looking into. There are various alternatives...hydrogen/methane fuel cells, battery powered, Mr. Fusion lash up on the back of the Delorian, etc.

I'd say the powered grid idea, while sounding cool, would be too cost prohibative for a country like the US...there just is no way we are going to replace our existing road infrastructure with something new like that...and a phased approach would mean that the new technology would be a very niche item (you'd only be able to use it on a few roads initially, and it would cost a LOT because there wouldn't be wide acceptance or economies of scale for years and years).

3. Roads: Roads are one of the weakest links in our current transportation system. They’re vulnerable to weather, to degradation, to obstruction. They carve up habitat, and cause massive environmental damage. I think a better arrangement is a kind of tube, incorporating some form of propulsion. Road sections can be modular, assembled in the factory. They would be quick to install, and quick to swap out for repair. They could be introduced into the landscape in a way that is much less destructive than roads currently are.

Thats all true, and maybe future roads could be made in a similar manner to what you are saying here...but they would be replacement roads as our current roads wear out, or perhaps new roads built as needs expand. It would be a long slow process to replace the current infrastructure...decades if not centuries. I don't know about where you live, but there are still roadways around my neck of the woods built before WWII that are still in use. Oh, they have been patched and fixed, no doubt, but they are still essentially the same roads they were way back then.


While I think all of your suggestions have merit, I'm more of a market drives innovation type guy...instead of a force changes from the government via fiat type. I think the internal combustion engine will most likely be replaced in my lifetime by something (hopefully) better, but that this will be driven by the market as much as by government regulation. As for roads...I'd be shocked to see a radical change in our current infrastructure in my lifetime...I think essentially we'll be driving on these same blacktops (with some electronic or other modifications...evolutionary as opposed to revolutionary if you will) for generations to come. I'd also be surprised if we had the controlled auto-driving grid like you seem to be envisioning in my lifetime...though I've seen the commercial about the car that auto-parallel parks itself, so maybe I'm being overly pessimistic there. :)

-XT

[DrCube]

2. Propulsion: There has to be something better than the internal combustion engine, for reasons of cost, efficiency, and environmental protection. To me it makes more sense to have the propulsion mechanism as part of the road. Maglev, maybe? Meter cars by miles traveled, and bill electronically.

Bad idea. I want a vehicle that can, if necessary, take me off the beaten path, so to speak. People will want to go off-roading, or even just drive around their own property. I say we bite the damn bullet and invent a flying car. Or at least a hovering one.

3. Roads: Roads are one of the weakest links in our current transportation system. They’re vulnerable to weather, to degradation, to obstruction. They carve up habitat, and cause massive environmental damage. I think a better arrangement is a kind of tube, incorporating some form of propulsion. Road sections can be modular, assembled in the factory. They would be quick to install, and quick to swap out for repair. They could be introduced into the landscape in a way that is much less destructive than roads currently are.

I, too, despise roads. But I hate infrastructure in general, so tubes are out in my world. Flying cars will fix that problem. And when we have free or very cheap energy flying cars will become feasible. So, lets just get that cheap fusion up and running and we'll be all set. Where's Doc Brown's Mr. Fusion machine when you need it? Or maybe we could figure out how to make use of all that energy the sun just pours out into empty space. I don't know.

Energy being the price it is, I don't see anything being substantially better than what we currently have or are currently planning for, e.g., electric, solar, whatever.

[msmith537]

Many of the OP's ideas are completely off the wall or impractical. Replace simple asphalt and concrete roads with some kind of complex network of powered maglev tubes? PREPOSTEROUS!! OUTRAGEOUS!! Someone's been watching too much Minority Report. FLYING cars? People can barely drive in TWO dimensions!

Other ideas are already in the production or development stage - auto-navigation, systems that "platoon" cars in tightly packed groups, hybrid cars, alternative energy powered cars, GPS navigation systems, real-time traffic information, self-parking cars, night vision, etc.




[DrCube]
I say we bite the damn bullet and invent a flying car. Or at least a hovering one.
[/QUOTE]

Ok. I'll go whip up some anti-gravity.



So who’s with me on the barricades?


You mean the Jersey-barricades?

[Sal Ammoniac]

Xtisme, these are good points. I'm firmly in the camp that the government should be the prime mover here, especially since we're talking one integrated system. I agree that getting started is hard. I think you begin by building a nucleus and work outward from there. I see this above all as a money problem, hence a political one, rather than an engineering one.

One of the things that I would stress is that global warming needs to be taken seriously, and while the need to so imposes huge liabilities, it offers equally huge opportunities to do things differently and better. The car of the future could be a big, big piece of this. I also think waiting for the market to get there on its own is a luxury we can't afford.

[jaygarrick1]

I posted this in another thread about cars, but would like to mention it again. I would like to see a simple LED display on the back of every car window that shows the speed of the car. I think it would be way more efficient than trying to guage the speed of the car ahead of you by sight alone; if I am going 80 and the car ahead of me is going 50, that would be a good thing to know. Also, if you see the numbers on the car ahead of you decrease rapidly, you would know the guy ahead of you is breaking hard and not just tapping them.

[Sal Ammoniac]

People can barely drive in TWO dimensions!
Well, exactly. The status quo sucks in many, many ways.

[ralph124c]

Q: why don't we dith the 120-year old 4 wheel car? FORD had an interesting prototype (in 1962) of a two wheel car-it was kept upright by an internal gyroscope stabilizer. Sorry, don't have a pic-it was ubercool! Not only was it more efficient, but it had a shorter turning radius, no need for s differential gear, and no complicated steering gear. it was also very space efficient. How come all the neat concept cars by detroit NEVER get built?? :o

[XT]

Q: why don't we dith the 120-year old 4 wheel car? FORD had an interesting prototype (in 1962) of a two wheel car-it was kept upright by an internal gyroscope stabilizer. Sorry, don't have a pic-it was ubercool! Not only was it more efficient, but it had a shorter turning radius, no need for s differential gear, and no complicated steering gear. it was also very space efficient. How come all the neat concept cars by detroit NEVER get built??

I've seen several of them on various Discovery Channel or TLC shows and they certainly look cool. Problem is they are very niche oriented. You aren't going to get Joe American family man to pony up for something like that to take his wife and 2.5 kids for a ride to the mall. Space efficiency takes a very distance back seat to stuffing your kids and groceries in the car...and safety as well.

The thing is...why do you suppose it was never built? Or those other cool concept cars? Conspiricy? Or perhaps because the manufacturers realized they couldn't make a profit on it? I know where I come down on that question...

-XT

[BrainGlutton]

I want George Jetson's car! It flies, it hovers, and it folds into a three-pound briefcase! :)

[BrainGlutton]

How come all the neat concept cars by detroit NEVER get built?? :o


I dunno . . . same reason Buckminster Fuller never found a market for the three-wheeled Dymaxion Car (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dymaxion_car)?

[Bippy the Beardless]

Well the Tesla car (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tesla_Motors) is coming to stores near you very soon.

[DrCube]

FLYING cars? People can barely drive in TWO dimensions!

I'm not saying three dimensional travel doesn't offer its share of difficulties. Just ask helicopter pilots. But you never hear of two helicopters colliding head-on in broad daylight. Besides, that way we would have an excuse to actually make sure drivers are trained and competent before we give them a license.

[Lemur866]

Helicopters don't tend to crash into each other because there are only a few flying around. Take a look at the freeways during a commute and imagine a helicopter for each car on the freeway and you'll see a hell of a lot more helicopter-helicopter crashes.

And besides that, what's dangerous about a helicopter is not crashing into another helicopter, it's crashing into the freaking GROUND. A helicopter is an incredibly dangerous toy and only a constant effort by skilled mechanics and highly trained pilots keep them in the air.

Flying cars are a pipedream. Commuting by helicopter is a pipedream. Commuting by ultralight is a pipedream.

What we really need is a hybrid of the car and the train...where cars can be driven independently on surface streets but are piloted automatically on freeways.

[begbert2]

3. Roads: Roads are one of the weakest links in our current transportation system. They’re vulnerable to weather, to degradation, to obstruction. They carve up habitat, and cause massive environmental damage. I think a better arrangement is a kind of tube, incorporating some form of propulsion. Road sections can be modular, assembled in the factory. They would be quick to install, and quick to swap out for repair. They could be introduced into the landscape in a way that is much less destructive than roads currently are.This is just slightly off. Let me help:

Roads are one of the strongest links in our current transportation system. They’re durable against weather and degradation, lasting for years between maintenence cycles, and due to their lack of specialized technology or parts, continue to be usable even after degrading significantly. I think an appallingly worse arrangement is a kind of tube, incorporating some form of propulsion. Such tubes would be insanely expensive as compared to roads, and require constant maintence due to failure of the fragile technological components invovled. Breakdowns would be catastrophic; likely fatal to commuters, and even if not would strand dozens, hundreds, or thousands of drivers in a matter of minutes -for any failure. Road sections that were modular and assembled in the factory would be impossible to put into place, weighing many tons and being larger than any efficient form of shipment (since they are de-facto too big to be shipped via the tube roads). Even if they were broken down into small parts for delivery, delivery and assembly would be orders of magnitude more complicated and expensive than asphalt or concrete. Repairs that could not be done in place would require the massive, heavy replacement sections to be shipped from the factory at great expense, to be swapped out for repair, after which the broken road sections would have to be dumped or recycled at additional cost. They would carve up habitat, and cause massive environmental damage, being by necessity as destructive as roads since they couldn't possibly be suspended above the ground for any significant distance. And we haven't even yet mentioned the backbreaking cost of powering this system.

You can mix some iron filings or something into the striping paint to make it visible to automated car sensors if you want (not that that would benefit you anything), but other that you stay away from our road system. Any fancy-schmancy changes you want to make, you can make to the cars.

[carnivorousplant]

What we really need is a hybrid of the car and the train...where cars can be driven independently on surface streets but are piloted automatically on freeways.

What about small electric cars that go from home home in the suburbs to a train station and ride on flatcars to a downdown parking area?

[Lemur866]

They don't have to ride "on" flatcars, they could just clip together and use the car's existing wheels and motors. When operated independently the cars would operate on battery power, when joined they run off central power like a subway train.

Switching in and out of the train is handled automatically. You punch in your exit, pull into the on-ramp/station, and lean your seat back and take a nap until your exit.

[carnivorousplant]

They don't have to ride "on" flatcars, they could just clip together and use the car's existing wheels and motors.
Seems like I'd have to depend upon how well someone else maintained his car, and use my battery current to move him. It would be easier to drive off a flatcar than to unhook and rehook at each stop.

[Shagnasty]

I posted this in another thread about cars, but would like to mention it again. I would like to see a simple LED display on the back of every car window that shows the speed of the car. I think it would be way more efficient than trying to guage the speed of the car ahead of you by sight alone; if I am going 80 and the car ahead of me is going 50, that would be a good thing to know. Also, if you see the numbers on the car ahead of you decrease rapidly, you would know the guy ahead of you is breaking hard and not just tapping them.

I am not sure if I am being whooshed but good experienced drivers just know that type of thing through a rather unconscious process. Much of my commute is on interstates with heavy traffic travelling at 75 mph. I don't need a sign on the back of each car to tell me who is going faster or slower than me anymore than I need such a sign on people's butts on a crowd. I continually adjust my speed to maintain whatever following distance I want without thinking about it. My foot just moves continually up and down just a little (or a lot when needed) to keep the following distance within a few feet at any speed.

Explaining the whole process might take a Ph.D. dissertation but the basic are:
1) If the car in front of you is getting bigger and closer then you are going faster than it.
2) If the car ahead of you is shrinking, then you are going slower.

It even works in your rear-view mirror (how does it know to make them bigger or smaller :confused: ).

[Bryan Ekers]

Seems like I'd have to depend upon how well someone else maintained his car, and use my battery current to move him. It would be easier to drive off a flatcar than to unhook and rehook at each stop.

Not necessarily. If I have this pictured right, the cars pull onto a "siding" and accelerate up to cruising speed. The cars on the main "track" sense to approach of the newcomer and unhook, making a space for him, He merges into position and the cars in front and behind close the gap, rehook and the "train" continues as before. Demerging is the same, though you have to key in your destination well in advance so the computerized system disengages your car and sends it careening onto the "off-ramp" siding where it overturns and crashes into a huge fireball that utterly consumes the driver who never feels it because he's dozed off.

Tracks aside, better computer communication between cars will be required for automated highways. I wouldn't mind cruising at a steady 80 mph with two feet or less between me and the other cars. If anything, this helps extend road life since computer controls allow denser traffic patterns and newer construction can take place at a more relaxed pace, using the wealth of information collected to judge exact routes.

[carnivorousplant]

I wouldn't mind cruising at a steady 80 mph with two feet or less between me and the other cars.

Failures would be spectacular.

[Mangetout]

1. Guidance: If an airplane can fly itself on autopilot, why can’t a car do the same? There should be a massive electronic brain that guides all cars to their destinations, maintaining safe distances between cars and routing traffic efficiently.

2. Propulsion: There has to be something better than the internal combustion engine, for reasons of cost, efficiency, and environmental protection. To me it makes more sense to have the propulsion mechanism as part of the road. Maglev, maybe? Meter cars by miles traveled, and bill electronically.

3. Roads: Roads are one of the weakest links in our current transportation system. They’re vulnerable to weather, to degradation, to obstruction. They carve up habitat, and cause massive environmental damage. I think a better arrangement is a kind of tube, incorporating some form of propulsion. Road sections can be modular, assembled in the factory. They would be quick to install, and quick to swap out for repair. They could be introduced into the landscape in a way that is much less destructive than roads currently are.I think you just invented the railway.

[El_Kabong]

I appreciate the OP's intentions, and there is no question that reliance on the automobile as personal transport causes numerous problems, but frankly, none of the changes he proposes are ones I'd care to get on board with.

1. Guidance: If an airplane can fly itself on autopilot, why can’t a car do the same? There should be a massive electronic brain that guides all cars to their destinations, maintaining safe distances between cars and routing traffic efficiently.

Buddy, I happen to like driving, and I haven't hit anyone else while doing so in close to 15 years. I propose instead that would-be drivers be required to pass an exam a little more strenuous than a couple of low-speed maneuvers and parallel parking. If they can't hack that, they could then resort to guided transport that already exists: trains and buses :D .

What I could see, and get on board with, in the near term, is that major roads have circuitry embedded in the pavement so that cars equipped with an automated separation distance control system could roll along in close formation with auto-acceleration, steering and braking, as someone has alluded to elsewhere in this thread. Nevertheless, I insist on having full manual control if I want it, and most of the time I would.

2. Propulsion: There has to be something better than the internal combustion engine, for reasons of cost, efficiency, and environmental protection. To me it makes more sense to have the propulsion mechanism as part of the road. Maglev, maybe? Meter cars by miles traveled, and bill electronically.

Except there isn't, yet. Anyway, why throw away a technology that has been in continuous development for at least 100 years and which has not yet reached its technical limits? Compare the relative efficiency of, say, a Honda Insight hybrid to that of a Ford Model T, or a Hummer H2 for that matter.

Personally, rather than worry about finding some replacement for internal combustion engines that doesn't quite exist yet, I'd go more to the source, and promote incentives to develop more compact and efficient cities, where people don't have to travel miles in large-engined personal vehicles just to pick up food or wash one's clothes. I managed to live for nearly a decade in Paris without owning a personal vehicle of any kind, and only rarely missed it.

Sticking with the personal car, however, there is a clear technological trend in transport to using using hybrid and all-electric propulsion systems, at all scales from personal commuting to rail transport of heavy freight. There is a good chance that very soon ganged lithium-ion batteries as used in the upcoming Tesla roadster may finally provide all-electric personal transport with a relatively low operting cost and adequate range and performance.

It most certainly does not make sense to have the propulsion system as part of the road, unless one can do it with a currently impossible technology that would never, ever break down. San Francisco cable cars have a propulsion system that part of the road, and no one seems to want to emulate that model for their urban transport systems.

3. Roads: Roads are one of the weakest links in our current transportation system. They’re vulnerable to weather, to degradation, to obstruction. They carve up habitat, and cause massive environmental damage. I think a better arrangement is a kind of tube, incorporating some form of propulsion. Road sections can be modular, assembled in the factory. They would be quick to install, and quick to swap out for repair. They could be introduced into the landscape in a way that is much less destructive than roads currently are.

The statment that leads the above paragraph is, quite simply, as wrong as it could possibly be. Begbert2 pretty thoroughly demolished this one, so I won't rehash his points, except to ask: which would pretty much have to cost less and have less environmental impact: a simple, inert layer of surfacing material laid down at ground level, or a tube several meters in diameter with numerous connections for linking and power, and requiring that some sort of energy be tranmitted along it at all times? How could this fiendishly complex device be 'quick to swap out', and how would it be less destructive than a much lower-profile road?

To conclude, what the OP really seems to find objectionable about current personal transport technology is how much space it take up, how much it has altered the landscape, and its relative cost, not so much the concept itself. I cannot help but agree, but the solution would be simple if anyone would ever agree to it: ban personal motorized road transport and build a public transport system adequate to get everyone anywhere they want to go at low cost and with minimal waiting. Now, given that such a proposition would most likely cause the immediate, violent overthrow of the government by a rampaging mob, I imagine people are still going to demand their relative freedom of mobility regardless of what the long-term impact may be. Even with all the problems of congestion, pollution and cost, being able to jump in the car and drive somewhere is still too much fun for too many people.

OK, I'll stop rambling and quietly read the posts that may follow.

[carnivorousplant]

Using flatcars also means that the cars needn't be specialized. I can take an SUV or a moped on the train. They would charge me by weight.

[Exapno Mapcase]

Cars are what they are because people are what they are. Before you can install a new kind of car you need to come up with a new kind of people.

That's something I'll to the barricades for! :D

[DSeid]

Q: why don't we dith the 120-year old 4 wheel car? FORD had an interesting prototype (in 1962) of a two wheel car-it was kept upright by an internal gyroscope stabilizer. Sorry, don't have a pic-it was ubercool! Not only was it more efficient, but it had a shorter turning radius, no need for s differential gear, and no complicated steering gear. it was also very space efficient. How come all the neat concept cars by detroit NEVER get built?? :oNot this gyrocar? (http://www.wolseley.dircon.co.uk/gyro.html) :)

Problem now mainly is costs. Electric vehicles that can get to highway speeds and have a reasonable range cost big bucks right now. That Tesla roadster is $100K. This (http://66.218.37.153/cars.htm) somewhat less fancy EV is still going to be priced at $45K and is only expected to bring the company a profit because of a huge zero emission credit in California. Zap Electrics plans on offering a similarly powered vehicle with room for three for $49K (http://www.zapworld.com/ZAPWorld.aspx?id=386) but also offers an EV that seats four for under $10K (http://www.zapworld.com/ZAPWorld.aspx?id=188) but that one maxes out at 40mph. Good enough for most of my needs but I do need to go on the highway sometimes. Do I need to have an extra car just for those days? Or spend $45K plus to get the functionality of a car that costs half that? And for a few, a range of 40 or even 240 miles isn't enough. That's why plug-in hybrids have such an attraction.

Me, I ride my bike when I can. My hybrid when it isn't easy enough for me and my schedule. And I fantasize about owning this Aerorider (http://www.aerorider.com/en/aerorider.html) or this Go-one (http://www.go-one.us/) ... both enclosed human powered vehicles with electric assists.

Agreed that city design needs to change, and for several reasons. Parking needs to be less easy and public transportation better. Forcing people to walk a few blocks if they drive not only decreases the attraction of driving everywhere but will help decrease that obesity epidemic too!

Flatcars? Why not just take the train? Why do you need the car once you are in the city? The advantage was in not having to be tied to the train's schedule. Seems like you've got the worst of all worlds.

Guidance? It's been worked on,and maybe the day is getting closer. Previous attempts concentrated on having strips built into the roadways. Seems to me that a few generations of cars from now could utilize gps technology. You get on a highway and enter in your destination. Once you've entered that you may join in the guidance controlled express lane at a set speed and from there the computer takes over allowing an even and reasonable speed for all participating vehicles with a greater than otherwise safely possible vehicle density with systems not too far off from current cruise controls. El-Kabong prefers to drive in bumper to bumper at a slower speed, fine. He can go ahead and still do that. I can read or watch a movie. Need to make that system way secure though.

[carnivorousplant]

Flatcars? Why not just take the train? Why do you need the car once you are in the city? The advantage was in not having to be tied to the train's schedule. Seems like you've got the worst of all worlds.


My ideas tend to be linked to living in a rural area twenty miles outside the city. It wouldn't be profitable to build train stations within walking distance of everyone nor their destinaation. I'd need to at least drive to a station for a commuter train, and I wish there was one. Flatcars is a respose to the OP. :)

[Johnny L.A.]

But you never hear of two helicopters colliding head-on in broad daylight.
Never? (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i3-IkBSPHd0) (Okay, not head-on; but still...)

[Sal Ammoniac]

Begbert makes some good points about roads, but my fear is that the real advantages he cites seduce us into thinking that roads are the optimal technology for our transportation. I see four major problems with roads as currently constituted:

1. Weather: Snow and ice in the roads ranges from being a major problem to a nonproblem, depending on where you live. Plus weather degrades roads. The freeze-thaw cycle and frost-heaving cost us dearly.

2. Fatal Encounters: The structure of our roads does nothing to keep non-cars (pedestrians, deer) out, with results that are fatal to a certain number of people, and untold multitudes of possums, every year.

3. Utilities: In many parts of the country, the utilities are, of necessity, buried under the roads. So anytime you need to work on the water, sewers, gas, or fiber optics, you’re cutting up the roads. The subsequent repairs to the road generate next year’s potholes.

4. Heat: Black macadam roads are a major heat sink. This is not a problem in Idaho, but it’s a significant problem in the Bosnywash. If Manhattan is X degrees hotter than it has to be because of all the black tar, the financial and environmental costs of removing that heat are not to be ignored.

My idea in proposing a tube was to isolate the travel way and address those problems above. I’m not married to the idea of a tube, but I do think some modestly elevated trackway, made out of factory-made, modular components, is the way to go.

And whether propulsion should be part of the trackway is an open question. Certainly there’s plenty of precedent for an integrated electrical rail to power propulsion, even over a relatively large network. One thing people overlook is that having the propulsion as part of the car – no matter what the technology – dramatically increases the weight of the car. So much of the energy expended by the car is spent simply to schlep the weight of its own engine around.

[El_Kabong]

El-Kabong prefers to drive in bumper to bumper at a slower speed, fine.

Huh? That's not quite what I said. Actually, what I want to do is be able to drive at at the posted speed or above everywhere, and if all you people would get the hell off the road, I could :D .

[Mangetout]

The gyrocar idea looks interesting on the face of it, but the same conservation of momentum that keeps it upright is going bite you on the arse, hard, if you have cause to legitimately tilt the whole system (such as might be necessary to drive it up a hill) - tilting one end up or down will cause a severe sideways force.

[BrainGlutton]

So let me sketch out some elements of a car of the future:

1. Guidance: If an airplane can fly itself on autopilot, why can’t a car do the same? There should be a massive electronic brain that guides all cars to their destinations, maintaining safe distances between cars and routing traffic efficiently.

2. Propulsion: There has to be something better than the internal combustion engine, for reasons of cost, efficiency, and environmental protection. To me it makes more sense to have the propulsion mechanism as part of the road. Maglev, maybe? Meter cars by miles traveled, and bill electronically.

3. Roads: Roads are one of the weakest links in our current transportation system. They’re vulnerable to weather, to degradation, to obstruction. They carve up habitat, and cause massive environmental damage. I think a better arrangement is a kind of tube, incorporating some form of propulsion. Road sections can be modular, assembled in the factory. They would be quick to install, and quick to swap out for repair. They could be introduced into the landscape in a way that is much less destructive than roads currently are.

There's a better way. (http://www.newtrains.org/pages/354049/index.htm)

[BrainGlutton]

I say we bite the damn bullet and invent a flying car.

Already been done. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Moller_Skycar) But the consensus of this (http://boards.straightdope.com/sdmb/showthread.php?t=377888) thread is that it will never be cheap enough or practical enough to make a dent in the market.

Or maybe we could figure out how to make use of all that energy the sun just pours out into empty space.

That would be an even bigger project. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dyson_sphere)

[BrainGlutton]

Not this gyrocar? (http://www.wolseley.dircon.co.uk/gyro.html) :)

I think ralph124c meant this (http://www.dself.dsl.pipex.com/MUSEUM/TRANSPORT/gyrocars/gyrocar.htm#gyrof) one.

[Sal Ammoniac]

BrainGlutton, I have no objection to trains -- the more the merrier, I say -- but what Americans want is something to convey them from point A to point B, where they get to define what point A and point B are. Trains will never come to your driveway, and they often only get you sort of close to where you want to go. Plus taking your groceries and your toddler on the train is sort of a drag. The basic idea of the car as a personal transportation device will never go away. It's too firmly embedded in our mindset, as well as our landscape. What we need to think about is to make the basic idea better -- less dangerous, more sure, less polluting.

[DSeid]

My ideas tend to be linked to living in a rural area twenty miles outside the city. It wouldn't be profitable to build train stations within walking distance of everyone nor their destinaation. I'd need to at least drive to a station for a commuter train, and I wish there was one. Flatcars is a respose to the OP. :)As it is many people drive to the station, park, and take the train into the city which has stops near enough to most downtown locations.

How is this for a concept? An extensive and efficient public transportation grid (including, of course, trains) connecting towns, burbs and cities and intracity locations. On each side, at each station, are rental personal transport vehicles, lower speed and small but of a variety enough that a parent can travel with two or three kids too small to use their own, and any shopping done. Bicycles, HPVs of other sorts, Segways, Electric scooters, golf carts, Xebra sedans, etc ... a mix. All rentable with a card and paid for in some combination of time and (moreso) recharge cost and type of vehicle chosen. Returnable at any station and the trains can redistribute to where they are needed most if they tend to accumulate anywhere in particular. Within city limits (or at least downtown) travel is resticted to use of these small extremely low and/or zero emmission vehicles or public transport. Streets are divided into lanes to segregate traffic according to vehicle size for safety's sake. Private ownership of such vehicles is of course allowed and some may skip the train entirely some or most of the time. That Xebra sedan (under $10K) is ample enough for the grocery shopping, the soccer games, and most work commuting (40 mph without traffic congestion is better than how I actually average in my car capable of much faster most days. Even the sparse 40 plus mile range will get you into the city and back to your rural home. Add-in a place to recharge at work for a modest fee, and you can even live 40 miles out of the city.) Ownership of internal combustion is of course allowed but their use is restricted to outside of the city proper.

Ya know, I'm beginning to sell myself on that Xebra sedan! We have two cars, those highway days I can use the family suburban assault vehicle and let my wife schlepp with the EV. Maybe next car, when the current teen-ager inherits mine for college. Freshman year no car, so I've got three and a half years for the technology to improve and prove itself a bit.

[DSeid]

Even just affordable EVs capable of 60 mph plus with battery exchange stops and/or rapid recharge stations that can be used over meal and rest stops on the highways (for a small fee that makes running them profitable enough) that can be added onto the existing highway gas station infrastructure as we transition over a decade or so.

[begbert2]

Begbert makes some good points about roads, but my fear is that the real advantages he cites seduce us into thinking that roads are the optimal technology for our transportation. I see four major problems with roads as currently constituted:

1. Weather: Snow and ice in the roads ranges from being a major problem to a nonproblem, depending on where you live. Plus weather degrades roads. The freeze-thaw cycle and frost-heaving cost us dearly.

2. Fatal Encounters: The structure of our roads does nothing to keep non-cars (pedestrians, deer) out, with results that are fatal to a certain number of people, and untold multitudes of possums, every year.

3. Utilities: In many parts of the country, the utilities are, of necessity, buried under the roads. So anytime you need to work on the water, sewers, gas, or fiber optics, you’re cutting up the roads. The subsequent repairs to the road generate next year’s potholes.

4. Heat: Black macadam roads are a major heat sink. This is not a problem in Idaho, but it’s a significant problem in the Bosnywash. If Manhattan is X degrees hotter than it has to be because of all the black tar, the financial and environmental costs of removing that heat are not to be ignored.

My idea in proposing a tube was to isolate the travel way and address those problems above. I’m not married to the idea of a tube, but I do think some modestly elevated trackway, made out of factory-made, modular components, is the way to go.

And whether propulsion should be part of the trackway is an open question. Certainly there’s plenty of precedent for an integrated electrical rail to power propulsion, even over a relatively large network. One thing people overlook is that having the propulsion as part of the car – no matter what the technology – dramatically increases the weight of the car. So much of the energy expended by the car is spent simply to schlep the weight of its own engine around.Okay, there are two distinct situations to deal with here: city driving and country driving. Presumably you want cars to work in both situations; if not, the word you're looking for is train. So, that's one thing to keep in mind. (Note that the cars need not function in exactly the same way in both systems, but they do have to work and hopefully transition between rather well.)

As mentioned, modular is no good. It ties you to the manufacturing centers, and harshly punishes every hundred miles away from them that you get. With the exception of insignificant parts (like mass-produced little reflective bumps to stick in the road) everything's going to have to be able to be created on-site. Anything else sends manufacturing and maintenence costs spiralling out of control. (Modular also has the downside that you have to anticipate every crazy situation that you come across, like those five-way intersections at odd angles and whatnot.)

Another thing to keep in mind is that any replacement system has to fit pretty much in the same place as any existing system, without significantly changing the rules of access. People are going to reject your system if the city must be bulldozed to the ground before implementing it. Also any system that prevents pretty much random access from the sides is going to be inappropriate for city driving, as people like being able to get onto the road from parking lots and driveways and such.

So, city driving: You pretty much have to retain the flat roats at ground level, to allow people to get on and off of them from existing structures. Centralized power would be feasable in a city like New York; probably not so much in Podunk. So cars will have to retain the ability to power themselves (which will also satisfy the off-roaders) but in theory they could toggle to using city electric in town. Of course, the modifications to require this would mean they were electric cars anyway, and at that point you might as well just swap out the gas stations with electric stations and avoid the problematic issue of socialized power (which would favor visitors at the expense of taxpaying locals).

Now, to the listed problems:
1) Weather: First, keep in mind that any exposed system will be subject to damage from weather; it's not really avoidable. Ice on the roads is problematic, but could be addressed by somehow heating the roads, via elements or hot water pipes in them. This would be very, very expensive though, and prone to failure; this is why we use snowtires, chains, and salt. It's cheaper to deal with the increased pace of road wear than to make the road snow-proof.

Oh, and roofing the roads isn't really a feasable solution; the accumulating snow either collapses the roof or piles off the sides and buries the pedestrian lane.

2) Fatal encounters: I don't think deer and possoms are a problem here; it's people. We could put up guardrails and fences at the sides of the road, but the populace would hate them and try to hop them; they'd reduce access to things. It's cheaper and more efficient to teach your kids not to play in the street.

3) Utilities: not an avoidable problem. The pipes have to be under something, and it's cheaper to rip out and repair the roads than the buildings alongside. In theory the subsequent road repair could be done more carefully to avoid potholes, but that's a local issue. Around where I am, it's not a problem at all.

4) Heat: If you're that concerned about it, pave in concrete, like on the highways. It costs more and wears faster, but is a lighter color and provides a better ride. If the city paves in asphalt it's because nobody's convinced the road authority that the problems are such a problem.

Now, rural driving: Freeways, baby! They avoid most of the problems you list. They're also a fertile ground for computer-assisted driving, resulting in cars driving themselves at 90 with 2 feet between them, etc. You could even stick an intert guide stripe down the center of each and have the cars steer themselves. Centralized power is pretty infeasable, though; the problem of who pays for it is escalated by the large amount of cross-country shipment that takes place on roads. (Those big trucks are a good argument against tubes, too.) Also running power on a road from Las Vegas to the Utah state line through a few hundred miles of nothin' for the service of a handful of cars and trucks would be a pointless waste.

For the rural roads that aren't freeways...upgrade them to freeways. It'd be cheaper and simpler than any experimental (and probably more fragile) solution.

[BrainGlutton]

BrainGlutton, I have no objection to trains -- the more the merrier, I say -- but what Americans want is something to convey them from point A to point B, where they get to define what point A and point B are. Trains will never come to your driveway, and they often only get you sort of close to where you want to go. Plus taking your groceries and your toddler on the train is sort of a drag. The basic idea of the car as a personal transportation device will never go away. It's too firmly embedded in our mindset, as well as our landscape. What we need to think about is to make the basic idea better -- less dangerous, more sure, less polluting.

As others have pointed out, what we need is an America where built things in general are closer to one another, and more places you might want to go are within walking distance of your home or workplace, or within walking distance of a transit stop that is within walking distance of your home or workplace. The automobile, with its non-negotiable space requirements, naturally creates suburban sprawl and endless miles of strip malls, which erode quality of life in a lot of ways having nothing to do with the system's expense or environmental impact or accident casualties. Invent a self-driving electric-powered car, and all those sprawl problems remain. I suggest you read some of the following:

Asphalt Nation: How the Automobile Took Over America and How We Can Take It Back, (http://www.amazon.com/Asphalt-Nation-Automobile-Took-America/dp/0520216202) by Jane Holtz Kay

The Geography of Nowhere: The Rise and Decline of America's Man-Made Landscape, (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0671888250/qid=1141794877/sr=2-1/ref=pd_bbs_b_2_1/102-8311832-7072955?s=books&v=glance&n=283155) by James Howard Kunstler (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/James_Howard_Kunstler) (also see Kunstler's website (http://www.kunstler.com) -- especially the "Eyesore of the Month" pages and the "Clusterfuck Nation" column -- rich, juicy rants you can enjoy even if you don't agree)

Home from Nowhere: Remaking Our Everyday World for the 21st Century, (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0684837374/ref=pd_bxgy_text_b/102-8311832-7072955?%5Fencoding=UTF8) by JHK

The City in Mind: Notes on the Urban Condition, (http://www.amazon.com/City-Mind-Notes-Urban-Condition/dp/B0000C2W6A/sr=1-1/qid=1164999549/ref=pd_bbs_1/002-9788122-0265632?ie=UTF8&s=books) by JHK (give special attention to the chapters on Atlanta and Boston)

Suburban Nation: The Rise of Sprawl and the Decline of the American Dream, (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0865476063/ref=pd_sim_b_1/102-8311832-7072955?%5Fencoding=UTF8&v=glance&n=283155) by Andres Duany (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Andres_Duany)

How Cities Work: Suburbs, Sprawl, and the Roads Not Taken, (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0292752407/qid=1141794824/sr=2-1/ref=pd_bbs_b_2_1/102-8311832-7072955?s=books&v=glance&n=283155) by Alex Marshall

The New Urbanism: Toward an Architecture of Community, (http://www.amazon.com/gp/product/0070338892/sr=8-1/qid=1141794706/ref=pd_bbs_1/102-8311832-7072955?%5Fencoding=UTF8) by Peter Katz

See also the Wikipedia articles (and links) on:

Transit-oriented development (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Transit-oriented_development)

The New Urbanism (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/New_Urbanism)

Smart growth (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Smart_Growth)

Peter Calthorpe (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Peter_Calthorpe)

[begbert2]

I didn't buy the books but I skimmed the links and...the car of the future is...no car? What a curious approach to it. You do realize, of course, that these ideas can only work in new cities; existing ones cannot be adapted excepting via the bulldoze approach. I suspect there are other problems as well, but I don't care to read enough on it to find out if they're real or not, so I'll hold my tongue.

[Sal Ammoniac]

Begbert, you make good points. The only thing I significantly disagree with is whether a modular approach to the components of a roadway is prohibitively expensive or difficult. I'm imaging a rail system suspended from pylons with the components mostly bolted together. It doesn't seem to me that the pieces are that difficult or expensive to transport -- no more than anything else, in other words. Hell, you could ship most of them by rail, which would make BrainGlutton happy.

Speaking of which, I don't disagree that "Invent a self-driving electric-powered car, and all those sprawl problems remain." What I'm proposing is certainly no panacea. It addresses a limited set of the problems inherent with our main form of transportation, but by no means all of them. But if you ask me, it's easier to revolutionize our transportation system than it is to revolutionize the average American.

[BrainGlutton]

I didn't buy the books but I skimmed the links and...the car of the future is...no car?

No, fewer cars. A future where personal automobile ownership is a convenience rather than a necessity, and national-aggregate miles driven per year significantly lower than now, because other practical alternatives are available. See post #38.

You do realize, of course, that these ideas can only work in new cities; existing ones cannot be adapted excepting via the bulldoze approach.

Bear in mind that it is only since WWII that we have been building everything around the assumption that everyone will have their own car; anything older than that is built to a pedestrian-and/or-streetcar scale. But yes, that is the big problem: How to retrofit a postwar suburban PUD pod into something more walkable without bulldozing the site and starting over. I don't know if any New Urbanist has ever even explored an approach.

[begbert2]

Begbert, you make good points. The only thing I significantly disagree with is whether a modular approach to the components of a roadway is prohibitively expensive or difficult. I'm imaging a rail system suspended from pylons with the components mostly bolted together. It doesn't seem to me that the pieces are that difficult or expensive to transport -- no more than anything else, in other words. Hell, you could ship most of them by rail, which would make BrainGlutton happy.

Speaking of which, I don't disagree that "Invent a self-driving electric-powered car, and all those sprawl problems remain." What I'm proposing is certainly no panacea. It addresses a limited set of the problems inherent with our main form of transportation, but by no means all of them. But if you ask me, it's easier to revolutionize our transportation system than it is to revolutionize the average American.Well, a (non-powered) rail is a lot easier to deal with than a pipe; I actually gave some thought to a suspended rail system, but you run into problems of strength; by the time this thing can handle triple-trailer trucks racing along it at ninety miles an hour without vibrating apart or merely collapsing, you'll have built the better part of a tunnel. Plus if something does collapse or break, you have entertaining scenario of cars shooting off the end in a graceful arc ending in a massive flaming pileup...if there's one thing you can say about your average road, most of the ways it falls apart don't result in guaranteed fatalities.

And yeah, good luck changing people's behavior; you're much better off changing the cars. (I still maintain that the road exhibits a certain elegant simplicty that's hard to beat.)

Bear in mind that it is only since WWII that we have been building everything around the assumption that everyone will have their own car; anything older than that is built to a pedestrian-and/or-streetcar scale.Actually I think that "horse and carriage" rules were nearly identical to car rules, and that therefore you had roads and road systems several hundred years before the invention of the automobile. We just slapped the asphalt down over the existing buggy lanes.

[BrainGlutton]

Actually I think that "horse and carriage" rules were nearly identical to car rules, and that therefore you had roads and road systems several hundred years before the invention of the automobile. We just slapped the asphalt down over the existing buggy lanes.

Not so. All such buggy lanes have been paved by now, I suppose, but a great many more roads have been built to new specifications. Autocentric development has a very different physical layout, because automobiles (1) can go farther than horses faster and (2) can be economically provided to the masses, so that much more parking space and wider roads are required. (There was a time when "setting up your carriage" meant you had Arrived as an established gentleman, because it was so expensive -- not the carriage itself, but you needed a team of horses, plus stables and pasture for them, plus full-time live-in servants to drive your carriage and groom, feed and exercise the horses when you're not using them.) Just compare the scale of some really old town with that of any postwar suburb or exurb.

[Sal Ammoniac]

Well, a (non-powered) rail is a lot easier to deal with than a pipe; I actually gave some thought to a suspended rail system, but you run into problems of strength; by the time this thing can handle triple-trailer trucks racing along it at ninety miles an hour without vibrating apart or merely collapsing, you'll have built the better part of a tunnel.
If you look at where the weight is in cars (and trucks), it's in the engine, in the drivetrain, and in safety features for the inhabitants. My car of the future would be quite significantly lighter, maybe 75%. For trucking, the weight of course depends on the cargo. But maybe, since you're talking about autopiloted vehicles, breaking up loads into smaller and lighter lots would confer no big economic penalty.

I'm no engineer, but the difficulties don't seem insurmountable, either from an engineering or cost perspective.

[begbert2]

Not so. All such buggy lanes have been paved by now, I suppose, but a great many more roads have been built to new specifications. Autocentric development has a very different physical layout, because automobiles (1) can go farther than horses faster and (2) can be economically provided to the masses, so that much more parking space and wider roads are required. (There was a time when "setting up your carriage" meant you had Arrived as an established gentleman, because it was so expensive -- not the carriage itself, but you needed a team of horses, plus stables and pasture for them, plus full-time live-in servants to drive your carriage and groom, feed and exercise the horses when you're not using them.) Just compare the scale of some really old town with that of any postwar suburb or exurb.Okay, I can see your point there. (I've been mostly involving myself with the economics of wholly replacing one system with another here, and projected that onto the 'start of the automobile age' situation.)

So, how do these little microcosm communities hold up in areas where there tend to be large families (which I think would be reluctant to shovel the brood onto a subway) or bitter cold in winter (where 'from here to the car' seems plenty far enough to walk)? Has that been studied or remarked upon?

I would also think, in materialistic America anyway, you're going to find people who just like owning their own car, for the sake of possession and 'freedom' and whatnot, and who would be resistant to giving it up. I mean, sometimes it's just really handy to own your own truck.

[begbert2]

If you look at where the weight is in cars (and trucks), it's in the engine, in the drivetrain, and in safety features for the inhabitants. My car of the future would be quite significantly lighter, maybe 75%. For trucking, the weight of course depends on the cargo. But maybe, since you're talking about autopiloted vehicles, breaking up loads into smaller and lighter lots would confer no big economic penalty.

I'm no engineer, but the difficulties don't seem insurmountable, either from an engineering or cost perspective.Um, I'm not thinking you're going to run powered rails across the country and back. That's economically infeasable. So, you'll still need the engines for that. Additionally, keep in mind that these vehicles are going to have to pull off the rails and into parking lots and be backing up to warehouses; everything will still have an engine, drivetrain, and driver safety features, regardless.

It just occurred to me that these rails may not work so well with the modular house business. Not to mention that one of the motivating factors behind the US interstate system in the first place was so that the military could have a place to drive tanks and land planes if needed...

[Stranger On A Train]

I'm no engineer, but the difficulties don't seem insurmountable, either from an engineering or cost perspective.I am an engineer (the mechanical sort) and the cost and difficulty of making such a system world seem enormous to me. Other people have already made all the points against such a system, but the benefit of the automobile is, again, that it allows very flexible transport even in sparsely populated areas with minimal infrastructure. Laying tubes all over the place is going to be hideously expensive, and networking traffic so it can transition from one tube to another is an unenviable task. And once single malfunction is going to tie up the tube.

With regard to the internal combusion engine: there are, in fact, more efficient designs in both theory and practice; specifically the Sterling cycle (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Stirling_engine) engine, which uses an external heat source. The problem is driving the thing with a high enough thermal difference; if we ever have portable fusion generators, you can bet that this, or something like it, will entirely replace the Otto or Diesel cycle as the heat engine of choice. But currently, the gasoline engine is, despite its detractions, the most effective method of portable locomotion, and will remain so for the foreseeable future. Maglev? Outrageously expensive, only justifable with regular high speed transport, at least until someone comes up with an inexpensive room temperature superconductor.

Ditto for other methods which drive transports via a centralized energy source; power line losses alone (not to mention the many-fold increase in electrical energy production and distribution this would require) would make it less efficient than IC engines, and of course the whole system would be dependant upon the distribution grid. A single blackout would cripple emergency services and regular transportation. Except for limited circumstances where such a system would be supplementally appropriate (high density urban areas, perhaps) it sounds like an unfeasible idea to me.

Stranger

[BrainGlutton]

In his SF novel The Gold Coast, (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Californias_Trilogy) Kim Stanley Robinson envisioned a future where everyone still has cars and they still run on paved roads as now; but every car is self-piloted by a "carbrain" and powered by an electric "track" running down the center of every lane (like a slot car). Traffic accidents are not unknown but rarer than now. The "national tracking system" would require a huge investment in infrastructure, but so did the interstate highway system. Would that be workable, Stranger? (I mean, assuming you could get a "carbrain" to work without cracking the strong-AI barrier.)

[XT]

In his SF novel The Gold Coast, Kim Stanley Robinson envisioned a future where everyone still has cars and they still run on paved roads as now; but every car is self-piloted by a "carbrain" and powered by an electric "track" running down the center of every lane (like a slot car). Traffic accidents are not unknown but rarer than now. The "national tracking system" would require a huge investment in infrastructure, but so did the interstate highway system. Would that be workable, Stranger? (I mean, assuming you could get a "carbrain" to work without cracking the strong-AI barrier.)

I'm sure Stranger will answer this later (and it will be opposite than my answer most likely :)), but here is my take FWIW.

First off, is cost not an object? Because its going to cost a ton. Also, what kind of time factor are we talking here? Its going to take decades to fully power even the major highways...so until then, the cut over to this new system will be partial at best (as I said above, a niche item until its widely distributed). Finally, whats going to power it? Will you ensure the neo-hippies and eco-facist types will get their ass out of the way so we can build a shit load of new nuclear power plants? Because running such a system is going to take a LOT of power...probably double or even tripple our current power capacity (maybe more who knows?).

Leave the self driving AI brain and just concentrating on solely on the new power grid, I'd say its possible...but highly improbable that you could get anyone to fund such a beast (and I have serious doubts those neo-hippies and eco-facist types are going to get out of the way of a massive new nuclear power grid). The costs alone would be staggering...and the political costs would be astronomical to any pol foolish enough to even suggest such a thing.

Thats my take, FWIW.

-XT

[El_Kabong]

OK, here's the long-term solution for intercity personal transport: not flying vehicles per se but levitating ones that are artificially limited to an altitude of a few feet, and horizontal speeds roughly those of current highway vehicles (mainly to ensure energy management in the occasional crash). Actual roads aren't needed, simply cleared flyways that could be surfaced in grass or other low-lying native vegetation, like a golf fairway. You would need to grade the route somewhat, and reflective signs or strips would be needed to mark the borders, but that's about it. Bridges, probably not necessary for crossing rivers or other transport routes unless one needed vertical clearance for shipping or vehicular traffic.

The only hitch is that the levitation method can't be magnetic because that would require a powered strip in the flyway: too much infrastructure. And the cars can't use fan- or hovercraft-type lifting mechanisms because that would produce far too much noise and consume far too much energy, not to mention the great difficulty in turning and stopping such machines. Nope, gotta be some sort of vectored antigrav mechanism. Aside from that minor little engineering detail, no worries.

Whenever y'all are ready to start sending me royalties, let me know.

[begbert2]

In his SF novel The Gold Coast, (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Three_Californias_Trilogy) Kim Stanley Robinson envisioned a future where everyone still has cars and they still run on paved roads as now; but every car is self-piloted by a "carbrain" and powered by an electric "track" running down the center of every lane (like a slot car). Traffic accidents are not unknown but rarer than now. The "national tracking system" would require a huge investment in infrastructure, but so did the interstate highway system. Would that be workable, Stranger? (I mean, assuming you could get a "carbrain" to work without cracking the strong-AI barrier.)(Another of) my two bits: deliberately ignoring that bit about electrifying the track, wouldn't a system like this be unable to accomodate changing lanes?

And while staying in lanes might be viable, you'de going to need a decent AI to avoid smashing into the first thing that's overhanging the curb a little too far. Still, not impossible. (Ignoring that bit about electrifying the track.)


As for flying cars: who cares about environmental impact; by having low-level flying cars you avoid snow hazard and road wear. That's worth the cost of the atomic piles right there. (Well, maybe not.) And if you had the cars flying, oh, ten feet up, then you could even allow pedestrians to traverse beneath them. Of course one hopes that these hoverunits are *very* reliable...

[RTFirefly]

One limitation on the number of people who can use one city practically, unless it has great public transport like NYC or European cities, is the number of cars that can get into and out of downtown at the beginning and end of the work day.

In the downtowns, of course, there's no room for more roads; everything's already roads, buildings, waterways, or whatnot. My idea would be to squeeze more people into the same roads by:

4. Building cars that are one person wide, rather than two. Then you can have nearly twice as many lanes on the same roads.

Such cars could be one-person cars, or they could have a back seat to allow for a passenger. For safety, the passenger compartment would have front, rear, and side airbags, since there'd be less protective metal.

This should be simple enough to create; we already have an unenclosed vehicle of this sort, called the motorcycle. Most people would rather be enclosed and have four wheels, though.

[BrainGlutton]

Finally, whats going to power it? Will you ensure the neo-hippies and eco-facist types will get their ass out of the way so we can build a shit load of new nuclear power plants?

1) In that particular novel (as opposed to the other two in the trilogy), no.

2) Eco-fascist? :dubious:

[BrainGlutton]

(Another of) my two bits: deliberately ignoring that bit about electrifying the track, wouldn't a system like this be unable to accomodate changing lanes?

No. Even the electric storage batteries we have now could accommodate that.

As for flying cars: who cares about environmental impact; by having low-level flying cars you avoid snow hazard and road wear.

Environmental impact is the least of the objections to flying cars! The main objections are (1) consumer cost, (2) fuel consumption, and (3) safety/air traffic control. See the thread linked in post #35.

[BrainGlutton]

4. Building cars that are one person wide, rather than two. Then you can have nearly twice as many lanes on the same roads.

Trains can accommodate even more passengers in the space taken up by a two-lane road.

[Montitro]

I'd like to go back to the idea that what we really have here are two problems - inter- and intra-city transit.

Inter-city wise, the options seem to be a communal system - trains, the linking systems for cars proposed earlier, that sort of thing - or individual vehicles. The tradeoff is efficiency vs. independence - trains can carry more people, but they can't go everywhere, and require much more investment in infrastructure - especially the more complicated versions. Also, they have the significant disadvantage of not having your car available at your destination, which is ok if there's a good intra-city transit system, but isn't so good otherwise. Also, even with good intra-city transit, there is a convenience factor to cars - especially with cargo. The problems that have been raised with individuated inter-city systems are mostly efficiency things - obviously, cars have to lug around a whole lot more metal per person, especially given the proportion of people who drive a car with no passengers.

Intra-city issues have to do with complexity - even the best public transit systems can't be omni-present, so you end up hoofing it to the bus/train stop and waiting. Which is fine if you just happen to be healthy, not have anything huge to carry, and are going somewhere on the grid. But cars, at least at the density currently existing in most American cities, take up a whole lot of space, suffer from disorganization, and definitely affect urban sprawl.

What I'd like to see is an improved public transit system combined with rental cars (or trucks) for those inconvenient moments. This is, essentially, the system in Hong Kong, with the caveat that the rental vehicles are taxis, because it's so cheap to hire drivers. In American cities, I've seen a few different carshare programs that let you use one of a fleet of cars when you need it for a fee much less than owning a car. The problem being that it's not that much less, and you have to be in a city with good PT for that to work. So, I think what needs to happen is an investment in PT from the government, possibly coupled with and financed by a series of increased taxes on private vehicles. Obviously, we Americans are way too attached to our cars for that to happen now, but I can see it in the future with gas prices going up. It'd still take an initial investment by the government in order to make PT attractive enough that people would be willing to give up their cars. At that point, as fewer people had cars, car taxes could be raised, increasing the shift. There would still be roads in cities, for rental cars and cargo vehicles (I can't imagine that freight trains would be particularly efficient for deliveries to small shops and such) but could be reduced, and some of that space dedicated to PT, either in bus or, ideally train form. Not sure how plausible such a scenario is, politically, but I think it'd be a step in the right direction.

[pantom]

You could make it very practical with tolls that charged for use of the road by that wacko economic law, supply and demand. Lots for rush hour, not so much for 4am on a Sunday morning.
The congestion in most American cities is due to the simple fact that road use is perceived as being free. If it isn't, you'll start to get more rational behavior, and therefore more public transit, at first in the form of private solutions like carpooling and vans, and later with buses and trains.
Even the NYC area suffers from having "free" road use; the 59th Street Bridge, which has no toll, is always packed, it seems, as is the Lincoln Tunnel, who's problem isn't that it's free but that in rush hour it might as well be, since the single-passenger cars driving into Manhattan are, statistically, far more likely to have affluent people in them for whom the toll is a nothing nuisance.
Charge what the traffic (no pun intended) will bear, and suddenly you'll get all kinds of innovations, and people will actually be able to get from point a to point b in a decent amount of time.

[Some_User_Name]

One idea that I've seen floated about - but not by anyone who is going to actually build it- is a hybrid of the "private car on rails" and "Personal Rapid Transit" ideas- you have a overhead or underground (grade separated) rail system that has two kinds of cars on it. The first kind of car is public. You enter a station, and tell the station where you want to go. The station will pull the next available empty car into the station, and you enter the car. The car accelerates up to speed, and merges into the traffic on the rail - the traffic on the main rail continues past the station freely. (During heavy traffic periods, the traffic on the main rail might be slowed down or sped up to "make a hole" for the oncoming car.) You get to the destination, the car moves to the siding, and slows down and stops, you get out, and the car is either used by someone who needs it, or is sent to someplace where it is needed.

The other kind of car is a private car, which can be used on and off the rails. The driver of the vehicle enters it in his driveway, and drives it to an on ramp. Control of the vehicle transitions to the central system while it is on the rail system. The driver programs his destination into his vehicle, and sits back and enjoys the ride. When the destination is reached, the vehicle merges to an off ramp, and control passes back to the driver, who continues to his ultimate destination. Of course, there are safety concerns - the owner/renter of the private car would have to maintain certification of his vehicle before it could be used on the rails, which I would presume would require a combination of electronic monitoring of the vehicle's health, periodical inspections, and consent to being kicked off the network at the first hint of a problem. Of course, the off-ramps would also need to be designed so that if the driver did not take control of the vehicle, it would not cause an accident.

You could design the system to allow for different types of vehicles to operate on it- including unattended cargo pods (can't leave the rails, cargo stations?), attended cargo pods (replacement for delivery trucks), variety of personal pods.

It could be used for both inter-urban transit and intra-urban transit, depending on the network you design. Of course, you would need to have higher rail speeds on intra-urban transit, but you could design a system that would take care of both. Of course, for intra-urban, you would probably end up with private vehicles and private for-rent vehicles and not public vehicles. (I'd imagine that you could either rent a pod like you rent a car now, or rent a seat on a pod that traveled between two points, like an airline.)

For safety, you'd probably want both a central Pod Control system and an in-pod safety system (checks track ahead for obstacles, ability to follow a different pod and automatically brake to avoid or minimize collisions, - stuff that we can do with current technology).

[RTFirefly]

Trains can accommodate even more passengers in the space taken up by a two-lane road.How are the economics of running frequent trains down every two-lane road? I'd think they'd be prohibitive.

[BrainGlutton]

How are the economics of running frequent trains down every two-lane road? I'd think they'd be prohibitive.

Of course. But you can take a lot of traffic off the highways without running trains down every two-lane road.

[Airblairxxx]

One limitation on the number of people who can use one city practically, unless it has great public transport like NYC or European cities, is the number of cars that can get into and out of downtown at the beginning and end of the work day.

In the downtowns, of course, there's no room for more roads; everything's already roads, buildings, waterways, or whatnot. My idea would be to squeeze more people into the same roads by:

4. Building cars that are one person wide, rather than two. Then you can have nearly twice as many lanes on the same roads.

Such cars could be one-person cars, or they could have a back seat to allow for a passenger. For safety, the passenger compartment would have front, rear, and side airbags, since there'd be less protective metal.

This should be simple enough to create; we already have an unenclosed vehicle of this sort, called the motorcycle. Most people would rather be enclosed and have four wheels, though.

Or you could compromise with this vehicle. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carver_%28automobile%29)

[BrainGlutton]

Or you could compromise with this vehicle. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Carver_%28automobile%29)

Or this (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Isetta) one. Plus ca change . . .

We oughtta have a thread on models of cars that didn't last long or never made the expected market inroads in the first place, like the Tucker (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tucker_Torpedo) and the Dymaxion (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dymaxion_car) and Amphicar (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Amphicar) and the Aerocar (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aerocar_Aerocar) -- and why they failed -- but what forum would that belong in?

[Sal Ammoniac]

Interestingly, last week's Economist has an article on the subject of innovation in self-guidance for cars. There's apparently a lot happening in the field. But at the same time, you can give the concept a prodigious boost through tackling the infrastructure as well -- making it more compatible with the idea of cars with advanced guidance or advanced engines. And it's there that I find the public will to be sorely lacking. It's all about cash, and alas, we'd rather spend our public cash on other unworthy things.

[begbert2]

I'm not convinced that any changes to infrastructure are necessary; a viable self-driving car is going to *have* to be able to react properly to something jumping in front of it, be it child or deer. By the time your AI/visual processing is good enough to handle that, I would think that turn lanes would be a breeze for it.

[Sal Ammoniac]

Part of the reason for my suggesting an elevated track was to simplify this very problem. By limiting the scope of travel, and by keeping the deer and the kids out of the way of cars, you limit the amount of artificial intelligence needed. In fact, I'd say we have the requisite amount today.

Plus infrastructure means more than just the roadway, and might include things like refueling or recharging stations, depending.

[begbert2]

Well, as noted, an elevated track is expensive to make; impractically so for most rural travel, I would think. It certainly would be possible to do though, assuming that what you're referring to is basically an elevated highway. (If the cars were to run beneath the track I doubt you gain any benefits over a standard road, and you would certainly buy into a slew of other problems.) I think that access problems would kill the idea of raised tracks for intracity travel, beyond their use in public transportation a la trains.

Conceded on the infrastructure =/= roads angle; in fact I'll go one further and say that, what with oil being finite and possibly over half gone now, I think it's a certainty that we're going to see some new feuling infrasture popping up in the next dozen or two years; pretty much as soon as we can convince a major automaker to abandon oil.

[DSeid]

Seems like the Brits are taking making EVs a practical urban vehicle option (http://www.24dash.com/localgovernment/14045.htm) seriously.

[Mangetout]

I was thinking about the idea of a 'carbrain' on the way to work this morning - something that would participate in something like an ad-hoc roving local network - communicating with other carbrains in the vicinity (this is on the assumption that every car would be so equipped) to prevent collision and to keep traffic flowing optimally through junctions.

It seems like a good idea for in-car computers to be able to collectively negotiate the movement of traffic, however, the concept has a rather obvious potential flaw - it could be hacked - not by people with malicious intent to control other cars, but by people who want to leverage an unfair advantage in their journey; by hacking their own vehicle - perhaps spoofing it to underestimate or understate the manoeuvrability or acceleration/braking properties, the process could be biased so as to favour their passage.

[BrainGlutton]

I was thinking about the idea of a 'carbrain' on the way to work this morning - something that would participate in something like an ad-hoc roving local network - communicating with other carbrains in the vicinity (this is on the assumption that every car would be so equipped) to prevent collision and to keep traffic flowing optimally through junctions.

Is that networking strictly necessary? Our brains manage to do that (most of the time) with no input but that from our eyes. A carbrain designed to do the same would work whether the other cars nearby are carbrain-equipped or not.

[Mangetout]

Is that networking strictly necessary? Our brains manage to do that (most of the time) with no input but that from our eyes. A carbrain designed to do the same would work whether the other cars nearby are carbrain-equipped or not.
Networking wouldn't be necessary if visual processing could be adequately implemented, but it would definitely be an advantage; an ad-hoc network of cars over, say, a 500 yard radius would enable them to interact far more efficiently than if they just had to look for each other visually.

It's far easier to make two or more fast moving objects pass through the same space without colliding if they simply know each others' locations, vectors and intentions (which could be done with GPS and networking). Visual processing would still be required for avoidance of unexpected obstacles such as stray pedestrians, debris or animals.

[begbert2]

Don't forget the legacy non-carbrained cars on the road, either. Any carbrain that exclusively relies on networked information is going to be in for a surprise when Grandpa runs a red light in front of it.

[dropzone]

What about small electric cars that go from home home in the suburbs to a train station and ride on flatcars to a downdown parking area?And this would increase loading time at every stop stop by a factor of at least one for every person getting on the train. As others have pointed out, what we need is an America where built things in general are closer to one another, and more places you might want to go are within walking distance of your home or workplace, or within walking distance of a transit stop that is within walking distance of your home or workplace.Fine, you have invented Holland. Let's get back to the vastness that is the current US town. How are the economics of running frequent trains down every two-lane road? I'd think they'd be prohibitive.Greyhound gets by. Poorly, but it does, and without rails.

[DSeid]

"Carbrains" with limitted acceptance could be as simple as being allowed into an ad hoc highway caravan which runs cars more closely packed than otherwise possible at a uniform speed (which allows not only for greater car density but also conserves energy akin to bicycle peletons.)

Also huge benefit could be garnered just by having all cars equipped with a cheap device that reports their position to a central registry that other cars that are "carbrain" equipped can use. Privacy concerns emerge, however.

[Mangetout]

Don't forget the legacy non-carbrained cars on the road, either. Any carbrain that exclusively relies on networked information is going to be in for a surprise when Grandpa runs a red light in front of it.
Which is why I said (this is on the assumption that every car would be so equipped)

[begbert2]

Yeah, okay, so I didn't incorporate the post two posts up in replying; my bad.

In my (weak) defense, I should note that if the carbrain cars are run on the same roads we currently use, the chance of avoiding a 'transition' period during which they share the road with legacy cars is zero. There's always gonna be some guy who wants to drive the tractor into town like he always has.

(Though, if you installed deactivated carbrain systems into all new cars and then activated them all at once some twenty-forty years later, you could avoid most of the overlap, assuming everything still worked.)

DSeid, aside from aiding in police work and of course various Big Brother applications like tracking traffic density and road usage, what possible benefit would there be to equipping car with a centrally-tracked transponder? Especially in comparison to the direct on-location car-to-car communication already being discussed.

[Mangetout]

Another way to smooth the transition would be for new cars to be equipped with full carbrains that control the car completely, but for inexpensive passive 'beacon' carbrains to be issued (probably under subsidy) for retrofitting into all other existing road vehicles, so the full carbrains would at least be able to get information about the position and vector of the older vehicles, even though they would not be able to negotiate on a full two-way basis with them

[DSeid]

DSeid, aside from aiding in police work and of course various Big Brother applications like tracking traffic density and road usage, what possible benefit would there be to equipping car with a centrally-tracked transponder? Especially in comparison to the direct on-location car-to-car communication already being discussed.The context was in a situation of limited acceptance. The transponder is cheap enough to require placement in a legacy vehicles and allows all other fully equipped carbrains to benefit from knowing what amounts to very detailed and timely traffic reports.

[begbert2]

Another way to smooth the transition would be for new cars to be equipped with full carbrains that control the car completely, but for inexpensive passive 'beacon' carbrains to be issued (probably under subsidy) for retrofitting into all other existing road vehicles, so the full carbrains would at least be able to get information about the position and vector of the older vehicles, even though they would not be able to negotiate on a full two-way basis with themThe context was in a situation of limited acceptance. The transponder is cheap enough to require placement in a legacy vehicles and allows all other fully equipped carbrains to benefit from knowing what amounts to very detailed and timely traffic reports.
Sounds like you guys are on the same page! Transponders make sense, though I still :dubious: over the specific idea of having them all broadcast to a central traffic authority. (If nothing else that would require a much more powerful transmitter.) Local-area "I am here" broadcasters are a viable notion, and would be possibly of some use, but smartcars would still have to be able to deal with untagged vahicles on the road. I mean, if your car plows over bicycles with abandon, that's probably a bad thing, and if it can track a bicycle, I wouldn't think any reasonable designer would exclude the ability to track the much-larger and more visible (taillights!) car.

[Sunspace]

In the book 2081 (piblished in 1981), the cars had the option of self-drive, and the carbrains read local map information from passive transponders embedded in the middle of the road every fifty metres or so. They sounded very similar to what we would now call 'RFID chips' but on a slightly-larger and more robust scale.

If we developed a standard format for describing the features of the road ('curve with radius of 100 metres for next 50 metres', 'this lane merges left after 300 metres', etc), I think we could simplify the requirements of the carbrain quite a bit.

I understand that the DARPA project's goal is now fully-autonomous navigation over existing roads and in existing traffic. The 2081-style carbrain would still have to keep track of neighbouring vehicles, but at least it wouldn't have to continuously keep recognising the features of the road.

Would the requirement to continuously keep watch for animals, children, etc, on the road require enough complexity that adding road recongnition wouldn't be a huge further leap?

[begbert2]

Would the requirement to continuously keep watch for animals, children, etc, on the road require enough complexity that adding road recongnition wouldn't be a huge further leap?Yes and no. Roads are defined by visible lines, notably a clear center line with an additional line to delineate each additional lane on each side of the line. Compared to recognizing virtually anything else visually, this is cake; just follow the lines. Heck, you can make a robot out of legos that can follow a line.

It does occur to me that there are probably better ways to recognize obstructions than visually, though; sonar, radar, or IR of some type that gives multidirectional 'distance-to-obstruction' would probably be a great deal simpler to parse for useful information and it'd tell you nearly as much as vision. If that's what they use, the lines are of course invisible to it.

And of course none of this solves the problem of navigation; just because it recognizes the line-pattern of an intersection doesn't mean that it knows to take that left at Albuquerque.

I've mused a bit to putting something in the road striping paint to make it easily detectable by cars at a distance (would make it compatible with the sonar solution mentioned above), but imbedding information-loaded nodes sounds even better, assuming they could be made durable against failure through age and weather, and were placed redundantly. (The paint solution still wins on 'ease of application', though; it doesn't have to be custom-programmed per location.)

[Mangetout]

Sounds like you guys are on the same page! Transponders make sense, though I still :dubious: over the specific idea of having them all broadcast to a central traffic authority. (If nothing else that would require a much more powerful transmitter.)Broadcasting to a central register could be achieved by the installation of static roadside network points, but I don't see the central control thing as absolutely essential - it would be useful to be able to gather and distribute traffic density and flow information (but this can be (and is) done anyway - just by counting vehicles - without knowing who is where). Centralised monitoring of vehicle movement would be of great interest to law enforcement, of course, but that would be a terrible reason to implement it.

Local-area "I am here" broadcasters are a viable notion, and would be possibly of some use, but smartcars would still have to be able to deal with untagged vahicles on the road. I mean, if your car plows over bicycles with abandon, that's probably a bad thing, and if it can track a bicycle, I wouldn't think any reasonable designer would exclude the ability to track the much-larger and more visible (taillights!) car.I think all road users would have to have the beacons - which is a serious obstacle to the implementation of any such scheme (there's also the non-trivial question of what would happen when one of the passive beacons just fails to operate). Any automated driving system would have to incorporate a degree of visual sense - because there will always be occasions when objects are on the road and are only reasonably detectable by sight.

The sort of thing I'm talking about though, would absolutely require more than just visual data; a very good mock-up of the concept is illustrated in this (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WX3Tv2eWF28) TV commercial.