Jonathan Fren @ 9:00 pm 2 Comments
Heathrow Airport will soon get the world’s first driverless personal rapid transport (PRD) system. Sounds cool.
They’ll be on-demand, with no no timetables, no emissions and no rails. They can technically be programmed to go to any destination, with touch-screens inside each pod to choose the destination. 18 of these pods will ferry you at up to 25mph to & from the business car park to the new terminal 5 building currently being built. It’s already under construction and should be completed in less than two years, at a cost of £25M.
According to the people implementing this, ATS from Bristol, the maximum wait time is only 12 seconds. Whats more, vehicles will have their own dedicated paths, with no congestion and no traffic lights, so they’re promising a non-stop journey. Sounds awesome.
Jonathan Fren @ 4:55 am 0 Comments
I’m not a big public transport user (other than the French TGV, and Paris metro), so I’m not up to the latest trends in this arena online or off, but I’m in switzerland for a few days and have been making good use of Swiss public transport, especially focusing on their website.
The website simply asks for your place of departure and destination. It then combines all methods, including Metro, Tram, Train, bus and even short walks to create several options to swiftly reach your destination. And it can even take you cross-country (e.g. Italy, France).
In my case, going to Italy from Geneva, this was a 90 minute train ride, 5 minute walk, then 2 hour bus ride, on which I’m typing this post (and almost dropping my laptop every 5 mins going up the mountains). The whole thing is smooth, perfectly timed, and even getting the ticket is easy - just one for the entire journey. I also love how the bus drivers seem to collect post from all the little villages they stop at.
I seem to recall Google has something similar for major cities (they have most things if you look hard enough) - but only for major cities (which is cool, this isn’t an automatized thing). But it would be nice to see more of the government-run sites following the Swiss. ehem. Belgium.
Does anyone know of any other good sites doing similar stuff?
