Public Transit Quad Rail Idea

[lbz5mc12]

This is one of those ideas that came to me upon waking this morning. What I'm thinking of is a rail of line sunk into the ground on your basic city street to which is attached a PAS powered, tilting quad. The rail itself carries a current which is transferred to the quad via a boom which extends from the back of the quad. On the end of the boom, at the point where it makes contact with the rail, is a head piece which pops into the rail and can only be released by an attendant placed periodically along the length of the rail to keep people from trying to steal the quad and to transfer the quad to the rail heading back the way from which it came. Also on the head piece is the contact point for the current. Inside the rail, a few inches down, is where the boom makes contact. In between the power source and the rail itself it is insulated to keep the current from making contact with the rail at street level which could electrocute a body; this of course is the underground source of power that is transferred to the bike via the boom. The boom itself is hollow with wire running through it which carries the current to the controller on the quad.

Now the point of it being a quad is so that it straddles the rail which would keep the tires from slipping on or getting stuck in the rail. It wouldn't be super wide with the wheel base being only a foot to a foot and a half apart. It would also be an upright quad for better visibility on the part of the rider and everyone else. There would be different quads with different seating capacity for the individual rider on up to enough seating for a small family. It would have a max speed of 15-20 MPH to meet most speed requirements of an electric bike. It would be powered by dual rear hub motors since it is a PAS only system. There would be no on-board batteries being powered only by the current in the ground. I'm thinking full suspension but with only a couple of inches of travel for street operation. It would have your basic PAS system with a couple levels of assist based on the preference of the operator.

Well that's all I can think of for now.

 

[Dauntless]

Never underestimate the power of mankind to kill themselves with the simplest contrivance. . . .

 

[HAROX]

But somebody could drop a can of frijoles, and it could roll over and short the line in the street. You ARE going to use it for running to the grocery, yes?

 

[amberwolf]

If it's on rails, and not on a set schedule, at a set speed, you have a huge problem even just considering the vehicles on the rails themselves, and nothing else: You'll have lots of vehicles all crawling behind the slowest one, and with today's people they'll all be angry at them, and can't even pass them with road rage signalling with an obscene gesture them for being in the way.

Then you also have the problem that whenever a person or family stops, like to go into a store or whatever, everyone else is now stuck behind them until they get going again.


EDIT: I forgot to add the part about attendants: That part would probably never happen in most cities, either; it'd cost way too much, even at minimum wage. You'd need thousands of people, probably tens of thousands. Even if you paid them only a dollar an hour, and assume only 1000 attendants, and only 8 hours a day that the system is in operation, you now have 8,000 dollars a day just for poeple to stand around and do almost nothing. Realistically you'd need to estimate about $20 an hour for all the costs associated with employing people thru the government, probably more. Now it costs you $160,000 a day, for only 1000 people, for only 8 hours.

No practical way to overcome that, without pullout rails extremely often (a few dozen per mile, at least), along the whole route of the rails.


There's also the issue of power: if there are no batteries, then when there is a failure of the power from rails (which is going to happen both on a grid-wide scale and on short sections of rails), either becuase of corrosion from moisture, vandalism, component failures, power outages, vehicle problems (boom failure, etc), then the vehicle will be limited to whatever speed can be managed by the rider pedalling.


Then you have the problem of traction. Rail vehicles are almost always quite heavy, which is why they have some traction on slick steel rails. Even so, their drive wheels often slip on the rails during changes in torque/speed, both braking and accelerating. So braking will take more distance, and so will acceleration, becuase the wheels will slip on the rails quite a lot more than rubber on road.

EDIT: forgot this: If as your post seems to indicate that they'd only have the rail for power, not for riding on, you can ignore the part above.



Then you have the problem of having to have rails (and the power supplied to them) on most of a city's streets. That will be a huge bureaucratic nightmare, beyond the huge expense involved.

Probably not going to ever happen on major streets, because these slow vehicles would have to have their own lanes, outside of whatever bicycling/MUP/MUT lanes already exist, thus either replacing a regular car/truck lane, or having to widen the streets by another lane each way to make room for them.

So probably would have to go on side streets...which would also have to be widened to make a new lane for this rail system.

Very expensive no matter which way you do it.


Then you have the problem of bad drivers---they are going to cross this rail lane constnatly, even where they are not supposed to or expected to, and the riders on the rail will not be able to get out of their way. There will be collisions, and casualties (probably a lot of them), because the drivers will NOT wait for them to pass, they'll just cut over whenever they feel like it becuase they did not plan on their turn in advance. You'll also have the problme of drivers simply using this lane as their own lane, whenever there's not actually a rider on it at that moment, and they arent' going to want to leave that lane (or be able to in some places due to traffic) when they eventually catch up with the riders on the rail in front of them--some will stop, and some will just run over the rider in front of them, and continue on as if nothing happened. (even if they actually stop after the collision, it's too late at that point anyway).


At least, that's how it would work if you tried to do this in Phoenix, or surrounding cities. Maybe other cities would be easier to do it in....but you'd still have all those challenges, to one degree or another.


It's not impossible to do...but I can't imagine any existing (USA, at least) city implementing it. And I can't imagine very many people in an existing city that would use it, either--those that typically use public transit might, if htey don't like crowded buses/trains and don't mind much much slower transportation, and the ensuing dangers and complications. Those that ride bikes probably wouldn't use it because they'd rather have the freedom to ride where they want to, not be restricted to the (probably few) places with rails and stops. those that drive cars/trucks almost certainly wouldn't use it, becuase it's a lot slower and it's a lot less convenient, and doesn't go where they want as fast as they want, in the way they want, and isn't enclosed to keep them in their cocoon insulated from the real world and people around them.


Still, it'd be interesting to see your thoughts on overcoming the difficulties I listed above. (and there are probably others I didn't think of yet).

 

[Dauntless]

How about a moving sidewalk as at so many airports?

 

[Sancho's Horse]

I had an idea to have an added train car on public commuter trains, where the riders could pull in, secure their ride, plug in, and join passengers on regular cars. I also had an idea to have buried line with wireless transmission over small, well selected stretches. Apparently Korea had simular ideas. Another idea was having areas with mail routes well suited to electric vehicles using e-vehicles and providing electric charging stations for a small profit. Charging stations in their infancy are tricky. My latest brain strain was including chargers on ICE commuting vehicles (where lots of excess charging goes unused on any medium commute) where participants could work out a price with their "battery buddies" for charging on the way to or from work, and handing off the battery to the user. Battery buddies getting ratings, you know...the typical nightmares.

 

[lbz5mc12]

I was thinking more along the lines of ten or so years in the future when EV would be more common place. I was thinking of spacing the attendants kind of like bus stops but every couple of miles. I wasn't thinking of hundreds of miles of rail in any given direction, just like 5 or 6 for inner city commuting, a family outing to the main part of the city, tourism, shopping etc. I was also thinking of 2 side by side rails, one for fast riders and one for slow riders. Also to have a barrier like a hand rail that runs in parallel to the track to keep vehicles from crossing over it except at intersections of course. Inside the track itself there is no bottom to it which means that any debris that falls into it just falls through to like a chute that gets flushed every so often so nothing jams up the line. On the front of the contact piece that sinks into the track is a scoop kind of like on the old steam engine trains that scoops out any debris that is too large to fall through the track.