Dramatic energy savings
In a fully implemented Kissel Automated Transport System, fuel and related road-transport energy costs would be cut by 40 to 50 percent! Does that sound impossible? Remember that regional grids establish the shortest distance between points. Here are fourteen more reasons why KATS is so energy efficient:

Energy savings summary — a partial list

• Fuel no longer wasted idling at stoplights and stop signs
• Unnecessary acceleration and deceleration eliminated
• Wide-scale use of lightweight, 50 miles-per-gallon
  (and even higher mpg ) commuter cars
• Wide-scale use of ultra-convenient mass transit in urban areas
• Elimination of stop-and-go driving during rush hours
• Engines and transmission optimized for specific speeds
• Very few law enforcement, emergency medical, emergency road service and insurance adjuster vehicles on the road – because few are needed
• No lost drivers equals no excess miles driven
• Automated parking equals no excess miles driven looking for parking
• Adoption of alternative fuels for many vehicles
• Ultra light-weight unmanned errand runner vehicles eliminate millions of annual in-person trips in larger, less-energy efficient vehicles
• Larger payloads in single cargo transport vehicles using liquid hydrogen fuel cells
• Less energy used to manufacture small commuter cars and bare-bones errand runners
• Less energy used to construct material-efficient automated roadways

Technical Features

Currently feasible — The automated transport system described on these pages is currently feasible, because it is based on technology that exists now in mature form or is currently being refined (Note that a prototype project that was develped a decade ago by the California Department of Transportation and the University of California, Berkeley, provided real-life automated transport experieces to thousands of citizens). The parameters for the ATS working system will be defined more precisely as the most current standards and tolerances for actuators, sensors, communications devices, switching devices, etc., at the conclusion of the time frame when ATS human-scale prototypes are built, tested and refined to the level neccesary for large scale implementation.

ATS vehicles can use conventional roads —
Most ATS vehicles can be driven on conventional as well as automated roads. This key engineering standard makes possible a gradual implementation of the ATS system. It also assures motorists of their continuing freedom to drive manually on conventional roads with existing automobiles.

System-wide mechanical reliability — The Automated Transport System is reliable because the system continuously monitors and measures the performance of all switching devices and every vehicle in operation. Periodically, as vehicles pass through interchanges and parking garages, they are given thorough mechanical and performance evaluations. In addition, each vehicle has an onboard computer that monitors all aspects of its performance. Vehicles must accelerate within specific parameters, maintain speed within parameters, steer within parameters, change roadways within parameters, maintain vehicle separation within parameters, decelerate and stop within parameters, and maintain a specified pressure in inflated tires. Any indication that a vehicle is trending out of these parameters will trigger a process to bring it in for evaluation, repair and re-calibration.

Automated traffic routing — the processing power of today's computers and sophistication of inexpensive recording devices makes it feasible and economical to develop software to gather city-wide traffic pattern information and provide real-time traffic routing to vehicles in the automated transporation system keyed to time of day, day of week, and season. For more information about one theoretical scenario for automated traffice routing, see Chapter 6, Infrastrutcure of automated roadways.

Automated control of vehicles — A bonanza for ATS "drivers" is that drive time is free time, since each vehicles' onboard computer, in conjuction with roadway interchange computers, controls the vehicle from start to destination. See Chapter 6 for more details.

Automated parking —
Cars that go park themselves in commercial or home automated garages will usher in unprecedented safety and convenience benefits to all urban citizens. In chapter 9, you can explore ASI/ATS concepts for arrival and departure docks for businesses, shopping malls, mass transit stations, airports and entertainment venues.

Fast travel regardless of traffic volume —
Unlike conventional roads, ATS roadways have no stop signs and no traffic lights, which enables fast travel without interruptions.

Clustering (traveling bumper to bumper) further increases roadway capacity and saves fuel through aerodynamic effects. The Ilustration and animation at right show how clustering works. For details about the bumper and chassis design that support clustering, see Chapter 5A, the introduction to vehicle concepts for the ATS roadways. ASI/ATS has established standards for the size of clusters, the gaps between clusters and total roadway capacity. The latter definition is shown at right.

ATS is energy efficient — In addition to alternative fuel sources, alternative engine types and lighter, smaller, fuel-thrifty commuter vehicles, the system has some inherent energy economics. Because vehicles operate within steady and predictable controlled parameters of acceleration and constant velocity, engines and transmissions can be optimized to operate at these levels, while still enabling vehicles to operate on non-automated roadways. Automated control and optimized routing means vehicles do not get "lost" or travel unnecessary miles, while automated garaging eliminates circling blocks looking for parking spaces. The grid means the shortest distance is always available. Fuel is not wasted sitting at stop lights and in stop-and-start traffic, or in repeated unnecessary acceleration and deceleration that wastes fuel and puts wear on vehicles. In conventional traffic most vehicles are always accelerating and decelerating just to stay close behind the vehicle in front so another car does not cut in. Yes, you've done this too — we all do!

Look how efficient your car is when the cruise control is feeding the gas. Contrast this with fuel usage when your car accelerates from a stop.

Safety Advantages

A plethora of features makes the Automated Transport System inherently safer than conventional roads.

Uncompromised Safety Standards—First and foremost, the strict standards provided by the American Institute of Standards for Automated Transport Systems, LLC are essential and must never be compromised. Whoever builds, owns or operates infrastructures, or builds, owns or operates vehicles must be required to conform to the same STANDARDS. This is your QUALITY ASSURANCE that the system will perform as expected in every respect, and that every vehicle will operate interchangeably in its designed capacity on every automated system in the country or continent.

In the Automated Transport System there are very few situations that could result in any kind of accident.

By design there can be no head on collisions, no vehicles can be hit broadside, no passing, no rollover, no sliding off the road, no loss of control. Vehicles cannot be highjacked off the roadway, roll over, or slide out of control because all vehicles in the system have a last-ditch back-up physical LOCK-ON feature that stays or stabilizes a vehicle under even the worst of conditions, such as hurricanes or earthquakes. In normal operation, only the wheels are in physical contact with the roadway. When a vehicle enters an interchange from a THROUGH road or exits an Interchange onto to a THROUGH road (Illustration 3 animation), a feedback system (Advanced Section) involving multple sensors and actuators assures a precise and safe movement from one roadway onto another.

This is one situation where vehicles must move toward each other — when vehicles are merging onto a through road or Interchange. There are four independent sensor systems, each of which verifies that vehicles have sufficient clearance to merge into the new traffic flow. Each independent system can cancel the process. Then there is the catastrophic fail-safe provision that if somehow all these features fail, a vehicle still cannot physically merge into another vehicle if there is insufficient clearance. This safety feature operates by default.

Safety is the heart of the automated system
Certainly nothing made by humans can ever be absolutely and totally perfect and fail-safe. However, it is possible to reduce the current sad fatality and disfigurement statistics ( see chapter 3 ) to nearly zero.
The search for the ultimate transportation system began some fifty years ago; specifically to provide safer travel conditions. That search has continued to the present and is the number one objective of the Automated Transport System. All the other benefits are byproducts.

Technical Features
see animation

Vehicle Clustering
enlarge image see animation

ASI/ATS definition for roadway capactiy

"Full capacity is the level when the total length of all vehicles per mile equals 50 percent of the length of the roadway segment between interchanges. This capacity is is achieved through clustering."

Safety Advantages
see animation

An ATS safety standard example
One ASI/ATS standard, designed to keep top-heavy vehicles stable in all curves, requires that all automated roadways and interchanges must be "engineered and banked sufficiently in all curves such that for a uniform vertical weight distribution and a vehicle height twice the outside wheel load-bearing width of the vehicle, the center of gravity of the vehicle must always pass through the center of the axle at the minimum velocity of 120 mph."

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