My thinking on Transportation Systems began in November 2007
when David, my good friend and long-time colleague, asked if I wanted to
brainstorm with him on the future of transportation. He was
intrigued by electric vehicles, so we went to see the presentation of the Chevy
Volt at the 2007 Auto Show in New York City: I just leased a 2013 Chevy Volt and get
inordinate pleasure from making a trip around town without using any gasoline –
so far our overall mileage is 172 mpg J.
We even presented statements at the
California Air Resources Board in March 2008, but … (I won’t go there: one of the rules of this blog is no whining or
ranting – “that leads to the dark side”).
As usual David and I brainstormed for several weeks and discovered a lot of the “obvious” benefits of electric and even autonomous
vehicles. However, my conclusion at the
time was that we could get a factor of 5 improvement in efficiency and other
benefits, but it wasn’t enough to drive the major system changes needed, so I
went back to my other endeavors.
After I retired, I did a lot more brainstorming on the
future of transportation, as well as other industries, the economy, and improving
all our lives. This produced a wealth of
ideas, but no clear path to effect the changes. I’m an engineer and I like to design large
systems, but if I don’t see a practical way to accomplish them I move on to
other pursuits. As time went by various
things triggered additional bursts of ideas that kept improving and extending my
system designs.
Super Storm Sandy flooded me over the top, literally: I now
see enough economic and other drivers to overcome the inertia of the present
system and to make new systems achievable.
I will talk more about my experiences with Sandy in later posts. But first
let’s look at some of my ideas.
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