Wise Words

Zwei belongs to several transit oriented groups.

The following is from the LRPPro group, which is made mainly of experts in the field of public transport and well worth a read.

The big question for me is: Is today’s transit tech be tomorrow’s transit tech? Those questions should be asked, lest we again invest in a proprietary technology and continue building and using it, when the rest of the world (and manufactures) have moved on?

PRT was the flavour of the month for transit nirvana in 1971!

I have a degree in this industry and ran both para-transit and mainline bus systems as well as owning a bus company at one time so think I have run into every or most every new gizmo that has come down the pike in the past 60yrs or so.   and am pretty into the history of the industry.

Batteries are getting better all the time,  from lead acid to nicad to lithium ion to lithium iron phosphate etc. and maybe the next one will be from what is now unobtainium.  I have no doubt the tech will improve.    but will human nature improve along with it.

To play devils advocate here for a bit.

.  Electric rail systems will continually run into NIMBY and cost constraints especially as they become more complex.   Some countries for legal or social reasons will always have an “operator” if only to watch the computer controls.  Where fully autonomous has been used there has been a lot of push back, with the possible exceptions of airport shuttle vehicles.

.  Trunk electric buses may become more and more BEB but ground level charging would have to overcome some basic laws of physics to be seriously practical,  just look up the function of distance between charging plates and amount of loss of power.   will we have that much power available to us to waste 90% to cover a 2cm air gap??   so far no one has found a way around the air-gap problem (except maybe N. Tesla and he took that to his grave unless we can rediscover it).

.  AV shuttles of any type have run into a conflict with accessibility laws which in many cases require human intervention.   and the mobility technology is getting so varied and complex that automatic systems are not reliable or damage equipment.  and as someone who is heavily invested in that industry on a personal basis I see it getting more complex not less so.

Then there are a few “little” things like

. Unions

. Getting sufficient highly skilled workers to maintain this equipment and their salaries

. Parochial rules and laws from country to country and even city to city.

And some that I haven’t thought or overlook or that will surface as this issue progresses.

The number of new items that will come along such as the monorail or Maglev, or does anyone remember the all wonderful Aerobus system, and of course everyone thinks we will have flying cars in our driveways tomorrow (What about that pesky pilots license needed to use them off the ground, I have a pilots license and know how hard they are to get).

I am not saying there won’t be all of these things but even the diesel engine took years to become common in many parts of the world, in fact in many places it is still not the most common with gasoline engines powering many transit vehicles especially in third world countries where diesel fuel is very expensive or hard to obtain.

The future is coming but I doubt we will recognize it as anything we predicted. (Heck I probably won’t live long enough to see it, unless major medical breakthroughs)   Battery tech will have a place in our future, the flashlight is over 100yrs old but except for the newer LED bulbs how much has it changed.   The basic bus or rail vehicle has changed very little in it’s base dimensions in 200 yrs, I would say standard gauge but that depends on were you are since standard gauge is different.

Here is the USA on the North East Corridor rail route of Amtrak from Washington DC to Boston complex engines are required because 3 different electric systems are used depending on who built the original.  and in Europe change of voltage is routine.

One of my concerns is proprietary battery tech, will a BYD battery work on a New Flyer or Protera or ?   Will transit systems be “locked” into a single provider of proprietary technology (such as Vancouver?). I have seen it happen and it costs lots of money, ask TransLink in Vancouver Canada, and even in New York city why they need different subway car designs for the numbered vs lettered routes.   Who will set the standard and will it work internationally.

Enough you get the point and this isn’t just BEB but applies to LRT and many things outside the transit  industry; example:I have many battery operated tools, so why can’t the batteries in my Makita work in a Ryobi etc.