Dear friends:
Hello! My
name is He kaihao. I work in Chinese Traditional Medicine Hospital of Ningbo. It
is my pleasure to introduce the new-designed vehicle which, I believe, will
solute the problem of traffic jam when private cars are popular in the future.
Everyone dreams of having his own private car, however, what will happen when
the dreams become reality? As we all know, in the developed countries the
explosion of private cars has caused a lot of problems such as traffic jam, air
pollution, energy sources etc. Although there are many intersections and
high-grade roads as wide as the river in the developed countries, which has cost
a lot of money, traffic jam cannot be avoided, let alone the environment
pollution. The basic reason of the problem is that the body of the private car
is too huge. One about fifty kg people occupies a car of several thousand kg,
which pollutes the air and wastes the energy. It is too luxurious for a
half-meter wide people to occupy one roadway of several meters.
I have
designed a kind of fast-travel vehicle that is lighter and smaller than the
common cars we see today. It is a transfiguration of roller coaster in the
pleasure ground, which will readily solve the problem of traffic and
environment. See figure 1
The profile of track, road surface, and track-bite wheels from the red
line (see figure 2)
The car above
is, I think, the ideal vehicle that carries people. It is a little wider than
the motorcycle. It is no longer than a motorcycle, which can also carry 2-3
people. The biggest difference between the car and the common vehicle we see
today is that it has two track-bite wheels. When track-bite wheels grasp the
track, the electric energy from the cables is transmit to the car by electric
brushes, which makes the car run fast, just like roller coaster. When track-bite
wheels loosen the track, the electric brushes retract. Then, the car is operated
by food or through storage batteries. In a way, it is a four-wheeled bicycle.
Because the body is small, its drive equipment is electric machinery (wheels),
and track-bite wheels’ loose/grasp the track can be operated by electromagnet.
The car needs little gearing equipments, so it is light. If the body is made
from carbon fiber or other engineering plastics, and the windshield is made from
polyester glass, it will be so light that people can move it himself. The car is
as flexible and convenient as bicycle, the power consumption of which is next to
nothing.
When the car
drives on the track and goes through the crossing, how it is kept on its
roadway? I have two methods to solve the problem. One is to fix journey switch
on the track; the other way is to add another two pairs of track-bite wheels at
the bottom of the car. Let me illustrate the first one with
the crossings sample of the right-hand bend.
First, two
gaps are set in the intersection between straight roadway and right-hand bend
roadway. Then fill tucks on each gap to joint the tracks smoothly. (See
right-hand bend sketch map, the red tuck 1 and the blue tuck 2)
The tucks are mutually
exclusive. The meaning is that when the tuck 1 rises to the gap, the blue tuck 2
will go down. Then the car goes straight. There are two journey switches on the
right of tracks before the crossing that control the tucks. There are four
control sticks on the car. One pair of sticks on the left is left-hand bend
operating handle while the other pair of sticks on the right is right-hand bend
operating handle. The sticks of each pair are mutually exclusive. Take the right
pair of sticks for example, when the straight stick is pressed, the right-hand
bend stick will bounce. While the right-hand stick is pressed, the straight
stick will bounce. Usually the straight sticks on the two sides are pressed.
When the car turns right, drivers will press the right-hand stick on the right
side before it reaches the journey switch. The bottom of the stick will stand
out of the car bed. When the car reaches the switch, the contact will open up
the switch. So the red tuck 1 will rise to the gap, and the tuck 2 will go down.
Then the car turns right. When the car goes straight, the straight stick is
pressed. The bottom of the stick will stand out of the car bed. When the car
reaches the switch, the contact will open up the switch. So the blue tuck 2 will
rise to the gap, and the red tuck 1 will go down. Then the car goes straight.
The left-hand bend is similar to the right.
I think the
way above is not bad for a car to make a turn, but after careful consideration I
found it still has one shortcoming. The electro-mechanical device is inevitable
in this design. The crossing should fulfill the need of vehicles from every
direction, so there are many electro-mechanical devices and tucks. It is
impossible to check and maintain so many devices. In a way, the devices’
disorder is unavoidable. In order to find a solution, I have evolved an idea –
to add another two pairs of track-bite wheels at the bottom of the car, oriented
track-bite wheels and rudder track-bite wheels. (See figure 4)
Then what we need is not
the tucks but only the gaps on the tracks. So it is much more reliable than the
journey switch method. The car can make a turn through different ways. (Oriented
track-bite wheels have different shapes for different ways. The scenograph is
just a sample.) Its operating principle is too complex for me to introduce here.
What a regret!
The car is small and light.
Driven on the tracks, cars are close to each other and we needn’t worry about
the collision. The car occupies a narrow roadway, as wide as the width of the
car. The width of the green belt can build two roadways. A bi-directional
four-roadway road occupies only the space as wide as two green belts. It is easy
to build elevated road even the multilevel elevated road, because the car is
light. The complete crossover of the crossing is not difficult. We needn’t
intersections. The concrete tube in the channel under the pavement will be
“the metro”. The car is light and consumes little energy. So my design will
economize the road space, no fuel, and no pollution.
If my design is
popularized, how to make best use of the road? I suggest constructing the
roadways into four functional frameworks. The first is no-track framework. The
second is crossover framework. The third is straight roadway framework. The
forth is suburb roadway framework.
No-track framework: as we
conclude from its name, no-track framework means that the car drives like a
bicycle.
Crossover framework:
crossover framework is complete crossover. The design is complex and it is the
basic one.
(In fact, the actual road is multi-roadway, even more complex.
But it is not easy to build because it is narrow.) Although the car goes faster
through the crossing above than through the grade crossing with traffic lights,
the cars from every directions has the possibility to collide with each other
(see figure 5). The car going straight may collide with the cars turning left or
right. So, the speed can’t be too high when the car is near the crossing. The
bottleneck of the traffic is still the crossing. As we all know, the faster cars
travel on the road, the higher the road’s traffic capacity is. In order to
enhance the traffic capacity, to make cars travel faster, I have designed the
roadway with another functional framework –
Straight roadway framework:
the framework makes each straight roadway into an absolute roadway unit. With
on-track approach road and off-track approach road, it does not connect with
other roadways. The car travels in a fixed and high speed on the roadway of one
layer, until it reach its destination – off-track approach road. If a car will
get on the track of this layer, the driver should be certain that there are no
cars on the straight track enough away from the intersect between on-track
approach road and straight roadway. If the cars on the straight roadway travel
continuously, the driver will have to wait there. So the cars running straight
have the absolute priority, which travel in a relatively fixed speed. The cars
on the on-track approach road give out of the road. This is considered for the
long-travel cars. Although it takes some time to get on the track, but the car
can travel fast once it gets on the track. So it saves time on the whole. Since
the roadway does not connect with others, how the cars on the longitude tracks
go to the transverse tracks? In my design, the cars should get off the longitude
tracks first, then get on the transverse tracks. In order to solve the problem
of getting on and off the tracks, the longitude tracks can connect with the
transverse tracks, which is similar like the second framework with continuous
roadway. But it is different with approach road. Cars there should slow down
there, and stop to see if there is the chance to get on the tracks. So the
approach road should be long enough to contain the mass waiting vehicles. The
traffic capacity of the straight roadway increases, because there is no
bottleneck on the straight roadway. If the modern information technology is
applied to show the traffic information on the screen of the crossings, the cars
will be dispatched reasonable and the traffic capacity of roadway will greatly
increase. The roadway is convenient for the long-distance traveling. (See figure
7)
If the urban highway is as
crisscross as a chessboard (see figure),
then
people can reach one point in the city from the other point with one time’s
roadway change. Now the urban highway is different, but two times’ roadway
change is enough. Compensated the time of waiting to change tracks, the high
speed driving will save much time for the long-distance travel.
Suburb roadway framework:
the drive mode on it is similar to the third, but the roadway is long enough to
extend to next city. Because there are little crossings, cars on the tracks can
travel fast and safely with necessary protectors. During busy hours in the city,
it is temporary urban highway, which is the buffer of the straight roadway
framework.
The four functional
frameworks is not the four altitudes framework. We can put the third or the
forth framework on the ground and the second on the elevated road. And the
design of four functional frameworks is for only trunk roads. One track is
enough for some back street and alleyway. We can adjust measures according to
different conditions.
In order to introduce my
ideas in brief, the sketch map above illustrates only the single roadway. In
fact, since the roadway is narrow, multi-roadways can be easily realized.
