Social Consequences

If you think nobody cares about you, try missing a couple of payments.

A few background facts:		Figure 1, The "economy" model; no cars
The income gap between the richest and the poorest 20 % in the world increased between the years 1960 and 1990 from 30 to about 60 times (Statistics from World Watch Institute, WWI 1994). That was ten years ago, and the income gap has incread even more since then, even though countries like India a China are now slowly catching up. In other words, the richest 20 % of the world's population has 60 times more resources to consume than the poorest 20 %. The type of economical growth that we have had since the end of World War II has thus increased the income gaps (while at the same time having increased the destruction of our environment).	Women perform 60 % of all labor in the world but earn only 10 % of the world's income, and they own about 3 % of the world's assets, in monetary terms (Statistics from UN). In Sweden the average wealth of the 100.000 richest persons increased from US $ 90 000 to about US $ 135 000 between the years 1980 and 1994. During the same time, the average wealth for the entire Swedish population decreased from US $ 32 000 to 27 000.

Figure 2, Illustrating the FlyWay berthing cubicles

Which social problems can the beam-carried traffic help to solve?

For Individuals Figure 4, Structure of the star-shaped city Distances to workplaces, service, friends and relatives are increased due to the spreading of the urban areas. In a fairly typical example from the city of Gothenburg, as the population doubles, the urban areas becomes 8 times as large. Replacing conventional traffic with beamtraffic would reduce that part of spreading which is caused by roads and parking areas. Women and youths reach, on the whole, only half as large an area as men, because they, to a larger extent, lack convenient transportation. This means they have a correspondingly smaller chance of finding and changing to suitable employment. A large, far-reaching beamcarried traffic system would change all that. Today's conventional traffic kills and maims a large number of people every year. The number of killed in traffic accidents are about 5 times as many as those killed in violent crimes in the streets. In urban areas, most of those killed and maimed are unprotected travelers. Statistics shows that in Western Europe and North America, more than 50 % of all serious road accidents are caused by drivers that are careless or using poor judgement. In Eastern Europe, this percentage is even higher. In the beamcarried system, the risk for such accidents would be practically neglibible. Many people today without means of transportation get isolated because of barrier effects and lack of personal mobility. The beamtraffic would reduce that isolation, as well as society's costs for schoolbuses and such. Transportation of one's kids during leisure times in order for them to pursue their leisure activities consumes time and money today. The beamtraffic would change that. For the Community An increasing amount of transportation is turned over to individuals becauase of today's centralisation of facilities (such as hospitals, schools, workplaces, shopping malls). Because of this, we are travelling a lot more than our grandfathers did. The segregation increases between today's highly exploitated areas near the stations for radially orientated railbound traffic and, on the other hand, low-exploitated suburbs where people own their own cars. This segregation is clearly mirrored in the road traffic. Schematically it could be illustrated like this: In the car lanes, the middle class travel by car. In the lanes reserved for buses the upper class travel by taxicab, with halved travel times at double the cost. In the buses the lower class travel at half the cost and double travel times. The beamcarried traffic would considerably reduce these contributions that today's traffic makes towards maintaining this segregation. Noisy and noxious cars and trucks prevent any integration of workplaces, service and habitation, and force many people to make unnecessarily many and long trips. The heavy, radial rail traffic contributes towards the mounting real estate prices in downtown areas, resulting in many people moving to the suburbs for economical reasons. Vandalism and crime increases during nighttime in today's depopulated downtown areas. Today's centrally located business streets die as a result of increasing difficulties to reach them by car. This is to say; people donīt visit them as frequently as before, and shops close down, one after the other. The high cost of investing in and operating todays' traffic throughfares contribute towards the depopulation of rural areas. Globally In today's USA there is more than one car for every 2 inhabitants. In for instance China, India and in most African countries there are less than one car for every 700 inhabitants. The gap between those in the world who have access to a car and those who haven't is growing. The urbanization trend is strong the world over, although it varies much between different countries. As can be seen from this table from the United Nations, in some countries cities grow at the expense of the rural areas, while in other countries population grows in both urban and rural areas. Now, in the year 2003, we find 15 cities in the world with more than 10 million inhabitants. Most of them are in the developing world, and in those cities 70 - 90 % of the population are walking or bicycling to move about. Figure 6, Street view from London The upper class of the world will in relatively short time ruin global resuurces of oil, metalls and land for comming generations and create enormous future economical, social and environmental problems. A note on high-frequency electro-magnetic radiation Since broadcast radio became common, in about the 1920ies, our society has gradually been exposed to more and more radio frequency radiation. What also has happened is that these frequencies have been become higher. First, there was FM-radio, then Television. Radar is higher, and the cellular phone systems are still higher in frequency. What has happened in recent years is that UMTS has been developed and employed. This is cellular phone technique which allow for digital transmission of information, and every channel is broad enough to allow for transmission of video. This technique requires still higher frequencies, as well as a denser deployment of transmission antennas and base stations. And this development is increasingly making people sick! While the causes of peopleīs discomfort is still being disputed, the trend is clear: UMTS seems to be the final straw for a growing number of people. So, how is this pertinent to beamcarried traffic systems? Figure 7; Electro-Magnetic radiation pattern Well, the suspended systems have the ability to remove a lot of this radiation, by placing it inside the beams, where it wonīt leak out, except downwards, through the slit underneath. The FlyWay® beams will be used for wireless communication with the beamcars, and will have communication facilities for passengers, so they are well equipped to serve this extended purpose. This is admittedly a compromise in availability; but one could envision a system where the cities are liberated from general UMTS radiation, and instead make it available underneath the beams, for those citizens who still want to avail themselves of this service. As the beam network expands, this service would be increasingly more available, while still not bothering persons that are not directly beneath the beams.

Worthless Opinion Polls It happens that opinion polls are taken when there are plans for new public transportation routes or new transportation systems in the city. The public is asked questions such as: - "How would you prefer to travel?" - "Would you use this particular mode of transportation?" - "Would you prefer a bus or a streetcar?", etc. Thatīs good, isnīt it? Yes, thatīs an important way of gathering information so that right decisions can be made. Provided that the answers are properly evaluated. And thatīs not so easy. It requires good insights in human psychology. Politicians and city planners rarely have that kind of insight; they usually regard the answers statistically, and base their decisions on those figures. Provided that they care at all about public opinion polls. When people are asked questions about how they would feel about automatic public transport vehicles on beams above the ground, they might answer things like; - "Hey, that sounds great!" - "Yeach, that would be an ugly sight!" - "I would certainly like to travel that way!" - "I would never travel in a hanging cabin!", etc. What one must keep in mind when evaluating these responses is: The respondents are probably not prepared for that question, so they have to quickly come up with a spontaneous opinion, without much thinking. The respondents are not familiar with the technology. If they had time to get familiar with it, their respons might be different. Most people prefer to travel in supported vehicles, because thatīs what they are used to. If they had time to study the arguments for hanging cabins, their respons might be different. Persons who object to the supposed "unsightliness" of beams do not consider the trade-offs; less traffic in the streets. Many persons in such situations simply feel that they have to come up with an opinion, although they probably do not have any opinion if they are unprepared for the questions. Humans adapt incredibly fast to new conditions, more quickly than either city planners or people in general are aware of. A new city-feature might be "beautiful" or "unsightly" today, and regarded as no big deal in a few years time. When people still voice their opinion about the relevant feature after some years have gone by, they might think that they still have that opinion, when in fact they are merely remembering how they first felt. Most people are not very self-aware; they simply do not know beforehand how they will react to situations they have not yet encountered. Old soldiers with combat experience know this better than most people. As an example, most people might think (without really knowing) that they would feel "uncomfortable" riding in a hanging cabin, underneath the guideway. They donīt know, they just "think so". But ask people of all generations in the city of Wuppertal, Germany, about this, and they will know what to answer. Because most of them will have travelled with the "Schwebebahn". When you donīt know about something, you will use your imagination. If and when you later on confront the real situation, you are usually surprised how you react at variance with how you imagined that you would react. Conclusions from this? Well, ask people about their travel patterns, how much they would be willing to pay, and similar questions that they have a knowledge of. But donīt waste their (and the pollsterīs) time asking questions about things that people have no proper insight into. Leave these decisions to the planners.