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In today’s world, cities grow seemingly limitless, and an ever-increasing number of people live in huge metropolitan areas. Our transportation systems are not able to process such challenges and regularly stand on the verge of collapse. People lose hours while commuting every day, and as we lack the necessary space to expand our urban transportation systems horizontally, new options should be explored. Adopting a revolutionary 3D transportation system potentially offers diverse solutions on the vertical level. While some of the stated ideas below might be regarded as quite abstract, they all bear a certain chance of implementation, and hence are either currently in the planning stage, or already exist. Still it will not be my primary goal to discuss their feasibility, but rather to elaborate upon potentially revolutionary aspects of future transportation.

Since the industrial revolution caused populations and average salaries to rise to a previously unwitnessed extent, people have been increasingly attracted to living and working in cities. Cities like Tokyo, Sao Paulo and Shanghai have now well exceeded the 30 million people mark, and are poised to continue their expansion. Moreover, population density is increasing dramatically as buildings rise ever higher; yet urban modes of transport still only exist on two basic levels. On the ground, cars and buses, while crucial for independent long-distance travel, are often stuck in a congested traffic system, greatly reducing their efficiency.Beneath them, metro lines are often viewed to be the sole option for quick inner-city travel, however they in turn crumble under the sheer numbers of commuters, even resulting in restricted access to major underground stations during rush hour in busy cities like New York and London.

Urban transport, as per its definition, is designed to connect different areas of a city, to enable commuting between residential areas, work and leisure activities. Commuters in New York, Boston and Chicago have the longest commuting hours in the US, with well over one hour per day. For Londoners, this still may sound short, as on average, they spend 74.2 minutes a day on the road, which is still far away from workers in Bangkok, who lead this statistic with about two hours per day.

People lose hours while commuting every day, and as we lack the necessary space to expand our urban transportation systems horizontally, new options should be explored

We travel constantly during our daily lives, to workplaces, restaurants, sports facilities, theatres etc., and so does each and every product, piece of furniture and delivery. Thus, the underlying effects of daily traffic jams are countless and undoubtedly impossible to list, as they not only impact the “classic” work commute, but several aspects of city life.

Nowadays, trying to remedy persistent traffic issues, governments around the world are desperately attempting to improve and modernise existing services, as well as to encourage alternatives such as biking.

While suitable for rather old, inefficient lines, there is a natural limit for the improvement of existing systems given how little spare space modern cities offer. Only by exploring alternate transportation options, do previously unused space becomes available. This is achieved by, broadly speaking, moving vertically to develop a 3D transport system, some principal ideas of which I will now elaborate.

Cable cars

The Laz Paz Cable Car – an aerial cable car urban transit system serving the La Paz–El Alto metropolitan area in Bolivia.

Technology is initiating many different developments, only some of which have the power to successfully impact urban transport. One approach, that has been proven quite successful in cities with more adverse topological conditions, is to simply rise above the current level of transport. Amongst others, the Austrian-Swiss aerial lift manufacturer Doppelmayr Garaventa, have made use of the knowledge learnt from mountainous terrain to effectively create city cable cars, such as those seen in London, Mexico City or La Paz.

Cable cars possess the unique advantage and luxury of bypassing any existing traffic problems below them. No matter how heavily streets might be congested, cable cars won’t be impacted by them. Furthermore, previously isolated districts can be accessed much more easily, rivers and mountains can be surpassed and thus regional disadvantages are evened out. Poor, but densely populated areas, such as the favelas of Rio de Janeiro, will suddenly find themselves connected to the outside. This way, districts formerly beyond the grasp of authorities are now able to develop rapidly, connect different societal classes, the spread of institutions, and enable safe business ownership or the enforcement of law and order.

On the downside however, cable cars cannot match the capacities needed for a city such as La Paz, as each line yields a maximum capacity of 3000 passengers per hour and direction, while, for instance, each London tube line has up to 36 000. Thus, despite certainly being an extremely valuable cure to the transportation system of some cities, cable cars are intrinsically constrained in their abilities, unable to solve traffic issues in all of the world’s metropolises alone.

Elevated vehicles

A design by Russian engineer and inventor Dahir Semenov, also known as Semenov Dahir Kurmanbievich, of a fire truck of the future.

While cable cars benefit from free space above ground, other traffic could similarly be designed much more efficiently if vehicles did not impede one another constantly in their lanes. Undoubtedly, the vision to elevate vehicles or lanes to allow two streams of traffic on different vertical levels could prove to be of particular interest. Comparable to the famous elevated line in Chicago, vehicles would be enabled to operate above the ground, without being impacted by congestion on the ground. Arguably gyroscopic or elevated vehicles would be more efficient and viable than actual elevated streets, which would cause repercussions to the quality of living, privacy and noise pollution.

These would basically make use of the basic concept behind tramways, sliding on rails, elevated by legs metres above the ground. While being guided by rails, the body of the vehicle conveniently floats above the ground, allowing cars to drive below. The main room rests on mono (if gyroscopic) or double stilts, ensuring the required stability. This way only the tracks would take up space, but to a minor, almost negligible extent compared to most of today’s means of public transport.

While this might sound futuristic and expensive, most experts agree on the general feasibility of these over-ground vehicles. Supporting similar capacities as large buses and trams, they could supersede existing systems to clear main streets of traffic. Notably, traffic in crucial bottleneck streets, which impairs the flow in adjacent streets, thereby multiplying its negative effects, could be decisively improved. A line system complementing the existing bus and metro systems would incentivise commuters to leave both cars and buses behind in order to avoid getting stuck in the overfilled lanes below. Currently the actual feasibility and benefit of such a project could be questioned, nonetheless the elevated line certainly bears some promising potential to add to public transport systems at some point in the nearer future.

Tunneling

Elon Musk’s vision of urban transport in the future of “electric sleds” in underground tunnels

Similarly, there are various ideas concerning underground development too. Theoretically, as dozens of layers of tunnels would be feasible, the potential for underground transportation will soon turn out to be immense.  

One of the main pioneers in this field is Elon Musk, who currently runs diverse projects that most people initially discarded as unrealistic, in this case, “The Boring Company, pun intended”. This tunnelling company commenced an ambitious project beneath the surface of Los Angeles. According to Musk, the company aims to create underground networks of tunnels, using them to transport cars on “electric sleds”, and connecting them to the existing road network by using car elevators, that would place the vehicles on their respective sleds. Instead of getting past dozens of intersections and crossroads, cars would be able to travel directly, and without delays, to their destinations. Due to the sled technique, safety would be prioritised even with higher velocity, and cars would speed through the tunnels at up to 201 km/h.

Regardless of how ambitious and creative this project seems to be, several obstacles are yet to be overcome  To accommodate a rising number of travelling cars, the elevators would have to be numerous, and notably faster than the prototypes right now. Furthermore, accesses and connecting tunnels would be required en masse throughout the whole city, as otherwise the tunnels would generate crucial bottlenecks with cars aiming to enter and leave the tunnels. Still, “The Boring Company” is a highly intriguing idea if adapted to local characteristics, with tunnels being one of the few solutions left for improving transportation and cutting commuting times and traffic jams significantly.

Likewise, another fascinating underground project centres around the idea of reusing abandoned tunnels and turning them into pedestrian or cycling paths. The London Underline would build on the infrastructure of the Piccadilly Line, creating quick and safe bike-connections in the heart of the capital. Other propositions include the creation of pedestrian walking lanes facilitating short-time travel. Equipped with different speeds and facilitated access, the tunnels would enable fast and efficient travel within the city centre, connecting tunnels and a small line system to cater to the needs of residents. Although these lanes do not present an ultimate solution to transportation issues due to their comparably low capacity, they might also contribute their part in remedying current congestion.

Identifying the diversity of all the aforementioned projects, one might begin to comprehend the number of possibilities and chances to develop our transportation services. Most likely we will not be provided with a sudden miracle solution to resolve all these transportation issues, though if a government is willing to risk change, a combination of old and new concepts might just be enough to improve the traffic situation.

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1 Comment

  1. MSeong
    23/01/2018 at 4:00 pm

    Great article, concise and to the point 🙂 What do you think about the role of urban planning in improving traffic?