Brad Ideas - On ultralight vehicles vs. large mass transit vehicles - Comments

Nick Jacob's Defense!

Nick Jacobs — Sun, 27 Dec 2009 18:23:39 -0800

Hey brad, rather than spamming great blogs like yours, I always try and provide legitimate, on-topic and meaningful responses in order to earn the link in the response. I wasn't trying to hide the link, but was trying to provide a legitimate response and add to the discussion. My site is on-topic and relevant, and I hoped that talking about green initiatives where I live would have earned the link, but I realize that I fell short. I believe that blogging does not happen in a vacuum and requires a bit of marking, and commenting on great blogs like yours is one way to market a new site, regardless of any search engine benefit (no-follow links do help, and moreover, by linking out to trusted sites without the no-follow attribute, you will actually help your website become more trusted in return...). I like your blog, and have done search engine marketing professionally for years. If it makes up for it, feel free to email me any questions you have about search engine marketing and I will answer them for free.

I would recommend that

brad — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 11:32:06 -0800

Yes, I agree, put the stuff on your own blog. I get a lot of spam. Your post was written with broken HTML so it went into the approval queue, and I only look at that every few days, if that. Sadly most postings with links are fake postings these days.

Pay Attention

Anonymous — Mon, 30 Nov 2009 11:03:36 -0800

Still waiting for you to clear my last post with a link to a PC Pro article about "the end of sci-fi".

Probably better to keep stuff for my own blog. It's more for me and I can quit reading yours.

Hmm. Wow

brad — Sun, 29 Nov 2009 21:54:23 -0800

I would be curious for a response from “Nick Jacobs” but this comment surprises me. The links in it (one of which I removed even though all links use nofollow so they are of no value in SEO) had only minimal bearing on the comment, and I have a strong suspicion that this was just an excuse to put a link in to the solar power charger company. Yet at the same time the comment was fairly on-topic. I get spam every day where somebody posts a comment that tries to be on topic and throws in a meaningless link. Normally they are very easy to spot, they are very badly done. I have never seen one this good before. Am I wrong? Solar charging for vehicles is pointless and an anti-green idea, but I don’t mind if people want to argue about that.

Personal Transport Vehicle Usage

Nick Jacobs — Sun, 29 Nov 2009 16:22:00 -0800

To a small extent, this is happening a bit in Portland, Oregon and seems to be catching on fast (although Portland is full of people who are all about energy efficiency). Various companies are beginning to utilize this idea by creating small electric, enclosed bikes meant not for use on freeways, but instead for use downtown in urban areas. I've noticed that these often take the place of urban car driving downtown, particularly for those that live in condos downtown anyway.

In addition they often utilize portable solar chargers to power small electronics and the battery of the bike while running and stationary. Recent stories in Portland newspapers (such as this one, in addition to solarpowerchargers.org) confirm this fact. This helps curb the overall energy usage, but often falls a bit short since Portland isn't always the sunniest of places. A bit far from the ideal situations you have mentioned before but it's still exciting to see that people are at least open to making changes to their routine based on the idea of energy efficiency.

Demolition Man Cars

Joel Upchurch — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 08:18:14 -0800

I was watching Demolition Man the other night and was curious about the car Wesley Snipes was driving. I googled it and it turned out to be a real prototype car that GM built in the eighties called the Lean Machine. They claim 200mpg for the car, which I find difficult to believe.
http://www.3wheelers.com/gmlean.html
http://imcdb.org/images/006/404.jpg

The car Sandra Bullock was driving was another prototype called the Ultralite. It was a 4 passenger car that could produce 100mpg at 50mph.
http://www.cardatabase.net/search/photo_search.php?id=00004119&size=larg...
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/General_Motors_Ultralite

It makes you wonder how things would have turned out if GM had developed production cars from these designs.

New Price Tag for SunRail

Joel Upchurch — Wed, 25 Nov 2009 07:47:59 -0800

I read an article in the Sentinel that describes the price tag for the system at 1.2 billion, not 600 million.

http://www.orlandosentinel.com/news/local/os-sunrail-dyer-20091113,0,783...

Also 7,400 was passenger-trips. That would mean 3,700 people per day if you assume most people ride both ways. That works out to $324,000 per person.

I did some more checking.

Joel Upchurch — Wed, 14 Oct 2009 12:41:34 -0700

Brad, I did some more checking and the right of way they are using is shared with CSX, so a ULV isn't an option. I actually looked at the projections of the people proposing this and and they project a cost of building the system at $616 million and 7,400 passengers per day. Even on their own projections, that comes out to $83,000 per passenger. It seems to me that could put the money in the bank and buy the riders a new hybrid every 10 years.
http://www.thetransportpolitic.com/under-consideration/planned-light-rai...
http://www.sunrail.com/cr_whycommuterrail.asp

It seems to me, that if the point is to reduce congestion on the roads, that it would be better if they set up incentives for large companies to have their own bus system like Google.
http://www.nytimes.com/2007/03/10/technology/10google.html?pagewanted=2
Disney and Universal alone have 70,000 employees.
http://66-193-49-180.static.twtelecom.net/Virtual/FastFacts/fastFactDeta...

The Google buses have Wi-fi, so the employees can surf the web, sleep or even work during their commutes.

ULV roads

brad — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 18:57:24 -0700

These might make a worthwhile experiment. You can always add light rail tracks to such a road if it’s not elevated. One of the main advantages people see to ULV roads is you can make them elevated at low cost because they don’t need to bear much weight. The main issue is people not wanting an elevated roadway in their view.

Depending on what other traffic is like people might very much like such a road and buy vehicles for it. Single person lower-speed electric vehicles with range for a commute can be made quite cheap. However, at 40mph the crash risk is higher and this adds a lot to the cost of the vehicle to meet today’s crash standards. A top speed of 25mph, I believe, allows a much simpler vehicle but that won’t compete with any highway driving. Most transit on streets only accomplishes around 10mph so it can readily compete with that, but that speed limit may be too much for people with a long trip to or from the dedicated ROW.

Creating ULV Road Instead of Light Rail

Joel Upchurch — Tue, 13 Oct 2009 13:15:48 -0700

I live in Orlando and they keep talking about putting in a light rail system, which I suspect will not work very well. I wonder if it would work better to take the right of way proposed for the light rail and convert it into a dedicated ULV road? Set a maximum speed of 40MPH and limit it to electric scooters and such. I was also thinking of making it one way and have it run downtown in the morning and out in the afternoon. I would think it would be able to accommodate at least three lanes of ULVs one-way.

Do you think if Orlando built such a road, people would buy ULVs just so they could use it? Should we also allow unpowered bicycles to use the road?

Ultralight vehicles are a

chephy — Sat, 12 Sep 2009 14:13:27 -0700

Ultralight vehicles are a good idea. If you look at Toronto as an example, it's already starting to happen, though, of course, on a small scale. Ontario recently (a couple of years ago) allowed electric bicycles (many of which are not really bicycles, but essentially electric scooters), and people are buying them. Same for Vespas and other small scooters. In Europe and Asia, of course, scooters are immensely popular. Even without the protection of seatbelts and airbags, and without the stability or a three- or four-wheeled machine, these small vehicles are sharing the roads with cars, and there is demand for them. Add these extra safety features, and even more people would find these vehicles attractive and feasible.

Building a separate road system is an absolute impossibility, in my view. For one thing, there isn't any space in urban communities for extra roads. Even installing separate lanes is problematic: as anyone who dealt with the subject of bicycle lanes knows, separated lanes create problems at intersections, and urban roads have lots and lots of intersections (including driveways etc.) I have a feeling that lighter vehicles can start appearing on our existing road network and slowly gaining greater and greater share of trips. This will happen quite naturally as oil supplies will start dwindling noticeably and people will look to migrate to more efficient vehicles. People will also probably make fewer trips and go shorter distances: the nature of the communities will likely change to make most amenities more conveniently accessible by foot or a slower lighter vehicle.

There is still nothing wrong with having mass transit, but I agree that it will never be the only transportation method: it's just one of the ways to get around, very efficient and convenient in some scenarios, but very cumbersome and problematic in others.

Ultralightweight vehicles vs. large mass transit vehicles

Noel Thompson — Thu, 13 Aug 2009 22:56:17 -0700

Hi Brad and all:
Since I first wrote, I have done some extra calculations and got extra ideas. Basically, DUPLICATE roads for lightweight vehicles is looking better and better, but acceptance is looking worse and worse.
Cost of duplicate roads (four lanes per. side;two for light cars, one for small motorbikes, and one for pushbikes) would be about 10% of existing---say $5 million per. mile. Compare that with a four lane tunnel, $500 million per. mile; or a normal freeway, $50 million per. mile---and this benefits everybody, since the congestion is reduced on the heavy vehicle roads.
The big attraction from a greenhouse gas emissions standpoint, is low embedded (embodied) energy; in the road and in the vehicle, and the ability to implement quickly, since the life of vehicles is only about ten years, this can be done by 2020.
On congested roads with traffic control lights, lightweight overpasses are even more attractive, and possible.
And, when and if we go to electric cars---which currently have very high embedded energy---these roads will really help the transition.

Roads for lightweight vehicles

Noel Thompson — Fri, 19 Jun 2009 00:11:24 -0700

Brad, It is a great delight to find anybody who is thinking about duplicate roads, exclusively for the use of lightweight vehicles (DELVR)---I have been looking for sometime and this is the first I have found.
Here are the things that I think DELVR deliver. First, safety for the users of lightweight vehicles, especially if these roads are COVERED, dry roads are great for motor bikes,or any narrow wheeled vehicle (cost is trivial). Second, reduce congestion and improve ordinary roads---we all benefit if we use roads which are nearly always at full capacity right now--- this way we can get average speed of 50mph for commuters instead of the present 25mph. Third, low embedded energy if built beside or above existing roads---reflected in low cost per. mile compare $500 million for tunnels, $50 million for inner city motorways, with less than $10 million, and often much less, for lightweight vehicle roads, which need minimum foundations, cuttings, drainage, or structural paving and low maintenance costs when covered. Fourth, we all replace our vehicles every ten years, so we can reduce greenhouse gas emissions really quickly---and over 100mpg is very attainable for lightweight vehicles, plus ordinary vehicles use 30% less on highway cycle.
And then finally, we can get the benefits of every flyover at traffic lights, every bottleneck removed, etc, and it will still be useful for robocars or electrics when and if they come.

Big changes all

brad — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 13:07:29 -0700

All of these things are big changes. Outlawing owning a cottage? Not only is this not going to happen, we don’t want it to happen, we would much rather find more efficient ways to get to the cottage. I believe the only way to make things work is to offer the people transportation that is both cheaper and superior (and also greener) and they don’t even care about the last one except when it helps cheaper.

That’s why the ultralight has appeal, if you convince people it’s safe. Certainly better than riding transit, and if it’s cheaper and greener it can be a huge win. Not as comfy as a minivan, so there is a hurdle.

Most of the world uses tiny vehicles. In Canada we don’t. But at the same time a lot of people in Toronto and New York abstain from cars all or much of the time — if you don’t count taxis. It shows that different modes of thinking are possible in our society.

I predict it is possible, though not of course assured, for robocars to blindside all transportation planning, because technically they should appear in 10-15 years. Whether society will accept them that soon is another issue.

As for grocery delivery, that has been tried and is still offered but for now is not too popular. People seem to want to hand-pick their food. However, for ordinary manufactured goods, especially things like books, electronics etc. we’re seeing online take over from retail even without the benefit of instant delivery.

These are very interesting

Lloyd G — Wed, 10 Jun 2009 08:50:30 -0700

These are very interesting figures and ideas, but tend to require completely revamping entire systems and do not address the central problem: we drive too much, and buy things in an ad-hoc way based on price, which leads to traveling to big-box centres and extended rounds of shopping and price comparison. Your suggestions- robot delivery vehicles and tiny individual vehicles- are impractical with today's technology and infrastructure(as you have noted). I think robotic control will be an afterthought to traffic-planning and management systems (systems that allow you to take a route that requires minimal start and stop cycles but that still requires the driver to control the vehicle), and will happen only after such systems have been in place for decades. I believe we should be changing the way we use the infrastructure (in cities) and changing the infrastructure gradually in suburban and rural areas. Even if the horizon for robocars were only 30 years from a technology and regulatory standpoint, I believe that economic arguments against them will cause them to be something other than we can imagine today. Science fiction writers in the '30's didn't predict atm's, they dreamed of all-purpose bipedal servants. Looming economic crises in the USA and the global energy crisis will cause massive cultural shifts that will make these concepts irrelevant. If you do your international business by video phone, it's illegal to own a summer cottage, and you can't afford to take frequent road trips to visit relatives 200 miles away, the concept of a robot car (or a private car in general) has much less appeal.
Your transit energy efficiency figures seem reasonable to me. Your conclusion does not. I live in Toronto; there is a streetcar line in front of my house. These things are TRAINS. Instead of two different vehicles, you could add a second passenger car to the engine for peak service times (this would require the addition of sidings on routes, probably at one of the ends).
The tiny vehicle argument goes against several embedded North American cultural norms: they will only be adopted after an oil collapse. (And I believe that will be the scenario: once there are fewer cars and no non-commercial large vehicles, it will be possible to do this).
I think we will see business models that compete with the private car before we see robocars or individual high-efficiency vehicles. I drive twice a week to buy groceries. Imagine a system where you could place an order for 2 days groceries at 9am from a full-service supermarket chain and pick them up from a corner outlet 3 blocks from your home that afternoon (or have your 10 year old son do it)? Such a system would eliminate at least one level of storage and transport, and probably two. It would allow smaller refrigerators in homes and eliminate some of the most energy wasteful store refrigeration and freezing systems (open display cases). This type of system would eliminate several car trips and encourage walking. Another example is Toyota's Japanese sales model: the salesman comes to your home. If this system were applied to other consumer products, there would be a further lessening of the energy-wasting big-box culture. Yes, these two ideas do not change the whole system, and are not immediately competitive with a low cost energy culture and embedded private car ownership. But they can be instituted on a time line far shorter than high-efficiency vehicles, be tested on a small scale and on an incremental basis, and be tailored to local conditions. They have far lower up-front risk and no legal impediments. The technology already exists. This will happen first, and change the environment of automobile development.

On ultralight vehicles vs. large mass transit vehicles

brad — Tue, 26 May 2009 16:23:05 -0700

One of the questions raised by the numbers which show that U.S. transit does not compete well on energy-efficiency was how transit can fare so poorly. Our intuition, as well as what we are taught, makes us feel that a shared vehicle must be more efficient than a private vehicle. And indeed a well-shared vehicle certainly is better than a solo driver in one of todays oversized cars and light trucks.

But this is a consequence of many factors, and surprisingly, shared transportation is not an inherent winner. Let’s consider why.

We have tended to build our transit on large, heavy vehicles. This is necessary to have large capacities at rush hour, and to use fewer drivers. But a transit system must serve the public at all times if it is to be effectively. If you ride the transit, you need to know you can get back, and at other than rush hour, without a hugely long wait. The right answer would be to use big vehicles at rush hour and small ones in the off-peak hours, but no transit agency is willing to pay for multiple sets of vehicles. The right answer is to use half-size vehicles twice as often, but again, no agency wants to pay for this or to double the number of drivers. It’s not a cost-effective use of capital or the operating budget, they judge.

Weight

The urban vehicle of the future, as I predict it, is a small, one-person vehicle which resembles a modern electric tricycle with fiberglass shell. It will be fancier than that, with nicer seat, better suspension and other amenities, but chances are it only has to weigh very little. Quite possibly it will weigh less than the passenger — 100 to 200lbs.

Transit vehicles weigh a lot. A city bus comes in around 30,000 lbs. At its average load of 9 passengers, that’s over 3,000lbs of bus per passenger. Even full-up with 60 people (standing room) it’s 500lbs per passenger — better than a modern car with its average of 1.5 people, but still much worse than the ultralight.