SkyTran™ Five Minute Quick Photo Tour
INTRODUCTION 

What do people want?

Tranquility, privacy and a scenic road all to themselves.  Exactly what is portrayed in all the television automobile advertisements.  The fun of zipping through the mountain curves in a Porsche or Corvette!    To date, the personal automobile represents the best transportation concept ever devised by man.  This success, however, means everyone wants, even needs to have a car.  The result is a huge number of cars on today's roads and an assortment of serious problems.  Problems that those glorious TV automobile commercials never dare address.

The Reality!

Congestion Hassles Parking Hassles Safety Concerns Pollution Concerns Quality of Life Issues (Late home again!)

Where does a SkyTran Personalized Transit system fit in? If you could design an ideal transportation system, what key elements do you think it would need? 1. It must provide convenience equal to or greater than a car.        a. It must be waiting for you when you are ready to go.        b. It must take you straight to where you want to go with out stopping for anybody else or for any other traffic. This is what a car is supposed to be and would be IF there were no other cars on the road! 2. It must be more affordable than a car. 3. It must be faster than a car. 4. It must be safer than a car. 5. It must use much less energy than a car. 6. It must eliminate the emissions of a car. &. It must use less land than a car. People won't give up their cars unless something else comes along that is just as convenient or more so.  Any transportation system that does not meet these convenience requirements will not take significant ridership away from cars. Expensive, forever tax subsidized, "Mass" transit systems in cities all over the world are not working.  Nobody wants to take 2 to 4 times more time than a car needs to get somewhere, let alone pay more money to do so.  So why do most people love mass transportation?  Merely because they hope all the other drivers will use it and leave the roads less congested for them.  SkyTran is not a mass transportation system; it is a personal transportation system.  Mass transportation systems which are designed to move groups of people at a time cannot meet the above requirements, only SkyTran can meet this ideal.  SkyTran can move larger numbers of people privately all over a city than any existing mass transportation system can and for surprisingly low installation and operational costs. INTERNET ANALOGY Just as the Internet moves information quickly and reliably between any two points, SkyTran, which operates on principles that are an electromechanical analog of the Internet, moves people efficiently on a distributed network to wherever they want to go.  SkyTran is an on-demand system so you never have to wait for a vehicle because they are sitting in line waiting for you.  Once boarded your personal SkyTran vehicle never stops or slows down until you have arrived at your chosen destination. SkyTran moves people safely above all surface traffic at high speed on a three-dimensional grid.  SkyTran, the Transportation System of the Future, has only recently become possible because of new technological developments in high speed computers, low cost sensors, linear motors, automated controls and especially the latest innovation in Magnetic Levitation (MagLev) called Inductrack.

Our analysis has taught us important principles that we find almost hard to believe:

Current "mass" transportation system designers assume that moving large numbers of people anywhere and everywhere around a city efficiently, DEMANDS moving large groups of commuters together collectively in large collective vehicles such as trains or light rail trolleys and then shuttling them to other large collective vehicles (buses).   This is what these designers call an "Intermodal Mass Transportation System".  It involves time wasting transfers; it is a slow way to travel; and its costs are excessive.  In light of new technologies now available, it becomes quite apparent that current train, light rail and bus Intermodal Mass Transportation System technologies are a mistake.   Automobiles are a far more ideal model for moving people around anywhere and everywhere than any Intermodal Mass Transportation System.  "Mass" transportation systems need to emulate or improve upon the efficient, fast, private, point-to-point transportation (without transfers) made possible by automobiles.  Can this goal possibly be achieved?  Can it eliminate congestion?  Can it be accomplished for reasonable or low costs?  SkyTran says YES!

Intrigued?  Read on.