link via Slashdot:
Small, automatic electric vehicles will be demonstrated in two new projects.
from the Technology Review article:
Personal Rapid Transit (PRT) systems are supposed to combine the convenience and privacy of automobiles with the environmental benefits of mass transit. Automated electric vehicles, or pods, each designed to carry from four to six people, wait at stations throughout a city or development, like taxis waiting at taxi stands. A person or group gets in a pod and selects a destination and the vehicle drives there directly.
Two of these PRT systems are being installed this year, one at Heathrow International Airport, near London, and one in the United Arab Emirates, where it will be the primary source of transportation in Masdar City.
This is cool, but it’s not obvious to me why people can’t just walk a few steps between station and destination, and use the (already-proven, less complicated) light-rail model.
I heard about these around a year ago and couldn’t figure the concept of them out. Then I thought about people. People who refuse to catch perfectly good public transport, and instead use taxis, and drive.
If you can’t beat the egos, change the technology to suit them. The only difference between these cars and trains is privacy for patrons.
Kind of like the orient express with little compartments. Except they are kind of cool, and like a spy movie.
Yep – definitely a people problem. I don’t understand it in the same way I don’t understand watching massive 4x4s creep by in rush-hour with only one person in them, except that the auto-companies explicitly market these offensively un-environmental vehicles to people with major insecurities.
And to continue the rant, marketing as an activity seems to me to involve creating and fostering insecurities. Case in point; a recent antiperspirant campaign locally has tried to make it seem unnatural and embarrassing for a man to sweat. …in summer. …in Australia.
Personally, I think the 4wds in the city are a sign of fear of the outside world, not wealth. They have to be. The alienation from others is intentional, like a barricaded off judges house living in a gated off community with tall walls topped with spikes. And until you quash that fear and make people feel safe in their neighbourhood, the 4wd’s in the city will remain.
I want to see the same antipersperant commercial where the woman has hoses tied underneath her arms. Lets you and I find one of our attractive female friends, and make it ourselves?