Approximately 85% of the money spent on cars leaves the local economy (Walkable Cities).
Traffic costs Americans about $2.76 trillion per year:
- $756 billion per year for oil.
- $871 billion per year in accidents, alternate data source.
- 40,100 road-deaths in 2017.
- 2.31 million injuries in 2013.
- $305 billion per year in congestion.
- $109 billion per year in car damage from poor road maintenance.
- $723 billion per year in land use at $1 per square foot per year (this cost a likely understated as the cost of a garden plot. Each parking space costs $4,000 with 3.4 spaces per car).
Link to Warren Buffett explaining 470 ton-mpg is the average efficiency of the 140,000 miles of freight railroads in the US. Yet roads move a 200 pound person with the 25-mpg efficiency of the Model-T. Since The Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1916 government policies replaced 46% of freight railroads with highways that are 188 times less efficient. JPods networks will displace urban car-miles with solar-powered networks with multiple 10X benefits.
Driving a paradigm shift requires a 10X benefit relative to existing costs. Following is a summary of the 10X benefits of JPods networks.
10X is required to break into a market
| Cost | Typical | JPods | Times Better | Background | |
| Capital cost of light rail | $202 million/mile | $20 million/mile | 10X | $million per mile to build (light rail verses JPods) | |
| Capital costs of newcar ownership. | $10,728 | 0 | 10X | JPods provide Mobility As a Service. | |
| Cents per vehicle mile traveled. | 63.74¢ | .04¢ | 10X | Graph above is per passenger-mile using government estimation of 1.57 people per car. | |
| Traffic accident costsper American per year | $1,035 | $0.00 | 10X | Morgantown’s PRT has had 5 minor injuries in 50 years. Roads have 4.5 million injuries per year. | |
| Road injuries permillion people per year | 11,200 | 0.9 to 3.4 | 10X | Injuries per million using US DOT regulations versus ASTM F24 regulations. | |
| Human Factors | |||||
| Access | Afford cars | 8 ys and older | 6X | % that cannot drive/operate, under 5 years old | |
| Congestion | 48 | 5 | 10X | Hours lost to congestion each year | |
| Capacity, Cars | 4800 | 28,000 | 6X | *4 seats every 3 seconds for cars and .5 seconds for JPods | |
| Capacity, Bus | 600 | 28,000 | 10X | *Busfive minutes apart with 50 seats verses JPods | |
| Capacity, Trains | 1200 | 28,000 | 10X | *Trains 10 min apart with 200 seats verses JPods | |
| *JPods can have multiple rails is same right of way | |||||
| Environmental | |||||
| Pollution per passenger-mile | ~.5 pound | 0 | 10X | See graph above converted from energy required per passenger-mile. | |
| Land Use | 2,642 | 29 | 10X | Square feet per vehicle | |
| Security | |||||
| Defense | 492 billion | Self-reliance | 10X | 1% the estimated cost of Iraq War | |
| Trade Deficit | 584 billion | Self-reliance | 10X | 2006 Trade Deficit for cars and oil | |
| Currency Value | Cause | Self-reliance | 10X | Foreign oil addiction weakens the dollar | |
| Peak Oil | Cause | Self-reliance | 10X | US Peak Oil was in 1970 | |
| Climate Change | Cause | Self-reliance | 10X | Mobility within a solar budget | |
In the effort to build a sustainable future we have two great forces working with us. Federal monopolies have burnt up the time. We have less than 4 years until Oil Famine.
- 10x energy savings by building the Physical Internet®. JPods is the WiFi of the Physical Internet.
- 6x Net Energy advantage of solar over oil as a transportation fuel
Metrics
The Rule of Law:
Neither the Internet nor cellphones could deploy against under the Federal communications monopoly. For the same reason American had a century of rotary telephones under the Federal communications monopoly, under the Federal power and transportation monopolies we lost nearly half the freight railroads since The Federal-Aid Highway Act of 1956 and 600,000 windmills since the Rurual Electrification Adminstration in 1935. The cause of Climate Change is the US Federal policies of taxing to build and subsidize coal/oil fired infrastructure. Natural law, the Constitution, 10x benefits can be scaled as soon as the Rule of Law is restored.
- The Law of Supply and Demand
- Prime Law of Networks
- The Constitution mandates usufruct (to use for profit without harm):
- Preamble: Federal mission statement
- 21 Presidential vetoes of “Internal Improvements”
- Divided Sovereignty
- The Earth Belongs to the Living
- Illicit Eergy
- 5 Presidential Vetoes of “internal improvements”
- Performance Standards Law