Time to meet!

In a few weeks the core of people involved in promoting, discussing and analysing Podcar technology will meet in Berlin in conjunction with Innotrans 2012. Our meetings are held September 19-20 at the Technical University in Berlin, with speakers from Germany, UK, Sweden, Italy, Netherlands, USA and more.

Last years conference in Stockholm was a great event, and from what we see now, we will be almost a hundred people in Berlin!  Fantastic. As the icecaps melt, the price of oil rises and the cities becomes even more congested than before, the work people do to try and find better solutions for energy use, transportation and land development is more important than ever. I look forward to meet again, with new people from around the world attending. A special welcome to students in Sweden, USA, Netherlands and Germany that are keen on understanding the Podcar concept and carry it forward to new ideas and implementations.

For registration, go to The Conference Homepage

Dear Ms Hatt - What are you thinking?

Ms Anna Karin Hatt is a member of the same party as me - the Center party of Sweden. I have heard her in several debates over the year, and since she became minister of energy in Sweden I had hopes for more solar and less fossil fuels in government strategies. So what is Anna Karin thinking on these issues? A short excerpt from a question in the Swedish Parliament last week that I read at Kjell Alekletts blog::

Minister Hatt: "Regardless of where we live in Sweden we are dependent on efficient transport. What is important for me and the government is to take concrete measures and continue step by step to institute the Alliance’s energy and environmental policies so that by 2030 we can already have a vehicle fleet that is independent of fossil fuels. This will advantage both the Swedish economy and employment."

So, aren't those words nice you think? Well, I am not happy at all. Ms Hatt (inadvertedly?) rules out major change in the transportation paradigm as she focuses on existing technology - i.e. cars, buses, trains etc. It is a never ending story of not being able to think out of the box - a series of ministers and elected officials follows the same path in their thought processes. Ines Uusman, a former minister of IT in Sweden (as our current Ms Hatt is) said May 1996:

Minister Uusman: "Everyone talks about the internet but it is maybe passing and later the focus will be more specific"

Well Ines, Internet was a slightly bigger issue than you thought. So will the future mass transportation solutions be - much less cars, much more automation than Ms Hatt realizes. And the energy is the key - we don't need almost any fossil fuels at all, let's use the sun combined with intelligent storage such as hydro and other smart technologies. An old but still very valid video:

Germany offsets 20 Nuclear power plants by solar - but where is the press coverage?

Yesterday I read wonderful news from Germany. They just set a world record in Solar energy and were able to offset 20 nuclear reactors in two days by the combined output of solar power in the country. Way to go. But were are the headlines? I scanned Swedish and US mainstream media...nothing. The news came to me through this link but I find nothing at CNN, MSNBC, USAToday, Expressen, Dagens Nyheter - all major media players in Swedish national and US international. Weird. Russian Pravda is covering it, and few sites in Europe plus Reuters. That's it. I think people should be dancing and make the same amount of happy crazy noise as when their local sports team wins a major tournament. Well, as I wait for such things to happen I will instead be glad that we chose Berlin as the next place to promote Podcars and solar transportation for Podcar City 6 Conference

Image: Inhabitat.com

Image: http://info.cimetrix.com/blog/bid/31798/Windmills-solar-panels-and-the-effect-of-feed-in-tariffs

The Facebook Factor, Scientology, and a Piece of the Blue Sky

An enormous amount of people not only uses Facebook, but also believes that it is actually a tangible and valuable asset, solid enough to value it at 100 times its annual profit. It reminds me of Scientology - inflate x 100,000 the  low count of people actually really interested enough to pay for the "Teachings" (Scientology) / "Coolness" (Facebook), then sell it to a few celebrities (Scientology) / Mutual Funds (Facebook) that have the resources to pay for the inflated value and hope that enough common people are stupid enough to buy a Piece of the Blue Sky. In the case of Scientology that did not work so well, but Facebook, well, you guys are good.

In my work with a very tangible, yet still to some degree questionable new technology called ATN or Podcars, I am even happier today that I am able to see real value measurable in travel times, construction costs, low emissions and almost no accidents per passenger miles at all. I wish there were more energy put into real issues such as dysfunctional transportation systems - Imagine what hundreds of billions could do to a sustainable solar transportation system free of CO2!. I am the eternal optimist and believe that real care of the world we live in will eventually take precedent over yuppie wannabe billionaires and that the coolest thing in Silicon Valley is actually to change the world and not the car you put on the corporate parking lot at Google/Facebook/Apple (take your pick).

Image: The Dying Dandy by Dardel. Wikipedia: Dardel

Elevated rails and visual intrusion

In Las Vegas for two days I have been studying the effects of elevated rails carefully. The LV Monorail is a good study object as it has many different heights, presence in different types of areas and surroundings, split and joined tracks and much more. A few early observations: The stations seems to be over sized. The can easily hold many more times the people actually using the system (about 10-15,000 a day). The system is heavy but surprisingly slim looking from an angle below. No effort seems to been done into making the pillars and infrastructure blend into the surroundings - it's all light grey concrete. Neither did I see any effort to design the track into an object by itself, i.e. enhancing the system by making a visual statement (for example, painting it all green or putting in lights along the track). The ride is not uncomfortable, but still a bit rough. The trains looks nice, and are almost completely silent. Standing down below in traffic you hear nothing. With no traffic, the noise is almost undetectable. The cost for the system is high, according to Wikipedia about 400 million USD in construction (2004 cost). With a length of 3,8 miles / 6,3 km this translates into more than 100 MUSD per mile, probably more expensive than a light rail would cost. I find it strange that the connection to the airport is not done, that would probably make the whole system way more feasible - but I assume that would also make all taxi companies upset, a lot of them make good $$ going from the airport to downtown and hotels.

Image courtesy of :Tripadvisor

In whole an interesting experience. I would like to see what an ATN system could do instead, with a larger network and connection to the airport and a loop around the area with possibly a 20-30 mile length and small stations directly inside the hotels. My guess is that with a more developed ATN system using solar (perfect in LV) the city could be way more sustainable and probably be able to convert a lot of parking into more hotels and exciting entertainment facilities.

Official Homepage: LV Monorail
A critical article about the project: Lightrail now

Another Congested Day in Silicon Valley

I have had the opportunity to travel many times to the Bay Area in California, and experience the Silicon Valley culture. From my tiny perspective of getting around in a more intelligent way it strikes me over and over again how such a supposedly intelligent set of people in this place are so extremely ineffective in planning for a smarter transportation system. The VTA light rail is underutilized, the roads are congested. There are very few spaces for pedestrians and bicycles, and a lot of spaces for parking. All you Apple/Google/Yahoo/Facebook "geniuses", what about cleaning up your local act? You guys have the resources, brains and stamina to endure a dramatic change into a much better transit system and smarter world. Good article about the problems from the : SF Chronicle

Urban Sim gets part of $10 million NSF grant

For some time I have been following a similar system to our own OpenSim based Encitra immersive simulation tool. The Urban Sim developed at UC Berkely is a very promising technology and to my joy they received a major grant recently together with some other projects for massive data gathering. This could simplify our own work as we can collaborate with this technology in a near future and and use their modeling for our own much more detailed and advanced simulations. I am on my way to California this weekend and look forward to learn more.

I am also curious how the Carbon War room team will handle the strategical issues regarding tools for CO2 reduction. Their focus has so far been very much on the physical application and incremental change, less on models and scenarios where new technology in transportation and energy production changes how we get around dramatically. Their good work is commendable but should maybe also look more into game changing issues. I hope the Encitra modeling platform can be used by people with good ideas to be used in a near future for such scenarios and visualizations of how things could be.

Uppsala Simulation - Phase 2 ready

Yesterday I got a link to the final version of the Uppsala Podcar Simulation. Dr. Crista Lopes and her team has made a great work and it is pretty amazing that we now have a copy of Uppsala to use for simulation of transportation, energy, pollution, real estate development and much more. Special thanks to Michael, Bengt, Ron, Orly, Charly and Kal plus the Phase 1 team of Lorraine and Anton who all made this possible. Also, our customers - City of Uppsala, the County Academic Hospital, The University Real Estate Company (Akademiska Hus) and all people involved in those organizations to give us advise and comments.

In a near future we expect to extend the model further with all remaining buildings, more movements and more accurate simulation of energy and pollution. To visually see how a city can change, and that in an immersive, real time environment is awesome and pretty effective for understanding the issues and options.

Link to Dr. Lopes explanation of this project:

http://tagide.com/blog/2012/05/simulating-a-city/

The Video of the 4D world:

A few images:

Uppsala System in the works and news from San Jose, China and India

The last weeks has been intense - we are getting close to starting a more detailed study in Uppsala, with possible support from the EU. Also, this last week the preliminary findings of San Jose Podcar study came out. Very much as anticipated, "Interesting and possible but more tech work needed" is my conclusion of the report.  We have also seen a series of new studies being started in India and China - the current two most growing economies in the world. Also, on my way back from Paris this week I noted a dramatic loss in profit for Scandinavian Airlines. Reason? Fuel prices, something that is also the most worrying factor in returning to growth for US and European economies. Solar transportation is needed more now than last week, and my bet is that fuel prices will continue to rise.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l-blnAlcmOg

When will the Perfect Storm come?

This week I have made preparations for the launch of Podcar.org. A large part of that is to research what is going on in the world of sustainable transportation. It is obvious that a lot of energy is going into Podcar development and interest - but also that we still have a rather long way to go before we reach critical mass. I am encouraged by news such as the continued success of the Heathrow system -  http://www.reuters.com/video/2012/04/04/heathrow-moves-forward-with-pod-cars?videoId=221945131&videoChannel=2602 and even more excited when I in January read about the India project - http://www.cnngo.com/mumbai/life/pods-future-urban-transport-india-409090. These are important actions and news for us, yet still not strong enough to drive the industry forward into stronger research & development. So, when will the Perfect Storm come? My guess is that the combination of high energy prices, increased demand of efficient transportation, unsustainable congestion as the cities get more and more dense and not least the issues with Global Warming will all together reach a critical point in a near future. None of the existing modes of transportation can alone answer the call for a better and sustainable way to get around. The time for Podcar technology as a general transportation system is not now - but in a nearer future than many realizes.

New Start - 2012

It is almost four years since I started this blog - with very few updates. Since the last four years a lot has happened - Encitra is doing very exciting stuff in the Uppsala Simulation Project, The City of Uppsala is very close to starting a full study and procurement process for Podcars,



I have had the honor to assist and work through the Memorandum of Cooperation between Sweden and United States on Podcar Technology (and High Speed Rail) and much more.

 
Porcari and Zetterberg, Swedish US MoC Signing

From March 2012 I look forward to a more outgoing work with news about how to get away from fossil fuel in transportation, the importance of virtual modeling tools for birds-eye view of projects for sustainable change and growth and not least exciting meetings in Sweden, Germany, USA and elsewhere where people are starting to understand that we actually can completely change the way we move around - into a better, safer, efficient and not least fun world of transportation.

Link to Encitra Technology at Youtube (low res): http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fPklr_PFn-s

Link to the Swedish-US MoC: http://www.dot.gov/ost/ogc/OST_DOT/Sweden.pdf