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A (pleasant!) commute from Lake Mary to Orlando If you did not own your own automated vehicle, you'd call for one, giving the time you wanted to leave and your destination. The vehicle arrives in front of your house and you get in. The car travels at 20 mph until it exits your subdivision. On a feeder/collector road it accelerates to 50 mph, then to 80 mph as it enters a universal interchange less than a mile from your home. The vehicle accelerates to 120 mph as it merges smoothly into traffic on the high-speed "through" road. Now it continues at 120 mph until it reaches the universal interchange closest to your office. The Interchange Computer directs your car onto the interchange and routes it off again at an exit road less than a mile away from your office. The vehicle stops at your building to let you out then moves on. There is no need to bother with parking. The vehicle will park itself, or pick up someone downtown who wants to go to the airport or somewhere else in town. On the automated system, the commute would require about ten (10) minutes each way. Wouldn’t this be nice? During this ten-minute commute you could drink coffee, read the newspaper, watch the news, or take a nap. No need to get concerned about other drivers and other vehicles. You look down from the window and feel empathy for the drivers of cars still fighting traffic down below on the conventional roadway… but you’re glad you are not there with them! |
Stress-free commuting |
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Interstate
travel — A trip from Orlando to Atlanta If Joe decides to fly, he needs to allow two hours minimum to get to the Orlando airport, park his car, get to the terminal, check in, go through security and get to the gate. With typical delays,
the plane sits on the runway before leaving and also circles
in the air for a while prior to landing, so the flight takes
two
hours total.
Getting out of the plane, getting luggage, taking a shuttle to the
car rental and waiting for a car takes another two hours. Driving
from the airport
to the
hotel — allow about an hour. So flying, Joe’s total trip time
could be almost seven hours. See the table below for a breakdown of
the costs, steps and time to make this trip in the family car, on an airliner,
and
on the ATS system). On the surface, an LVC round trip seems more expensive than flying. However, there are many inconveniences and costs – financial and perosnal —associated with flying that are often overlooked:
Then there are f lying stress and anxiety factors:
Stress factor for driving conventional car include discomfort and pain, especially for older drivers |
Interstate Travel enlarge
image  see
animation |
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If the Automated Transportation System was used Joe could call for a Luxury Vacation Cruiser (LVC) at a cost of perhaps 50¢ per mile). The amenity-loaded vehicle picks Joe up at home on the automated neighborhood collector road. It proceeds along the Orlando Regional Metropolitan Grid, then onto The Interstate Grid, and then to the Atlanta Regional Metropolitan Grid. Joe arrives at his hotel 3.3 (three and one third) hours after leaving home, rested and relaxed. The round trip of 800 miles costs $400. There is no rental car to park or pay for. When Joe wants to go somewhere in Atlanta he calls for a single passenger vehicle from his cell phone and a local commuter vehicle arrives just for him, and may charge only 35¢ per mile for distance traveled. If this Orlando resident had been traveling with a spouse and two children the per-person cost would be much less than flying! They could leave home at 6 p.m. and be in Atlanta by 9:30 p.m. The family could watch a current movie in luxurious comfort. While travelling, they can enjoy drinks and a gourmet meal with dessert (ordered, prepared and placed in the vehicle’s food service station ahead of time, at additional cost). Intercontinental travel — a trip from Florida to
California
It
is much more fun and economical to travel longer distances in
a Transcontinental Mass Transit (TMT) vehicle! On cross-country
routes
the automated roadway is designed to handle much larger vehicles — 8
ft. wide and up. |
Long Distance Luxury
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The transcontinental vehicle Joe takes from Orlando to Los Angeles is 14 feet wide, 180 feet long, 18 feet high and carries 320 passengers at 120 mph. Here is a summary of the differences between making theOrlando to LA trip on an airliner and the transcontinetnal mass transit bus: Orlando to LA transcontinental mass transit
|
Transcontinental
Mass Transit Vehicle |
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