Electric flying VTOL taxis near reality, but US infrastructure lags

Good news!

"Electric air taxis are set to debut in select US cities through a government pilot program, but infrastructure is lagging, experts say.

Archer Aviation, the official air taxi provider for the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics, is advancing toward Federal Aviation Administration certification with its Midnight air taxi, but the main challenge remains the development of vertiports and charging stations."

"... This new dual-use autonomous VTOL aircraft platform, highlighted by its Halo (commercial) and Thunder (defense) variants, builds on eight years of eVTOL development and flight testing by Archer. It features a clean-sheet design, bringing the commercial VTOL sector's rapid innovation in electric propulsion and rotor design directly into a performance-optimized configuration. ..."

VTOL = vertical take off and landing

IEEE-USA SmartBrief

Flying Taxis Are Coming, But Infrastructure Improvements Must Catch Up

Introducing Halo: Archer’s Commercial Variant of Dual-Use Autonomous VTOL Aircraft Platform Developed With Anduril (original news release)

Archer Aviation's Midnight air taxi is nearing completed certification from the FAA.

India Launches First Hydrogen-Powered Train | PM Modi Flags Off Green Rail Revolution

Good news! India is only the fifth country in the world with a hydrogen powered train!

(234) India Launches First Hydrogen-Powered Train | PM Modi Flags Off Green Rail Revolution | Wion News - YouTube

A dwarf artist on the Beijing subway

Amazing! He is a scissor paper cut artist working out of his vehicle taking a ride on the Beijing subway!

China: Train attendants wear active body cams

Train passenger smile and be on your best behavior, you are on camera!

No wonder these train attendants are so attentive and busy doing their job all the time.

Usually, there is also at least one train security officer in uniform (unarmed) on many trains. Often you see this officer walking through the train cars.

Neither Google nor Bing produced any good photos on this subject when queried! Disappointing!

Guangzhou subway with different climate zones across cars

 Wit low cool and high cool cars

China: Some progress with ticket vending machines for public transportation in an urban area

As seen in Zhengzhou, Henan province.

Very nice, most of the functions of this vending machine were translated into english.

However, if you e.g. have to look up the different routes of the subway system it is all still in chinese language.

How America Ended Up Paying So Much for Public Buses

Most public transportation authorities run customized buses. Insane!

Why do public transportation buses have to run on natural gas or other alternative fuels!

(148) How America Ended Up Paying So Much for Public Buses - YouTube

How stupid is German public transportation?

Since yesterday was trying to access the official website of the public transportation company of the Rhein Main Verkehrsverbund GmbH at rmv.de.

Rhein Main is a major urban, conference, trade fair, business and tourist center in Germany! The airport of Frankfurt am Main is the busiest in Germany and so on.

Google says foreign visitors are blocked from accessing this website: "The RMV website and app are currently experiencing issues, likely due to geo-blocking of non-German IP addresses, making them inaccessible for many users outside Germany or using foreign connections."

It does not get more stupid!

P.S. I did not even use any firewall etc.!

Hong Kong to repeal bus seat belt rules over ‘deficiencies’ in law

Seat belts for bus passengers? Which lobby promoted this? How much does this increase the price of a bus?

How often do buses get involved in traffic accidents?

Hong Kong to repeal bus seat belt rules over ‘deficiencies’ in law | South China Morning Post  "Law only applies to new buses registered from Sunday, the day the seat belt rule took effect"

110 Years of Nagasaki's Beloved Streetcars - Japan Railway Journal

Not only San Francisco has street cars! Apparently, the old street cars survived the atomic bomb quite well!

None of the nearby passengers came to the aid of the dying ukrainian refugee in Charlotte after the killer left the crime scene

This ignorance/apathy by the other, nearby passengers is probably the most shocking/disturbing fact about this murder case in my opinion! Perhaps, the victim would not have bled to death.

What sounds did the dying, young woman make? Hopefully, these sounds and images will stay in the minds of these passengers for the rest of their lives.

This is troublesome and uncharacteristic of Americans! Remember, e.g. the American John Rudat (age 20) who was injured while trying to save two women from an attacker with a knife on public transportation in Dresden, Germany in August of 2025. 

A Society Paralyzed by the Presence of Evil

India’s Hyperloop Revolution: Building the World’s Longest Test Track

Good news!

Thailand pushes trans-ASEAN rail network to boost tourism

Good news! There are a quite a few good news about Thailand lately and I blogged about it before!  

"Thailand plans to tap into improving regional rail connections, particularly the affordable route eventually linking China to Malaysia, to attract millions more visitors this year, according to the head of the country's tourism authority.

The line between Bangkok and Vientiane, which was completed last July, helps connect travelers directly to the China-Laos high-speed train that runs from the Laotian capital through the southern Chinese city of Kunming."

Thailand pushes trans-ASEAN rail network to boost tourism - Nikkei Asia "Authorities forecast number of visitors in 2025 to return to pre-COVID levels"

Tokyo Metro Unveils Range for Japan’s Biggest IPO Since 2018 or how to privatize local public commuter traffic transportation

Good news! Privatization is one good option to achieve smaller and more limited government!

Tokyo Metro Unveils Range for Japan’s Biggest IPO Since 2018 - Bloomberg

Credits: Den Nahverkehr privatisieren? Was in Europa kaum noch jemand wagt, ist in Japan ein Erfolgsrezept "Tokyo Metro, Japans grösster U-Bahn-Betreiber, soll an die Börse. Vieles deutet darauf hin, dass das für alle ein Gewinn sein wird."

Deutsche Bahn mit 1,2 Milliarden Verlust: Woran liegt das?

Und wer ist Schuld das Unwetter und der Klimawahn! Wieder mal typisch Bananenrepublik D.!

"... „Extremwetterereignisse in nie da gewesenem Ausmaß haben die ohnehin sanierungsbedürftige Schieneninfrastruktur an die Grenze ihrer Leistungsfähigkeit gebracht und die betriebliche und finanzielle Lage im Personen- und Güterverkehr verschärft“, sagte Bahnchef Richard Lutz ..."

Deutsche Bahn mit 1,2 Milliarden Verlust: Woran liegt das? Weniger ICE-Reisende, geringere Pünktlichkeit, höhere Verluste: Die Deutsche Bahn ist an ihrer „Grenze der Leistungsfähigkeit“ – die Bilanz des ersten Halbjahres fällt desaströs aus. ...

Afrail Express Casablanca to Cape Town Rail Project To Revolutionize Tra...

Very ambitious! Using e.g. magnetic levitation for speeds up to 600km/h with a  digital currency to finance it. Moving people and goods.

India Inaugurates its First Underwater Metro in Kolkata: Why is it Special? with Palki Sharma

Impressive! The tunnel was build in 66 days!

Trends In Self Driving Vehicles

Posted: 7/9/2017

It appears the realization of self driving vehicles on our streets and in our lives will first happen with commercial trucks (like the T-Pod truck made by Swedish startup Einride, see e.g. here) and with vehicles driving in warehouses.

China may also be using self driving buses for public transportation in e.g. cities.

Once this is generally accepted and the insurance questions are settled, I bet we consumers will finally get a chance to buy one in a few years.

Driverless Cars Are The Future

When Will I Get To Drive One?

I cannot wait to buy one. Finally, I can relax, while getting from A to B. This is the future of individual mobility. Valet parking attendants are passé. Automated, self-park, efficient, and compact parking garages will be everywhere. And so much more …

Infrastructure For The 21^st Century And Beyond

This project would beat historical transportation projects like the Erie Canal and Eisenhower’s Interstate Highway System by a wide margin. If President Obama was not wearing ideological blinders and if he was less dim witted he would be on this a long time ago.

Benefits: Much less traffic congestion, far fewer vehicular accidents and much more.

The End Of Conventional Public Transportation

Who needs all these trains, buses or very expensive high speed trains anymore? Why would government have to provide for that?

The federal, state, and local governments should pave the way for driverless cars instead of wasting tens of billions of dollars on pet projects like high speed trains or inner city light railways etc. I you want to read more about it I recommend “Paving the Way for Driverless Cars” (subscription required) by Clifford Winston published on the Opinion page of the US Edition of The Wall Street Journal on 7/18/2012.

Nevada Is Not Only For Gambling And Entertainment

Nevada is also one of the first states to pass a law concerning the operation of a driverless car in June 2011 also thanks to Google. “The Nevada Department of Motor Vehicles issued the first license for a self-driven car in May 2012. The license was issued to a Toyota Prius modified with Google's experimental driver-less technology.” (According to Wikipedia).

Like the “Fight of the Century” between the first black heavy weight boxing champion Jack Johnson and Jim Jeffries in 1910 that took place in Reno, Nevada, because the original venue, i.e. San Francisco, CA, had to cancel this fight since the governor of California would not allow it, it is Nevada again being a trailblazer.

Urban Street Car Fad

Motivation

Since I live myself in a major metropolitan area, Phoenix, AZ, I was immediately attracted to a new policy research paper published by the Cato Institute (Policy Analysis no. 699, 6/14/2012). Yes, indeed numerous US cities have succumbed to this fad (e.g. Jersey City, NJ).

The Great Streetcar Conspiracy

That is the title of the new Cato paper authored by Randal O’Toole. Streetcars encompasses light rail systems.

Here are some excerpts (emphasis added):

·         “Streetcars are the latest urban planning fad, stimulated partly by the Obama administration's preference for funding transportation projects that promote "livability" (meaning living without automobiles) rather than mobility or cost-effective transportation.”

·         “The real push for streetcars comes from engineering firms that stand to earn millions of dollars planning, designing, and building streetcar lines.”

·         “... the city [Portland, Oregon] also gave developers hundreds of millions of dollars of infrastructure subsidies, tax breaks, and other incentives to build in the streetcar corridor.”

·         “Streetcars cost roughly twice as much to operate, per vehicle mile, as buses. They also cost far more to build and maintain.”

·         “In fact, a typical bus has more seats than a streetcar, and a bus route can move up to five times as many people per hour, in greater comfort, than a streetcar line. Numerous private bus operators provide successful upscale bus service in both urban and intercity settings.”

·         “Based on 19th-century technology, the streetcar has no place in American cities today except when it functions as part of a completely self-supporting tourist line.”

I think, the last bullet point sums it up quite nicely. Buses or even taxis are much better means of transportation, cheaper, much more flexible and so on. Streetcars are jobs for public sector unions.