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nightjar

On 04/04/2015 21:23, wrote:
On Saturday, April 4, 2015 at 6:25:38 PM UTC+1, Nightjar wrote:
On 04/04/2015 15:53, wrote:
On Saturday, April 4, 2015 at 11:22:07 AM UTC+1, Nightjar wrote:
On 03/04/2015 16:05, wrote:
On Friday, April 3, 2015 at 9:17:11 AM UTC+1, Nightjar wrote:

With computer programming of destinations and suitable pod design it also may be possible to shift passengers into and out of bus sized pods while travelling, enabling large pods to take more of the traffic than today's buses, yet take people door to door.

The figures you quote are clearly for travel at some speed. Town centres today are routinely clogged, and under those conditions karts occupy half the width and 1/4 the length of a car, making stationary queues just 1/8th as long, thus unblocking some of the junctions & roads.

As I said, they are for 25mph. The average free traffic speed for buses
in a 30mph limit is 27mph. Bus lanes should allow buses to achieve free
traffic speed much of the time. However, at 10mph, the length of road
needed by a 10ft car is still 25 feet for up to four people, while at
10mph the Routemaster bus will need 32 feet for up to 64 people.

Road vehicle density is an issue when its busiest, and pretty much a nonissue when everyone can do 27mph in a 30 zone. The biggest deal is to unclog congestion, when speed is near zero. In those conditions, a 10ft car takes maybe 13ft of lane, and a 4ft kart maybe 5 feet, two abreast. 2.5 feet of lane per just over 1 driver versus 13ft.

You are still going to face the problem they found with the concept of
small personal transport vehicles in 1967 - virtually nobody wanted to
use them. A survey found that, besides most people disliking them simply
because they were small, small vehicles were rated badly for both
comfort and safety.

Suspension & safety have come a long way since 67 of course. Computer control can be expected to much improve safety.

Large cars are still much more comfortable than small ones, even if
small cars today are probably more comfortable than many large cars of
1967. I suspect that many people will be quite dubious of the safety of
fully automatic vehicles for quite a long time. You also have the basic
problem of people not liking them, simply because they are small.

--
Colin Bignell