Overview

A new appreciation for the increasing value of time, along with today’s environmental and energy concerns, has created a new demand for an innovative transportation system.

That innovation is SkyTran !
A private transportation system for the public!

SkyTran is just like driving your own car to work - but a whole lot faster, cheaper and safer! AND you don’t even have to drive it - each SkyTran vehicle has a super attentive computer acting as your personal chauffeur! A thousand times each second your chauffeur makes decisions to insure your safety: continually checking on other nearby SkyTran vehicles; rechecking the vehicles electrical and mechanical health; and rechecking that the fastest route to your selected destination remains uncongested ahead. Most importantly, your computer chauffeur NEVER daydreams nor gets distracted!

Once boarded, a SkyTran vehicle becomes your private vehicle. You decide exactly where you want the computer chauffeur to take you. No stopping at each and every station to let some people off and new people on. No more concerns about unsavory types riding along with you. Your vehicle travels overhead on a monorail freeway safely above all other traffic and only exits this freeway to slow down and stop at your selected destination station.

Two passenger SkyTran vehicles will be in abundance at each station - you just get in and go - no more waiting for a scheduled bus or train and no more rushing to make that schedule time. One secret to the SkyTran MagLev transportation concept is the use of extremely light weight, advanced composite, 200 pound, non-polluting, pure electric powered vehicles that are super streamlined. While traveling at steady 100 MPH on an overhead monorail track system, a SkyTran achieves an outstanding equivalent of up to 400 MPG energy efficiency! MagLev (Magnetic Levitation) uses electricity to suspend the SkyTran vehicle instead of rubber tires inflated with air that can puncture. There are no tires or gears in a SkyTran vehicle. This means no mechanical contact and no mechanical systems to wear out.  SkyTran is a pure solid state transportation system!

The main secret to the SkyTran system, however, is cost!  In high volume, mass production, each small, private SkyTran vehicle will be a thousand times cheaper than a single 100 passenger train car. More importantly, since most SkyTran vehicles and its passengers will weigh no more than 600 pounds, the monorail track to safely support a continuous stream of vehicles can use 1/100th the structural materials than if it has to continually support standard tractor-trailers trucks weighing 80,000 pounds. This translates to under $1 million per mile for the SkyTran monorail track. Light Rail and Monorail Train track costs more than $30 million per mile - meaning 15 miles of Light Rail track through the heart of a city would cost $450 million.

Light Rail proponents claim they can move up to 30,000 people per hour and therefore SkyTran is not as viable as light rail because SkyTran can only move up to 14,400 people per hour. Why not spend the same exact money as spent on a light rail system to put in 30 sets of 15 mile long SkyTran monorail tracks. Better yet, build an intersecting grid of 15 by 15 parallel SkyTran tracks a mile apart and now be able to move 432,000 people per hour anywhere on that grid!! Then - ask yourself which system will be instantly useful to more people in the city! No more taking a car or a bus to connect to a train!


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Copyright©1999-2003, Douglas J. Malewicki, AeroVisions, Inc.