So all this is trying to solve, while introducing a whole lot of other complexities, is the delay caused by trains stopping at intermediary stations? Where individual carriages can part of the main track, allowing others to carry on? And what about railroad crossings? Are most supposed to be dissolved, while centralizing all to fewer that separate rail from passage? Because with all these individual carriages on track, crossings will be occupied a lot more frequently. There’s simply no way to safeguard all of these crossings, and if an event occurs, it disrupts large sections of the network.
It’s not really “trying” to solve anything.
Essentially this is a project designed to get money out of VC rich guys - that kind of rich person can only think of transit in terms of individualised vehicles because that’s all they know.
Bus? No, private car. Airliner? No, private jet. Ferry? Yacht etc. The only way they interact with transport is in a single vehicle that takes specifically them from where they are to where they want to go, the idea of economy of scale just doesn’t enter their worldview.
So this company goes “wouldn’t it be great if your specific container that your company ordered could get to your warehouse directly and not need to worry about all those distribution yards and other people’s stuff in the way” (Spectacularly ignoring the fact that it just spent weeks on a ship from China, saving a day at the end of that makes no difference) And they go damn yes that sounds great here’s $100m
Yay it’s pod time again!
Adam Something video about why this was a dumb idea 3 years ago, looks like it still is, just use trains!
these chucklefucks are still at it? this idea is just completely detached from reality, especially in north america where psr is the norm. the problem isn’t technical, it’s regulatory.
It only makes sense in rail yeards or last mile tracks that would connect to warehouses which the U.S. largely doesn’t have.
rail yards are a solved problem too, since they’re gravity-powered. and for last mile you typically need to do the first 99
Well… Makes more sense than trying to robotize cars. The track is fixed and speeds and rights of passage are imposed by plain physics.
But you need tracks to implement autonomous freight trains.
