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Problems with Trains, Public Buses, and Cars

Metro Train: The infrastructure of the metro needs to be extremely strong due to a very high dead weight. Infra cost of one km of track requires between 250 to 350 crores which are remarkably high. In which a lot of money of the taxpayers is wasted.

For any type of Metro train below are some drawbacks:

  • High travel time due to multiple stops

  • No privacy

  • Need to use feeder vehicle which again increases travel time

  • No door to door facility hence changing of the vehicle is required for most of the customers which is tedious for passengers

  • Metro infra can’t be built everywhere due to high cost and heavy infra hence last mile connectivity issue

 

Public Buses: Public buses are considered an important part of any city for intra-city travel. But the problem with buses are they stuck in traffic congestion due to which total travel time is increase. This is the result of traffic signals, traffic jams, lots of personal vehicles, etc. The problem of traffic jams causes pollution for passengers in the current transport system. The more dead weight associated with vehicles causes more pollution. In  few cities nowadays, electric buses are being used which eventually reduces the pollution, but congestion is the same on road.

For any type of Public bus below are some drawbacks:

  • High travel time due to multiple stops

  • No privacy

  • No door-to-door facility hence passenger needs to walk to the bus stop which is tedious for passengers due to which passengers prefer to keep personal vehicles.

 

Cars: Cars offer the best privacy and door-to-door connectivity (last mile), but they get stuck in traffic jams. No matter how luxurious a car we have, it gets stuck in traffic. Overbridges cannot be built at everywhere. It is possible that 90% of the time cars/bikes will be passing from the overbridge but it must have the capability to bear a truck with a load of 30-60 tons. Due to which building overbridges are costly.

For any type of car below are some drawbacks:

  • Cars stuck in traffic whether it is driverless, electric or any other

  • Not economical

  • Create pollution

  • High travel time

  • Exhaustive self-driving in congestion

  • Require lots of parking space

  • Mindless Honking

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Issues with Traditional PRT

Personal rapid transit (PRT), also referred to as Podcars or guided railed taxis, pod taxi, is a public transport mode featuring small automated vehicles operating on a network of specially built guideways. 

 

PRT vehicles are made for individual or small group travel, usually no more than three to six passengers per vehicle. 

 

Numerous PRT systems have been proposed but most have not been implemented. As of November 2016, only a handful of PRT systems are operational. Morgantown Personal Rapid Transit (the oldest and most extensive), in Morgantown, West Virginia, has been in continuous operation since 1975. Since 2010 a 10-vehicle 2getthere system has operated at Masdar City, UAE, and since 2011 a 21-vehicle Ultra PRT system has run at London Heathrow Airport. A 40-vehicle Vectus system with in-line stations officially opened in Suncheon, South Korea, in April 2014. (reference Wikipedia)

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PRT concept exists since 1953 and it’s been more than 50 years now. Some other similar concepts are GRT (Group Rapid Transit), APM (Automated People Mover). When Morgantown PRT was built, it has been seen as a potential solution to mass transit for urban cities, but it doesn’t become reality till now. In the following paragraphs, we will discuss why it didn’t become reality. It cannot be implemented for mass transit due to the low capacity of PRT systems. The same can be seen in available PRT systems in the world which have a very low capacity which is around below 5000 PPHPD (Passenger Per Hour Per Direction).

 

If we technically understand the reason behind low capacity, then we will come across Headway. For novice readers, Headway is a safe distance between two running vehicles on the road or track. Generally, headway is given for safety purposes.

 

Headway is required in PRT due to the following:

  • Lack of an accurate merging/switching mechanism that requires gap (headway) between two pods. 

  • PRT pods are self-controlled and self-powered which means they have many responsibilities like controlling acceleration, maintaining a constant speed, braking, and pulling back, emergency brakes, wireless or wired communication to the central control room, and many more. Which means more responsibilities and more chances of failure hence headway is required.

  • More redundancy cannot be provided for mechanical parts as they will increase the weight of the pod. It is not economical from maintenance and financial point of view.

  • As for brakes and acceleration, it cannot be expected that it will consistently perform in the same way. Performance may degrade over time hence the need for additional gaps (Headway).

  • Due to the less capacity of PRT, PRT developers have thought of creating pods that can accommodate more passengers to increase overall capacity. Generally, up to 6 passengers. It has many disadvantages like heavy pods hence strong infra is required, more passenger means more stops for individual passengers and lack of privacy. If we think of a single destination for all the passengers, then passenger grouping is required, Lack of last-mile connectivity, etc.

 

We have studied all the aspects of PRT and many other inventions and projects.

We found that PRT has a serious issue of capacity and it can’t be the future.

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Other Solutions: some other solutions like funicular, dual-mode vehicles, ropeway, gyrocar, roller-coaster type system, etc cannot provide the required passenger capacity for urban cities.

 

The Need for a Better Service: To conclude the above problem description, worldwide more than 700 million passengers are affected every day. It became the need of the hour.

We need a solution that has the following capabilities:

  • High capacity

  • Privacy

  • Door to door commute aka last-mile connectivity

  • Light infra and less space resulting in lower cost

  • Low fare

  • Non-stop

  • short travel time

  • Safe & reliable

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Solution

In our Solution, there will be a special shell for the passenger which we have named 'Container'. There will be two types of containers single passenger container and double passenger container where one or two passengers can seat respectively. These containers will be used to transport passengers from origin to destination. Our Hybrid Model consists of the main, splitter, merger, accelerator, and decelerator tracks, which are used to pull, split, merge, accelerate, and decelerate the container, respectively. All tracks will have a roof to avoid environmental effects such as sun and rain. For the final destination, Containers can shift on to the special last-mile vehicle directly from the station without the commuter having to offboard from the container. Also, it can pick up a passenger from his doorstep.

 

Container: There will be a special shell for the passenger which we have named 'Container'. The container does not have any population system e.g. electric motor, engine. There will be two types of containers single passenger container and double passenger container where one or two passengers can seat respectively.

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Accelerator track: as the name says accelerator track will be used to accelerate containers from a given speed to the required speed. One end of this track will be at the station and the second end will be connected to the merger track. There can be Omni wheels or rollers on the roof of the track or on the top surface of the container to prevent the container from overturning during acceleration.

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Decelerator track: as the name says decelerator track will be used to decelerate containers from a given speed to the required speed. One end of this track will be at the station and the second end will be connected to the splitter track. Most of it’s work will be just the opposite of acceleration.

 

Merger track: This will be a track that will merge the container into the main track once it is accelerated. The main track and the accelerator track will be connected at one end of this track and the other end will be connected to the main track only.

 

Splitter Track: As the name says, this is the track that will be used to split the container from the continuously running main track and direct it to the decelerator track. It’s functionality will be the opposite of the merger track.

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Benefits of Our Solution

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Every transport system should be feasible from various perspectives of passengers, government, technical & financial perspective. Our solution fulfills all those needs.

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Benefits for Passenger:

  • The door-to-door facility is enabled by a special LastMiler vehicle.

  • Non-stop travel hence faster.

  • Privacy.

  • Affordable/low fare.

  • There is no need to buy a personal vehicle as our solution provides all the facilities like a personal vehicle.

  • Transportation of goods at low cost and in a very short time.

  • Clean and green earth.

 

Benefits for Government:

  • Job opportunities will arise as engineers, designers, manufacturers, and contractors will be needed to implement our solutions.

  • Require only half-space of the metro hence more coverage and less RoW (Right of Way) is required.

  • Overall very low energy is required hence an energy-efficient system.

  • Higher passenger-carrying capacity up to 50,000 PPHPD achieved by special diverting mechanism.

  • Clean and green earth.

  • Govt. need to import less petroleum.

 

Benefits for Infra company:

  • Early break-even.

  • More revenue due to more ridership.

  • Extra revenue from goods transport services.

  • Easy to monetize as our solution is patented.

  • The electrical and mechanical machinery of high-speed tracks can be reused on low-speed tracks after their safe lifespan.

 

Technical Benefits:

  • Pre-present redundancy for safety.

  • Ultra-light infra because vehicle weight is minimal.

  • Most of the technologies are available, just integration required.

 

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