Background
What makes the system so special?
The Futran Podcar system is a revolutionary public transportation system that holds the promise of transforming the way people and goods are moved in cities across the world. The technology is designed to facilitate low-cost, high-impact multi-modal transportation that can turn a meaningful profit.
Because of its low cost, high capacity and ease of deployment, the system is set to help transform the economic destiny of especially developing communities around the world. It is arguably the most exciting developments in transportation technology since the invention of the jet engine.
By combining the benefits of automation, cost effective elevated guideway design, ultra-efficient electric motor technologies, shared utilization of vehicles and sophisticated grid-based traffic management, a new class of transportation system was developed that can be used to transform mining, manufacturing, distribution, people mobility and haulage.
Why up in the air?
Land is a finite commodity that humanity is only now starting to treat with respect. Once we occupy what is available, we cannot create more of it. Irrespective of its finite supply, we currently dedicate vast spaces of land to corridors of movement and mobility such as roads, railway lines, parking areas, garages, airports, road reserves and filling stations.
In a typical city as much as 45% of the surface area of the city is dedicated to cars, busses, trains, trams and trucks. Shopping centres often have more space for cars than for shops, apartments and office blocks have multiple stories of expensive floorspace allocated for parking, roads and railway lines cut the land in two using wide corridors of unproductive land wherever it runs and in houses the bedrooms of people are often smaller than the garages for their cars!
To compound the issue, economic growth results in the movement of people and goods becoming even more constrained as cities grow and the need for movement of people and goods increase. The problem does not get better!
As human activity increases we are increasingly running out of land all over the world, and if we are to increase the level of mobility of people and goods without using more land we either have to go underground, as with underground metro system, or above ground, as per flyways and monorails. To reduce the number of vehicles that need parking at every destination it goes, we have to increase the shared usage of vehicles as opposed to single owner vehicle ownership.
Based on this philosophy the Futran System consists of a cost effective, super strong track elevated in the air above the ground level, and independently motorised electric vehicles that are suspended from the track. The track can be deployed on top of existing right-of-way corridors without creating new right-of-way while the land below can still be used productively for purposes other than vehicle movement. Automation and the use of offline stations further enables the units to always move at the same speed without having to stop at stations in between, and solar panels on top of the structure makes it possible to capitalise the energy usage for 25 years up front. Steel wheels on a steel track and the use of electrical motors further reduces operating cost dramatically, resulting in increasingly lower costs with increased utilization.
More than just transportation!
The system can be used to simply lower the cost of transportation, but it is the vision of the Futran group of companies that the Futran System will be used to create sustainable, productive, quality of life communities that use sustainable mobility to create a better life for all its members. Public transportation systems must be used to better the quality of life of communities and by enabling low cost automated transportation, Futran aims to help build better quality of life communities.
Futran Podcars
Additional Information
Futran Podcars is the public transportation version of the Futran System. When optimally deployed, it is the most efficient and cost effective public transportation system in the world that can be used as the core of Transit Oriented Development cities.
Using the light-weight, elevated track network, the Futran System can easily be retrofitted on top of existing road networks in most cities to create a seamless new transportation system, elevated above the existing road system, where people can move from station to station and from building to building without having to stop at stations in between, at red lights or stop streets. All of this is possible without disrupting traffic on the ground, demolishing homes or creating new right-of-way corridors.
Futran People Pods are six to twenty seater units that are beautifully designed to enhance the aesthetics of cityscapes. Pods run at a fixed speed on a dedicated track in the air, so there is no traffic congestion or time wasted for passengers. Passengers can request a pod for individual or shared use via a mobile phone app, at station-based kiosks or online pre-loaded access.
The Futran Podcar system is designed to run at a profit, even while running at some of the lowest rates of any public transportation system anywhere in the world. As a result, no state subsidization is required and the operators of the system can in fact contribute to the revenue base of the city by paying a royalty for the use of public land.
Learn More
Although the Futran System is designed for People mass transit, Container movement and Mine haulage, it is the people mover version that holds the promise of transforming the way people live and move around in cities and urban settlements.