Paper/Plastic/Reusable

A lively discussion was sparked at EcoGeek over paper vs. plastic.  The recurring point is the best solution is reusable bags.  Paper vs. plastic is an unnecessary distraction.  Whole Foods offers a 5 cent or more rebate per reusable bag.  In Sweden, I’ve heard, they charge per bag.  While the Whole Foods rebate is more customer friendly, the per bag charge makes a bit more sense since you’re less likely to have some crazy person come in with 100 bags asking the clerk to put one item in each bag.

Thinking just about bags maybe stopping short of the finish line.  What about fruits, vegetables, deli meats, and all other things packaged at the store?  Shouldn’t we have a reusable system for those as well? 

There are only two obstacles to the in store packaging, motivation and convenience.  Motivation can be addressed by a rebate or per bag charge.  I’d like to see that expand to more stores.  If I were looking to pass some effective legislation I would much rather mandate that all stores offer a reusable bag incentive program than ban plastic bags.

The second issue of convenience.  I use Peapod, which unfortunately has no reusable bag program.  That’s silly because in terms of convenience they have the ultimate ability to deliver it.  There’s no reason to worry that you’ll forget to take the bags into the store, or you won’t bring enough.  Peapod can easily collect the last set of bags the next time they deliver.  In fact they do this already with the larger cardboard boxes they wheel on and off the trucks.  Come to think of it, why do they even need the plastic bags at all?

Also, Peapod could gain some customer satisfaction points easily by using higher quality, reusable containers for fruits, vegetables and such.  It’s amazing they haven’t thought to take advantage of that yet because in a sense, Peapod has an opportunity to really excel in the environmentally conscious market.  Their customer base is primarily city dwellers. 

They should be able to make the case for saving a great deal of gas by replacing individual trips back and forth to the store with delivery trucks running an optimized route.  When my groceries are delivered, there is often one or two other deliveries in the building, and I’m sure many of the drivers other deliveries are around the corner or down the street.

Last, they have the ability to offer a good selection of eco products in addition to the "mainstream" products.  About the only disadvantage they have over stores like Whole Foods is the preference of many consumers to personally pick their fruits and vegetables.

I think they are really missing out on an opportunity here to do something good for both their bottom line and green cred.  I’ll have to send this post their way as a "concerned customer".

SIT – Transitions (Part 8)

A key idea of SIT is the reuse of existing infrastructure; road, rail, even the automobile manufacturing infrastructure.  That has the strength of lower investment cost, but it has the difficulty of requiring a transition plan.  My experience in software architecture has taught me that transition plans are as difficult as they are powerful and important.

What would the transition from the present day transportation architecture to SIT be like? Many possibilities exist.  What is more clear is some of the components of the transition.

Manufacturing – Platforms

Manufacturing is a key transition point.  The separation of platform (drivetrain, engine, suspension and transmission), from passenger compartment could happen prior to widespread adoption for other reasons.  Already today, automobile manufacturers design and build many models upon a common platform.  The primary obstacles to the design and manufacture of a modular architecture like SIT, are the engine and transmission.

The size, shape and placement needs of the internal combustion engine put the engine above the “floor” level which makes integration and modularity possibilities more limited.  Electric and fuel cell vehicles don’t have the same limitations. 

The linkage of steering wheel, brakes and gas pedal to mechanical components presents another hard link between the upper vehicle and lower vehicle, this time extending into the passenger compartment.  Drive-by-wire in addition to many other benefits solves this limitation.

The GM Hywire concept shows an example of not only how these two components would enable the separation, but also demonstrates the early motivations that would precede any SIT style system.

Manufacturing – Automation

Three significant components are necessary for automation, software, control and sensors.  Of these three components, control is the most difficult to retrofit.  But, drive-by-wire also requires the same control components, and manufacturers are already using and trending toward drive-by-wire for other good reasons.

Software is a relatively minor retrofit, the primary difficulty being the possible need to upgrade the “computing” hardware at the same time.  Considering the constantly shrinking size and cost of computing hardware it shouldn’t be difficult or expensive to install that either.

Sensors are likely to be the main cost of retrofits when undertaken.  There are many types of sensors that are being built into cars today (wheel slip, accelerometers, etc.), but there are other sensors which are still expensive and don’t have the same general purpose utility.  This may shift as “back-up” cameras and radar sensors are used for adaptive cruise control and automated parking features.

Road Automation

Reusing the asphalt and pavement already constructed is important for two reasons.  One reason is it costs a lot of money and time to create all that physical infrastructure.  Even more important than the actual asphalt and pavement is the physical space that lies underneath it, and it’s pervasive locality to where people live, work, play and shop.  Even if you didn’t need the roads, you’d need space near the front doors of homes and businesses.

Three styles of road transition are zoned, side-by-side and interoperability. 

Zoning

Zoning is switching specific areas to fully automated.  Likely first zoning candidates are parking and highly congested urban streets.  Zoning has the advantage of being easy to administer internally once established.  But, zoning is difficult to establish due to poor interoperability.

Zoning might be successful in urban areas that are already using vehicle bans or restrictions.  For example, London restricts vehicle traffic in certain areas, either charging a fee, disallowing certain classes of vehicles, or other measures to discourage unnecessary vehicle usage.  In areas like this, which may already be mostly public transit and taxis, a switch to SIT could occur.  Taxis and public transit vehicles could be replaced in short order and still be usable in non-automated zones, and only personal with the necessary equipment would be allowed to enter.  Other visitors would need to take public transit, or park outside the zone, which already occurs today.

Zoning might also be successful for parking.  Certain garages or lots might require SIT equipment to use.  Fees for these garages would be lower because they could obtain the compactness and efficiency of a valet parked garage, but without the costs of the valet employees.  Convenience would be higher than valet or self park garages.  Similar to valet garages, you could enter and exit your car at street level, not search for a space and not have to remember which row/section you parked in.  But also, you would never find the attendants unavailable, you could “call-ahead” by messaging your vehicle to be ready, and you wouldn’t need to worry about your car being taken for a joy ride.

Side-by-side

Side-by-side is division of lanes, or construction of extra lanes in and existing right of way, with some lanes automated, and some not.  First side-by-side candidates are congested urban and suburban highways, and long haul highways.

Suburban and urban highways have large numbers of lanes and large amounts of traffic.  Trips are somewhat short, but long enough that an automated system can be used for part of the travel in special lanes.  Automated lanes should be faster, more convenient, safer and able to sustain higher densities per lane than non-automated lanes.

Long haul highways are often only two lanes, but entrances and exits are minimal, and truck traffic is high.  It’s likely that trucking companies would be eager adopters once technical and legal requirements are met.  Employing drivers is a significant costs, and trucking companies would be sensitive to any opportunity to reduce those costs.  Trucks could be automated, and transported without a driver (except for hazardous materials or other loads that would still require supervision.) from one trucking “switchpoint” to another.  At switchpoints drivers would take over incoming trucks and drop off outgoing trucks.  Truck drivers could work 9-5, and be home to their families every night, yet still handle ten times as many loads per month.

One advantage of side-by-side is that lanes can be transitioned in stages.  For example, a transition might start with one of six lanes.  As availability of SIT equipped vehicles expands, two lanes might be used, and so forth tile the final lane is switched when all or nearly all vehicles are SIT equipped.  They only work well when entrances and exits are at a reasonable level though, so streets with intersections, and even some highways may not be compatible.

Interoperability

Interoperability requires automated vehicles to operate simultaneously in the same lanes and/or intersections as non-automated vehicles.  Interoperability is more difficult in technical terms, but if successful is applicable to any area, including rural and suburban streets.

Interoperability is the “holy grail” so to speak of transition.  It’s great in concept, but difficult or at least expensive to achieve.  The DARPA urban challenge shows promise for the possibilities, but even after interoperability is achieved, the other transition styles deserve consideration and use as they will continue to have edges in safety and efficiency when used appropriately.

Interoperability technology is important to go the final mile.  Rural roads are single lane, and will have things like cows, tractors and such on them for a long time.  Rural roads could potentially be left non-automated without harming the viability of widespread adoption, as long as manual control remains available in all vehicles.  But not presenting an automation solution for suburban roads would likely undermine the universal adoption desired.

Resistance

Every transition effort will encounter resistance.  Sometimes the reasons are valid, though unbalanced against the positive benefits, sometimes they are founded only on fear, sometimes they are just misunderstandings.

One misunderstanding I’ve seen frequently is the idea that an automated system would prevent individuals from choosing a navigation path.  An automated system would be able to accommodate requests like, “drive by the lake”, “don’t take the expressway”, “turn right at the next corner”.

Another misunderstanding, mixed with fear, is safety.  Computers do crash, and I doubt an automated transportation system would be entirely flawless, but it would greatly exceed the safety of human drivers.  Over 42,000 people in the U.S. die each year from an auto-accident.  That’s a big number, but given the number of miles driven is perhaps not so large.  But what saves occupants lives is not the astounding driving skills of drivers, but the massive amount of safety features in every car.  Each year, there are over 6.4 million highway accidents, which result in more than 2.5 million non-fatal injuries.  Those are huge numbers.  Nearly 1% of the U.S. will be injured each year, and more than 2% involved in an accident.  The technology to develop zoned or side-by-side systems with vastly lower accident rates exists today, and if the DARPA urban challenge is any indication, interoperable technology is not far away.

Part 1 – Personal Transit

Part 2 – Storage

Part 3 – Flexibility

Part 4 – Efficiency

Part 5 – Morning Options

Part 6 – Service

Part 7 – Theater

 

SIT – Theater (Part 7)

A recent trend with SUV, Minivans and other large vehicles has been the addition of television displays, usually for the purpose of watching movies.  Today’s cars have several limitations that make that experience limited.

Number one, the driver.  Cars, even those cars, only have one occupant much of the time, and watching a movie while you drive is.. not a good idea.  An unfortunate side effect of needing a driver is needing a clear glass windshield.  Theater’s are usually configured with one large screen in front of the audience, but the prime real estate for a screen is needed for the much more important task of observing the road. Ah, the tragedy.

Spaces configured for watching a movie, the morning news, or other programming would be a popular a part of a SIT model line.  That means eyeballs, and while I’m not a big fan of the pervasiveness of advertising, or it’s purpose of promoting extreme consumerism, theater spaces entertainment is likely to be partly subsidized by advertising just like conventional entertainment.  Also, some interesting opportunities exist unique to a moving vehicle.

Location based advertising could highlight stores, restaurants that are either nearby, or on the way.  I suspect that would be a big hit with advertisers, and it may reduce vehicle miles driven too.

More interesting is a new type of entertainment that utilizes the surrounding through which you are traveling.  The windshield could be translucent LCD used to overlay a tour display.  It might highlight landmarks and history, though that would be fairly boring for a daily commute.  Highlighting recent events could fix that.

It could be part of an interactive game, which is somewhat scary because it might get used even when you didn’t need to travel.  Hopefully that phase will be a short lived fad, similar to geocaching.

Not every possibility will take off.  One of the more unrealistic of which I’ve heard, is the cars based “social network”, which lets you chat with people in nearby cars.  I can’t personally see any use for knowing who’s in a nearby car unless by chance they are a friend I’d like to catch up with, akin to bumping into them on foot.  If I saw a friend nearby while heading to a store or some other non-time sensitive travel, I might suggest a quick stop for a face to face hello.  But meeting new people just because they are temporarily nearby?  Seems unlikely to catch on, and more likely that people will continue to rely more on where a person lives, works or hangs out as the location component of selecting new people to meet.

Part 1 – Personal Transit

Part 2 – Storage

Part 3 – Flexibility

Part 4 – Efficiency

Part 5 – Morning Options

Part 6 – Service

Transit Progress Links

I’m not the only one thinking about systems like SIT.

Early progress within the next 5 years from NY Times

"breezing along an expressway, inching along in stop-and-go traffic, or parking in the lot at a mall or airport after dropping off the driver."

Battery progress, 10 times capacity.

"produces 10 times the amount of electricity of existing lithium-ion …"

Slow reactions = Slow traffic.

"The main issue is around the smoothness of traffic flow. According to the model, heavy traffic will not automatically lead to congestion but can be smooth-flowing. This model takes into account the time-delay in drivers’ reactions, which lead to drivers braking more heavily than would have been necessary had they identified and reacted to a problem ahead a second earlier."

"The research team now plans to develop a model for cars equipped with new electronic devices, which could cut down on over-braking as a result of slow reactions."

Heathrow to install a Personal Rapid Transit (PRT) system.

"It appears to solve the often-encountered problems of mass public transit, including fixed timetabling – leading to long waiting times and queues, restricted routes and shared travel space."

SIT – Service (Part 6)

One of the best things about a new car is reliability.  Since you know that no irresponsible driver has abused the car, things should go smoothly.  But cars don’t stay new, mistakes happen and not everyone can afford a new car.

A great thing about SIT would be the "commoditization" of reliability.  Most of the important things that could break are part of the "platforms".  The engine, the transmission, the suspension.  As a modular system, if one platform breaks, even while in use, it is replaceable almost immediately.  There’s no need to take the car in for repairs, no need to wait for a tow truck, no need to even perform regular maintenance like oil changes.  All a SIT user would need to do is choose between the service provider with 99.99% reliability and 99.999% reliability.

Part 1 – Personal Transit

Part 2 – Storage

Part 3 – Flexibility

Part 4 – Efficiency

Part 5 – Morning Options

SIT – Morning Options (Part 5)

SIT is about more than efficiency, it’s also about a better transportation experience.  The flexibility of SIT would accommodate personalized spaces.  Consider your morning commute (assuming your have one).  How would you like to spend that time?

Biking is a common choice, and a great one at that.  But the weather can get nasty.  A SIT space could include an stationary cycle to get a morning workout, without the weather, with higher speed, and more safety.  It would be hard for SIT to be more efficient than biking, but the electrical energy generated by exercise could be captured and returned.  A more interesting concept is the alternatives, such as rowing machines.  You can’t, as far as I know, row to most workplaces.  But rowing is a more complete workout than biking, and rowing has a higher energy output.

For the less active, other options would be available.  How about a bit of extra sleep?  I hope you don’t do that when driving to work.  Or how about breakfast?

The normal options for train/bus exist too, you could read a book or the newspaper.  In a spacious train seat (commuter rail as opposed to subway style), you can catch up on email.  Those wouldn’t require any special SIT space of course.  Neither would a phone call, which is .. frowned upon while on public transportation, and illegal in many states from a car, but widely practiced still.

Part 1 – Personal Transit

Part 2 – Storage

Part 3 – Flexibility

Part 4 – Efficiency

Part 6 – Service

 

Hybrid Taxis in Chicago

Taxis are an important part of a cities transportation system.  Until we have a system like SIT, there are going to be situations that bus/train public transportation can’t handle.  Taxis are nearly as inefficient as a normal automobile, maybe more, but it’s important to remember they support public transportation.  If you’re planning to be out late, you’re more likely to take the train and/or walk if you know you can catch a cab home.  Otherwise you might be tempted to drive, with all the bad effects of that (especially if you’re planning on drinking).

Taxis should be more efficient however.  They are in many ways the perfect use of recent hybrid vehicles.  Lots of stop and go traffic, lots of idling, and some crazy drivers who don’t mind using the breaks way too much.  In addition, taxi company operators are much more aware of, and reactive to the costs associated with gasoline than your average consumer.

That’s the logic that has helped hybrid taxis take off in NYC and San Francisco.  Chicago has dabbled in hybrid taxis, but hasn’t put it’s foot nearly as deep in the water.  There’s not much good reason.  Hybrid taxis have proven to be an excellent choice for even the most demanding environments.

So how bout it Chicago?  Lets speed things up a bit.  Lets put together a plan that requires the majority (rather than 1 in 50) newly bought taxis to be a hybrid, or some other vehicle over 32 mpg.

SIT – Efficiency (Part 4)

In honor of the DARPA Urban Challenge, I’m going to point out another of the benefits of a SIT system.  SIT, is a conceptual idea for a system that integrates rubber wheeled vehicles, rail and individual transportation compartments to create a completely new transportation system.

Besides the flexibility benefits, and convenience benefits, SIT also allows for significant efficiency improvements.  The rubber wheeled vehicles portion of SIT would be more efficient than automobiles for many reasons.

Number one, is no driver.  Human drivers are impatient, discourteous and unpredictable.  SIT vehicles work collaboratively.  This means less breaking and acceleration.  Also, if you’re reading a book, catching up on email, you’re not as concerned about the 10 seconds you might save by flooring it at the change of a light.  Also, no lights!

No driver has very positive impacts in the area of safety, but the increased safety enables efficiency improvements too.  Vehicles will require fewer safety features, reducing weight.  Vehicles will be able to "platoon" and benefit from drag reduction through drafting.  No lights means no idling, and intelligent routing means no traffic jams either.

Another source of efficiency is the ability to replace the transport platforms in a centralized manner, keeping them up to date with improvement in drive technology.  Likely these platforms would all be electric-battery powered, especially since their autonomy and modularity would eliminate any charge-range concerns.

The last source is the use of non-rubber wheeled transport for legs of most journeys.  Rail is more efficient than the automobile, and eventually high speed rail with SIT could replace many jet flights.

• Part 1 – Personal Transit
• Part 2 – Storage
• Part 3 – Flexibility
• Part 5 – Morning Options
• Part 6 – Service

DARPA Urban Challenge

In an effort to raise the difficulty and ambitions of the DARPA challenge, this years event pitted engineers against conditions simulating an urban environment.  What’s amazing is the level of performance achieved in what is only the first year.  Carnegie-Mellon’s team won, but 6 of the 11 competitors finished the course under time.

I tell people, Space Individualized Transit (SIT) are not nearly as far away as they think.  In less than 20 years the transition will begin, and it’s only that long due to political and regulatory red tape that is sure to throw up roadblocks.  Once that transition begins, it’s unstoppable.  I don’t care how many people tell me they like driving their cars to work in the morning.  How many people tell me they want the "freedom" to sit at the wheel for tens of thousands of hours of their life.

The thing I know, beyond a shadow of a doubt, is that within a week of sitting down in a vehicle that doesn’t require this, even the most resistant skeptic will have to ask himself, "what was I thinking?"

Once we get the drivers hands off the steering wheel, all kinds of other great things can happen.

• Part 1 – Personal Transit
• Part 2 – Storage
• Part 3 – Flexibility
• Part 4 – Efficiency
• Part 5 – Morning Options
• Part 6 – Service

"Locked" Systems

It seems everyday you hear about a locked system’s protections being circumvented.  Today there is the XBox 360, yesterday the Apple iPhone.  I used to think the process of locking up these systems was completely useless and a generally bad idea, but today I had a thought.  Maybe there is a silver lining to the thundercloud of proprietary lock in technology.

What could that be?  Well simple, you’re hearing about some useless proprietary barrier being broken, rather than a new virus or set of malware.  Hackers will hack, and it may just be that the combination of high flying press and the pseudo philanthropic respect given to proprietary barrier hackers can create a brain drain in the area of the really nasty stuff.  Maybe.  I’m sure there will still be virus and malware writers, but maybe they’ll be a little less smart, a little less numerous.

The problem is we let companies like Apple waste our law enforcement and legal system resources on chasing down the proprietary barrier hackers.  We shouldn’t let them do that.  There’s no excuse for chasing down some guy who let people use the phones they already paid for when there’s hackers out there destroying our email system, scaring grandparents around the world and wrecking peoples lives through identity theft.  Priorities.