A transportation engineer seriously proposes a unique practical system which will let us use our own cars from home to final destination and return, faster, safer, without traffic jams, without pollution, and without more freeway lanes.
Most of us will still use personal cars in the new century, but with some major changes. They will operate in a dual-mode system. Between cities our cars will travel very close together in single file at high speed, yet they will be safe, quiet, and smog-free. And the drivers won't have to "drive", since in its high-speed mode the system will be entirely automatic. At 200mph, the system speed proposed between cities, we could take our personal cars from San Francisco to Los Angeles in a little over two hours. We could go from Chicago to New Orleans at night, in five hours, and get five hours sleep on the way. In their street mode, in cities and residential areas, our cars will also be safe, quiet, and smog-free; but the drivers will then be in control. Too good to be true? Read on.
People love their private automobiles; but as higher and higher percentages of our growing population acquire these wonderful and versatile machines, traffic approaches (and often arrives at) gridlock, concrete competes with crops for maximum acreage, our oil reserves disappear, and the air becomes harder to see through and to breathe. Americans already travel over two trillion passenger miles between cities every year, and the traffic is escalating rapidly!
In an attempt to solve these growing problems, authorities and forward-thinking citizens of developed countries propose rapid-transit systems. These, as we will see, can actually do little to reduce the problems, and they are seldom popular with the masses (because people would rather drive). I suspect most of the mass-transit advocates drive to where ever they do their advocating rather than take the bus. The system proposed here will let them drive without feeling guilty.
What the advocates and the planners are ignoring is the fact that the transportation systems they are proposing have been around for a century, and their ridership has dropped to a small fraction of what it was 75 years ago when we had few automobiles. These systems, which were the right answers then, are the wrong answers now.
Passenger trains, for instance, were essential to this country before there were cars or good roads; but in 1971 the Government took over the passenger railways because they were going bankrupt. The nationalized system was named "Amtrak". Since then the ridership has continued to decrease, and subsidization by the taxpayers has steadily increased. In August 1996 Amtrak announced that it would have to close four more major routes. At that time they had a $200 million budget deficit in addition to a $50 million budget cut proposed by congress for 1997.
The planners keep telling us that in order to solve our traffic problems we need to reduce the number of cars on the highways, but the planners won't prevail. We love our cars, and we will continue to drive them. Nor will the number of cars be reduced--it will continue to increase. Our traffic problems will by solved in spite of that fact, by a different kind of private car and a different "highway" system. We will do it by graduating from industrial-age technologies to electronic-age and computer-age technologies. In the 21st century some things must change, and ground transportation is one of them; but short of a totalitarian system we will never change it by reducing the use of private automobiles. Fortunately there is a much better solution. Read on.
To get more personal cars from here to there in a hurry with a minimum number of lanes, the cars will have to travel very fast and be very close together. But human drivers could not be trusted to drive safely under such scary conditions; so on the "freeways" an automatic system will take over. In our neighborhoods and downtown the drivers will be back in charge.
Our private vehicles will have four wheels with rubber tires and will look a lot like our present cars, except under the hood. These will be quiet smog-free battery-powered electric cars, since their motors will be used only at the lower-speeds and for brief periods.
At high speed we can't drive regular cars very close together on a freeway, because a blowout, a mechanical failure, or a driver error would likely cause a pileup and kill hundreds of people. So in the high-speed mode we will lift the cars completely off the surface! As crazy as this may sound it is not science fiction; it is not a wild dream. It is a practical and serious proposal for using recent technology in a currently achievable and desperately needed transportation system that will solve problems we have been unable to solve by any other means.
Our 2lst-century personal transportation system will use special high-speed "guideways" instead of freeways per se. These guideways will be parallel to our existing highways, but the guideways themselves will only be accessible to cars designed for the dual-mode system. The guideways will contain rows of electromagnets to provide guidance, "linear-electric-motor" propulsion at a constant 200 mph (60 mph through and around cities), and they will provide "magnetic levitation" to keep the vehicle wheels off the guideway.
Magnetic levitation (maglev) for vehicles is real, already developed and tested, and it is practical and economically sound. It has successfully supported prototype trains on special guideways in test runs at over 300 miles per hour. And maglev has already carried two and two-thirds million paying passengers!
The "linear" motors that propel maglev vehicles at high speed are electric-powered from the guideway, and are an integral part of the maglev system. Such motors are different from regular electric motors in that their moving parts are attached to the bottoms of the cars and travel in a line instead of rotating. The static parts of these linear motors aren't in the cars at all; they are built into the guideways.
Until now maglev has been used only in trains. Most of the development has been done in Germany and Japan, but many other countries have been involved, including the United States. In fact, repulsive magnetic levitation was first proposed for trains in the United States by Robert Goddard, and described in the November 1909 issue of SCIENTIFIC AMERICAN. It took us a half-century to use Goddard's rockets; it looks like it will take us a full century to put his maglev to work.
U.S. Senator Daniel Patrick Moynihan of New York, and his Maglev Technology Advisory Committee, have been staunch supporters of high-speed maglev trains for this country. Their efforts have met with relatively little success however, not because of technical problems but because of the many inconveniences and lack of popularity of public transportation systems.
THE UNIQUE FEATURES OF THE DUAL-MODE TRANSPORTATION SYSTEM PROPOSED HERE ARE THE ADDITION OF MAGLEV TO PRIVATE CARS AND OTHER VEHICLES, AND THE INTEGRATION OF THESE VEHICLES INTO A VERY VERSATILE AUTOMATIC HIGH-CAPACITY HIGH-SPEED NATIONAL GUIDEWAY SYSTEM.
If we need to take the kids to school or go shopping a couple miles away, we will stay on the ordinary streets, and our special cars will operate just like we are used to cars operating, except for their quiet smog-free power plants. If we have to go five or more miles we will probably choose to use the nearest guideway to save time and avoid frustration.
Once on the guideway the "driver" can eat breakfast, take a nap, read, watch television, or work on a laptop computer, because no driverly duties are required again until he/she leaves the guideway. On the guideways the ride will be smooth and quiet (except for the rush of air outside and perhaps a slight electric hum). There will be no passing or being passed, and the speed will be constant at 200 mph (60 in dense areas), regardless of how heavy the traffic may become.
In heavy traffic the clearance between cars will be only about a foot. Fear not, they won't bump, the synchronous system will lock them in step. On the guideway the cars will be like boxes traveling on a high-speed conveyor belt; their relative positions and the spacing between them never changes. Things may travel safely at high speeds and very close together if they are all forced to travel at exactly the same speed.
Nothing can go wrong with a car on the guideway to cause an accident, because nothing in the car is being used in the high-speed mode except the magnets underneath which guide it, support it, and lock it into guideway speed. The town-driving motor is shut off, all of the normally moving parts in the car are stopped, and the wheels aren't even turning--or touching. The car is floating and frictionless, except for air resistance.
If the power to the guideways should suddenly fail, the wheels will again support the cars. They will continue to be guided, and will coast straight ahead. Snoozing drivers would probably be awakened by the screech of the tires as the wheels suddenly came up to speed (like those of a landing airplane); but sound-sleeping drivers will not be a problem because they won't be needed immediately.
If power should fail on one section of the guideway, or if a section is shut down for maintenance, that section will be instantly and automatically isolated and other guideway traffic will be shunted away from it.
Automatic maglev entry and exit ramps are vital features of the system. Cars wishing to enter a guideway are automatically accelerated to the full speed of the guideway and then slipped into line. Cars wishing to exit from the high-speed stream are slipped out of line, smoothly decelerated, and guided back to the streets. There the driver takes charge and the cars travel away under their own power.
"But computers sometimes 'crash'--and then the cars would crash." Modern jetliners fly by computerized control systems, yet their accident rate is very low compared to that of automobiles. And most of the few airline accidents that occur are due to something other than the computers. Several tiers of redundancy are incorporated in crucial computer systems. If a guideway computer should fail, a backup computer would instantly and automatically take over. And hackers will not be able to vandalize the transportation-system computer--it will be secure, and independent of the Internet.
Before the system will permit a car onto an entry ramp the driver must punch into a keyboard on the dashboard a guideway exit number. That choice may be changed en route if the change is made soon enough. After the exit number is keyed in, the system computer will show a message on a dashboard screen and verbally say something like, "You wish to leave the guideway at exit number 473 in Luping Wisconsin; press Y for yes or N for no." Possible human mistakes can thus be corrected. Knowing the exit number, the system will determine the best route (if it is a long trip involving more than one guideway of the national network), and it will then route the car from one guideway to the next.
The guideways will be paid for by billing the users automatically. A barcode-like reader and an integrated-circuit chip in the car will identify the vehicle and its owner to the system as the car enters a guideway-entry ramp. The punched-in exit numbers tell the computer the lengths of the trips to be billed. The guideway vehicles will be subjected to a rigidly enforced safety inspection and maintenance program. If the computer finds anything wrong in the code of an entering car, such as an out-of-date safety check or an overdue guideway bill, the system will divert the car back onto the streets rather than letting it enter the guideway.
The guideway cars may be as different from each other as our present cars differ. They will be made by our favorite automobile companies, be painted our favorite colors, and the styling could change every year, if that is what we wish.
There will also be taxis, buses, and light trucks on the guideways, as well as wheel-less freight containers. On a cross-country trip we may choose to fly, but at our destination we can rent a guideway car if we wish to travel the guideways there.
We will need a name for our new system. I propose: "The National High-and-Low-Speed Maglev Transportation System." HiLoMag for short, pronounced "high-low mag."
The HiLoMag electric guideways will be available 24 hours a day. When individual sections are closed for maintenance, the system will route the traffic to detours. Sorry--we can't eliminate the inconvenience of the occasional detour.
The entire HiLoMag system throughout the lower forty eight (and perhaps eventually including Canada and parts of Alaska and Mexico) will operate at exactly the same speed, because it will be supplied with the same alternating-current frequency throughout. The system is synchronous. No car could go too slow or too fast any more than one plugged-in electric clock can run slower or faster than another does. There will never be any speeding tickets issued on the guideway--but everyone will be "speeding"--legally.
Compared to freeways HiLoMag will have a huge capacity. Assume: the traffic on a very busy freeway lane is travelling at an average speed of 60 mph, the clearance between cars averages the 2-second "minimum" recommended by many State Patrols, the average length of the cars is 15 feet, and there is an average of 1.2 passengers per car. This works out to be only 27.64 cars per mile and 1,990 passengers per hour per freeway lane.
By comparison, assume that each HiLoMag car on a guideway is carrying the same average of 1.2 people and the HiLoMag cars are also 15 feet long, but there is only one foot clearance between cars and they are traveling at a constant 200 mph. At full capacity there would be 330 cars/mile or 66,000 cars/hr. That multiplied by 1.2 pas./car gives us a HiLoMag capacity of 79,200 passengers per hour! Dividing 79,200 by 1,990 we see that one 200-mph HiLoMag guideway lane equals forty freeway lanes! Even in and around the cities where the guideways will travel at a modest 60mph one guideway will equal 12 freeway lanes.
In addition to this huge capacity, the guideways will be very much safer than freeways, much faster, and since we won't have to drive, guideway travel will also be more relaxing. When we include the real estate costs for 40 lanes in each direction, the HiLoMag Guideway System will probably also be cheaper--to say nothing of leaving the air cleaner and leaving a lot of land area to nature instead of covering it with concrete.
The rapid-transit advocates often propose increased bus service. It would take over 42 fully loaded standard forty-seven-passenger Greyhound buses every hour to allow the elimination of one freeway lane of cars. It would take 79,200/47 or an astonishing 1686 Greyhound buses per hour to equal the capacity of one 200-mph HiLoMag guideway! Actually we would need far more buses than that, because many would be unloading and reloading.
"Light rail" is another favorite of the activists, so let's look at its capacity. Eighty trains per hour of a thousand passengers each would be required to equal the 79,200 passengers-per-hour carrying capacity of one HiLoMag guideway at 200 mph. There would only be 45 seconds between trains. They couldn't possibly be unloaded and loaded that fast, unless acres of parallel tracks were provided at each station. Many more acres would be required for parking all the cars that brought the train riders.
The HiLoMag guideway system creates no parking problems; HiLoMag cars are parked only at the passenger's homes and at their final destinations. No public transportation system, other than the taxi, provides door-to-door service thereby eliminating the need for intermediate parking. But taxis solve neither the environmental nor the traffic problems; and they are much less convenient and far more expensive to use than private cars.
If we are in a hurry and the trip is long we usually fly; but we couldn't replace either freeway or HiLoMag travel with flying. One 200-mph HiLoMag guideway will have the capacity of 186 fully loaded Boeing 747-400s every hour. Actually it would take far more airplanes than that to equal the capacity of one guideway, counting all of those loading, unloading, and being serviced. And you think our airports are crowded now? Multiply the above figures by the number of directions we fly, add in the parking, and imagine the size of the airports that would be required.
HiLoMag can be expected to greatly reduce existing intercity airline traffic in the United States. With 200-mph HiLoMag it will take only two and a half hours to "drive" between two cities 500 miles apart. That will induce most of us to use HiLoMag instead of fly. When we include the travel time to and from the airports, the time to make reservations (which are not easily changed), the parking, ticketing, waiting, security checks, baggage handling, late flights, cancelled flights, and weather problems, the total time involved from home to final destination would surely be less by HiLoMag than by jet for trips up to a thousand miles. HiLoMag would also be much cheaper, and we wouldn't have to rent a car at the destination end.
Who needs all of the hassles of flying if we can get to our destinations faster by taking our own cars all the way? And who needs the noise, airport expansion problems, and air pollution from jets? (This heresy is coming from a private pilot and airplane lover after a 40-year engineering management career in the aerospace business.) Boeing may someday be building HiLoMag systems as well as airplanes.
The 200mph proposed speed for HiLoMag is conservative; maglev vehicles are capable of, and have demonstrated, much higher speeds than that. In October 1993 the Transrapid 07 maglev train made a test run of 279 mph at Emsland, Germany. (It could have gone 310 mph, but the test track was too short to let it get up to speed.) Earlier, another type of maglev train in Japan, the ML-500, had a test run at 321 miles per hour! The American Maglev Star train, which is being proposed for installation between the Kennedy Space Center and Cape Canaveral, is planned for speeds up to 350 mph. On HiLoMag at 200-mph, a nonstop New York to Chicago trip would take three hours; and Los Angeles to San Francisco would be two hours and eleven minutes.
It is proposed that the speed of the HiLoMag guideways around and through cities be set for 60mph. These lower-speed guideways would connect with the 200-mph guideway grid throughout the country. The lower speed is advisable in dense areas because it will reduce the cost of the guideway entry and exit ramps, take up less land, and will cause less noise pollution than an all-200-mph system would. Trains are very noisy at any speed because they use steel wheels on steel tracks. Automobiles are noisy because of their internal combustion engines, Airplanes at any speed are noisy because of their engines and propellers or turbojet engines. But any type of vehicle, even one without an engine, will generate aerodynamic or wind noise if it travels fast enough. The HiLoMag cars on the 60-mph maglev guideways will be much quieter than automobiles at 60 mph; but at 200 miles per hour, HiLoMag cars will generate about as much wind noise as airplanes gliding at 200mph. This relatively low-level noise won't be a problem out in the country, but it should be, and can be, avoided in business and residential areas by using the lower urban velocity. Overall the HiLoMag system will reduce average noise levels throughout the country because it will reduce automobile, train, and noisy jet airplane traffic. People living close to airports and on major flight paths will be especially grateful for HiLoMag.
This relatively recent phenomenon developed because of the convenience and effectiveness of the private automobile. When walking and bicycling were about the only ways for urban dwellers to go anyplace, most people lived literally on top of each other (in multistory apartments.) This was necessary in order to minimize the travelling time to the grocery store and to their jobs. With cars we can live farther from the center of things, and we can thereby have more personal room.
Urban sprawl in modern civilized society is often deplored; but whether sprawl is seen as unfavorable or favorable depends upon who is doing the looking and with what in mind. Since cars made the sprawl possible, and since the sprawl makes more cars necessary, if cars become gridlocked and also pollute the atmosphere too much, then those aspects of sprawl are bad. But whether the social planners like it or not, the advantages of sprawled-out suburban living are so great for the sprawlers, that urban sprawl is no more going to go away than are the private cars which made it possible. Fortunately, HiLoMag will largely solve the environmental problems associated with sprawl.
The HiLoMag system will also greatly relieve urban-sprawl transportation problems since it will speed up traffic and eliminate freeway gridlocks. We need to note that traffic jams are not due to the total number of cars in the world, but due to an excessive density of cars in local areas at certain times. Sprawl, almost by definition, means a reduction in density, so on local streets it tends to reduce traffic and parking problems.
The HiLoMag guideways will be used by people going to work every day, by vacationers, by people going to sporting events and concerts, by most of the serious shoppers, and by people visiting friends and relatives. In urban and suburban areas trips to the local supermarket will be made in the street-mode of HiLoMag, and elementary schools will be reached largely by this mode. Most college students who live at home will use the guideways. Trips to the airport will usually be on the guideways. As the further sprawling which HiLoMag will encourage takes place, the use factor for the guideways will increase.
Freeway speeds are limited by safety. But computers and high-tech automatic systems can "see" ahead infinitely better than human drivers, make far fewer mistakes, think thousands of times faster, and direct machines hundreds of times faster than humans. Therefore, safety on HiLoMag guideways will be very much better than it is on our freeways, even though we will travel much faster.
Drunk or otherwise incapacitated drivers will not be able to cause HiLoMag guideway accidents or other problems, because they will be mechanically prevented from controlling the vehicles in the levitated mode. Accidents with HiLoMag cars in their street mode will also be fewer, if we limit the speed of their electric motors by law. Our existing cars have to be capable of freeway speeds, but HiLoMag cars (in their street mode) do not have to be and should not be. HiLoMag could save the lives of a lot of playing children and a lot of driving teenagers. Speaking of children, when the HiLoMag cars are levitated on the guideways the doors will be automatically locked so the kids can't open them and fall out while their parents sleep.
Maglev is a proven and safe technology. By the end of 1989, the HSST series of German-type experimental maglev trains in Japan and Vancouver Canada had carried 2.67 million paying passengers, at speeds up to 191 miles per hour, with no accidents, and at a reliability factor of 99.96%.
Meanwhile, with private cars as we now know them, we lose as many people on our highways every year as we lost in the entire Viet Nam War. (Viet Nam got more attention, because highway deaths are taken for granted.) Roughly fifty thousand deaths a year occur on our highways, and two million injuries.
A Seattle Times headline of August 31, 1996: "Forty-two-Vehicle Pileup on I-5. Chain-reaction crash injures 24, closes rain-slickened freeway for hours. Two in critical condition." That type of thing happens frequently on our freeways; it could never happen on the HiLoMag guideways. The automatic magnetic system will be immune to slick roads, poor visibility, mechanical failures, blowouts, and careless drivers. A major factor in the above chain accident, and others like it, is following too closely for the conditions and the speed being traveled. The recommended two-second spacing between cars (three or four seconds is recommended at the higher speeds) is usually not being observed. The more it is violated the higher the accident rates; the more it is observed the lower the capacity of our highways. Catch 22.
The HiLoMag system, on the other hand, will be safe at very close spacing, and at very high speeds. Not only will it save tens of thousands of lives a year, and untold misery, but it will save the hundreds of millions of dollars per year which are now spent in treating those who are injured on the highways.
In trains and buses we are forced into close proximity with people we do not know, people whom we did not select as traveling companions, people who may insist upon talking when we would prefer silence, people who occupy all the seats and leave us standing, people who may smell badly or have other disturbing characteristics, people who may be drunk or high on drugs, people who have to vomit, people who may have contagious diseases, and people who may have plans for us which are not in our best interests. These factors rob us of our privacy and endanger us when we travel on public transportation. Private cars, including HiLoMag private cars, provide privacy and personal safety.
Initially the HiLoMag guideway system must be a nation-wide federal undertaking. Isolated city, county, or state HiLoMags where the guideways end at the county or state lines would have limited value. Further, the HiLoMag guideway cars will be readily affordable only in large-scale mass production. Although it must be federally controlled, the national HiLoMag guideway system will be developed and built by private companies, and it should be denationalized as soon as possible. It will employ a few hundred thousand people productively during its design and construction.
After HiLoMag is complete, the freeways (except for the few lanes required by trucks and HiLoMagphobes) could be torn up and the land sold to the farmers and to business-strip developers. But it probably makes more sense to keep all the freeway lanes we have, and to continue to use them--but much less, and therefore with many fewer traffic jams. A two-car family might decide to have one HiLoMag car and one ordinary car. In the early days of HiLoMag, at least, it is likely that we will drive our conventional automobiles onto special HiLoMag maglev pallets, which in turn will run on the HiLoMag guideways.
HiLoMag is going to be very expensive! The whole guideway system will cost a few hundred billion dollars; but that fact will not be of major concern to us burdened taxpayers. Except for several initial small government-initiated study contracts and a continuing government administration of the guideway system, HiLoMag will be a moneymaking investment by private citizens and corporations, not more taxes and added national debt. The HiLoMag bonds will be paid off from a portion of the guideway fees collected. It is fortunate that those who won't want HiLoMag won't have to pay for it. Only its users will pay, and only when the use it. Likewise, those who will no longer use the highways won't have to pay for them; the highways should be maintained in the HiLoMag age by gasoline and diesel-fuel taxes only. The city streets, which we will all use, will continue to be maintained by all of us.
But will there be enough income from guideway use fees to pay for this huge investment? Lots of studies will be required to obtain definitive answers, but a growing number of persons think there will be. It should be mentioned that a major source of HiLoMag income would come from commercial use of the guideways for hauling freight. Dick Scherer, system analyst, states, "The [HiLoMag] system will not only pay for itself but it will make BIG money because of the combined people AND FREIGHT usage." (Emphasis by Mr. Scherer) Maglev trains have been determined to be good investments in Germany and Japan, yet their expensive maglev guideways have a far lower use factor than our HiLoMag maglev guideways will have.
The development and construction of HiLoMag will probably take a couple decades, and it will cause plenty of controversy. But considering its tremendous advantages, the high-speed, safe, private, convenient, gridlock-free transportation which it alone offers; and considering its promise of great reduction in car-induced environmental problems, we can't afford not to build it, and we can't afford to wait. The basic HiLoMag concept is being disclosed at this time to both the technical community and to the automobile-driving public. It is hoped that this broad initial exposure will get the attention of not only the public and the engineers, but also the politicians, the investors, and the companies who will build HiLoMag. First we need a little government action and support.
Business-as-usual wouldn't get us there fast enough. A capable national HiLoMag Czar may be needed; similar to the one we had on the Manhattan Project. He/she should have powers broad enough to get the job done rapidly and efficiently; but there must be controls to prevent negative societal and environmental impacts. A NASA-like organization is suggested for the coordination of HiLoMag development; but unlike many of NASA's projects, HiLoMag will directly benefit us all. HiLoMag will be developed if enough people insist upon it. Letters to the editors and letters to our congresspersons should get the ball rolling.
Note: This article was kept short and nontechnical for general or lay readers. A longer and moderately technical article, NATIONAL-HIGH-AND-LOW-SPEED TRANSPORTATION SYSTEM (HiLoMag) SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION," which goes into the details and has a few illustrations, is currently available.
"I do share your enthusiasm about this [HiLoMag] concept. I know of no other that would use maglev for suspension and propulsion of vehicles that are very much like the ones we now drive. Your loop idea that allows for shutting down segments of the guideway is unique in my experience. This is a great time to put the dual-mode concept before the general public, as I think there is great interest in finding a solution that (unlike light rail transit) will provide some substantial benefits for the dollars spent."-Dr. J.B.Schneider, Professor Emeritus, transportation engineering, University of Washington. July 1997.
"The HiLoMag system is very interesting." "The HiLoMag system proposal ... certainly appears to meet many of FHWA's overall strategic goals, particularly mobility and safety." "... it would appear to serve the economic efficiency goals as well." "... we must continue to search for new and innovative solutions." "... Therefore, in response to your inquiry about research funding possibilities, I would encourage you ... .. to submit an unsolicited research proposal to FHWA."--Gary Maring, Acting Associate Administrator for Policy, Federal Highway Administration, US Department of Transportation. February 1998.
"The obvious question asks itself, Why hasn't the [HiLoMag] concept been investigated before now? It is to me such an obvious solution."-Arthur Hoal, Railways Civil Engineer, South Africa. November 1997.
"None of them [comparable systems] address mass transit. HiLoMag does. It [building HiLoMag] is the right thing to do. We need it."-Robert Style, consultant. December 1997.
"HiLoMag will be to Transportation what the Internet is to communication: We had the telegraph, telephone, radio, television, fax, and finally the Internet. We have bicycles, trains, cars, buses, airplanes, and eventually we will have HiLoMag"--Ronald Case, Case Financial Services.
"It is true that the automobile's tremendous success is owing to its door-to-door, no-wait, no-transfer service; and if it's true that the structure of the modern metropolis is incompatible with large vehicle transit systems like trains, trolley, or even 50-passenger buses, then it must be that workable transit systems in low density sections of the metropolis will be those using vehicles that are like the automobile. I suggest that the ideal transit system will serve its passengers from door-to-door with no transfers and very little waiting--and that it will fit the small number of persons having the same origin, the same destination, and the same schedule. Only such a system can compare with the car on its own grounds."--Melvin Webber, Ph.D., former Chairman of Transportation Studies, University of California--Berkeley
"You have done a phenomenal job ... defining a scheme which reflects meaningful vision. You have given consideration to all aspects of the approach and have a masterful workable system. I drove the 91 freeway to Riverside a couple weeks ago, and visualized the HiLoMag guideway parallel to the freeway and the Santa Ana riverbed, blocks of vehicles smoothly zipping along at very high speed and destined to arrive at Riverside in a matter of minutes."--Del Kahan, --engineering entrepreneur. January 1998
"The inclusion of unmanned maglev cargo containers on the HiLoMag guideways will make the system quite lucrative. There is nothing even close to that in existence. The system will not only pay for itself but will make big money because of the combined people and freight usage."--Dick Scherer, systems analyst. October 1997
"The HiLoMag transportation system sounds fascinating!"--Tom Fitzsimmons, Director, Washington State Department of Ecology. January 1998
"Your proposal is certainly of interest."--Trent Lott, Majority Leader, United States Senate. January 1998
"I ask that you set up a meeting [on HiLoMag] with my assistant, Mike Egan in Washington DC.--Patty Murray, United States Senate. November 1997
"In a private conversation: words to the effect that HiLoMag has many advantages, including speed, safety, efficiency, capacity, and environmental advantages over the private-cars Intelligent Transportation System which has been under development.--Fred Mannering, professor of transportation engineering, and Dept. of Civil Engineering Chair, University of Washington. February 1998
"I invented nothing new. I simply assembled into a car the discoveries of other men behind whom there were centuries of work. . . . Had I worked fifty, or ten, or even five years before, I would have failed. So it is with every new thing. Progress happens when all the factors that make for it are ready, and then it is inevitable."
--Henry Ford, 1909. (Change the word "car" to "HiLoMag" and it fits the present situation perfectly.)
I am indebted to a number of people for additional ideas, technical assistance, and help of other kinds during the conception of the HiLoMag system and during the writing of these articles. Thank you very much: Arnold Anderson, electromechanical engineer; Dr. Andrew Bauer, aerodynamicist; Captain Paul Bowers, United Airlines; Ronald Case, Case Financial Services; Dr. Hal B.H. Cooper, Jr. railroad engineering consultant and former Texas A & M professor; Arthur Hoal, railways civil engineer, Cape-Town, South Africa; Robert Jenny, engineer and patent agent; Professor Emeritus Robert Joppa, College of Engineering, University of Washington; R. Ware Lantz, electrical engineer; Robert Nielsen III, control systems engineer; Leroy Perkins, electrical engineer and inventor; Sue Plahn, computer-aided designer; Greg Reynolds, robotics engineer (and my son); William Roeseler, aerospace engineer and inventor; Dick Scherer, systems analyst; Dr. J. B. Schneider, transportation-engineering professor emeritus, University of Washington; Robert Style, political and business consultant; Richard Wallace, aeronautical engineer; Robert Weltzien, school systems administrator; and Paul Weston, vehicle designer and builder. And a special thank you to Marianne Reynolds, my wife, for much help which included the translation of German maglev reports, and for freeing my time for work on HiLoMag.
Francis Reynolds, the originator of the HiLoMag system and the writer of this article, is a professional engineer with a number of patents, including several on vehicles and control systems. He is retired from a 40-year engineering career with The Boeing Company. There his assignments included engineering management on an earlier single-mode guideway-type electric-powered ground transportation system, which is still in successful operation in Morgantown West Virginia.
By the publication of this article the author waives his patent rights to the invention of the HiLoMag dual-mode transportation system and places them in the public domain.
Contact Information: Francis D. Reynolds, 3802 127th Ave. N.E., Bellevue, WA 98005-1346 (425) 885-2647 mailto:Freynolds@aol.com
Last modified: August 13, 1998