Absurd-but-cute Ideas

I found this article on one of the NY Times blog. It has some of very cute ideas. All were designed by Steven M. Johnson. These are some that I like:

1 Ideas for recreational cars

In particular, I like the number 33.

2. Bicycle vest

3. Nothing to say about this one.

4. Human-powered rail: very similar idea to what I have in my previous post. 

New ways to move people around

In recent months, Melburnians have noticed and some experienced the train system under tremendous strain as a result of years of neglect. It is logical that the government should therefore implement effective transportation plan, which can reduce the strain in the current system for a reasonable price.

On this weekend, I found two reasonably new ideas of moving people around. One is significantly cooler than the other. I will talk about the cooler one first.

CyberTran : The problem with the current rail system is that the train has to stop at every stations it was scheduled. As a consequence, from commuter perspective, if he want to travel pass 10 stations, the train has to stop unnecessarily at 9 stations. From this perspective, we see that the current form of urban rail is inefficient. Since societies compete by the speed at which information/capital flows though the city (in this case, human capital), inefficiency in public transportation means losing competitive edge.

I believe that CyberTran can reduce this inefficiency. First let me explain what is CyberTran, then the potential benefits of CyberTran.

CyberTran is a complete transportation infrastructure which consists of the vehicle (called tran), the guideway and station. It doesn't have a schedule like conventional train. The commuters select their destinations and after waiting for a short period of time, the vehicle will pick them up and take the passengers directly to the destination without stopping at stations in between.  

On the contrary to convention wisdom in public transport, tran is a computer-controlled ultra-lightweight train which can carry at most 20 people at any given time. If there are more than 20 people wanting to go to the same destination, then more trans will keep coming until all passengers have been picked up. Since tran is always stored in the station when it is not in used, the waiting time is generally short. 

Trans run on separate guideway. One advantage of lightness of tran is that less structure components are required to build the guideway. This has a benefit of lowering initial cost of construction and allows the guideway to be completely built - with similar cost - where it has less interference with other form of traffics. 

The stations are designed so that trans can bypass them without interfering with stationary trans there. Hence, they are located off the main guideway. This increases the average speed since other cars don't have to slow down. Further, since most energy is spent on accelerating and decelerating vehicle, by maintaining cars at near constant speed, one can achieve higher energy efficiency. 

The unused trans are stored at the station and can be recharged using solar cell (or other appropriate form of renewable energy). Therefore, it has an additional benefit which is; no large warehouse is needed to store vehicles. 

Once passengers are picked up, tran will accelerate to the speed before joining the main guideway. As the vehicle is controlled by computer, there is less chance of collision. This is demonstrated in Morgantown PRT system in West Virginia, where excellent record was maintained during its 30 years in operation. 

Its advantages:

1. Safe with low level of collision.
2. Lightness of vehicle means less is needed for construction of the guideway.
3. It uses less energy to move similar population than the conventional train with regenerative braking system in place. 
4. With virtually no stopping in between stations (it can be designs by some clever algorithm to stop at a few stations.), it can achieve higher speed. 
5. It costs less than train system to build and operate.
6. Less polution.
7. Increase commuter travelling freedom, and less stressful.
8. Tran can travel on the slope of up to 20% in comparison with 5% for train. This means it can navigate through obstacles more easily than train. 

All in all, I like this idea. The next one is bus rapid transit. In considering for construct more study is needed. But in term of pollution, CyberTran has more potential to be carbon-free during its operation.

Here is a video of similar idea.

Australian train...

In the last month, I had privilege to "enjoy" Australian train. The trip was simple: I needed to travel to Wollongong for AMSI summer school. 

To Wollongong:

Interestingly, it was cheaper for me to travel to Sydney first before backtracking down south to Wollongong. Then, it made some sort of sense. Countrylink (the train operator) was having a promotion on the trip between Melbourne and Sydney. This was fine with me, since I wouldn't mind meeting my friend in Sydney. 

Waiting for the train on the platform at Spencer st Station (I refuse to call it Southern Cross), the first impression I get wasn't good. The train was delayed by at least an hour. Now, instead of going faster, the operator decided to go slower. In combination with the track work between Campbelltown and Moss Vale, the train had to do a detour through Wollongong!!! 

Now, I don't know the people who designed the program, but it seems illogical that the train passed through Wollongong, but it refused to stop there. Given that they knew in advance that there will be a track work there and still refused to adapt the program to the new situation, this clearly demonstrates the mentality of those involved in transportation business.  

Ok, I was a little too critical on the fact that I arrived in Sydney three hours late. Nonetheless, I should point out that I never heard of European train that arrives at their destination three hours late.  

Never mind, I should also mention the condition on the train. This should be more of amusing incident rather than anything else. It turns out that the air condition in the compartment that I was allocated was broken. I have my suspicion that its thermostat was broken, which means the machine just kept pumping cold air into the carriage. When I found out about this, it was already in the morning so I decided to be manly (yeah, that's right. It is about a boy trying to be a man) and braved the cold. In any case, that was fun. 

But the return trip was better. 

From Wollongong:

The journey started at 17:20 on Friday 6th. I caught a coach from Wollongong, which arrived in Moss Vale by 19:20. That wasn't too bad a trip despite the fact the train was diverted through Wollongong anyway. Now, here come my problem with the system. On the schedule, if the train was on time, it will arrive at 22:30. Now, I don't know about anyone else but I would assume that during timetable designing process, they would make sure that the commuters don't have to wait three hours for their train. 

Anyhow, that wasn't too bad if the train was on time. Luckily, I got a chance for an ultimate waiting experience in my life. The train ended up three hours late. On the plus side, I managed to read twenty pages of math book (for comparison purpose, this is equivalent to reading 100 pages of any novel.), completed most of math problem I set for myself and still had about an hour left to test my mental strength after I was too exhaust from math. 

The rest of the trip was far from incident-free. I was waken up at 6am to be dropped off at Albury, and forced to catch a coach from there back to Melbourne. I arrived at Spencer st at 11am, which concluded 17:40 hour trip (compare to about 8 hours driving). The best part is that Saturday 7th was the hottest day on record in Melbourne. Someone also told me that apparently on that day Melbourne was the hottest city in the world. 

So, am I happy with train in Australia? Well, they will always continue to surprise me. But sorry, I will take a bus next time.....