As spoiled users of Hong Kong MTR, we get irritated if - we wait more than 5 mins for a train - trains not departing in 20 seconds - trains not come at same time in cross platform interchange - no convenient store/teller machine in the station and so on
When I first tried to transfer from the green line to the brown line in Ho Man Tin station, I was so disappointed. I don't see any escalators with-in 30 seconds out of the train. I needed to walk up stairs to get to another platform.
Just having these things makes moving around the city so convenient, I think if more of the people pursuing pods were to try it they might not be proposing pods!
@@thomaschui2141 imagine missing the Tung Chung Line train at Lai King Station cross platform interchange and the next TCL train is a short trip to Tsing Yi only.
I get spoiled by the cross platform interchange of newer stations when changing to/from Island to TKO line that I would ride an extra station to North Point to transfer the opposite direction because Quarry Bay involve more walking and in the end. (For context, Quarry Bay is an older station and did not have room to add in cross platform interchange when connected to a newer line) On multiple occasions when I change at North Point (just one level up or down), I would see people who rushed out at Quarry Bay (two levels up or down after walking in a circle) ending up on the same train I got on at North Point.
It's crazy that San Jose already has light rail within 1Km of the airport and never considered branching/extending it to reach the airport. Easiest airport connector ever.
There seem to be a few reasons for that (none good, but not completely inexplicable): - There was some sort of federal funding for airport connector lines, but for some reason you couldn't use it to connect to existing transit systems. I think that has recently been fixed, but only in the past few years. - The more important reason is that Downtown San Jose isn't a particularly important employer, so most people flying into the airport want to go somewhere else. Diridon is a more useful destination, which is why the pod is being built to go there. The existing light rail does connect to Diridon, but to get from the airport to Diridon via light rail, you'd have to pass through downtown, and light rail in downtown runs on surface streets as a streetcar and is extremely slow. - One might think that building a new light rail line instead of the pod is better. I would agree, but unfortunately the local government (Santa Clara County) doesn't take light rail seriously, and no one uses it, which causes a vicious cycle. This is a city that shut down the light rail entirely for 2 months after a mass shooting at the light rail depot. I'll grant that it was the pandemic, so no one was taking it, but still.
Over here with our tram network it takes 15 minutes to go from the airport to the train station in the city center and another 15 minutes to the university (on the same line) And most other places into other directions are also within 15-25 minutes to the center. You could cross from one end to the other in under an hour, and during rush hour that is much faster than going by car. Yes, public transport is faster than commuting by car. And depending on the direction, commuting by bycicle is even faster than that.
As a silicon valley resident and worker, most innovation here is opportunidtic and relatively lacking in any benefit. Pods are of course the kind of stuff we'd create.
I'll also mention that "government can't do anything efficiently" is just neoliberal dogma backed up by nothing. Government inefficiency is well demonstrated to flow from poor scope and corruption. If you can avoid those the efficiency always beats the private sector.
@@MarioFanGamer659Or more accurately, "rapidly expanding, vaguely tech-y businesses that reinvent old concepts, but with enough buzzwords to make them sound innovative."
People obsessed with "pods" have never experienced proper public transportation in their lives. These "PRT" systems do more to reinforce the status quo of car dependency than providing any useful innovation, _id est,_ they're solutions looking for problems.
Most Americans have not experienced a good public transportation as the vast majority never been to any country outside the US, Canada and Mexico (Mexico City does have a good public transportation system but most Americans go to Cancun and other vacation destinations).
The frustrating thing is that they *already have light rail* on about half that corridor, and for decent integration with their existing system they could just build a spur out to the airport.
Unfortunately although this should make sense as it's about 3.3 mi from diridon to the light rail stop closest to the airport... That trip takes 20+ minutes, best case scenario. It's honestly infuriating
@@DGotliebVids That is ridiculous and silly on SD's end; looking at the map they should be able to add a pair of light rail tracks along the CalTrain ROW to College Park, elevate them north of College Park, and then run above the median of 88/over Airport Blvd/over Terminal Drive and terminate there. A later phase could then just run over Charcot Av and drop down to grade level, joining the existing line just south of Component Station.
If they _really_ wanted to innovate, they could have a battery-powered medium rail network. They'd be the first in the world to combine one with the other.
Yeah, replacing cars with automated , rented cars won't solve traffic. And that is what all these pod ideas are. Looking at european and asian cities makes clear that tiered public transport works. - Planes for really, really long, often intercontinental journeys. - Long distance trains to connect big cities. - Slower trains that run the same routes, but stop at every moderately sized place along the way. - Trams that connect within the big cities. - Buses to fill the gaps where the others aren't possible.
Most of these "mobility innovation" concepts (because thankfully, that's what they usually ultimately amount to) can be best summed up with the phrase "they were so obsessed with whether or not they could, they never stopped to think if they should." Kind of like flying cars - sounded cool and sci-fi on paper, actually kind of pointless in real life and inferior to more conventional solutions.
The comment at ~7:30 about bikes is precisely why this happens. These Tech Valley pseudo-innovations (read: "it's a bad idea that no one has tried before because it's a bad idea but we're going to market it as innovation") are all about getting the company owners VC cash, then a multi-billion dollar IPO, so they can become the next "disruptive tech company" a la Uber and the owners can cash out, full stop. That's why so many of the "innovations" (and not just around transit) ignore practical, existing solutions to problems: because that's not the point. They don't *actually* want to "make the world better" or whatever marketing BS they peddle; they want to develop a hyper-convoluted, proprietary system that will lock governments into using them so they get revenue.
True and for sake of analogy alone this reminds me of the tragic situation this past week with OceanGate's Titan submersible. OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush was a total evangelist on the concept of using carbon fiber hulls for deep sea submersibles. He ridiculed critics as not being 'innovative' and being trapped in conventional thinking. Yes, carbon fiber could be used only to a certain extent. We all know the consequences of his "innovative" approach.
And for some reason these "innovative projects" always boil down to self-driving electric cars attempting to do the job that a train has proven to do better for the last century or so.
I think a big issue is that people used to their cars don't actually like the idea of having to (gasp!) be in the presence of others, so podded transportation remains seductive to them.
@@alivinghuman1 The heathrow pods shouldn't exist, because there should be no need for the car park they go to. Even if you genuinely don't have any public transport options from where you are to the airport, a taxi is generally cheaper than parking anyway;
@@katrinabryce Mostly agree with you, but how does someone get to the airport that lives in a rural area with no public transport and taxis? It isn't just city people who fly places.
US as a whole needs to adopt a more group-based thought process instead of how we came up with pods and hyperloops in the first place. Silicon Valley pod infrastructure, like you said, aren't mass transit. And it wasn't designed to be; it was designed to appease the people who demand for mass transit while keeping American individualism. Who in the US could stomach such an idea of some stranger on my train! Bah god!
It isn't just about group-based or individualism thought process. It a wealth disparity thing. People in the US want that rich people life style. Silicon Valley billionaires wants to deliver but are so out of touch that they are trying to sell a private jet experience with these pods, instead of different seat class on high speed trains. Wealth inequality and the perception of wealth is so different that the hate on the idea of sitting with strangers isn't because of stranger danger, it's because people sees trains as peasant form of transportation that people couldn't even fathom that trains could have class system like a plane with full service attendants or that it is possible to install fully private cabin with locks on a train.
I commuted via bus / subway in the Boston area for three years, along with *a lot* of other downtown office workers. It was not a fast commute, but cars were no faster, and I could read. It took a mind shift to feel comfortable, as rush hour transit was packed extremely tight ... full body contact levels of crowding. [FYI, I did not get sick, I didn't get cooties. And if the T would have increased frequency, there would have been a lot less crowding.] Pods remove the squick factor of crowding ... which is not that bad in a well designed system used by considerate people. [Don't do a 45 minute Crossfit workout then take the bus home before showering!] But in the US, public transit has the reputation of being for "poor, nasty, filthy addicts and criminals who can't afford a car" ... we need to work on that reputation along with the infrastructure! [I work on it myself, being a pleasant, well-to-do business professional who commutes by bus in my new city.]
I recently had to be in Rotterdam for a job interview and there they had the Rivium Park Shuttle (a pod line) which went to where I needed to go. It required its own asphalt, taking up a ridiculous amount of space. It was quite a bumpy ride, still had to wait a decent amount of time for it to arrive, and it was really slow; cycling is faster on the entire route and you can even rent a bike at the station. This thing was built in 1999 probably as a showcase and nowhere else in the country has tried this because it's just not even good at what it does.
The Rubber Tired ones are definitely quite lame, just an off brand trollybus. The optimal solution…in my opinion at least, would use a standard gauge rail and hot rail (no batteries short of maybe a small backup) and interoperability! Having good bike lanes and “complete streets” is a must too.
This is the perfect encapsulation of Rotterdam: The odd one out, trying to stick to cars and other inefficient means of transport, when the other dutch cities around it have become renowned around the world for their transport infrastructure.
I mean, Elon Musk said it pretty explicitly. Silicon Valley "innovators" don't like mass transit at all, because they don't like sharing space and air with strangers. They just think other people are icky at best and dangerous at worst, so they want to isolate themselves - hence tiny little individual pods. Efficiency isn't the goal, so it's not the outcome.
Possibly. But the dominating ideology of Silicon Valley is 'Anti-Government ' ! Just as in some other scenes in us... ( That is why Elon Musk tries to launch Space X from an offshore platform in international waters ). And the point is that for trains you just need quite a lot of government input (rail, train management systems etc . ). And possibly also that , when in the business of data gathering and selling companies, the personalized information of 500 people travelling in the the same train might be less specific ( valuable to sell) than when driving in a personalized 4 wheel pod .
With this argument it makes even less sense that they want to build pods connecting two mass transit locations: an airport and major train station, because people who fear sharing space with strangers would be at the wrong spot at either end of the lane. The same kind of applies to the Vegas Loop, which is at a convention center visited by ten-thousand of people. And to be honest, I'd find it much less awkward being in a crowded train than having to share the backseat of a Tesla with strangers (which would be necessary to get anywhere close to targeted capacity of the Las Vegas Loop)
@@li_tsz_fung they had one prototype which failed, which was then donated to the fire department for them to do fire drills on, after being scrapped for parts. Later on there was also some warping issues due to a mix of excessive accelaration and improper ATO control. But some of the newer Chinese made trains(TML C-Train) seems to be in much worse shape than the 20-year old SP1900s, so...
6:32 As a transit fan watching this from Shenzhen, I'm really glad that you recognized and praised the developments of this city. And it seems like Shenzhen is looking to double, almost triple its metro system's mileage in the next 15-20 yrs the with the recently released phase 4-5 metro construction plans.
"The reality here is that mass transit is so good because we don't have much innovation left to do." This is exactly the point. Not every problem requires an outside the box solution that we haven't thought of or implemented before. The state of transit in Silicon Valley already leaves much to be desired, we can't afford to throw money at unproven "solutions" when transit funding is already hard to come by, just go with what has already been proven to work. I will say that the city of San Jose is the one that chose to pursue this, not VTA, so while VTA has its share of issues, this one isn't on them.
UP Government of India has literally issued tenders for a PRT. And people are just so stroked about it. At the same time an urban Ropeway system is being implemented in Varanasi, which still seems way more viable to me compared to a prt.
@@RMTransit Yes, best part it’s tried and tested. So I would like to see more urban ropeway. It would be amazing if you could make a video explaining how it’s being used as public transport.
Here's how I see it: Rich people will always be rich people. Culture may change how they do it, but the ends is the same. And PRT is for Rich, not mass public.
hey rmtransit, there is a new rail opening in hawaii in a few days (the first commuter railway in the state). it has platform screen doors and is fully automated, and i think it's quite notable for an american rail system. i am hoping someone will make a video on this because i haven't seen any coverage of the project outside of local news stations, and public sentiment for it is low due to the cost and years of delays despite honolulu's terrible traffic problem. i hope you can add this to your list of ideas, if you would be interested! love your videos, it's really changed my perspective on transit. thanks
He should do it on location as well. Tax deductible trip to Hawaii. How could he say no ? Also I predict it won’t happen till later this year. Canadian winters are awful
That's also quite like the really old Aramis prototype of the RATP which, due to a lack of funding on the end if I remember well, was close but didn't get to meet its final objective to be basically an on-demand transportation system. It still became really useful though, as numerous innovations from that project were used in the automation of line 1 of the Paris Metro ! Projects like that can be innovation "hubs" but until those innovations can't benefit mass transit, they're pretty much useless !
Silicon Valley is just suburban sprawl, with a downtown similar to Tulsa, OK. Go just 50 miles North and San Francisco has streetcars, suburban rail, subways and frequent buses. It’s wild that San Jose has not taken a page from SF’s playbook.
It used to, like LA before ww2. But all of it got torn down, and only in the 1980s did they build the light rail. Which ironically was designed for commuters to park their cars in lots, and travel to city centers.
@@Davidpirate1 This is also ironic because only a tiny minority of jobs actually exist downtown. This is what happens when you don't plan for infrastructure and let businesses decide where to set up shop, they end up miles apart leaving residents to fend for themselves.
news item: Philly politicians generally ignore transit investment for decades. Now, every single member of City Council voted in favor of the NE Extension of the subway. Jay Arzu at Penn would be a good contact or retired Prof Vuchic. Especially good topic since the I95 freeway is getting repaired immediately while no plans to increase the sparse service on the parallel Trenton Regional Rail line.
HK is now building a new pod system for its airport’s second terminal expansion. I just saw their proposal in their airport at the sky deck in HKG on June 19th. Once the construction is completed, HK will have basically every public transit system a city can possibly have. ( single decker bus, double decker bus, taxi, mini bus, double decker tram, light rail, metro, train, high speed bullet train, cable cars, peak tram, planes, ferry, bike share, ride shares… now pods ) OMG I love Hk
@@mangounjuicemangoe9983 Share bike really raise and pop like a bubble within a year. me and my pa found a new one near our neigbourhood and pa is like "wtf, there is bike sharing company that is still running" lmao
The train on the left of the thumbnail is SP1900 EMU or IKK train in Hong Kong, and is among the most favourite design in Hong Kong, made in Japan. It previously served East Rail line with a stunning 12-car arrangement. Now as the East Rail line expanded, it moved to serve Tuen Ma Line, also reduced to 8-car. Still being well loved till today for its beautiful design. Another train as a newer model, has a very similar exterior design, built in China. Therefore, we call it fake-1900, and it still can’t beat the SP-1900😂
It is also over 20 years old and counting. You'd never know that this train first came into service in 2001 when you're riding it, the design is so timeless that it still feels like a train that came from the future.
I always hear MTR saying the new east rail train is faster. But these are the data from wikipedia, I don't know what's happening SP1900 Acceleration 1 m/s2 (3.3 ft/s2) Maximum speed 160 km/h (99 mph) (design) / 130 km/h (81 mph) (service) R train Acceleration 1 m/s2 (3.3 ft/s2) Maximum speed 140 km/h (87 mph) (design) / 120 km/h (75 mph) (service)
And funny enough, Hong Kong is actually planning a small scale pod transit of their own that will connect various locations around Chap Lap Kok, as well as Tung Chung and HKZM Bridge checkpoint
It’s wild to me that I’m America we’ll do almost anything to “personalize” our transportation experience yet we’re still forced to fly everywhere, even if it’s a trip that a train could do much faster and more comfortably. And somehow we STILL think tried and true transit techniques aren’t the answer.
"Personalization" means not having to mingle with the masses. These rich "innovators" from Silicon Valley are misanthropic to their very core. Of course they hate trains.
The CEO of Glydeways (the system San Jose airport is adopting) promoted it as better than conventional public transit saying "you don't have to worry about being murdered while riding in their pod car system". That's actually a pretty bold claim to make despite being completely tasteless. I actually feel safer in public spaces when there are other people around. There is just something completely dystopian about the Glydeway CEO's mindset.
I don't think anyone has ever been murdered in the Tokyo, Singapore, Hong Kong, Seoul or Taipei MRT systems (could be wrong but it seems like a safe bet). That's after billions of individual rides over the years.
"you don't have to worry about being murdered while riding in their pod car system". And what insurance do they give that nobody would hack the pod and throw the customer into the river or something like that?
@@udishomer5852ahaha actually people have, on the top of my head i think there was a biochemical attack on tokyo's and a stabbing on the blue line of taipei's. but even still the chances of that happening are so low, it is much much MUCH safer than driving a car even. living in the bay area, people here just assume anyone who takes public transit are straight out of an insane asylum who cant find a good enough job to afford a car. honestly like, for the CEO to even make that claim is so tasteless.
On the subject of innovation, ticketing is something which is often overlooked. The system in London (and elsewhere) where you just tap your contactless bank card or device and automatically get charged the cheapest combination of fares over the day/week makes transit so much easier, without ever having to need to queue for a ticket, or figure out the best day ticket or whatever.
I like the canopy idea actually. Also something that's a current annoyance is a recent move for trains to reduce bike spacing. I work in Bristol which is popular cycle city (despite the poor supporting infrastructure for it.) So there is often a lot of commuters who take bike with them, and by taking a bike with me I can reduce the walk on the otherside drastically. It would be nice to see Rail supporting bikes and other transport methods to reduce the need for cars on the roads.
France tried pods during the 60-80s if I'm not wrong, and it proved to be a failure. Some may say it was a technological leap we didn't have yet, but Lille got the first automated light-metro in the world, closely followed by Lyon with its full-scale automated metro. So, not a technological issue, more of a "we don't actually need something that small, for the same cost just buy a light-metro, you'll need the capacity eventually anyway"
Not quite the pods you are describing but since you just did a video on Hamburg this might be interesting: Holon will test their small autonomous buses in Hamburg next year and they are planned to be integrated into the public transit system. They have more capacity than pods and most importantly are not expected to replace trains. Regardless, they are definitely an innovation in public transit. We will see if they actually work in a few years.
I've got a revolutionary transit idea. Why don't we link a bunch of these "pods" to increase capacity, then put them on dedicated lines in the ground that allow for high speed and reliable service. We can call these transit lanes "tracks" or something along those lines. Then, we can implement some automation to increase frequency, electrify it to reduce emissions and add dedicated stopping points for the linked pods. We can call it a "TR4IN". Yes, I know, revolutionary and innovative.
If you put some of your own thought into that, you'll figure that "TR4IN" is just overpriced public transport for minority who are (and their destinations are) in close proximity to the stations on the rail line.
@@smallcat848 eh, for the scale of the city the ridership wouldn't make sense to have multi-car setups. And I'm talking really really right turns where only rubber-tired setup can be done through the hills.
@@RMTransit I think since we're basically stuck with it now, it's better than the steroids the city has been building. And funnily enough from working here, we often get approached by these private transit pod companies who ask to do testing on our guideway, only to discover that the way we've been doing it is cheaper and better for transit overall. If you ever want to do a gadgetbahn tour definitely don't hesitate, we always welcome visitors. Love the channel! 😎
If we had more transport that can handle steep hills and tight turns, then this could enable urban development in rugged terrains. Such places are often scenic. It’s also these rugged terrains that make places like Vancouver, San Francisco, and Hong Kong very expensive. So transport than can overcome such geospatial barriers could serve these niches to the point where they are no longer niche but rather a common transport challenge with a ready-made solution.
The thing is, that a lot of people desire individualistic things. And while an overcrowded public transit vehicle is most efficient, it certainly doesnt rate very high on comfort or privacy. Other people can be annoying. They take up the space, reduce your privacy, can be loud or have underwhelming standards of personal hygiene. You would be surprised about peoples willingness to pay for having less people arround them. Some people suggest that first class trains in germany are mostly popular for this reason and not so much for their slightly higher standard of seating.
It's not necessarily about classism. It can just be individualism. I'm inclined to share the opinion that people are often the worst thing about train journeys. But rich people are just as capable of being obnoxious.
They strike me as just as dangerous, if not more so, than trains. Where people look out for each other, less crime happens. So being in a crowd is often safer.
"Sci-Fi" grade PRT systems on a serious scale have been talked about for 60 years yet they still remain sci-fi tells alot about the viability of such a system.
Just because they've been talked about for 60 years doesn't make them bad. We have simply lacked the technology to not just make them functional but also financial viable. I'm not defending using a system like this to connect a major transportation hub like an airport rather than having heavy rail but the wholesale "pods can't work" stance is just short sighted. They aren't going to be Sci-fi much longer. Two separate companies have commercial systems up and running in SF at scale and they both have systems running in other cities too. Right now they are just using consumer cars but they are both going to pod like platforms soon capable of carrying 6 passengers.
The technology for an efficient public transportation system already exists, and it's improving every day, but not so much in the US. A Tesla taxi service doesn't cut it, nor a pod shuttle.
Meanwhile 120 miles north, Sacramento Regional Transit is planning light rail to the airport. An airport that was recently expanded and is very underutilized for its new capacity.
I certainly agree that bicycles can be a good substitute for PRT in many cases. But what about the San Jose system linking the airport and train station? Many travelers will be bringing luggage, and would need a shared bike or long term parking. These issues are not insurmountable, but I don’t see a citywide cargo bike share system as a likely solution.
I would suggest pod like transport - has some promise in replacements for low frequency- or very indirect bus routes, connecting areas that we want to increase transit use in. It makes no sense in the areas where a full sized bus would be full every couple of minutes, let alone train. However where circuitous bus routes are created to gather from a larger area - using full sized buses that still only run half-full, where the vast majority of ridership gathered is either to a heavier mode transit - or to a couple of locations on the route, pods might make sense. The Rosedale bus leaps to mind. However any such route - running with low ridership, low frequency, might be served by a smaller vehicle, running more often. Pods might make sense, not to replace light metro, (Vegas?) but where ridership does not justify frequent bus, and as a result ridership suffers because of low service levels. This especially where it would make it viable for more people to use transit to say commuter rail, or the ends of heavier mode routes
Transits in the US are often got associated with social issues like crimes, which drove away ridership. Unlike in Asia, especially in Singapore, that transits are seemed safe to use.
it's a combination of the US having little to no social safety nets leading to increasing desperation for those in poverty, and car dependency relegating public transit to something you only use if you can't afford a car.
Here in Sao Paulo, Brazil, we have a decent service of public transportation, but a lot to improve of course. Yeah that's the future, mega cities need an efficient public transport system. Brazil is one of the most corrupt countries in the world and yet we have some form of public transport that in some ways still works, so government corruption cannot be an excuse for not making public transport efficient.
There was a pod project in what was supposed to be a CBD in the vicinity of Paris in the 90s, it was built but never opened! Tim Traveler actually made a video in which he visited it if you wanna see!
I want to see more videos like this! So many people in NA are still tricked by flashy ans buzzword packed proposals for stupid gadget bahns, that they forgot how incredibly efficient ACTUAL transit is. And just like Reece Mentioned, we tend to ignore all the innovation happened in building real transit.
The VTA has a huge flaw in its light rail system, the roughly 6-block downtown "transit mall" where the light rail crawls along sidewalks at a bike's pace at best. There are ongoing studies on how to increase speeds through this area, but one option not being considered is to bypass it altogether while also taking the opportunity to connect light rail to the airport. The green line could branch off to the north at a wye just east of the San Fernando station, and roughly follow the Guadalupe River with stops at Coleman Ave and the airport, then reconnect with the existing line on First Street at Charcot Ave. That leaves the bypassed section to be served by a downtown streetcar-type service.
If you were to actually look at a PRT system, the OG and biggest PRT is in rural West Virginia and it's actually relatively useful, if you were to take a look at the Morgantown PRT would be cool
Something else to point out is that the mayor of San Jose (Matt Mahan) has advocated for replacing VTA light rail with the Glydways pod car system. Since VTA is a county wide system not controlled by the City of San Jose that is not something he can actually do but he has promoted the idea of expanding the Glydways system with additional routes not exclusively serving the airport. With a competing system in operation I could see the mayor backing a county wide measure to dismantle VTA light rail and replace it with the pod car system. The mayor has a tech industry background and seems quite sympathetic to tech bro solutions. This is all before the system is actually in operation, apart from a prototype test track in Concord, CA. I understand that airport connectors and light rail systems don't necessarily serve the same function but sometimes they can overlap. A problem with VTA light rail connecting the airport to downtown San Jose is that it is incredibly slow on the downtown surface streets creeping along a long pedestrian mall with nothing dividing the tracks from the sidewalks. Instead of San Jose extending a pod car airport connector to downtown and Diridon station I think it would be better to build an express alignment for the light rail that serves the airport and connects it directly to downtown and Diridon station. It would create a bypass route for the light rail and quicker service should help increase ridership on the system overall. Incidentally the light rail maintenance facility is just on the other side of a freeway from the airport. It is so close it is almost on airport property already. If San Jose airport really needs an airport connector (pod car or not) I don't think it makes sense for it to leave the boundaries of the airport. Airport buses already regularly circulate connecting the 2 terminals and it was suggested to test out the concept of just adding another bus route that connects directly to Diridon to at least gauge level of interest in this service. Glydways is not promoting the pod car system as being a free service either. Entry and payment will depend on use of a phone app. Any system used exclusively for connecting between airport functions should be free. Use should be no more complicated than waiting for the doors to open or pushing a button if it has to be a pod car (similar to an elevator).
To say it in a way Silicon Valley understands: both multi-thread and single-thread performance matter. You can't just focus solely on one because if you do, you'll be severely lacking performance in the other type of workload.
There is a lot of talk about being mass transit back to eastern Tennessee. Could you do a video showing how a similar place has done this successfully? And what you would recommend when trying to reuse existing rail lines. Thanks. Enjoy your content
Nice video! The pod systems in place today (Morgantown and LHR) we’re pretty good for the purpose they serve and at the time they were built. I don’t see anymore of these systems being built. I really wish the Heathrow pod system was built to include other car parks and nearby hotels to better prove the concept of PRT, but unfortunately it didn’t happen and probably never will. Self driving cars, robo taxis will be the future.
I agree. I remember, when I was a kid, I lived in a town of approximately 500 people. Yet even with that little of a population, we still lived a few houses down from the railroad tracks. I say that to say this... If a town of 500 people can have access to a railroad track, there is no reason why 90% of the US can't become exactly like Switzerland or Holland.
5:44 by technicality, it does. In Japan, if a Shinkansen is late by even 5 minutes, the passengers can be given an official lateness pass as a valid reason to be late.
Pod PRT have its usefulness in small college campus, mix use development malls and hospital facilities. It’s a basically a light metro and most of these facilities have underground tunnels already built but use of golf carts or long walk
coming from someone who lives in NYC, which supposedly has one of the best subway systems in NA, my heart literally breaks every time I see any footage of the subway systems in East Asia. We're a whole century behind in this tech it's just terrible, though I suppose the only people who view it positively are those coming from developing countries where transit is yet to exist.
... I was honestly surprised about this as an european. I was used to systems like prague metro, when I first visited NY - which I thought must be better. But it was not. NY metro was like somebody crammed a few of our more dilapidated train stations from the 50s under ground, added some steam for visual effects and heated the whole thing up. I can understand it partially (NY system is really old), but still with the amount of money disposable in NY, there must be a better way to do this than the current state of affairs.
When I visited China in early 2016, I immediately thought the same thing. The Shanghai subway is like a much more modern and technologically advanced version of the NYC subway.
In the penultimate year of the last Century I arrived in the US for the first time. I flew from Tokyo Narita to San Jose International. The differences couldn't have been more stark. I had to queue on the tarmac in the Sun for US Customs/Immigration! I confirmed that there was a courtesy bus to Santa Clara Caltrain Station as I was going to S.F. Just missed a train after waiting half an hour for the courtesy bus. The next train was in 2 hours, 2 whole hours. I suppose I got to experience my first Starbucks. :-| After Tokyo it just felt like such an antiquated experience. I believe the Caltrain has been upgraded and services increased, which sounds good. I'm not why a one mile travelator tunnel from San Jose Airport Terminal to Santa Clara station is not the sensible solution to this.
@@udishomer5852 to be fair, jeepneys, as well as tricycles, are a great solution to the last mile problem. Modernizatiom is needed, not a total phaseout.
i was JUST thinking about this the other day, after catching a video about the progress on musk’s ‘hyperloop’. doing my best to remain cautiously optimistic about the future of US (et al.) public transit and city planning!
I love how you just described the electric mobility scooter as an example of a good "personal public transport system". Except, since they are single person, they are not mass transit. And while public transport/transit in the form of taxis has its uses, it is mass transit that reduces traffic congestion.
As a San Jose resident, the obvious solution here is just more light rail. Like 10 more lines throughout the city. Of course, that would require solving the problem of the system currently being a "crack house on rails" more than anything else, with borderline-useless routes and 30 minute service frequencies.
As Adam Something put it (not the exact wording): "Pods are great. Now, imagine we place the pod - which is travelling on a fixed route - on rails, to improve wheel efficiency. Now, we can also chain multiple pods together so they will be even more efficient. If we want to have extra security, we can also place a driver in the front pod. There, a fully innovative, never-before seen solution of multiple connected pods on rails."
That sounds ideal. I can always have my tools, a cooler of food and drinks, an umbrella and a change of clothes close at hand but also add the ability to lay down and take a nap while making longer trips. Depending on the size and shape of the pod, I might even be able to roll out of bed at home, drive the pod from my house to the rails and then get dressed, eat and brush teeth after the pod is chained up and moving.
Ideas for futuristic pods: -Elongated pods to inclusively accommodate more people and solving the inconvenience of waiting -Connecting these pods together to create multiplier impacts -Create a closed bridge to increase convenience of mobility between pods -To ensure speed and stability of the pods, the pods will only run on top of a pair of steels with separation of 1,435 mm -In promoting sustainability, the pods will be powered by 630 volts DC cable at the bottom
VTA should just rip out light rail tracks and tunnel them for a true subway and start up zoning around the stations. This whole at-grade train doesn’t work in a sprawling city like SJ. It kinda works in SF, just 50 miles north where density is 5x higher but even then SF has tunnels and subway stations when it’s needed.
The worst part of this plan is that San Jose airport is the inferior airport for people in the Silicon Valley region. SFO San Francisco Airport should have better connections to San Jose as it’s the only hub in the region. It is actually an international airport unlike San Jose that has maybe 5 routes that cross oceans. But what do you expect. The VTA is the same agency that wants to put BART in a single bore tunnel because “it would cause too much disturbance to downtown buisness to build a dual bore design because we need to close the street to dig out the stations.” Their is only 1 station in the downtown as the rest are being built on empty lots. The VTA is just awful.
@@RMTransit the Bart connection does not work because it isn’t timed and Bart only goes to international terminal G at SFO, all other terminals need an AirTrain connection. What is needed is a station that connects with terminals A, G, 1, and 3 but that would be very expensive.
In a number of these cases, they're not only a PR campaign for those who wants to push them, but looks at them as a cost cutting measure as it lowers to CAPEX but ignore or dismisses the OPEX as someone else's problem.
Even Hong Kong suffers from the government cheaping out on building rail systems by cutting the wrong corners. Of course the baseline is way higher than in North America but it just shows that good transit advocacy is important in most places in the world.
The issue with bikes is, that they're not accessable for everyone. People with disabilities, health-issues or old people can't use them. And there are those (yes, these people exist) who don't know how to ride a bike. Other than that, I agree with every point in this video. Again great work - not only on an informational beses, but also from an editing pov. Thanks man!
I agree that having bikes as the only method for getting around would be bad, but IMO the number of people that can't cycle due to disability is a small enough number that it wouldn't cause too many problems if they just drove. And there's also always mobility scooters. Remember, urbanism outside city centres is car-light, not car-free. It's not about making people not drive, it's about giving options for those that don't want to. And again for city centres, mobility scooters are always an option
Yeah, the comment by RM was dumb that bikes are the answer anywhere pods are proposed. The important thing is to have the option to bike or use a pod or use a train. Pods are going to kill the bus outside of high volume lines and even there the train should kill the bus. There are exceptions but generally this is what is going to happen. Most people on the transit side are too busy straw-manning the pod to see how they are going to be 90% of transportation in a few decades.
Just take any system that works (Hong Kong, London, Paris, Seoul, Moskau, Prague) and implement it. Mass transit is never about hype, it’s about reliability, comfort and speed. Pods provide none of it.
Despite all the reasons listed in the video and comments, somewhere like Switzerland, full of rich and influential people, has one of the best railways in the world. Then again, you only ever get rich people in Switzerland. Though that does make me wonder why we cant just offer first class compartments to the wealthy, to get them to use rail travel.
Bravo. Standard transit vehicles would save $$$. Sadly, it is often necessary to say “new” to gain funding, when “old” is quite good and less expensive.
"pods" are basically cars on rails, it's the carbrain attempt to emulate transit: using the same vehicle as poor people is scary and backwards, but a "pod" with 6 seats is perfect and futuristic
I wouldn't mind using the same TYPE of vehicle as poor people, but I want to be reasonably confident that when I leave my vehicle and come back to it all my tools will be exactly where I left them. I know car theft does happen, but I've been hauling hundreds or even thousands of dollars of tools around in my cars for decades and never had a car stolen or any tools stolen out of my care. But then again, I live in the suburbs, I'm not sure if all my stuff would be as safe if I parked my car in a city.
@@youtubeuser1052 transit isn't really trying to carter for tradies that have a bunch of tools and equipment that they have to bring with them. Not sure what you're trying to get at
@@mathewferstl7042 I was replying to somebody who was trying to equate driving a car with being scared of poor people. There's a certain type of public transit advocate that gets their feeling of self worth by characterizing anybody who drives a car as inferior. Instead of understanding why people want cars they post on RUclips and social media asserting that anybody that doesn't love public transit as much as they do is inferior and scared or stupid or some other attempted insult. I don't particularly want a "pod", but there's certainly a reason for wanting a form of transportation where you don't have to strap all your possessions to your body, and it's not a matter of being scared by poor people.
@@youtubeuser1052 You do make a good point. The reality is, in car dependant places people don't actually have a choice to not drive in most circumstances. Some times that is missed upon certain groups of people. People who live in dependant places have also literally never experienced anything different or if they have, say over seas, they bring that same mindset with them and just hire a car and explore that country from within their car. This really isn't the fault of those people at all. Certain groups could do more to be more empathic to that point of view as being hostile from the outset, while easy to do at times (I have been guilty) isn't a good way to get anyone to listen to your argument. Especially when it runs against everything that person knows, not to their fault of course (the one who lives in a car dependant city). That's not to say there isn't also a group of legitimately bad faith car dependency defenders or whatever you want to them (often called carbrained). Not that it ever warrants hostility. I've personally spoken to someone who's almost offended that I told them to take a tram and then walk to where they wanted to go rather than me having to drive them. This was in inner Melbourne where we have really good PT. So there really is a group whether it's subconscious or not that associated taking PT with the secondary option that would use out desperation, basically if you were poor. Another example is people seem to think I'm trying to do them a favour by walking to where I want to go instead having them drive me there, the concept of me actually wanting to go for a walk because I like walking is confusing to them and just doesn't to make any sense. Of course this doesn't apply if your local transportation is legitimately bad like I said before. Just to have it said, people in rural areas and commercial workers who need a vehicle for their job shouldn't be expected to use PT while working, that'd be stupid. Not gonna touch on how rural town can actually be walkable and how tradies can use PT outside of when they're working assuming the network is good enough to do so.
The Heathrow Pods would be ideal if they served the hotels scattered along Bath Road. Getting between these and the terminals/stations is way harder than it should be and just encourages car use for people catching early/late flights One of the very few cases where I think it might actually be better than a bus/metro/people mover
As a San Jose resident who flies out of SJC all the time, the pod nonsense makes me SO MAD. And there was barely any dialogue about it until the city had basically finalized it so there was no opportunity to really mobilize opposition.
Hello RMTransit. As a person who is fond of public transport, I really like your videos, they are very informative and look in one breath, but I slightly don't understand why there is no review on Moscow public transport. The capital of Russia has a very extensive and busy metro and city railway network. This system is especially expanding now, chord metro lines are appearing, old ones are being extended and new railway lines are appearing. It would be very interesting to look at the history, current state and future of Moscow public transport. If necessary, I can shoot some material for you.Thank you in advance.
The desire to re-invent transit is about control. The technologies behind buses, trains and trams are a century old and there's nothing to patent or otherwise control through intellectual property. The great discovery of the big tech unicorns is that through tech you can create a whole ecosystem, on which customers become dependent and crucially which you totally control. This is where the billions of dollars come from - tools of which you are an exclusive or near exclusive supplier, which people believe they cannot live without.
PRT is basically just a small-sized people mover, it is best suited for airports and convention centers, where people have to walk a lot. Urban prt might be used as maybe a feeder system to a large metro system. My suggestion is LPRT, a merger of LRT and PRT technology. It should be used in newly developed areas of a large city, and will have a low capacity, but will run at high speed and will requires comparatively cheap tracks, to curb extra expenses.
I couldn't agree more, Startups with NO experience claiming that "they alone can fix it" is the exact type of thinking that sinks a mini sub, while wasting hundreds of millions of investors dollars. Invest in cities if you want transit. Great video :)
From time to time, you read comments like "Trains are outdated 19th century technology.", often from car addicts who don't want trains in their neighbourhood, nevermind that they changed constantly, from the electrification to running trains as busses and then these "train-busses" also as normal trains to running them at high speeds, and being a tech hub from a country which codified car dependency (and even places like California still are ), this certainly may be true of Silicon Valley as well. This is why the focus on pod is multilayered and can't be described as a single point: - Innovation for the sake of innovation (the aforementioned technology point), nevermind they're still a variation of a railway system, just not named as such. - Cars the size of an automobile ("I don't want to share my vehicle with strangers!"). - Keeping PT out of the way from automobiles (given that many of such pod networks are grade separated). - Undermining functional railway infrastructure as you mentioned (when the motivations are particularly malicious).
![Stroads are Ugly, Expensive, and Dangerous (and they're everywhere) [ST05]](http://i.ytimg.com/vi/ORzNZUeUHAM/mqdefault.jpg)
As spoiled users of Hong Kong MTR, we get irritated if
- we wait more than 5 mins for a train
- trains not departing in 20 seconds
- trains not come at same time in cross platform interchange
- no convenient store/teller machine in the station
and so on
When I first tried to transfer from the green line to the brown line in Ho Man Tin station, I was so disappointed.
I don't see any escalators with-in 30 seconds out of the train. I needed to walk up stairs to get to another platform.
Just having these things makes moving around the city so convenient, I think if more of the people pursuing pods were to try it they might not be proposing pods!
i already irritated for the waiting time of Tung Chung line and Tuen Ma line so yeah it is true
@@thomaschui2141 imagine missing the Tung Chung Line train at Lai King Station cross platform interchange and the next TCL train is a short trip to Tsing Yi only.
I get spoiled by the cross platform interchange of newer stations when changing to/from Island to TKO line that I would ride an extra station to North Point to transfer the opposite direction because Quarry Bay involve more walking and in the end. (For context, Quarry Bay is an older station and did not have room to add in cross platform interchange when connected to a newer line) On multiple occasions when I change at North Point (just one level up or down), I would see people who rushed out at Quarry Bay (two levels up or down after walking in a circle) ending up on the same train I got on at North Point.
It's crazy that San Jose already has light rail within 1Km of the airport and never considered branching/extending it to reach the airport. Easiest airport connector ever.
It’s almost like they were trying to make it suck for some reason.
There seem to be a few reasons for that (none good, but not completely inexplicable):
- There was some sort of federal funding for airport connector lines, but for some reason you couldn't use it to connect to existing transit systems. I think that has recently been fixed, but only in the past few years.
- The more important reason is that Downtown San Jose isn't a particularly important employer, so most people flying into the airport want to go somewhere else. Diridon is a more useful destination, which is why the pod is being built to go there. The existing light rail does connect to Diridon, but to get from the airport to Diridon via light rail, you'd have to pass through downtown, and light rail in downtown runs on surface streets as a streetcar and is extremely slow.
- One might think that building a new light rail line instead of the pod is better. I would agree, but unfortunately the local government (Santa Clara County) doesn't take light rail seriously, and no one uses it, which causes a vicious cycle. This is a city that shut down the light rail entirely for 2 months after a mass shooting at the light rail depot. I'll grant that it was the pandemic, so no one was taking it, but still.
Over here with our tram network it takes 15 minutes to go from the airport to the train station in the city center and another 15 minutes to the university (on the same line) And most other places into other directions are also within 15-25 minutes to the center. You could cross from one end to the other in under an hour, and during rush hour that is much faster than going by car.
Yes, public transport is faster than commuting by car.
And depending on the direction, commuting by bycicle is even faster than that.
For a city with 94% zoned as single family homes, no wonder.
Average American city be like :
As a silicon valley resident and worker, most innovation here is opportunidtic and relatively lacking in any benefit. Pods are of course the kind of stuff we'd create.
I'll also mention that "government can't do anything efficiently" is just neoliberal dogma backed up by nothing. Government inefficiency is well demonstrated to flow from poor scope and corruption. If you can avoid those the efficiency always beats the private sector.
The original podcar system was built in West Virginia in the 1970s, this isn't even new technology really
Or to say it in different words: Innovation for the sake of innovation.
@@MarioFanGamer659innovation for the same of stupid investors
@@MarioFanGamer659Or more accurately, "rapidly expanding, vaguely tech-y businesses that reinvent old concepts, but with enough buzzwords to make them sound innovative."
People obsessed with "pods" have never experienced proper public transportation in their lives. These "PRT" systems do more to reinforce the status quo of car dependency than providing any useful innovation, _id est,_ they're solutions looking for problems.
And they're obsessed with never having to.
Yeah they basically want cars they don’t have to drive
I'd generally concur, especially when proper linear transit is the obvious right solution
Thats a income inequality, classism and hyper-individualism collision for you
Most Americans have not experienced a good public transportation as the vast majority never been to any country outside the US, Canada and Mexico (Mexico City does have a good public transportation system but most Americans go to Cancun and other vacation destinations).
The frustrating thing is that they *already have light rail* on about half that corridor, and for decent integration with their existing system they could just build a spur out to the airport.
Unfortunately although this should make sense as it's about 3.3 mi from diridon to the light rail stop closest to the airport... That trip takes 20+ minutes, best case scenario.
It's honestly infuriating
To be clear the pods are not the correct fix to this.
@@DGotliebVids That is ridiculous and silly on SD's end; looking at the map they should be able to add a pair of light rail tracks along the CalTrain ROW to College Park, elevate them north of College Park, and then run above the median of 88/over Airport Blvd/over Terminal Drive and terminate there. A later phase could then just run over Charcot Av and drop down to grade level, joining the existing line just south of Component Station.
If they _really_ wanted to innovate, they could have a battery-powered medium rail network. They'd be the first in the world to combine one with the other.
Yeah, replacing cars with automated , rented cars won't solve traffic. And that is what all these pod ideas are.
Looking at european and asian cities makes clear that tiered public transport works.
- Planes for really, really long, often intercontinental journeys.
- Long distance trains to connect big cities.
- Slower trains that run the same routes, but stop at every moderately sized place along the way.
- Trams that connect within the big cities.
- Buses to fill the gaps where the others aren't possible.
Most of these "mobility innovation" concepts (because thankfully, that's what they usually ultimately amount to) can be best summed up with the phrase "they were so obsessed with whether or not they could, they never stopped to think if they should." Kind of like flying cars - sounded cool and sci-fi on paper, actually kind of pointless in real life and inferior to more conventional solutions.
A classic quote, they *often* feel like solutions in search of a problem
The comment at ~7:30 about bikes is precisely why this happens.
These Tech Valley pseudo-innovations (read: "it's a bad idea that no one has tried before because it's a bad idea but we're going to market it as innovation") are all about getting the company owners VC cash, then a multi-billion dollar IPO, so they can become the next "disruptive tech company" a la Uber and the owners can cash out, full stop. That's why so many of the "innovations" (and not just around transit) ignore practical, existing solutions to problems: because that's not the point. They don't *actually* want to "make the world better" or whatever marketing BS they peddle; they want to develop a hyper-convoluted, proprietary system that will lock governments into using them so they get revenue.
True and for sake of analogy alone this reminds me of the tragic situation this past week with OceanGate's Titan submersible. OceanGate CEO Stockton Rush was a total evangelist on the concept of using carbon fiber hulls for deep sea submersibles. He ridiculed critics as not being 'innovative' and being trapped in conventional thinking. Yes, carbon fiber could be used only to a certain extent. We all know the consequences of his "innovative" approach.
And for some reason these "innovative projects" always boil down to self-driving electric cars attempting to do the job that a train has proven to do better for the last century or so.
Yes there are flying cars and is useful to some extent - we call them drones
I wish people would learn to not take these gadgetbahn systems seriously
Especially major news outlets
It's going to be a long term struggle! But its worth it!
I think a big issue is that people used to their cars don't actually like the idea of having to (gasp!) be in the presence of others, so podded transportation remains seductive to them.
i think these ridiculous systems are purposely designed for people to not take public transportation seriously and use the car instead
Hmmm Vegas is. Poring millions for high price transit
Anything a pod can do, trains can do better.
The heathrow pods are good
@@alivinghuman1 The heathrow pods shouldn't exist, because there should be no need for the car park they go to.
Even if you genuinely don't have any public transport options from where you are to the airport, a taxi is generally cheaper than parking anyway;
Or a bike*!
@@katrinabryce Mostly agree with you, but how does someone get to the airport that lives in a rural area with no public transport and taxis? It isn't just city people who fly places.
Now that's a song!
US as a whole needs to adopt a more group-based thought process instead of how we came up with pods and hyperloops in the first place. Silicon Valley pod infrastructure, like you said, aren't mass transit. And it wasn't designed to be; it was designed to appease the people who demand for mass transit while keeping American individualism. Who in the US could stomach such an idea of some stranger on my train! Bah god!
American individualism = isolate people from each other and force them to use cars or car-like objects.
More california than like east coast where everyone takes buses, and pile in subways
@@AnotherDuck You said that, not me.
It isn't just about group-based or individualism thought process. It a wealth disparity thing. People in the US want that rich people life style. Silicon Valley billionaires wants to deliver but are so out of touch that they are trying to sell a private jet experience with these pods, instead of different seat class on high speed trains. Wealth inequality and the perception of wealth is so different that the hate on the idea of sitting with strangers isn't because of stranger danger, it's because people sees trains as peasant form of transportation that people couldn't even fathom that trains could have class system like a plane with full service attendants or that it is possible to install fully private cabin with locks on a train.
I commuted via bus / subway in the Boston area for three years, along with *a lot* of other downtown office workers. It was not a fast commute, but cars were no faster, and I could read. It took a mind shift to feel comfortable, as rush hour transit was packed extremely tight ... full body contact levels of crowding. [FYI, I did not get sick, I didn't get cooties. And if the T would have increased frequency, there would have been a lot less crowding.]
Pods remove the squick factor of crowding ... which is not that bad in a well designed system used by considerate people. [Don't do a 45 minute Crossfit workout then take the bus home before showering!] But in the US, public transit has the reputation of being for "poor, nasty, filthy addicts and criminals who can't afford a car" ... we need to work on that reputation along with the infrastructure!
[I work on it myself, being a pleasant, well-to-do business professional who commutes by bus in my new city.]
I recently had to be in Rotterdam for a job interview and there they had the Rivium Park Shuttle (a pod line) which went to where I needed to go. It required its own asphalt, taking up a ridiculous amount of space. It was quite a bumpy ride, still had to wait a decent amount of time for it to arrive, and it was really slow; cycling is faster on the entire route and you can even rent a bike at the station. This thing was built in 1999 probably as a showcase and nowhere else in the country has tried this because it's just not even good at what it does.
The Rubber Tired ones are definitely quite lame, just an off brand trollybus. The optimal solution…in my opinion at least, would use a standard gauge rail and hot rail (no batteries short of maybe a small backup) and interoperability!
Having good bike lanes and “complete streets” is a must too.
This is the perfect encapsulation of Rotterdam: The odd one out, trying to stick to cars and other inefficient means of transport, when the other dutch cities around it have become renowned around the world for their transport infrastructure.
So thats what that thing was. I was in Rotterdam for a company open day and saw one of those ride through its own little lane on my way there.
I mean, Elon Musk said it pretty explicitly. Silicon Valley "innovators" don't like mass transit at all, because they don't like sharing space and air with strangers. They just think other people are icky at best and dangerous at worst, so they want to isolate themselves - hence tiny little individual pods. Efficiency isn't the goal, so it's not the outcome.
Yeah, I think classism is unfortunately often overlooked as a huge factor in turning to these gadgetbahn solutions.
I mean this broken clock is right... but it's too ironic comming from someone with the exact same mindset towards transport
Possibly. But the dominating ideology of Silicon Valley is 'Anti-Government ' ! Just as in some other scenes in us...
( That is why Elon Musk tries to launch Space X from an offshore platform in international waters ).
And the point is that for trains you just need quite a lot of government input (rail, train management systems etc . ).
And possibly also that , when in the business of data gathering and selling companies, the personalized information of 500 people travelling in the the same train might be less specific ( valuable to sell) than when driving in a personalized 4 wheel pod .
Well said
With this argument it makes even less sense that they want to build pods connecting two mass transit locations: an airport and major train station, because people who fear sharing space with strangers would be at the wrong spot at either end of the lane.
The same kind of applies to the Vegas Loop, which is at a convention center visited by ten-thousand of people. And to be honest, I'd find it much less awkward being in a crowded train than having to share the backseat of a Tesla with strangers (which would be necessary to get anywhere close to targeted capacity of the Las Vegas Loop)
The train in the thumbnail SP1900 from 1999 is GOATed.
Not many train feels more modern than it
back in the days when it was KCRC they had a bit more resources to get the nicest toys from Japan
@@coldisopropyl They designed it (in terms of the look). I heard they did some engineering but resulted badly for the early models of it,
My cousins gave me a model of one.
@@li_tsz_fung they had one prototype which failed, which was then donated to the fire department for them to do fire drills on, after being scrapped for parts.
Later on there was also some warping issues due to a mix of excessive accelaration and improper ATO control.
But some of the newer Chinese made trains(TML C-Train) seems to be in much worse shape than the 20-year old SP1900s, so...
GOATed is accurate! Its pretty awesome!
6:32 As a transit fan watching this from Shenzhen, I'm really glad that you recognized and praised the developments of this city. And it seems like Shenzhen is looking to double, almost triple its metro system's mileage in the next 15-20 yrs the with the recently released phase 4-5 metro construction plans.
"The reality here is that mass transit is so good because we don't have much innovation left to do."
This is exactly the point. Not every problem requires an outside the box solution that we haven't thought of or implemented before. The state of transit in Silicon Valley already leaves much to be desired, we can't afford to throw money at unproven "solutions" when transit funding is already hard to come by, just go with what has already been proven to work. I will say that the city of San Jose is the one that chose to pursue this, not VTA, so while VTA has its share of issues, this one isn't on them.
UP Government of India has literally issued tenders for a PRT. And people are just so stroked about it. At the same time an urban Ropeway system is being implemented in Varanasi, which still seems way more viable to me compared to a prt.
Ropeways are certainly much more common and standardized!
@@RMTransit Yes, best part it’s tried and tested. So I would like to see more urban ropeway. It would be amazing if you could make a video explaining how it’s being used as public transport.
Here's how I see it: Rich people will always be rich people. Culture may change how they do it, but the ends is the same. And PRT is for Rich, not mass public.
@@Jestersage Switzerland though??
hey rmtransit, there is a new rail opening in hawaii in a few days (the first commuter railway in the state). it has platform screen doors and is fully automated, and i think it's quite notable for an american rail system.
i am hoping someone will make a video on this because i haven't seen any coverage of the project outside of local news stations, and public sentiment for it is low due to the cost and years of delays despite honolulu's terrible traffic problem. i hope you can add this to your list of ideas, if you would be interested!
love your videos, it's really changed my perspective on transit. thanks
He should do it on location as well. Tax deductible trip to Hawaii. How could he say no ? Also I predict it won’t happen till later this year. Canadian winters are awful
@@rosskgilmour but its currently summer in Canada and Ontario/toronto summer are nice.
@@rosskgilmour also Canadian Winters arent that bad in 90 percent of the country. only like two non northern Province have the stereotypical winter
He once had a video on the Honolulu Skytrain, but somehow it disappeared. He needs to update the video for opening on Friday, I guess. :)
I would be very interested.
If you want a pod, just build a train with automated shunting. Like a classification yard but for passenger wagons.
Thats more or less what a system like Miami's Metromover is
That's also quite like the really old Aramis prototype of the RATP which, due to a lack of funding on the end if I remember well, was close but didn't get to meet its final objective to be basically an on-demand transportation system. It still became really useful though, as numerous innovations from that project were used in the automation of line 1 of the Paris Metro ! Projects like that can be innovation "hubs" but until those innovations can't benefit mass transit, they're pretty much useless !
Silicon Valley is just suburban sprawl, with a downtown similar to Tulsa, OK. Go just 50 miles North and San Francisco has streetcars, suburban rail, subways and frequent buses. It’s wild that San Jose has not taken a page from SF’s playbook.
It used to, like LA before ww2. But all of it got torn down, and only in the 1980s did they build the light rail. Which ironically was designed for commuters to park their cars in lots, and travel to city centers.
@@Davidpirate1 This is also ironic because only a tiny minority of jobs actually exist downtown. This is what happens when you don't plan for infrastructure and let businesses decide where to set up shop, they end up miles apart leaving residents to fend for themselves.
news item: Philly politicians generally ignore transit investment for decades. Now, every single member of City Council voted in favor of the NE Extension of the subway. Jay Arzu at Penn would be a good contact or retired Prof Vuchic. Especially good topic since the I95 freeway is getting repaired immediately while no plans to increase the sparse service on the parallel Trenton Regional Rail line.
HK is now building a new pod system for its airport’s second terminal expansion. I just saw their proposal in their airport at the sky deck in HKG on June 19th. Once the construction is completed, HK will have basically every public transit system a city can possibly have. ( single decker bus, double decker bus, taxi, mini bus, double decker tram, light rail, metro, train, high speed bullet train, cable cars, peak tram, planes, ferry, bike share, ride shares… now pods ) OMG I love Hk
Lmao bike share is really convenient, you can just throw it in the river when you’re done
@@Jwellsuhhuh lmao I recall a few lying in the woods somewhere downstairs
No monorail, where is my monorail?
@@mangounjuicemangoe9983 Share bike really raise and pop like a bubble within a year.
me and my pa found a new one near our neigbourhood and pa is like "wtf, there is bike sharing company that is still running" lmao
No monorail... So far.
The train on the left of the thumbnail is SP1900 EMU or IKK train in Hong Kong, and is among the most favourite design in Hong Kong, made in Japan. It previously served East Rail line with a stunning 12-car arrangement. Now as the East Rail line expanded, it moved to serve Tuen Ma Line, also reduced to 8-car. Still being well loved till today for its beautiful design.
Another train as a newer model, has a very similar exterior design, built in China. Therefore, we call it fake-1900, and it still can’t beat the SP-1900😂
Chinese made trains in my experience thus far can never beat the quality of Japanese trains
The new Chinese knock off. We have to do a cheap Chinese clone of our own design. That's when you know Hong Kong is now China
It is also over 20 years old and counting. You'd never know that this train first came into service in 2001 when you're riding it, the design is so timeless that it still feels like a train that came from the future.
It's great, which is why I featured it!
I always hear MTR saying the new east rail train is faster. But these are the data from wikipedia, I don't know what's happening
SP1900
Acceleration 1 m/s2 (3.3 ft/s2)
Maximum speed 160 km/h (99 mph) (design) / 130 km/h (81 mph) (service)
R train
Acceleration 1 m/s2 (3.3 ft/s2)
Maximum speed 140 km/h (87 mph) (design) / 120 km/h (75 mph) (service)
And funny enough, Hong Kong is actually planning a small scale pod transit of their own that will connect various locations around Chap Lap Kok, as well as Tung Chung and HKZM Bridge checkpoint
It’s wild to me that I’m America we’ll do almost anything to “personalize” our transportation experience yet we’re still forced to fly everywhere, even if it’s a trip that a train could do much faster and more comfortably. And somehow we STILL think tried and true transit techniques aren’t the answer.
"Personalization" means not having to mingle with the masses. These rich "innovators" from Silicon Valley are misanthropic to their very core. Of course they hate trains.
Americans still think the future is like Jetsons
The CEO of Glydeways (the system San Jose airport is adopting) promoted it as better than conventional public transit saying "you don't have to worry about being murdered while riding in their pod car system". That's actually a pretty bold claim to make despite being completely tasteless. I actually feel safer in public spaces when there are other people around. There is just something completely dystopian about the Glydeway CEO's mindset.
I don't think anyone has ever been murdered in the Tokyo, Singapore, Hong Kong, Seoul or Taipei MRT systems (could be wrong but it seems like a safe bet).
That's after billions of individual rides over the years.
"you don't have to worry about being murdered while riding in their pod car system".
And what insurance do they give that nobody would hack the pod and throw the customer into the river or something like that?
Don't have to be murdered while riding? Oh so they're excluding BART cops from riding.
@@udishomer5852ahaha actually people have, on the top of my head i think there was a biochemical attack on tokyo's and a stabbing on the blue line of taipei's. but even still the chances of that happening are so low, it is much much MUCH safer than driving a car even. living in the bay area, people here just assume anyone who takes public transit are straight out of an insane asylum who cant find a good enough job to afford a car. honestly like, for the CEO to even make that claim is so tasteless.
7:18 There needs to be a North American wide agency for high speed rail projects to develop longterm institutional knowledge.
On the subject of innovation, ticketing is something which is often overlooked. The system in London (and elsewhere) where you just tap your contactless bank card or device and automatically get charged the cheapest combination of fares over the day/week makes transit so much easier, without ever having to need to queue for a ticket, or figure out the best day ticket or whatever.
This.
Given the Silicon Valley thumbnail, it’s the tech companies saying that they have solved traffic with a flashy new technology that looks good
Thanks for the shout-out for bikes. As an integrated part of an overall transportation strategy they are so often overlooked.
I think a lot of congestion could probably be solved cheaply and simply by building bike paths with a canopy over them.
I like the canopy idea actually. Also something that's a current annoyance is a recent move for trains to reduce bike spacing. I work in Bristol which is popular cycle city (despite the poor supporting infrastructure for it.) So there is often a lot of commuters who take bike with them, and by taking a bike with me I can reduce the walk on the otherside drastically. It would be nice to see Rail supporting bikes and other transport methods to reduce the need for cars on the roads.
France tried pods during the 60-80s if I'm not wrong, and it proved to be a failure. Some may say it was a technological leap we didn't have yet, but Lille got the first automated light-metro in the world, closely followed by Lyon with its full-scale automated metro. So, not a technological issue, more of a "we don't actually need something that small, for the same cost just buy a light-metro, you'll need the capacity eventually anyway"
Not quite the pods you are describing but since you just did a video on Hamburg this might be interesting:
Holon will test their small autonomous buses in Hamburg next year and they are planned to be integrated into the public transit system.
They have more capacity than pods and most importantly are not expected to replace trains.
Regardless, they are definitely an innovation in public transit. We will see if they actually work in a few years.
I've got a revolutionary transit idea. Why don't we link a bunch of these "pods" to increase capacity, then put them on dedicated lines in the ground that allow for high speed and reliable service. We can call these transit lanes "tracks" or something along those lines.
Then, we can implement some automation to increase frequency, electrify it to reduce emissions and add dedicated stopping points for the linked pods.
We can call it a "TR4IN". Yes, I know, revolutionary and innovative.
Are you Adam Something's alt?
Thanks, Adam.
If you put some of your own thought into that, you'll figure that "TR4IN" is just overpriced public transport for minority who are (and their destinations are) in close proximity to the stations on the rail line.
Besides, we've been doing pods since the 70s. Like the WVU PRT. Its niche is steep hills and really tight turns.
i mean even then we have people m overs & monorails for that
@@smallcat848 eh, for the scale of the city the ridership wouldn't make sense to have multi-car setups. And I'm talking really really right turns where only rubber-tired setup can be done through the hills.
As much as the WVU PRT is cool I am not sure it can do anything that a combination of other options couldn't.
@@RMTransit I think since we're basically stuck with it now, it's better than the steroids the city has been building. And funnily enough from working here, we often get approached by these private transit pod companies who ask to do testing on our guideway, only to discover that the way we've been doing it is cheaper and better for transit overall. If you ever want to do a gadgetbahn tour definitely don't hesitate, we always welcome visitors. Love the channel! 😎
If we had more transport that can handle steep hills and tight turns, then this could enable urban development in rugged terrains. Such places are often scenic. It’s also these rugged terrains that make places like Vancouver, San Francisco, and Hong Kong very expensive. So transport than can overcome such geospatial barriers could serve these niches to the point where they are no longer niche but rather a common transport challenge with a ready-made solution.
Pods are so individualistic and always scream classist to me. Innovation should always be for everyone.
Americans are still assuming that the future is like The Jetsons
The thing is, that a lot of people desire individualistic things. And while an overcrowded public transit vehicle is most efficient, it certainly doesnt rate very high on comfort or privacy.
Other people can be annoying. They take up the space, reduce your privacy, can be loud or have underwhelming standards of personal hygiene.
You would be surprised about peoples willingness to pay for having less people arround them. Some people suggest that first class trains in germany are mostly popular for this reason and not so much for their slightly higher standard of seating.
It's not necessarily about classism. It can just be individualism. I'm inclined to share the opinion that people are often the worst thing about train journeys. But rich people are just as capable of being obnoxious.
They strike me as just as dangerous, if not more so, than trains. Where people look out for each other, less crime happens. So being in a crowd is often safer.
Yeah, I feel like if you were in smaller more individual pods you are an easier target for mugging and other crimes.
"Sci-Fi" grade PRT systems on a serious scale have been talked about for 60 years yet they still remain sci-fi tells alot about the viability of such a system.
Just because they've been talked about for 60 years doesn't make them bad. We have simply lacked the technology to not just make them functional but also financial viable. I'm not defending using a system like this to connect a major transportation hub like an airport rather than having heavy rail but the wholesale "pods can't work" stance is just short sighted. They aren't going to be Sci-fi much longer. Two separate companies have commercial systems up and running in SF at scale and they both have systems running in other cities too. Right now they are just using consumer cars but they are both going to pod like platforms soon capable of carrying 6 passengers.
Violent crime! The city of tomorrow. Got Gehhhtttoooo
The technology for an efficient public transportation system already exists, and it's improving every day, but not so much in the US. A Tesla taxi service doesn't cut it, nor a pod shuttle.
Americans still think the future is like Jetsons
Plues ya know. Violent crime
@AMPPof
That's such a political talking point.
Meanwhile 120 miles north, Sacramento Regional Transit is planning light rail to the airport. An airport that was recently expanded and is very underutilized for its new capacity.
I certainly agree that bicycles can be a good substitute for PRT in many cases. But what about the San Jose system linking the airport and train station? Many travelers will be bringing luggage, and would need a shared bike or long term parking. These issues are not insurmountable, but I don’t see a citywide cargo bike share system as a likely solution.
Every dollar spent on vision is a dollar not spent on platform level doors
I would suggest pod like transport - has some promise in replacements for low frequency- or very indirect bus routes, connecting areas that we want to increase transit use in. It makes no sense in the areas where a full sized bus would be full every couple of minutes, let alone train.
However where circuitous bus routes are created to gather from a larger area - using full sized buses that still only run half-full, where the vast majority of ridership gathered is either to a heavier mode transit - or to a couple of locations on the route, pods might make sense. The Rosedale bus leaps to mind. However any such route - running with low ridership, low frequency, might be served by a smaller vehicle, running more often. Pods might make sense, not to replace light metro, (Vegas?) but where ridership does not justify frequent bus, and as a result ridership suffers because of low service levels. This especially where it would make it viable for more people to use transit to say commuter rail, or the ends of heavier mode routes
Transits in the US are often got associated with social issues like crimes, which drove away ridership. Unlike in Asia, especially in Singapore, that transits are seemed safe to use.
it's a combination of the US having little to no social safety nets leading to increasing desperation for those in poverty, and car dependency relegating public transit to something you only use if you can't afford a car.
Went to Singapore. Was shocked by the 4 min intervals
If Sheldon made a train YT channel instead of the flag one, this I'd be it!
Haha, I am not sure whether to feel honored
Pods: I AM TRANSPORTATION! 😭
Trains: 🗿
Here in Sao Paulo, Brazil, we have a decent service of public transportation, but a lot to improve of course. Yeah that's the future, mega cities need an efficient public transport system.
Brazil is one of the most corrupt countries in the world and yet we have some form of public transport that in some ways still works, so government corruption cannot be an excuse for not making public transport efficient.
There was a pod project in what was supposed to be a CBD in the vicinity of Paris in the 90s, it was built but never opened! Tim Traveler actually made a video in which he visited it if you wanna see!
I want to see more videos like this!
So many people in NA are still tricked by flashy ans buzzword packed proposals for stupid gadget bahns, that they forgot how incredibly efficient ACTUAL transit is. And just like Reece Mentioned, we tend to ignore all the innovation happened in building real transit.
Americans still think the future is like Jetsons
The VTA has a huge flaw in its light rail system, the roughly 6-block downtown "transit mall" where the light rail crawls along sidewalks at a bike's pace at best. There are ongoing studies on how to increase speeds through this area, but one option not being considered is to bypass it altogether while also taking the opportunity to connect light rail to the airport. The green line could branch off to the north at a wye just east of the San Fernando station, and roughly follow the Guadalupe River with stops at Coleman Ave and the airport, then reconnect with the existing line on First Street at Charcot Ave. That leaves the bypassed section to be served by a downtown streetcar-type service.
If you were to actually look at a PRT system, the OG and biggest PRT is in rural West Virginia and it's actually relatively useful, if you were to take a look at the Morgantown PRT would be cool
Something else to point out is that the mayor of San Jose (Matt Mahan) has advocated for replacing VTA light rail with the Glydways pod car system. Since VTA is a county wide system not controlled by the City of San Jose that is not something he can actually do but he has promoted the idea of expanding the Glydways system with additional routes not exclusively serving the airport. With a competing system in operation I could see the mayor backing a county wide measure to dismantle VTA light rail and replace it with the pod car system. The mayor has a tech industry background and seems quite sympathetic to tech bro solutions. This is all before the system is actually in operation, apart from a prototype test track in Concord, CA.
I understand that airport connectors and light rail systems don't necessarily serve the same function but sometimes they can overlap. A problem with VTA light rail connecting the airport to downtown San Jose is that it is incredibly slow on the downtown surface streets creeping along a long pedestrian mall with nothing dividing the tracks from the sidewalks. Instead of San Jose extending a pod car airport connector to downtown and Diridon station I think it would be better to build an express alignment for the light rail that serves the airport and connects it directly to downtown and Diridon station. It would create a bypass route for the light rail and quicker service should help increase ridership on the system overall. Incidentally the light rail maintenance facility is just on the other side of a freeway from the airport. It is so close it is almost on airport property already.
If San Jose airport really needs an airport connector (pod car or not) I don't think it makes sense for it to leave the boundaries of the airport. Airport buses already regularly circulate connecting the 2 terminals and it was suggested to test out the concept of just adding another bus route that connects directly to Diridon to at least gauge level of interest in this service. Glydways is not promoting the pod car system as being a free service either. Entry and payment will depend on use of a phone app. Any system used exclusively for connecting between airport functions should be free. Use should be no more complicated than waiting for the doors to open or pushing a button if it has to be a pod car (similar to an elevator).
To say it in a way Silicon Valley understands: both multi-thread and single-thread performance matter. You can't just focus solely on one because if you do, you'll be severely lacking performance in the other type of workload.
i just got back to the us from a trip to taiwan and japan and this makes we wanna cry
There is a lot of talk about being mass transit back to eastern Tennessee. Could you do a video showing how a similar place has done this successfully? And what you would recommend when trying to reuse existing rail lines. Thanks. Enjoy your content
Nice video! The pod systems in place today (Morgantown and LHR) we’re pretty good for the purpose they serve and at the time they were built. I don’t see anymore of these systems being built. I really wish the Heathrow pod system was built to include other car parks and nearby hotels to better prove the concept of PRT, but unfortunately it didn’t happen and probably never will. Self driving cars, robo taxis will be the future.
"Mobility Innovation" sounds more like a fancy wheelchair than a new idea in transit.
NA are still believing that the future is like The Jetsons
I agree.
I remember, when I was a kid, I lived in a town of approximately 500 people. Yet even with that little of a population, we still lived a few houses down from the railroad tracks.
I say that to say this... If a town of 500 people can have access to a railroad track, there is no reason why 90% of the US can't become exactly like Switzerland or Holland.
How are they not making a VTA light rail line or say, BART to San Jose Airport?!??
They are, look up BART SVII extension
BART itself is, its the Silicon Valley Techies are the ones behind the new pods scheme.
5:44 by technicality, it does. In Japan, if a Shinkansen is late by even 5 minutes, the passengers can be given an official lateness pass as a valid reason to be late.
"Doesn't really" ≠ Doesn't ever
For vegas, instead of the teslas in a tunnel, they could have built a roller coaster to connect the 2 places.
Pod PRT have its usefulness in small college campus, mix use development malls and hospital facilities. It’s a basically a light metro and most of these facilities have underground tunnels already built but use of golf carts or long walk
Didn't the show "Silicon Valley" re-create public transportation as well? lol
I love the Portland Bridge shirt you are wearing :)
coming from someone who lives in NYC, which supposedly has one of the best subway systems in NA, my heart literally breaks every time I see any footage of the subway systems in East Asia. We're a whole century behind in this tech it's just terrible, though I suppose the only people who view it positively are those coming from developing countries where transit is yet to exist.
... I was honestly surprised about this as an european. I was used to systems like prague metro, when I first visited NY - which I thought must be better. But it was not. NY metro was like somebody crammed a few of our more dilapidated train stations from the 50s under ground, added some steam for visual effects and heated the whole thing up. I can understand it partially (NY system is really old), but still with the amount of money disposable in NY, there must be a better way to do this than the current state of affairs.
When I visited China in early 2016, I immediately thought the same thing. The Shanghai subway is like a much more modern and technologically advanced version of the NYC subway.
In the penultimate year of the last Century I arrived in the US for the first time. I flew from Tokyo Narita to San Jose International. The differences couldn't have been more stark.
I had to queue on the tarmac in the Sun for US Customs/Immigration! I confirmed that there was a courtesy bus to Santa Clara Caltrain Station as I was going to S.F. Just missed a train after waiting half an hour for the courtesy bus. The next train was in 2 hours, 2 whole hours. I suppose I got to experience my first Starbucks. :-| After Tokyo it just felt like such an antiquated experience.
I believe the Caltrain has been upgraded and services increased, which sounds good. I'm not why a one mile travelator tunnel from San Jose Airport Terminal to Santa Clara station is not the sensible solution to this.
Ah yes, taxis in tunnels. What an innovation.
That's the dumbest public transportation system in the world, and I live in Manila were Jeeneys are the standard (google it to see how bad they are).
@@udishomer5852 to be fair, jeepneys, as well as tricycles, are a great solution to the last mile problem. Modernizatiom is needed, not a total phaseout.
i was JUST thinking about this the other day, after catching a video about the progress on musk’s ‘hyperloop’. doing my best to remain cautiously optimistic about the future of US (et al.) public transit and city planning!
Yes, that shoutout for bikes is so important! Bikes are such an underrated powerhouse of urban transportation.
I think something like those Automated People Movers were what was originally proposed for the Brisbane Metro. Very glad they rethought that one.
I love how you just described the electric mobility scooter as an example of a good "personal public transport system". Except, since they are single person, they are not mass transit.
And while public transport/transit in the form of taxis has its uses, it is mass transit that reduces traffic congestion.
WHAT ABOUT being Stabbed and robbed
@@AMPProf What does that have to do with anything? That risk is larger while waiting for that stupid pod than in a bus/tram with crew and CCTV.
@@AMPProf You get stabbed and robbed by a population with tendencies of crimes, not with the presence or usage of transit
As a San Jose resident, the obvious solution here is just more light rail. Like 10 more lines throughout the city.
Of course, that would require solving the problem of the system currently being a "crack house on rails" more than anything else, with borderline-useless routes and 30 minute service frequencies.
As Adam Something put it (not the exact wording):
"Pods are great. Now, imagine we place the pod - which is travelling on a fixed route - on rails, to improve wheel efficiency. Now, we can also chain multiple pods together so they will be even more efficient. If we want to have extra security, we can also place a driver in the front pod.
There, a fully innovative, never-before seen solution of multiple connected pods on rails."
That sounds ideal. I can always have my tools, a cooler of food and drinks, an umbrella and a change of clothes close at hand but also add the ability to lay down and take a nap while making longer trips. Depending on the size and shape of the pod, I might even be able to roll out of bed at home, drive the pod from my house to the rails and then get dressed, eat and brush teeth after the pod is chained up and moving.
Adam Something is trash, don't get sucked into his logical facilities. Focusing only on efficiency makes no sense, latency is what riders care about.
If I wanted to ride in a pod, I'd go on a ferris wheel.
*San Jose*... Why am I not surprised? Tech bros paying billions for anything except proper public transportation.
Ideas for futuristic pods:
-Elongated pods to inclusively accommodate more people and solving the inconvenience of waiting
-Connecting these pods together to create multiplier impacts
-Create a closed bridge to increase convenience of mobility between pods
-To ensure speed and stability of the pods, the pods will only run on top of a pair of steels with separation of 1,435 mm
-In promoting sustainability, the pods will be powered by 630 volts DC cable at the bottom
now, will these trains-- I mean pods-- be above or below ground?
Adam Something wants to know your location.
I think the VTA light rail should add a line to the airport and not an APM
VTA should just rip out light rail tracks and tunnel them for a true subway and start up zoning around the stations. This whole at-grade train doesn’t work in a sprawling city like SJ. It kinda works in SF, just 50 miles north where density is 5x higher but even then SF has tunnels and subway stations when it’s needed.
@@anthonysnyder1152 well, if it properly works then yes
Great video as always
How did you comment before the video was uploaded lol... sus
Bro the video haven't even been uploaded yet there's no need to hurry like that😂
Patreon Member!
Thanks!
@@RMTransit oh yeah that explains
The worst part of this plan is that San Jose airport is the inferior airport for people in the Silicon Valley region. SFO San Francisco Airport should have better connections to San Jose as it’s the only hub in the region. It is actually an international airport unlike San Jose that has maybe 5 routes that cross oceans. But what do you expect. The VTA is the same agency that wants to put BART in a single bore tunnel because “it would cause too much disturbance to downtown buisness to build a dual bore design because we need to close the street to dig out the stations.” Their is only 1 station in the downtown as the rest are being built on empty lots. The VTA is just awful.
Well to be fair, CalTrain more or less provides an SFO connection via BART! It could and should be better though!
@@RMTransit the Bart connection does not work because it isn’t timed and Bart only goes to international terminal G at SFO, all other terminals need an AirTrain connection. What is needed is a station that connects with terminals A, G, 1, and 3 but that would be very expensive.
In a number of these cases, they're not only a PR campaign for those who wants to push them, but looks at them as a cost cutting measure as it lowers to CAPEX but ignore or dismisses the OPEX as someone else's problem.
Even Hong Kong suffers from the government cheaping out on building rail systems by cutting the wrong corners. Of course the baseline is way higher than in North America but it just shows that good transit advocacy is important in most places in the world.
What corners
@@Jwellsuhhuh Po Lam station having only one platform is purely due to cutting corners.
I would love to see your analysis about public transport in Sao Paulo. 😁👍
The issue with bikes is, that they're not accessable for everyone. People with disabilities, health-issues or old people can't use them. And there are those (yes, these people exist) who don't know how to ride a bike.
Other than that, I agree with every point in this video. Again great work - not only on an informational beses, but also from an editing pov.
Thanks man!
I agree that having bikes as the only method for getting around would be bad, but IMO the number of people that can't cycle due to disability is a small enough number that it wouldn't cause too many problems if they just drove. And there's also always mobility scooters.
Remember, urbanism outside city centres is car-light, not car-free. It's not about making people not drive, it's about giving options for those that don't want to. And again for city centres, mobility scooters are always an option
Yeah, the comment by RM was dumb that bikes are the answer anywhere pods are proposed. The important thing is to have the option to bike or use a pod or use a train. Pods are going to kill the bus outside of high volume lines and even there the train should kill the bus. There are exceptions but generally this is what is going to happen. Most people on the transit side are too busy straw-manning the pod to see how they are going to be 90% of transportation in a few decades.
I'm unable to drive, but I can ride a bike.
Missed opportunity to collab with Kovács Adam aka Adam Something.
Just take any system that works (Hong Kong, London, Paris, Seoul, Moskau, Prague) and implement it. Mass transit is never about hype, it’s about reliability, comfort and speed. Pods provide none of it.
The Octopus Card in Hong Kong should be amongst one of the best inventions ever on the face of the Earth.
Despite all the reasons listed in the video and comments, somewhere like Switzerland, full of rich and influential people, has one of the best railways in the world.
Then again, you only ever get rich people in Switzerland. Though that does make me wonder why we cant just offer first class compartments to the wealthy, to get them to use rail travel.
Bravo. Standard transit vehicles would save $$$. Sadly, it is often necessary to say “new” to gain funding, when “old” is quite good and less expensive.
"pods" are basically cars on rails, it's the carbrain attempt to emulate transit: using the same vehicle as poor people is scary and backwards, but a "pod" with 6 seats is perfect and futuristic
anything not to share space with poor people.
public transport is for broke boys. 😅
I wouldn't mind using the same TYPE of vehicle as poor people, but I want to be reasonably confident that when I leave my vehicle and come back to it all my tools will be exactly where I left them. I know car theft does happen, but I've been hauling hundreds or even thousands of dollars of tools around in my cars for decades and never had a car stolen or any tools stolen out of my care. But then again, I live in the suburbs, I'm not sure if all my stuff would be as safe if I parked my car in a city.
@@youtubeuser1052 transit isn't really trying to carter for tradies that have a bunch of tools and equipment that they have to bring with them. Not sure what you're trying to get at
@@mathewferstl7042 I was replying to somebody who was trying to equate driving a car with being scared of poor people. There's a certain type of public transit advocate that gets their feeling of self worth by characterizing anybody who drives a car as inferior. Instead of understanding why people want cars they post on RUclips and social media asserting that anybody that doesn't love public transit as much as they do is inferior and scared or stupid or some other attempted insult. I don't particularly want a "pod", but there's certainly a reason for wanting a form of transportation where you don't have to strap all your possessions to your body, and it's not a matter of being scared by poor people.
@@youtubeuser1052 You do make a good point. The reality is, in car dependant places people don't actually have a choice to not drive in most circumstances. Some times that is missed upon certain groups of people. People who live in dependant places have also literally never experienced anything different or if they have, say over seas, they bring that same mindset with them and just hire a car and explore that country from within their car. This really isn't the fault of those people at all. Certain groups could do more to be more empathic to that point of view as being hostile from the outset, while easy to do at times (I have been guilty) isn't a good way to get anyone to listen to your argument. Especially when it runs against everything that person knows, not to their fault of course (the one who lives in a car dependant city). That's not to say there isn't also a group of legitimately bad faith car dependency defenders or whatever you want to them (often called carbrained). Not that it ever warrants hostility. I've personally spoken to someone who's almost offended that I told them to take a tram and then walk to where they wanted to go rather than me having to drive them. This was in inner Melbourne where we have really good PT. So there really is a group whether it's subconscious or not that associated taking PT with the secondary option that would use out desperation, basically if you were poor. Another example is people seem to think I'm trying to do them a favour by walking to where I want to go instead having them drive me there, the concept of me actually wanting to go for a walk because I like walking is confusing to them and just doesn't to make any sense. Of course this doesn't apply if your local transportation is legitimately bad like I said before. Just to have it said, people in rural areas and commercial workers who need a vehicle for their job shouldn't be expected to use PT while working, that'd be stupid. Not gonna touch on how rural town can actually be walkable and how tradies can use PT outside of when they're working assuming the network is good enough to do so.
The Heathrow Pods would be ideal if they served the hotels scattered along Bath Road. Getting between these and the terminals/stations is way harder than it should be and just encourages car use for people catching early/late flights
One of the very few cases where I think it might actually be better than a bus/metro/people mover
The greatest benifit of public transport is that it will facilitate the greatest amount of people and industry for the price.
Transit is super cost effective when done well, especially on a per passenger capacity basis!
As a San Jose resident who flies out of SJC all the time, the pod nonsense makes me SO MAD. And there was barely any dialogue about it until the city had basically finalized it so there was no opportunity to really mobilize opposition.
Hello RMTransit. As a person who is fond of public transport, I really like your videos, they are very informative and look in one breath, but I slightly don't understand why there is no review on Moscow public transport. The capital of Russia has a very extensive and busy metro and city railway network. This system is especially expanding now, chord metro lines are appearing, old ones are being extended and new railway lines are appearing. It would be very interesting to look at the history, current state and future of Moscow public transport. If necessary, I can shoot some material for you.Thank you in advance.
Jacksonville Transit Authority swallowed this pill. A FRIGGIN TRANSIT AUTHORITY.
The desire to re-invent transit is about control. The technologies behind buses, trains and trams are a century old and there's nothing to patent or otherwise control through intellectual property. The great discovery of the big tech unicorns is that through tech you can create a whole ecosystem, on which customers become dependent and crucially which you totally control. This is where the billions of dollars come from - tools of which you are an exclusive or near exclusive supplier, which people believe they cannot live without.
Trains are considered "late" when they arrive 45 seconds over the designated time in Tokyo.
They have a 99.9% on-time record.
I will not live in ze pod and I will not eat ze bugs.... wait I think that's the wrong pod I'm thinking of.
I will not ride in the pod
PRT is basically just a small-sized people mover, it is best suited for airports and convention centers, where people have to walk a lot. Urban prt might be used as maybe a feeder system to a large metro system. My suggestion is LPRT, a merger of LRT and PRT technology. It should be used in newly developed areas of a large city, and will have a low capacity, but will run at high speed and will requires comparatively cheap tracks, to curb extra expenses.
Would you consider the Transrapid and other maglev Systems as a gadgetbahn? Would love a video about it :)
If it can transport a good amount of passengers efficiently it wouldn't matter much.
It fits the "unique tech" category but perhaps not the "for no reason" category since it does go super fast!
@@RMTransit there are already full-scale 'slow' maglev trains commercially operated as Line S1 in Beijing!
I couldn't agree more, Startups with NO experience claiming that "they alone can fix it" is the exact type of thinking that sinks a mini sub, while wasting hundreds of millions of investors dollars. Invest in cities if you want transit. Great video :)
From time to time, you read comments like "Trains are outdated 19th century technology.", often from car addicts who don't want trains in their neighbourhood, nevermind that they changed constantly, from the electrification to running trains as busses and then these "train-busses" also as normal trains to running them at high speeds, and being a tech hub from a country which codified car dependency (and even places like California still are ), this certainly may be true of Silicon Valley as well. This is why the focus on pod is multilayered and can't be described as a single point:
- Innovation for the sake of innovation (the aforementioned technology point), nevermind they're still a variation of a railway system, just not named as such.
- Cars the size of an automobile ("I don't want to share my vehicle with strangers!").
- Keeping PT out of the way from automobiles (given that many of such pod networks are grade separated).
- Undermining functional railway infrastructure as you mentioned (when the motivations are particularly malicious).
I LOVE the Morgantown PRT!!!!!! Also, in the Bay Area, a PRT makes perfect sense for Treasure Island.