High Speed Travelator 333
Anonymous Award writes "Remember those old Isaac Asimov tales of cities of the future, where everybody walked along on moving sidewalks, sometimes clear across a country? Today's airport travelators have always been disappointingly pale imitations of these, but now in
Paris we may be seeing the
true birth of this wonderfully dangerous mode of mass transportation. Its
already as fast as a bus, but when they can crank them up to motorway speeds...
well, lets just say this may have a better chance of having cities designed
around it than certain other recent innovations."
You know... (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:You know... (Score:5, Informative)
Re:You know... (Score:5, Funny)
Until you fart! "Damn, this smell has been with me all the way from Pittsburgh!".
Re:You know... (Score:4, Interesting)
A basic invention is not dissimilar to a train - you get into a box that has rollers/wheels on the bottom. Internal friction in the wheels/rollers will accelerate the box on the conveyor belt and the box can then be accelerated to whatever speed wanted (extremely fast if in a vacuum). The same effect will slow the box down when it comes off the other end.
Boxes can then be sent back using a travellator that goes the other way, or another idea is to make them collapsible so they can go back under the conveyorbelt.
Re:You know... (Score:3, Funny)
Re:You know... (Score:5, Funny)
I loved that old story. I hope this really happens!
Re:You know... (Score:3, Insightful)
Re:You know... (Score:2)
Re:You know... (Score:5, Insightful)
Once the wind resistance equals the force from the belt against your feet, you will cease to accellerate, it's not like you're suddenly going to stop.
Note that the belt has to move pretty fast for that to happen.
Re:You know... (Score:2, Informative)
This isn't a case of two opposing forces acting at the center of gravity of a rigid body. You've got the friction force of the belt acting tangentially at the very bottom, and the drag force acting in the opposite direction all over the body. What would actually happen when the drag force got too strong is that the high torque would cause some people on
Re:You know... (Score:5, Interesting)
IANAP either, BUT I just walked to our wind tunnel at university [rau.ac.za], and stood in it. It takes no effort to stay upright up to 50km/h. At 80km/h one has to concentrate on staying upright, didn't go faster than that.
Re:You know... (Score:3, Funny)
Chicken.
Re:You know... (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:You know... (Score:3, Interesting)
drag = 0.5*C*A*D*V^2
where:
C is the drag coefficient
A is the cross section area
D is the density of air
V is the velocity
The frictional force will equal FMg
Where:
F is the coefficient of friction between the walkway and the shoes of the person
M is the mass of the person
g is acceleration due to gravity
The Roads must Roll (Score:4, Insightful)
Glad to see it coming to fruition!
Re:The Roads must Roll (Score:4, Interesting)
What I remember of the story was that they had this rolling road that spanned the USA from east to west, with lanes that went faster and faster. You got on the first slow speed lane, and just walked over to successively faster lanes. The fastest lane was some cool 1950's velocity like 150-300mph.
Some disgruntled workers clipped a lane or two, with expected results.
Nice to see Robert Heinlein's idea making it to reality, now if I could only speak Basic with someone on the moon, or have a farm on Ganymede!
Re:The Roads must Roll (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:The Roads must Roll (Score:4, Interesting)
How is that idea?
Ouch! (Score:3, Funny)
I read that as a part of the rest of the post at first, and wondered if that was how those roads worked...
The Roads Must Roll (Score:5, Informative)
Re:The Roads Must Roll (Score:2)
Escalators were scary enough as a kid. (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Escalators were scary enough as a kid. (Score:4, Funny)
Re:Escalators were scary enough as a kid. (Score:5, Funny)
Transition (Score:5, Interesting)
It seems to me the best solution to this is to have "lanes" in the walkway. The far left lane would move at the maximum speed, whereas successive lanes to the right would be decelerated. When exits were reached, you could easily step to the right to get to a lower speed; the transition between 9km/h and 6km/h is still a transition, but its less than 9km/h to 0km/h.
Re:Transition (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Transition (Score:2, Interesting)
Re:Transition (Score:5, Insightful)
Obviously, I'm not suggesting no one uses the railing. But the people who need the railing (i.e. the elderly, the poorly balanced) might not be well advised to use such a device as this.
Alternately: put hanging handles a la the subway system. They'd be adjustable (i.e. you could raise/lower them) with one hand, and then you'd avoid the need for a railing.
Re:Transition (Score:3, Insightful)
It seems stupid that someone jamming the handles should jam the walkway, but once I was going down an escalator, casually leaning on the rail to look at some store, and some idiotic kids at the top of the escalator stuck something in the railing (whcih for some reason was partially open) and made the handhold jump track. So suddenly I was leaning on something that had stopped moving...and my feet kept going, and I
Re:Transition (Score:4, Insightful)
If the belt ran around a deeper area, I could see an "internal" belt, carefully timed and placed so that the poles sank down at the end of the track, where the internal belt just held the poles and the external one had holes for the poles to stick through.
So many holes and poles... Freud would be shocked.
Re:Transition (Score:4, Informative)
In fact, this is exactly what they have in Paris. The high-speed travelator was put in between two other standard moving walkways. One of the standard walkways goes in the opposite direction, and the other lets you move along at 3km/h. So pedestrians do have a choice between the 9km/h lane, the 3km/h lane, or the "old fashioned" 0km/h walkway.
The only thing I don't like about the highspeed walkway is the fact that it is only running during the workday, Mon-Fri. There were enough people who were falling on it that they had to employ people to stand at both ends of the thing to make sure that users don't hurt themselves...
tom
Re:Transition (Score:2, Informative)
Re:Transition (Score:2)
Re:Transition (Score:2, Insightful)
Re:Transition (Score:3, Funny)
No, a better way would the to have the lanes getting faster as you move right. Just as driving on the left is superior, more logical, etc., etc.
Re:Transition (Score:4, Interesting)
http://gallica.bnf.fr/scripts/Consultati
Re:Transition (Score:5, Interesting)
In the middle of the runway, the panels look like this (different numbers to indicate the different individual panels)
11111111111________22222222222________333333333334 4444444
________22222222222________33333333333________444
(sorry about the multiple _s...I've never had to try and find an alternative for on /. before)
At the ends, they slide together like this:
111111111112222222222233333333333
222222222223333333333344444444444
So that even though the speed slows down, the panels don't squish each other, breaking the machine. I saw it on TV, and the dude was just whipping along the corridor. If they combined this system at a higher pace with the roller system they've got in France, they could probably take the speed up a fair bit.
Re:Transition (Score:3, Interesting)
Of course, the problem with this is that the disk would need to be enormously large to make the centripetal force reasonable.
A quick calculation shows
Re:Transition (Score:2)
Re:Transition (Score:3, Informative)
Also an old one.
This exact method of transportation is found in the Isaac Asimov novel "Caves of Steel", published in 1954.
In that book (if memory serves me correctly), the fast lanes go at highway speed and have limited access on and off points.
Yeah. (Score:5, Funny)
"How are you getting there?"
"Oh, I'm taking the travelator."
"...."
Coming Autumn 2003 (Score:5, Funny)
Arnold Schwarzenegger is... "The Travelator".
Re:Yeah. (Score:2)
Re:Yeah. (Score:2)
Oh, the humanity....
Very Neat (Score:5, Funny)
I'm just hoping they dont stop you taking skateboards onto this thing!
Re:Very Neat (Score:2)
Re:Very Neat (Score:2)
Motorway speeds? (Score:2, Redundant)
Re:Motorway speeds? (Score:2)
Baz
Re:Motorway speeds? (Score:5, Funny)
Here's the really cool (and tricky) part: then you put the motors inside the platforms themselves. Then you don't need miles long rubber belts that can wear out. Just replace them with concrete floors. And to keep people from falling out, add walls. If you add a roof, you can operate them outside, even when it's raining! And for more capacity (to make up for having the seats in the first place), you can use more than one platform stacked together.
I think it would look something like this [ucl.ac.uk].
Re:Motorway speeds? (Score:2, Redundant)
But think about the possibilities for gruesome injuries! Naa, this whole travelator concept only goes so far...
I think I'll wait for my magnetic/antigrav boots, undulating floors, or at least small transportation capsules that go around through pipes. Maybe we should just redesign cities to accomodate more people more elegantly, that would be a start!
Re:Motorway speeds? (Score:2)
Re:Motorway speeds? (Score:2)
Cool (Score:3, Funny)
What an accomplishment!
Did they smash a bottle of cheap Champagne [slashdot.org] over it to dedicate it?
Of course not! Re:Cool (Score:4, Funny)
Mmm.. lawsuits.. (Score:5, Funny)
The problem is for distances _under_ 1 km ?! (Score:3, Interesting)
"The real problem nowadays is how to move crowds; they can travel fast over long distances with the TGV (high-speed train) or airplanes, but not over short distances (under 1km)," he says.
---
How about good ol' walking ?!
Re:The problem is for distances _under_ 1 km ?! (Score:2)
How about good ol' walking ?!
The operative word was "fast". Walking speed is 5-6 km/h tops. In a crowded area such as a train station carrying luggage probably closer to 3-4 km/h. The current high speed travelators go at 9, and you can walk on them for a total of something like 12-15 km/h, a significant increase.
Re:The problem is for distances _under_ 1 km ?! (Score:3, Funny)
Well, have you ever been in a public space with a large group of people? As simple as the concept is, many people can't seem to understand that there is a reason people go to airports, etc... they are trying to get somewhere! However, throw in a few shutter-bugs taking pictures of everything, or social butterflies that have to stop and talk to every third person they see, and you've got one large fleshy traffic jam. If I could bypass all of the slow, stupid and otherwise unm
Re:The problem is for distances _under_ 1 km ?! (Score:2, Funny)
thud.
Or the Parisian way... (Score:2)
Strip running (Score:4, Funny)
Say, whats the bandwidth of one of these if you can stack boxes of DVD-RW on one end and take them off the other.
Julian.
Will it be like... (Score:5, Funny)
A Segway for this sidewalk?... (Score:3, Funny)
Timeline (Score:5, Funny)
10 years: Our legs become strange, archaic appendages that surgeons will handily remove for a small fee.
100 years: Our brains float around in little hovering domes.
I want a cobalt blue dome.
This travelator is a lot of fun (Score:5, Informative)
They have guys watching to stop certain people getting on, I have heard they have had to pay out for injuries to some people.
First it accelerates you to 9kph then it is exactly like a normal travelator only much faster.
I loved it.
The only problems are the acceleration and deceleration phases. It's very bumpy. You have to hold on to the rail. If they can fix those aspects these things will start appearing in airports everywhere.
Re:This travelator is a lot of fun (Score:2)
I see two possibilities:
1. At the end of the 9kph belt, there is a 6kph, and then a 3kph belt, and people have to jump from belt to belt
2. The platforms that everybody stands on are collapsible: To speed up, they grow longer, and to speed down, the become shorter again.
Could you enlighten us in this aspect?
Re:This travelator is a lot of fun (Score:3, Informative)
I have also been on this travelator
The accel/decel zones are like a number of ballbearings or something, which are rotating at gradually increasing speeds. This is why you need to keep both feet on the ground, because otherwise you could end up falling over.
It's a configuration a bit like this:
xoxoxoxox
oxoxoxoxo
xoxoxoxox
oxoxoxoxo
where the o's are cylinders and xs are gaps... they gradually accelerate you and then you sort of step onto the travelator moving at 9kph and the reverse happens at the o
Many points of failure? (Score:5, Interesting)
Would be interesting to see some schematics.
it's mechanical.. (Score:5, Interesting)
better would be organic, something like stomach cillia, where the floor doesn't move the length of the journey, but little tiny bits from in place do- not my idea, something I read once.
the individual elements take turns dropping, moving a tiny bit, pushing up again, and moving you a tiny bit... done repeatedly= ya move down the floor- which doesn't move.
less to break down, and spilled drinks and food (as long as they aren't too hot) are actually welcome...
Re:it's mechanical.. (Score:2, Funny)
We have that. It's called the sea. What you just described is known, in areas where the sea is generally warm enough, as "surfing".
I have been to the future... (Score:2, Interesting)
I also use a similar thing in a local supermarket. All you'd have to do is crank up the speed on it to equal the Paris one, but then again, it's slighly elevated and I don't think people like being catapulted from the 2nd floor...
Is this a reinvention of the wheel (Kakakaka! Tra
People will adjust. (Score:5, Insightful)
Teavelators, escalators, revolving doors, they seem natural and intuitive to those who are used to them.
Expressways (Score:4, Interesting)
As an idea, these expressways are a fairly good way of transporting humans. They travel at constant speed, so there should be no obvious difference to the traveller, no matter what the speed is. Of course, in reailty we'd experience air resistence; try sticking your head out of the window on a car going at 70mph. but there may be some way of reducing this in enclosed tunnels, like blowing air at the same velocity as the floor is moving.
In Asimov's vision (I think), the different-speed strips were parallel to each other, not serial like this French version. This meant that you's step to the side to go onto a faster strip, and keep going until you hit the fastest one, which could be several hundred miles an hour. As the differential in speed between the strip you are on and those near is never more than about 1mph, you won't do yourself any serious damage by falling over. see diagram:
---->---7mph->--
---->---8mph->--
---->---9mph->--
etc.
This structure makes them easier to 'network'. The only danger, I suppose, is if a strip breaks then the speed-differential between it and then next one could be massive.
I suppose any serious implementation would use some kind of semiconductor thang to decrease friction, and on a wide scale could be very energy efficient. These things are probably more useful to society than a Segway, but you'd have to design a city around them from the ground up, so I doubt they'll change the way we live just yet.
Re:Expressways (Score:5, Funny)
---->---8mph->--
---->---9mph->--
That won't work. You'll just get some stupid old lady in the fast lane, walking backwards at 2mph with her blinker on.
~Philly
Heinlein, not Azimov (Score:3, Informative)
And it was a 5 MPH difference between lanes. Every lane has to have separate motors, etc, so you don't want too many of them. 5 MPH is a brisk walk so it's not hard to move from one to the next.
Re:Expressways (Score:3, Informative)
Obviously, no hand rails, unless they can be attached to the track itself.
Not that hot (Score:4, Insightful)
Besides, in the first month they are going to have at least one old lady fall on the exit rollers with her gigantic suitcase and 40 other people will be force-fed into the melee to create a giant writhing heap.
All it will take is one idiot and his lawyer to mess it up for everyone else.
Solution: shoot the lawyers and their clients. (Score:4, Insightful)
Just put a sign up that says you are using it at youre own risk and that the elderly, women and other idiots should just walk. Of course there should be a normal walkway to the side (if for no other reason then to allow maintenance)
My fists start to itch when I read that stupid womans remark about her mother being scared. You don't have to fucking use it. I am tired of having the world fit itself to the lowest common denominator. This is a nice idea wich could solve some basic problems in large public areas like airports. Stupid people will always be falling over. Don't let the stupid people rule our lives.
And the earth moved beneath us (Score:2, Informative)
I had read in a newspaper report some months back that authorities in Mumbai, India were planning to install this kind of 'travelator' to link two of the most important railway stations in Mumbai, Churchgate and CST. But I don't remember seeing any action on it since then.
Btw, I would like to advise the travelator operators in Paris to hand out barf bags to people travelling on these contr
Meet George Jetson (Score:2, Funny)
Bah! They've done it before. (Score:5, Informative)
If you ask me, this was a much better design than the neck-breaking jallopy installed in Montparnasse Station...
They also experimented some 30 years ago with one that was shaped like an integral sign; instead of a rubber plate, there were solid plates which slide sideways at the end, effectively yielding a slower speed but without the jarring hells-on-wheels acceleration.
Re:Bah! They've done it before. (Score:3, Informative)
There have been a lot of stories in the newspaper about it. Basically, it doesn't work. A waste of money, specially considering the lack of escalators in most of Paris metro stations...
I tried it (Score:4, Informative)
I live in Paris and tried it a while ago. It works like a charm. The acceleration and deceleration are surprisingly smooth provided you keep your feets on the ground. Then it is exactly like a normal conveyor mat. I like it and I see no drawbacks.
How about... (Score:2)
Example:
Drive your car onto Interstate 95 where a rubber coated ramp picks up the car. There would be 3 lanes... Left would be fastest, if you knew that you would be on the road for a while... Middle for those that don't need to go to far (one city to another)... Right is slowest for those who would be getting off soon and transferring onto an exit conveyor where the speed would gradually reduce to normal commuting
Thousands each year are injured by conveyers : (Score:2, Informative)
As usual, some people just can't seem to get along.
Personally, I think more could be done with this concept. If the center, fastest "strip" was a sit down type one, wouldn't this really be nothing more than a permanently available, perpetual people bus. Think about it, moving McDonalds, talk about fast food!
As well, these conveyers could easily be constructed as subways. I can also see these being used at large exhibition
Effect on sidewalk cafes? (Score:2)
MagLev (Score:2, Interesting)
Why don't they use something like a maglevel/chairlift. On which individual carriages are propelled (at any acceleration you like :-) down a track that doesn't have the limitation of being flat and straight.
Wow, Travelator (Score:5, Funny)
Bahh... Everyone knows Ginger is "IT" ! (Score:3, Interesting)
How can this even get off the ground if future cities are designed around the Segway AKA Ginger? Ginger is the future "Human Transporter" . Ginger is "IT" !. Steve Jobs told me so! There's no place for something like this.
[/sarcasim]
Seriously though, I think the *real* future is in hydrogen fuel cell vehicles (whether they be private cars or public buses) for three reasons. First, that's where all the serious R&D money is going right now. Secondly, they require no great leap of concept and will be more psychologically acceptable to the public (i.e. its just a car with a different engine as opposed to something strange and possibly "dangerous"). Third, other than adding hyrdogen pumps to existing gas stations, they requie no expesive and massive public works project because they can use the current road infrastructure. The gas station problem can be handled by a government regulation on the lines of "if you run a gas station and have more than two pumps, at least one has to be for hydrogen".
Now if they could jack up a fuel cell powerful enough for a jet engine capable of inter-city/cross-country transport, we'd be set.
Moving rollers are a marginal solution (Score:5, Informative)
The Loderway Accelerating Walkway [elevator-world.com], circa 1998, used multiple belts at different speeds. The transitions between belts involved a 5mm drop and small-diameter end rollers [elevator-world.com], instead of a transition plate. That was probably the simplest solution to the problem. Two systems were installed in Australia, field tests were claimed to be successful, but the manufacturer no longer seems to be around.
NKK [jfe-holdings.co.jp] (yes, the zipper company) and Mitsubishi have both built prototype "accelerating moving walkways", but neither system seems to have been installed more than once. NKK's system involves expansible plate-type steps that become longer in the high-speed section. The Mitsubishi [elevator-world.com] system works by turning a corner, so that a series of short wide plates transform into a series of long narrow plates. Both of these systems avoid difficult transition points, but are complicated and expensive throughout the whole length of the system. The Loderway and Paris systems have transitions, which adds risk, but the long section is just a plain belt, so the cost of long systems is manageable.
Re:Moving rollers are a marginal solution (Score:3, Informative)
The original moving walkway at the Paris Exposition around 1900 was really an endless train of flatcars with continouous platforms on top. Transitions between cars were handled by circular sections. There were were steps (with vertical overlaps) between the slow train and the ground, and between the fas
The French take the lead, again. (Score:4, Insightful)
doesn't have any high-speed trains....bunch of cowards -- look big behind
their high-tech weapons -- but when it comes to something socially useful...
forget it. It was a shame the French became the only company to provide
Super-Sonic speeds on jets -- and, of course, what did we do in the US?
We banned their use in US airspace because Elmer's cow might stop producing
milk from the occasional bang. Big woop. We could have had coast-to-coast
in 2-3 hours, but noooOOOOOooo.... any real R&D goes to defense where
they don't have to worry about every soldier who breaks a nail suing them.
Americans are just so damn stupid so often....that and greedy. Grrr.
Why can't the US every take the lead in these areas --- because it's always
private development and unless the private developer can prove profit (minus
real or bogus lawsuits) before it is even tested, it falls dead on the design
floor.
I really thought the Casino bosses in Las Vegas just might pull off the
high speed train idea to L.A. But it's been ages since I heard that idea
float.
Everyone in the US seems to want to have the right to stop progress that can benefit large numbers of people -- like all the poltics with the "Rich"
who can buy their congressmen in Menlo Park/Palo Alto and don't want BART
to go through their town -- we were promised it would circle he Bay and have
been paying sales tax to support it since...when, 1970's? Everything
is politics and self-interest.
Grrrrrr.
Read The Article (Score:3, Informative)
Re:kinda silly (Score:2)
Re:kinda silly (Score:2)
makes me think of going from a P-166 to a P-200.....
Re:kinda silly (Score:2)
Actually, it's more like going from a PIII/600 to a modern P4/2GHz. I dunno about you, but I wouldn't like to try playing Quake III on a PIII/600 era PC.
Re:kinda silly (Score:2)
This was OK on my P3/600 laptop, in 1024x768 res.
Now 11kmh is not especially a bus speed but would let one cross Paris in exactly one hour (Paris is 10~11km wide), a little more than now, using the metro.
Re:kinda silly (Score:5, Funny)
Re:Quick, someone patent it (Score:3, Funny)