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What are JPods

JPods are rail networks from which ultralight vehicles carry people and cargo using 1/10th the energy of cars, passenger-trains, and buses (table of energy per passenger-mile).

JPods vehicles are like chaufueured automobile. Vehicles are sized for individual and a small group of people that know and want to travel together.  knows each, typically carrying 1 to 4 passengers per vehicle. Guide ways are arranged in a network topology, with all stations located on sidings and with frequent merge/diverge points. This allows for nonstop, point-to-point travel, bypassing all intermediate stations. The point-to-point service has been compared to a taxi or a horizontal lift (elevator).

Morgantown’s PRT has documented the viability of grade-separated networks of self-driving cars since President Nixon’s daughter opened the network in 1972.

JPods US Patent improves on the Morgantown PRT in two important ways (6,810,817):

  • Robots replace the central computer control system: “A method of controlling a transportation System for moving people, freight, and any combination whereof using a distributed network of intelligent devices without requiring the aid of a human driver”
  • Networks are solar-powered: “The method… providing… Solar and wind power generators integrated into the physical Structure of Said transportation System….”

Most mass transit systems move people in groups over scheduled routes. This has inherent inefficiencies. For passengers, time is wasted by waiting for the next arrival, indirect routes to their destination, stopping for passengers with other destinations, and often confusing or inconsistent schedules. Slowing and accelerating large weights can undermine public transport’s benefit to the environment while slowing other traffic. Personal rapid transit systems attempt to eliminate these wastes by moving small groups nonstop in automated vehicles on fixed tracks. Passengers can ideally board a pod immediately upon arriving at a station, and can — with a sufficiently extensive network of tracks — take relatively direct routes to their destination without stops.

Perhaps most importantly, JPods systems offer many traits similar to cars. For example, they offer privacy and the ability to choose one’s own schedule. Congressional Study Automated Guideway Transit:

Government “institutional failures” blocked urban transportation innovation for “four to six decades (aside from some relatively minor cosmetic changes)… Compared with many other areas of entrepreneurial endeavor, the environment for innovation in transportation should be favorable. Urban transportation needs are extensive… In retrospect, the new systems efforts have served not to stimulate interest in new technology but to discourage already reluctant local transit operators from considering it.”

“Proponents of PRT view this concept as a reasonable supplement to the private automobile in high density urban areas and claim that PRT can provide a very much higher level of service than other modes of public transportation. Thus, it is argued that PRT systems would attract a significant percentage of the rides now being made in private automobiles and offer obvious benefits:

    • less traffic congestion in urban areas.
    • less land and fewer facilities used for automobile storage. . reduced travel time under more comfortable Circumstance. . less noise and air pollution.
    • reduction in consumption of petroleum-derived fuels.
    • reduction in requirements for new arterial roads and urban freeways.

It is contended that PRT would provide greater mobility for the transportation disadvantaged, i.e., the young, the elderly, the poor, and the handicapped.”.

JPods may in fact allow for quicker transportation than cars during rush hour, since automated vehicles avoid unnecessary slowing. A JPods system can also transport freight without needing a driver.

The low weight of JPods’ small vehicles allows smaller guideways and support structures than mass transit systems like light rail.The smaller structures translate into lower construction cost, smaller easements, and less visually obtrusive infrastructure.

Documents:

  1. Guideways
  2. Stations
  3. Vehicles
  4. Software
  5. Power
  6. Solar canopy
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