Car Style Mass Transit Mag Lev System
Posted on October 19, 2009 Comments (12)
Skytran is a very cool sounding transportation option. It promises, individual transportation modules traveling at 100 miles per hour within the city nonstop to many more points than light rail can service. The current non-solutions we have been attempting for decades of building more and more roads is not working.
The costs is estimated at much cheaper than other alternatives. It would be great if something like this could actually make it (it is much easier to dream about possibilities than to bring them into the world).
From the SkyTran web site:
It works like a taxi that picks you up and drives you to your destination. You travel only with people you choose to, in personal-sized vehicles. The electric vehicles are automatically driven at a constant speed on the main guideway. Like on a freeway, you travel non-stop until taking an exit-ramp at your destination. Also like a freeway, instead of intersections PRT has over-passes so you truly never have to stop… vehicles are lined up waiting for you at boarding stations, and after you get out, they either line up to wait for another rider, or go park themselves and wait for peak periods when they’ll be needed.
At 60 mph the electricity for SkyTran would cost less than 1 cent per mile (at current electricity costs of 11 cents per kWhr). By comparison, buying gas for a 30-MPG car at $2/gallon costs more than 7 times as much.
The site estimates the cost at$10 million per mile for one-way track and $15 million per mile for two-way track. Fundamentally, SkyTran track can be cheaply built because all of the components are very light-weight. Weight is why roads and trains cost so much… In comparison, SkyTran’s guideway only needs to support one 1000 pound (loaded) vehicle at a time… See the detailed cost evaluation page.
At 100 MPH, SkyTran is 10x more efficient than a typical car. Similar to most cars, SkyTran’s most efficient speed is about 55 to 60 mph (see efficiency page). However, SkyTran is not limited to any maximum speed – aerospace engineer Doug Malewicki says that with subtle modifications, SkyTran vehicles could carry passengers at 200 or 300 MPH.
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SkyTran is probably the quietest transportation system ever invented. All the noisiest parts of conventional vehicles are replaced by no-contact magnetic levitation and linear electric motor drive. There is no engine and no tires; hardly any moving parts at all except the car riding its magnetic cushion down the guideway.
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SkyTran uses a passive levetation design based on Inductrack from Lawrence Livermore National Laboratories. The design requires no electromagnets and no superconducting magnets, making it quite cheap by comparison.
Related: Transferring Train Passengers Without Stopping – Blame the Road, Not the Person – Zipcar Innovation – Urban Planning – The High Cost of Free Parking
Categories: Energy, Engineering, Products, Students, Technology
Tags: cars, cool, Energy, Engineering, green, Products, Technology
12 Responses to “Car Style Mass Transit Mag Lev System”
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October 20th, 2009 @ 7:58 am
A system like this is absolutely vital to any future transportation system. The current system crams an ever increasing amount of cars onto a decrepit road network and then dumps those cars into parking lots for most of the day. How incredibly inefficient.
The trouble with this system is meeting the demands for cars rather than roads. During non-rush hours you’ll always have a car available, but what happens when it’s 7 in the morning and a million other people want to get to work as well?
One idea is to pay a premium to always have a vehicle available. Either you own your own car that you can insert into the system or you pay to keep one where ever you are.
October 20th, 2009 @ 6:15 pm
yes, we need to be looking to the future, and it certainly isn’t building more roads
October 22nd, 2009 @ 9:35 am
Maybe in 50 years time something like that will drive my children to their work :). I don’t like cars, I would love it to happen…
October 22nd, 2009 @ 4:00 pm
How cool would this be. It’s totally out of the future.
October 23rd, 2009 @ 6:38 pm
I prefer to consider them Bicycle or pedestrian network extenders. I’m not sure if they are anything like a car, so the car association is not really that accurate. However it does have some of the door to door conveniences of a car and many more.
This Skytran is nice because it apparently is designed to go at really high speeds that can exceed car freeways speeds, but I think the real advantage of PRTs is their ability to access local neighborhoods rather than go really fast. Because even 35 miles an hour is fast compared to sitting in traffic. … and then you don’t have to worry about parking, insurance, dying or getting injured, paying complete attention to the road all the time, etc.
I discovered some other PRT systems which are much more advanced than SkyTran which is being commissioned for Sweden transportation called Vectus.com I am really convinced. I have even spoke to them and they have the technology to implement WiFi access within each car while you ride directly to your destination.
The biggest challenge seems to be developing a complete network which is what the system efficiency depends on, so I was thinking that starting with local nodes that small communities can use extensively, then ultimately connect them all together to form a larger system.
I would suggest reading more about them on the website PRTStrategies.com
October 25th, 2009 @ 3:14 am
Now that is an impressive system. I am surprised at how inexpensive the construction and operation are. Although, wouldn’t physics dispute the point that “SkyTran is not limited to any maximum speed”? 🙂
October 25th, 2009 @ 8:05 am
yes, we need to be looking to the future, and it certainly isn’t building more roads
October 26th, 2009 @ 9:43 am
I am thinking of a mag-lev system that would connect all of the major cities to reduce highway driving. And replacing some of the old or not used rail tracks in major cites with commuter trains to travel in large metro areas.
October 28th, 2009 @ 5:03 am
of course, we need to be looking to the future, and it certainly isn’t building more roads
November 9th, 2009 @ 2:19 pm
I prefer to consider them Bicycle or pedestrian network extenders. I’m not sure if they are anything like a car, so the car association is not really that accurate. However it does have some of the door to door conveniences of a car and many more.
November 14th, 2009 @ 3:36 am
Would like to say that it is essential to have such transportation system as this one, not only will it prevent major traffic jams, but also will it help the commuters get to their destinations faster.
December 29th, 2014 @ 12:06 am
This is a wonderful design to allow bikes to safely travel. The dominance of cars in our transit solutions is something that we need to improve. This is a nice step in the right direction…