Published: Thursday, September 22, 2011
Guest Commentary / Highway designs
A vision for how to keep traffic moving
Automobiles and personal trucks provide 87 percent of U.S. mobility. Now more than ever, we need to work on making car travel energy-efficient, affordable and safer for our families. Higher transportation fuel costs threaten our country's vitality, sustainability and freedom.
In the meantime, traffic congestion caused by high vehicle flows, accidents and breakdowns wastes energy and time. The U.S. Department of Transportation reports that 67 percent of urban peak period driving is congested. Solutions have been slow in coming.
Fortunately, a relatively quick and easy practical response to the multiple challenges that commuters and other road travelers face is at hand from engineers like me. What I see emerging are high volume highway lanes supplemented with an innovative infrastructure that obviates gasoline consumption, and eliminates collisions and congestion as well.
System engineering techniques from aerospace lead to the possibility of improving braking through radar sensing and digital control. We then can reduce the amount of spacing between vehicles and thus increase capacity by setting up specially configured, rededicated expressway lanes.
Such a lane would have an overhead guideway whose rails support steering, stopping, and the electric or natural gas energy supply needed to run small standardized, high-efficiency motors. Cars and light trucks of today or tomorrow would be attached and towed along at freeway speeds.
Cars following one another closely are at the mercy of two factors: variable human reaction time and spotty traction on wet pavement. But car brakes engaged by drivers would not be used on a guideway towing system, because its powerful, radar-activated rail brakes would leave the cars' own brakes unneeded and unused.
High volume highways could be modified to have one lane in each direction served by the guideway, tripling the number of cars moving safely in that lane. At the same time, other lanes on the highway would be cleared of most cars, providing easier passage for trucks, buses and emergency vehicles.
Travel time of vehicles on the rededicated lane with cars attached to a guideway becomes faster and more reliable than with cars under human control.
The U.S. government has committed America to a future of battery-powered cars, and I hope consumers buy them in large numbers sooner rather than later. However, decades will pass before the majority of the private vehicle fleet runs on batteries. A solution like the one described here is needed to quickly gain independence from oil.
A toll collected electronically on such guideway highways would cover the cost of energy for the propulsion motors. Engineering estimates show the toll would be less than buying gas at today's prices for a 30 miles-per-gallon car.
As gas prices rise, the advantage of paying tolls instead of oil companies increases. Americans' mobility endures by re-engineering what roads offer and what cars do very well.
The toll would also cover the investment needed for the tow-motor guideway, lane-separation barriers, and ramps for entry and exit. This system would be financed and built by private industry, not government.
Today's towing industry could learn to install a high-tech, specially engineered hitch on any car to allow fast, secure attachment to a motorized guideway. Hitching up would be possible in seconds at highway entrance plazas located 5 to 10 miles apart. Once attached, we would enjoy safe travel at expressway speeds.
When plug-in electrics and hydrogen-fueled cars become standard, the power and safety of towing motors on a guideway could be combined with the power of vehicle engines to increase safe cruising speeds.
Following development and testing by business, the deployment of an automated mass towing system could be implemented by state transportation departments franchising private infrastructure investment firms to convert stretches of existing freeway to the higher-capacity design.
Implementation would require political leadership and determination to integrate a time-proven but time-worn infrastructure and energy supply structure into an integrated road-plus-vehicle-plus-power system. Government facilitation and regulatory oversight is needed, but not a financial contribution.
Infrastructure investment firms around the world have the capital and management skills to begin this conversion of highways within a few years. Even sooner, the automobile industry could step up to complete the detailed design for the envisioned system.
The approach outlined here joins American superiority in personal mobility with the virtues of economic and environmental sustainability.
John Bruns is a retired Boeing system engineer, now working independently in Mukilteo. He invents highway designs like the one described.
In the meantime, traffic congestion caused by high vehicle flows, accidents and breakdowns wastes energy and time. The U.S. Department of Transportation reports that 67 percent of urban peak period driving is congested. Solutions have been slow in coming.
Fortunately, a relatively quick and easy practical response to the multiple challenges that commuters and other road travelers face is at hand from engineers like me. What I see emerging are high volume highway lanes supplemented with an innovative infrastructure that obviates gasoline consumption, and eliminates collisions and congestion as well.
System engineering techniques from aerospace lead to the possibility of improving braking through radar sensing and digital control. We then can reduce the amount of spacing between vehicles and thus increase capacity by setting up specially configured, rededicated expressway lanes.
Such a lane would have an overhead guideway whose rails support steering, stopping, and the electric or natural gas energy supply needed to run small standardized, high-efficiency motors. Cars and light trucks of today or tomorrow would be attached and towed along at freeway speeds.
Cars following one another closely are at the mercy of two factors: variable human reaction time and spotty traction on wet pavement. But car brakes engaged by drivers would not be used on a guideway towing system, because its powerful, radar-activated rail brakes would leave the cars' own brakes unneeded and unused.
High volume highways could be modified to have one lane in each direction served by the guideway, tripling the number of cars moving safely in that lane. At the same time, other lanes on the highway would be cleared of most cars, providing easier passage for trucks, buses and emergency vehicles.
Travel time of vehicles on the rededicated lane with cars attached to a guideway becomes faster and more reliable than with cars under human control.
The U.S. government has committed America to a future of battery-powered cars, and I hope consumers buy them in large numbers sooner rather than later. However, decades will pass before the majority of the private vehicle fleet runs on batteries. A solution like the one described here is needed to quickly gain independence from oil.
A toll collected electronically on such guideway highways would cover the cost of energy for the propulsion motors. Engineering estimates show the toll would be less than buying gas at today's prices for a 30 miles-per-gallon car.
As gas prices rise, the advantage of paying tolls instead of oil companies increases. Americans' mobility endures by re-engineering what roads offer and what cars do very well.
The toll would also cover the investment needed for the tow-motor guideway, lane-separation barriers, and ramps for entry and exit. This system would be financed and built by private industry, not government.
Today's towing industry could learn to install a high-tech, specially engineered hitch on any car to allow fast, secure attachment to a motorized guideway. Hitching up would be possible in seconds at highway entrance plazas located 5 to 10 miles apart. Once attached, we would enjoy safe travel at expressway speeds.
When plug-in electrics and hydrogen-fueled cars become standard, the power and safety of towing motors on a guideway could be combined with the power of vehicle engines to increase safe cruising speeds.
Following development and testing by business, the deployment of an automated mass towing system could be implemented by state transportation departments franchising private infrastructure investment firms to convert stretches of existing freeway to the higher-capacity design.
Implementation would require political leadership and determination to integrate a time-proven but time-worn infrastructure and energy supply structure into an integrated road-plus-vehicle-plus-power system. Government facilitation and regulatory oversight is needed, but not a financial contribution.
Infrastructure investment firms around the world have the capital and management skills to begin this conversion of highways within a few years. Even sooner, the automobile industry could step up to complete the detailed design for the envisioned system.
The approach outlined here joins American superiority in personal mobility with the virtues of economic and environmental sustainability.
John Bruns is a retired Boeing system engineer, now working independently in Mukilteo. He invents highway designs like the one described.
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