The emphasis of this transportation system is, of course, on the conveyance of people back and forth. In the FLYWAY® system, pedestrians who wish to take a trip could be picked up directly from the ground, according to 3 different scenarios: a) The cars travel at street level (figure 10). b) The beams lower themselves at the berthing sites as illustrated below (figure 12).

Figure 11

Figure 12 c) The cars lower themselves to the ground with the aid of elevators (figure 11 above). That´s the FLYWAY® concept. People could also enter and leave the beamcars by way of: d) A ramp, staircase, raise in the terrain or other raised structure is used to meet the beam cars. An example of this would be a dedicated platform above a regular railway platform, as shown below (figure 13). Figure 13 e) Certain floors of neighborhood buildings, with the beams running high above ground, as shown below (figure 14). Figure 14

There should be doors on both sides of the vehicles, usually level with each row of seats. Good mobility when entering and leaving the cars is essential.

There must also be cars with space for baby carriages, wheelchairs and luggage; these requirements must be specified by the individual traveler when ordering a car to the address where he/she will be waiting.

Figure 15

2. Serving Bicyclists and Mopedists

The community that comes into being as the beamtraffic replaces other forms of traffic will be much friendlier to pedestrians and bikers. People will thus in all likelihood use their bicycles and mopeds much more than today. The beam vehicles should encourage this development by enabling bikers and mopedists to take their vehicles along when travelling with the beamcars. A folded-up bike could probably be brought along inside of all vehicles, even in one-person cabins. The cabins would have fastening arrangements for this purpose, such as leather straps.	An ordinary, unfolded bike could be brought along inside vehicles for two people or bigger, provided the vehicle has a width of at least two seats. These bikes would be strapped as well. A more convenient method, however, would be if the travelers could fasten their bikes on either end of the beam vehicles. This should be possible for all vehicles with a width of at least two seats. The kind of folding steel beams common on old-time buses would work fine for this purpose. The gentleman at right, however, would probably need a beamcar at least three seats wide.

3. Putting the Beamcars to use

The roadtraffic requires extensive (and expensive) training in order to drive a vehicle; you need to aquire a driver´s licence.The beamtraffic has no such requirements on its travelers. It is there for everybody to use! The only skills required is to be able to order a car, provide information about where one wants to travel and pay for the trip directly or indirectly (using a card of some kind). These three tasks could be simplified somewhat. An automatic system such as this should preferably not handle money as payment directly, although this is possible (toll stations for road traffic are often equipped for handling money automatically).	Instead, the travelers should hold individual magnetic cards. The cards and their corresponding card readers should preferably be of the contactless kind, where the traveler does not have to manually produce the card out of his/her pocket/handbag. Such cards already exists in connection with public transport, in several locations around the world. This system could be combined with a button panel, preferably in the carriage. If the traveler wants to go "home" he would press 0 (for instance). If he wants to go to his "school" or "place of work", he would press 1. Other buttons would correspond to other destinations. The buttons have individual code sequences, that would be transmitted to the card when pressed. The magnetic card would be pre-programmed to interpret these sequences such that each button corresponds to a certain destination, that applies individually to this particular card-carrier.	Figure 3:1 Figure 3:2

And what would those addresses be? Well, that information could be stored on the individual card. So, when entering the beam car, the contactless card would be read. When the passenger presses a button on the beamcar's panel, his card would be read once again, for the purpose of finding out the address corresponding to the pressed button. In the same way, a particular travel route and stops along the way (if any stops are desired; for picking up an aquaintance, for instance) could be programmed into the card to correspond to certain buttons. The price for the trip would then be automatically deducted from an account tied to the card.

The card could also contain information about what kind of vehicle is required, up to the point of being tied to a particular vehicle (i.e. you would always get the same vehicle). The system could also send the vehicle to a particular place and even at a particular time. It would be like ordering a taxicab, but with computers and card-stored information handling the process. One advantage worth noting with the contactless card is that it would (theoretically) never wear out, nor are the card readers subject to mechanical wear.

Apart from this, there is always the possibility of adding extra services to the system of intelligent cards, be they contactless or not. It would be possible to find out the status of one's card, such as expiry date, remaining amount of money on the account tied to the card, maybe one could change its validity regarding time and geography, and also re-program the destinations that are tied to the panel buttons mentioned above. Bluetooth is an interesting new wireless standard that will be implemented with SwedeTracks FLYWAY® system. Bluetooth will serve as a complement to the contactless cards.

Figure 3:4

4. Personal safety aspects

	Vandalizing by Non-travelers

	The beamcar would be hanging inaccessible about 5 meters above the ground. It will only be lowered to the ground when a paying traveler-to-be has ordered it. If someone should put a ladder against a parked beamcar, throw rocks at it or do something else of a similar nature, the car would detect this in the same way as a parked car with motion-sensitive alarm.	The motorcar can only sound its alarm until the car thief silences it. The beam car, on the other hand, can move away to a safer place, while letting its video cameras record what is happening. One videocamera inside and one on the outside of each carriage would provide the personnel at the control center with information about what is going on.

	Vandalizing by Travelers

The travelers could order a car by using a magnetic card or by providing a personal code. Even an approved traveler could occasionally be intoxicated with alcohol or drugs and, in that condition, vandalize the car's interior. But in such a case, the next traveler to use it could report what has happened to the control personnel.

They would then direct the car to a repair shop, and direct another car to the traveler-to-be. In such a case, a system with active cards could be designed in such a way that the culprit could be identified, while at the same time protect his/hers personal integrity. The travelers would even have practical use for this possibility to identify all cardholders. If somebody for instance should leave some item behind in a car there would be no problem in getting it back.

The central record over which "card" used a certain car at a certain tima and place, would be available for about a month or so to authorized personnel. The system would even enable other people to quickly localize a person travelling in the network in order to convey an important message.

	Getting Free Rides

If a traveller´s magnetic card has a personal code tied to it, the possessor of a lost (or stolen) card could not use it, anymore than he/she could use a credit card. If there is no personal code to the card, it would be up to the owner to report a lost or stolen card, so that it could be blocked from use. A smarter way to go about this would be to allow the card to be used once more, but under surveillance. The user would not be transported to where he wants to go, but rather to one of the police stations. When a car has been called down from its standby-position up in the air, under the beam, and

the traveler is within detection distance for the contactless card reader, the doors would open. When the reader detects that the card is inside the car, the door would close automatically, but with the provision that they could always be manually controlled from inside the car by the traveler. This would, to some degree, prevent undesired persons to travel along for free. There would of course be possible for a person to force his way in, but there could be alarm buttons in, for instance, the armrest of each seat for this purpose, to alert the control personnel.

	Violence

If one travels alone and wants to avoid violent confrontations at night, one should preferably order a private vehicle. All vehicles should be monitored internally by wide-angle cameras and be equipped with alarm buttons, combined with microphones and loudspeakers. This way, a traveler could get in audible contact with a manual control station.

There would of course be control station, where personnel on duty around the clock could record what happens in the car if its microphone should be used. Authorized personnel could then take manual control of the beamcar, lock the doors and/or manually direct the car wherever they want, as they deem best considering the circumstances.

	Bombs in the Cars

A person who has identified himself/herself and bought a card could still place a bomb in a car. If the bomb is strong enough, the beam could be blown apart. The perpetrator could in such a case be identified. The broken beam would alert the next car that something was wrong, insofar that it suddenly would not have any contact with the next node up ahead.	The same notification on other, nearby beams, damaged by the explosion, would in the same way alert the cars travelling on those beams. Thus, a broken beam would result in at least one of the following events that would make the next approaching car stop in time:	Figure 4:5

Alternative consequences of a damaged beam, that would be detected: The beamcar loses communication with the next upcoming node. Electric power disappears. The damaged car maybe manages to get an alarm through to the next node. Motion-sensitive detectors in the beam react to movements in the beam and use their radio transmitters to alert nearby nodes. These detectors might be a good investment in earthquake-prone areas. A closed circuit in each "ring" of beams gets disrupted, and trigger an alarm by means of a radio transmitter (see illustration). The car's own radar detects obstacles ahead (debris from the explosion, or the beam twisted out of shape).

Figure 4:6 The black lines in the above illustration represent a part of a beam network, the blue lines closed-circuit wires inside the beams. Should such a circuit break, as number 6 in the illustration, this would trigger an alarm. Many burglar alarms for ordinary buildings function in this manner. Figure 4:7

The first car to follow might have to brake real hard, but all the others will have time to stop in an orderly fashion. If possible, the traffic on this particular link would quickly be rerouted.

Use of "smart" cards as travel documents, computers in the vehicles and good data communications along the beams would thus enable a better protection for the travelers than today's mass transit systems. These safety measures will have to be decided upon for each installation, according to circumstances.

	5. Is an ATC-system needed?

ATC is short for "Automatic Train Control". It might be a good idea to here give a short description how it works. Ordinary railroad trains are often so long that they need more than a kilometer to brake to a halt. They thus need a system that warns them for obstacles up ahead on the track, that might be too far away to be seen. ATC cannot warn for all obstacles, but can warn the driver about another train ahead. For that purpose the track is divided into sections, and every section has a sensor that notes the presence of a locomotive. In the most advanced of the "old" systems, the train driver has to tell an on-board radio how long his train is. During the journey, this radio activates every sensor it passes, and exchange information. The sensor is informed how long the train is, and the unit in the engine car is informed about highest allowavable speed on this section. This exchange is done using radio waves. The sensor is also kept informed about the situation in the next section, and if there is a train there, the train passing over the sensor is told to slow down to a specified lower speed. If the driver does not react to this, the train is forcibly braked by the on-board part of the ATC-system.

The old systems are electronically controlled and very reliable. They are used around the world both by railroad companies and by underground rail systems in the cities. As of this writing, at least 3 companies (Adtranz, Ansaldo and Siemens) have tried to develop computerized ATC-systems, and they have so far failed. They are all 3 contracted to install such systems in the Stockholm area, and they have not been able to deliver. Not only that; they cannot even make good estimates as to when such a system could be delivered! This situation should give a hint as to how complicated a computerized ATC-system seems to be. So, a very relevant question is; won´t an automatic rail system need an ATC-system? The answer is "no, not really". Consider these differences:

Part of the ATC-system is to interact with the driver of the train, by providing warning signals and monitor the driver´s reactions. The driver still controls the train, but if he does not react properly. ATC will take control. In systems with no human drivers, a corresponding control system would have direct control of the train. It is thus no separate control system, but is integrated with the system for running the beamcars. Trains need long distances to brake, because they represent huge living energies. Not so the automatically controlled trains, that usually are no more than 3 cars in length (and ideally should not be more than one car). Existing beam traffic systems consist of only single cars. Because they are considerably lighter than train sets, they need no longer braking distances than motorcars. They can monitor a sufficient length of the road ahead with radar and similar devices. As for regular trains; the fact that the old, electronic systems are quite reliable shows that there are an alternative, as long as computerized systems cannot be made to perform satisfactorily.

Figure 5:1