Moving Ahead on Dualmode - a Different Approach

by

Jim Haugen

1. A quick response to Bill Turnbull regarding the Urban/Intercity focus
issue.

• Crisis - Way back in the 1970's I heard the urban situation described as a
  crisis - and we are still functioning pretty well as a society without any
  upheaval in transportation.
• The L.A. freeway projection - I find it hard to believe any type of study
  that would say L.A. must double freeway capacity in the next five decades -
  that's a long time and a lot can happen.
• Single lane dualmode potential capacity equals up to six or eight lanes of
  freeway traffic - I'm still waiting to see the first reasonable study to
  prove this - the NAHSC tried using both the close headway idea and the
  platooning idea and couldn't make a convincing case. Show me!
• My view that the potential service gains are, at best, trivial - I still
  need to be shown how you can achieve speeds like 80 mph on a dualmode freeway
  in an urban area in combination with a "hands-free, hassle-free, direct to
  his destination journey". It's only a great abstract concept - still far from
  proven.
• Economics will prevail - Certainly they'll play a huge part, and that's a
  key part of my "pessimism" - the practical difficulties of getting from
  potential capacity to real world capacity and operations raise the economics
  bar well beyond affordability, and believability.
  
  But how do we resolve such differences of opinion?
  
  2. First, another bit of philosophy
  
• You can try to sell a new concept system to a city or an activity center
  but it's an almost impossible business. You can't begin a new transportation
  system program wrapped around a single concept design. The National
  Automated Highway System Consortium (NAHSC) program tried this using
  the Steve Shladover short headway/platooning concept and, therefore: (1)
  As biased advocates attempted to bury all the negatives of the
  concept; (2) avoided addressing any other options; and (3) didn't step back
  and figure out what the purpose or purposes of an Automated Highway System
  program might be.
  
  MEMO: I was fortunate to work at Boeing in 1958 on a program aimed at
  figuring out how to get a man to the moon and back safely - a predecessor
  study leading up to the Apollo program. We seriously looked at seven possible
  ways to get there (including a direct shot and back with one vehicle;
  building a bigger vehicle using assembly in orbit; landing "gas tanks" on the
  moon next to the astronauts to fuel up for the return flight home; etc. The
  program resulted in the selection of the approach of going into lunar orbit
  and using a separate lunar lander. The point being that it is essential to
  look at many concepts and the tradeoffs involved in order to get to the most
  reasonable choice.
  
• Defining an acceptable (to the many key decision-makers) objective up
  front, is essential to the acceptance of a good, solid new transportation
  system program. The problems I have with an objective that starts with
  Dualmode or AHS or PRT are (1) getting everyone to accept your definition and
  feel it's reasonable (different concept advocates already have different
  definitions); and (2) the risk of strong opposition to all or parts of that
  definition.
• You can't set a short-term objective - e.g., to design and deploy some
  entirely new system concept (other than, possibly, a limited area
  people-mover) - within the next 5 to 10 years. There is just too much
  uncertainty, risk and application complexity involved.
  
  MEMO: The original transportation research organization I was in at Ford was
  disbanded after I left - supposedly because the leader told the then mayor of
  Detroit that he should forget about considering rail transit because Ford
  could build him a dualmode system instead within three or four years. The
  mayor called Henry Ford II to verify - and the organization was history.
  
  3. How do you start a dualmode program and resolve mine and Bill's
  differences? I suggest that a meaningful program should begin with a clearly
  stated objective such as follows:
  
  A joint public-private R&D program should be established whose objective is
  the definition of a second generation Interstate Highway system (I2), which
  could begin implementation within the next 20 years. This program will seek
  to significantly advance highway system operations beyond today's
  performance, which is becoming decreasingly effective, in one or more
  dimensions, such as:
  
• Vehicle speed
• Level of automation, including the possibility of dual-mode operations
• Sustainability
• Congestion control
• Safety and trustworthiness
• Quality of service
  
  This I2 system design would be sufficiently flexible to be applied to either
  modify or supplement current freeway operations, in their entirety or in
  part, in different urban or regional areas. This program will include
  simulation and practical experimentation as necessary in order to validate
  important technologies and concepts.
  
  I'm sure that there will be many objections and suggested changes to such an
  objective - that's what a debate format is for. Concept advocates want
  hardware development money; "monorail" type dualmode advocates, and separate
  guideway advocates, won't like the highway emphasis; etc. Have at it.
  

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Last modified: July 24, 2001