Teleporter | Co-founder & engineers | $50-150k, 5-20% | Full-Time | Onsite | Dubai (to be confirmed)
Mission: Solve transit (between and across cities) by making PRT work. PRT (personal rapid transit) is the “podcar” idea from the 50s that a lot of people tried and failed, and now everyone has given up on it.
From a physics standpoint, it is possible to connect every part to every other part of a big city within a 5-10 minute distance. The questions are: can it be made confortable, within a workable budget, and is there a scaling path to build it by starting with a simpler version?
This project is at the idea stage, I am still committed to working on other ventures, but somehow the idea kept coming back over the years. My goal here is to find other people exited about it, and try to discuss the flaws and convince myself that it is a stupid idea. If it is, I can just let it go and continue my other stuff, otherwise I might actually do it. Depending on how aggressively I liquidate my other ventures, I can contribute $10 to 90M of personal savings for a building a prototype. I have studied the history of PRT and I think I have a decent understanding of what went wrong and how to avoid the mistakes.
Current proposal:
PRT also goes by the name ATN (decent overview, cannot find more recent stuff, everyone has given up: https://transweb.sjsu.edu/sites/default/files/1227-automated…)
Combine the best of cars (point to point, individual) and metros (high capacity, automated, central control system). Have individual pods on captive guideway. Reduce size of pods while still being comfortable, to reduce the size and cost of guideway. If small enough, guideway can be embedded in roads as sewers inside the city, and elevated elsewhere. Power the pods via battery or through guideway. Pods can individually route themselves and are summoned via an app (or ready at stations). Everything is controlled via a central planning system. For high throughput and better efficiency, pods dynamically form platoons of 2-50 units.
Scaling path:
The challenge is the high R&D and building cost, and how to convince authorities (as it is a very risky project). It involves software, hardware, and politics. You need pro-risk and co-operative authorities. I’d start with a crappy prototype intended for use by employees to commute to work, preferably in a developing country where authorities do not mind you breaking ground, and where sewers networks are not fully established yet. Prototype would be very much like a single metro line (but individual pods). Switching and extended network is added afterwards. After a full deployment is shown to work and provide very high value in any city, other cities will implement it as well.
If interested please contact me at_lv6@fastmail.com
