“Whatever you can do, or dream you can do, begin it. Boldness has genius and power in it.” – Goethe.

I expect that vastly better transport systems can and should be engineered relatively quickly. In terms of climate change we should expect about a factor of ten improvement in passenger-miles per kilowatt-hour of energy expended. In terms of lifetime cost per passenger-mile and in terms of convenience/speed, we have room for a vast scale of improvement. A spectacular failure of imagination, a willingness to build and implement sketches already in front of us, is our planet's great technological failing. Let us simply go forward, daring one engineer after another to prove conclusively that these concepts won't work.

In Boston, we need a transit system to quickly and quite inexpensively move passengers from the platforms on the MBTA's Red Line to the Blue Line. We need to quickly move passengers from South Station to North Station. We need to move passengers to the Convention Center in the newly developed Harbor District. We need to whisk passengers around at Logan Airport. Boston traffic in general is a nightmare and so any inexpensive new transit system could seriously help the city.

- - Existing Systems - -

First, please understand that existing suspended above-grade rail systems such as the Wuppertal, Germany, transit system are inexpensive per mile of trackage because an above-street system can have a relatively tiny urban footprint. Operations are fast because there aren't any red lights or stop signs. Finally, the 120 year old Wuppertal system is well-tested. A Wuppertal-style system would come in at about one factor of ten better overall than the new Somerville, Massachusetts Green Line extension or any other new light rail system in the United States.

My innovations will improve by perhaps an additional performance factor of ten overall on the Wuppertal transit system. Yes, transit can be come outstanding! I name my proposed transit system "Teleport Transit."

• 300 mpg-equivalence
• Aggressively competitive with cars in cities
• Notable ADA-compliance
• Compliant with covid-19 social distancing requirements
• Lifetime costs of 3 cents per passenger-mile including the above-street trackage

Teleport incorporates about 100 of my own separate innovations. When I invent, I tend to invent a huge number of subsystem details.

For more information, download the teleport brochure.doc

Teleport lives on the following axioms:

Cables are Far Better for Hyperlocal Travel

Almost 100% of above-grade ultralight transit is ski lifts that use cables. A slack cable holds up a passenger gondola. Everybody knows that long bridges are always built with cables. Cables are an overwhelmingly affordable choice.

Teleport’s novel slack cable design allows us to underprice every hard rail ultralight pod system by a factor of ten per mile of track.

Weighing of Ultralight Cars is Smart

Teleport weighs 100% of its cars before they travel. Maintaining strict weight limits on the system allows us to engineer for those specific weight limits and so we can keep costs lower. Our ultralight trackage can move ultralight pods inexpensively.

Small and Flexible is Quick

Teleport can send its ultralight pods to any elevator door station on the network for a personalized, comfortable trip with fewer steps to each person’s destination, as opposed to a standard train that has to stay on its single track. With full area coverage, Teleport stations take few steps to reach, it’s quick to your specific destination. Total walking time to an elevator door and waiting time to open the elevator door can sometimes be measured in seconds -- think of how many seconds a rider has to wait for the next elevator up on the ground floor of a high-quality hotel or office building. However, Teleport is ready to have extra cars waiting at key stations. Seconds count when it’s freezing cold, pouring rain or blazing hot outside, when a patron is carrying heavy objects or when a patron is late.

A wide-area Teleport can allow private pods onto its transit system. A private pod, like a personal automobile, is a comfort. It can carry your umbrella, your lunch in a fridge, three different briefcases full of sales literature and your groceries. It can park itself and pick you up on cue without you waiting for an Uber or Lyft driver.

Double Elevator Doors are Better than Stations

Teleport lowers its individual pods to ground level for easy wheelchair access through safe double elevator doors, a well-known technology. Above-grade transit competitors such as the Wuppertal suspended rail system are required to build many above-grade stations capable of holding 50 to 100 people, plus access elevators to these stations. Teleport elevator stations are a factor of ten less expensive than above-grade passenger stations. Teleport should become the world leader in ADA-friendly solutions because at its core it's an elevator system.

As shown, a section of rail is lowered to ground level so that wheelchairs and passengers with luggage can roll right in. When the rail is raised to the travel level by the elevator, the car can roll down the track. It's possible to stockpile multiple cars on sidings for expected rush periods.

Elevator shafts can fit into buildings. Elevator shafts and doors can deposit mobility-impaired riders directly onto a subway platform.

Less Expensive Equals More Energy-Efficient

Expensive trackage inherently costs more lifetime energy to build. For that matter, more freeways cost too much energy to build.

A slack cable system would be slightly slower for longer-distance passenger commutes, except Teleport has a solid solution for this problem too.

- - - - - - - - - - -

Teleport's "last mile" transit section is a zip line system. A zip line system has two slack wire cables that hang from multiple support towers. At the support towers, cables typically morph into rails. A zip line track of, say, a mile can be supported every 100 feet or so.

Individual cars have batteries and electric motors with which to negotiate the zip line system. The experience of passing one support tower, going slightly downhill on a cable, going slightly uphill as the car approaches the next tower, transitioning onto the rail and passing the next tower is surprisingly smooth as compared to a ski lift gondola car negotiating small bumps at every support tower. I have my own pivoting support tower design to make the transition accelerations remarkably smooth and to reduce total up/down motions.

The beauty of a zip line system is that simple cables cost at least 90% less per mile of track than even so-called "ultralight" or "flyweight" above-grade rail system, or 99.99% less per mile to build than, say, a Disneyland-style 1960s-vintage above-street monorail system. Teleport needs two cables (a second cable adds a layer of safety) and support towers.

Full automation is far safer 20 feet above the street than with cars on the ground, with 99.9% fewer objects to hit. The main obstacle will be tree branches. Avoidance of automation issues saves money and lives.

Above-grade Teleport lines can cross each other at different levels without cars having to stop. Traffic congestion is seriously simplified. Perhaps 100 times as many Teleport cars can be fit above a freeway as autos on the freeway.

Teleport switches and elevators

Teleport car wheels are designed so that they can rather smoothly transition from zip lines to rails at support towers. Automated Teleport rail switches, similar to railroad siding switches but automated, can be built into rail sections. An automated switching system means that a particular Teleport car can be routed to any requested track or station on the automated Teleport network. All Teleport cars have forward and reverse abilities.

At Teleport elevator shafts, specific rail sections can be raised or lowered. This allows Teleport cars to reach ground level so that wheelchairs can roll into Teleport cars. The same system will deposit wheelchair-using passengers on train platforms and on various floors in a Teleport-ready skyscraper. It's important to positively identify that a rail section is in place within the elevator shaft 99.999999% of the time, as we want zero crashes. Safety interlocks are important in this field.

Certain Teleport stations will have local sidings where spare cars may stack up. When a commuter train pulls in, quite a few people will all want to use Teleport at the same time. Teleport's control system needs to anticipate that at a certain minute on weekdays a certain station is always flooded with patrons, and then the system can pre-position or stockpile extra cars in a timely manner.

Busier Teleport networks will have one-way circulator routes and multiple cable routes between most stations. In rare circumstances a zip line may be put out of service by a leaning tree caused by a hurricane, or a cement mixer on the ground might possibly damage a support tower someday. Teleport needs to detect such problems almost instantaneously. Then, lines of individual cars are quickly halted and automatically rerouted around the bad section of track. The days are numbered for a gasoline tanker truck rollover at rush hour causing a five mile backup of uninformed freeway drivers.

The Teleport tractor-trailer extension

A more advanced Teleport zip line transit system separates individual gondola cars and cargo pods from the automated carrier units that latch onto them from the top, that lift them off of ground level and that carry them under zip line cables.

If the zip lines and controlling computers are seen as part of the automated Teleport system, then the carrier units are equally part of the automated transit utility. Some individual gondola cars may be people's private gondola boxes with windows. These private boxes could probably fit into a homeowner's standard garage. Other Teleport cars may be luxury cabs stocked and maintained by a cab company or they might be public bus cars owned by the Teleport utility. They may equally be cargo pods, some with onboard refrigeration ability.

Individual pods need to be able to handle their own heating and cooling, and also their own electrical needs. Heating/cooling might be a matter of inserting a standard heating/cooling box into a pod every five miles, where the box contains mass which is pre-heated or pre-cooled depending on the car's temperature needs on that day.

Most Teleport cars will be elevator-sized, about 6.5 feet high, 6.5 feet long and 5 feet wide. A few Teleport carriers may have simple hook devices for carrying oversized freight objects such as replacement support poles over the Teleport system.

In a tractor and cargo pod arrangement, "tractor" is used in the sense of "tractor-trailer". Automated Teleport zip line tractors have motors and battery packs. They pick up and move Teleport cargo pods. Human-capable pods typically carry their own small battery packs for running various in-car human conveniences such as large computer monitors and refrigerators. Human-capable Teleport cars also have windows on all four sides, similar to ski gondolas, for an excellent view. When Teleport cars are packed close together onto car trains, privacy screens separate the cars so that patrons don't have to see people in the next car in front or in back on the train but side views are still unobstructed.

Teleport automated mini-trains move groups of Teleport cars on above-grade suspended train lines. For longer-distance commuting purposes it's more energy-efficient, more cost-efficient and more streamlined to move groups of cars versus single cars. On-train plug-in amenities such as a rest room pod and a coffee wagon pod are possible.

Advantages

Total system quickness

Battery-powered above-grade systems are much quicker than, say, battery-powered cars stuck in urban traffic. Automation allows for a public car to often be immediately available behind any elevator door when you walk up, and then the car starts up the elevator shaft as soon as the door closes. Teleport can drop you off not just at your door but on your floor. It drops you off, then it parks itself and picks up your groceries. How much time do you waste parking and walking to your downtown destination with all of your bags?

Teleport cable systems might move cars the "last mile" at 20 mph or at a steady 3 minutes per mile with few pauses. Low air friction, high capacity Teleport above-road trains might run at an energy-conserving 50 mph to 100 mph. Because loading/unloading is automated and because different trains may have different destinations, waiting times at stations will be limited. Automobiles spend half of their time at red lights, rush hour is never any fun and urban parking can cost a commuter an extra 15 minutes, but a Teleport car travels near its maximum listed miles per hour.

Personal convenience

With Teleport you're not driving, where driving can be stressful. I want my personal pod with a fold down cot, a large screen and a fridge.

Teleport's last-mile solution can inexpensively reach suburban and even ex-urban streets. Running inexpensive Teleport cables into private garages is likely. Teleport is set up to move someone's private pod including all of their personal stuff from a home garage to any building in town.

Many people have bulky stuff that they want to use someday. One elevator door inside an apartment can accomodate one closet pod at a time. Moving across town becomes far easier if two houses or apartments both have Teleport stations. Storage of Teleport closet pods across town is easy. Teleport closet pods can be stacked.

Teleport cars can be shopping cart accessible. Shopping carts can be wheeled from checkout lines directly into Teleport vehicles, then to apartment refrigerators without unloading them. All sorts of items, from furniture to pizza to a closet full of seasonal items, can be delivered to the elevator door near or within an apartment if the apartment building is Teleport-capable.

Lifetime Cost

I price Teleport cables at about 1 cent per passenger-mile. Teleport public cabs (non-luxurious models, at least) and engines would be another cent per passenger-mile, and the electricity to move a tractor and cab one passenger-mile would again be 1 cent. Total system cost (not counting R&D) is about 3 cents per passenger-mile. No automobile and freeway system could possibly compete financially with this transit system, not without vast built-in political subsidies for the old fashioned motor vehicle technology.

I estimate 90% lifetime energy savings over a gasoline and ground-based freeway system, plus the last 10% can be mostly renewable electricity. Teleport is long lasting - it's sustainable and maintenance is low. No other known automated system is nearly as climate-friendly as Teleport transit.

Industrial extensions

Teleport turns a city into one large assembly line. Everything gets less expensive when the delivery cost of all freight, both retail and industrial, plummets toward zero. All sorts of goods and tools can just show up at people's homes as needed.

An automated Teleport system pretty much assembles its own new Teleport cable lines. Each new support tower and cable comes in on a Teleport line from an automated factory across town. A walking crane allows each piece to travel the last 100 feet or so. Buckets of concrete for stations can show up also. The same system can inexpensively help to assemble a house or a skyscraper onsite, piece by piece.

Implementation Costs and Benefits

Dreaming and drawings are relatively inexpensive. First, draw. Next, prove out most of Teleport's subsystems, eliminating the biggest questions and financial risks first. Eventually, proper crash testing could take on the order of a $100 million dollar investment.

Displacing almost the entire automobile and freeway construction industry is a trillion dollar domestic market, and it would displace 20% of all worldwide greenhouse gas production. That's a bargain. It demands funding.

Not shown here

There's a lot to the hardware. I'm a rather thorough inventor and Teleport needs to be safe beyond most people's imaginations.

My cables have gone through several iterations. My rails are new and so are my support towers.

I want wheels that really grip the cables well in any potential disaster. In rare cases when one of the two cables gets snapped away by whatever, a car should be able to hang by one cable and reattach to the second cable or rail, then continue.

I want Teleport airbags in the rare case that a ground-based cement mixer knocks down a support pole at exactly the wrong moment.

I want anti-terrorism equipment sniffing certain cars for explosives

I want properly designed airport departure and arrival gates, so that if terrorists manage to send a large bomb to the airport arrival station, the bomb's force is directed upward and everyone in the airport is still safe.

I want movable rest room pods on the trains that automatically are transported to special stations for regular cleaning.

Passenger pods need energy-efficient heat/cooling, lighting and creature comforts.

For a perfect coffee sale, the pod's elevator door opens and there's someone right there behind a counter for the customer. Add your own cream and sweetener, then your elevator door closes and you're on your way.

Special tractors and cars are designed for fire, police and ambulance vehicles because Teleport is far quicker than ground vehicles. One second of extra waiting for a priority vehicle can be weighted to equal 100 seconds or 1000 seconds of extra waiting for regular customers, so that priority vehicles get through the network at top speed. Normally, the network computer tries to minimize the sums of squares of total customer waiting time.

Special tractors can haul oversized 30 foot prebuilt rafter sections down the same tracks to a construction site.

Above-grade trackage maintenance cars are another specialty item. If one cable of the two at a time is replaced, Teleport can inexpensively perform much of its own track replacement and maintenance.

A Teleport ariel rescue car can usually haul a broken down Teleport car back up the cables, to a maintenance garage, or can at least enable the damaged car's occupants to get a ride to safety.

Next, there's a lot to the software, from computer network security issues to optimizing network flow given emergency vehicles and various freight discount rates.

Inquisitive new patrons should be brought in to a central station for a free introductory pass (it being their first day) plus a brochure and a gentle sales pitch.

Teleport cars holding persistent scofflaws can be redirected to the police station for a lecture from the desk sergeant.

Full and/or heavy passenger cars might be assigned premium waiting times by the network computer at rush hours.

Emptying a large sports stadium quickly would involve letting fans walk into elevator cars labeled with the general destination directions of north, south, east and west. Fans might then transfer to their personal Teleport pods a mile away from the stadium. Because Teleport can always add more lines above a street to handle huge rushes, traffic jams may become rather obsolete. For more city-wide solutions, see the next Teleport page at Teleport Networks