You know, money is not enough to make you happy. You should also have some stocks, gold and real estate. (Danny Kaye, American actor, 1913-1987)

The use of Information Technology leads to rapidly increasing productivity in the transport sector as well as in the industrial and service sectors. Increasing productivity is necessary to guarantee a country's competitive edge, so as not to pass on costs to future generations. But we cannot go on increasing production of environmentally detrimental products.		Let us reverse this trend! Let us switch to environmentally sound technology, introduce job sharing and gradually reduce working hours, as production needs allows us to, instead of spending long hours producing goods and services that are really not needed, and needlessly depleting our natural resources!

ntroducing beamcaried traffic in a community would have a two-sided effect on employment. During the construction phase, a valuable contribution to counteract unemployment would be made. Many new work opportunities would be created. After this more or less initial phase, productivity would slowly increase within the transport sector along with the increased use of beam traffic. The effect could be shown with an example, using the Swedish situation. In this example we will assume the following costs for every employee, i.e. not only salary and social security, but also consumption of resources connected with carrying out his work:

an employee with the beamtraffic company costs US $ 100 000 a year, an employee in the school and health sectors about US $ 70 000 a year, an employee with a road construction company US $ 140 000 a year, an employee within road maintenance service US $ 100 000 a year. The Swedish Parliament voted in 1994 to set aside 98 billion SEK (about US $ 13 billion) for investments in roads and railways during the next 10 years. Suppose that 25 % of this amount, i.e. US $ 3.25 billion is invested in beam traffic systems, and that the industry invests the same amount during these 10 years. Assume that these investments grow in a linear fashion, starting from 0 (zero). This would then provide about 12 000 new jobs during this period, and there would be US $ 1 billion to invest in production and testing facilities.

Let us also assume that half of the funds set aside, i.e. US $ 6.5 billion are returned to the treasury in the form of taxes and are used for education and health care. Then, the number employed could theoretically increase within these sectors with an additional 10 000 people. Let us go on assuming that half the salaries fort those employed within education and health care is returned to the treasury. That money could then be used to pay additional people. The number of people potentially employed as a consequence of these investments could be considerably larger than if these money had been used to conventional road construction.

We could then make the safe assumption, in this scenario, that the conventional road traffic could be gradually replaced with beam transportation in a linearly growing fashion during a 50-year period. Then, huge and lasting savings in money and resources for future generations would be created. To keep this example simple, lets say that these savings are purely in the form of labor. The Swedish Road Traffic Society maintains that the road traffic in Sweden employs 300 000 full-time workers as car-salesmen, taxidrivers, car-repairmen, traffic-police, gas staion antendants etc. All this could theoretically be repIaced by 30 000 full-time workers, employed by nation-wide beam traffic systems.

270 000 jobs at a cost of US $ 19 billion every year would be saved. This is money wihich is today mainly paid by the motorists, but a large part comes on the taxes. By reason of a successively reduced need of labor for these coming 50 years for the road traffic, there would be total accumulated savings of US $ 450 billion for the whole period (which approximately tallies with the Swedish GNP during 3 years). Now, this is not a depiction of a scenario that could become real. It is just a play with numbers, to show what enormous amounts of money we would be talking about. Introducing beam traffic on a full scale in any community would contribute to a considerable increase in the standard of living for that community!

There is a philosophical aspect to this, as well. Today´s drivers of public transport vehicles cannot keep order among the passengers in the vehicles, which is quite often required. Vehicles get defaced or even damaged, and other passengers feel uncomfortable and sometimes threatened by a certain clientele among the travelers. This group of travelers can even make a lone busdriver feel uncomfortable. There is thus a need for overseers along the beams.	"The Transportation Philosopher"	Free from the task of handling vehicles, they can devote their attention to handling traffic disturbances and rowdy passengers. They should be stationed at strategic points, such as big stations and reloading places. Camera surveillance would be implemented, as it is today. Furthermore, stops that cannot use booths for berthings will need manual supervision. Such places would be train platforms and some bus stations. And; Interacting with humans is usually a more satisfying job than interacting with machines (such as driving a public vehicle).

Specification of requirements from politicians in parliaments and on local levels, with support from technical and economical expertis. Functional specification as seen from the travelers, forwarding agencies, operation and maintenance engineers' viewpoint, as well as from a recycling point of view. Preliminary definitions of mechanical, electrical and electronical interfaces between the various components and at different levels in the system hierarchy. Preliminary technical descriptions of components in the system hierarchy. Producing descriptions of long range consequences for the environment in the localities in question, i.e. a comparison between the new system as compared to needed extensions of the existing transport system. Calculate cost models for all phases in the development chain of all system components, including gradually more specific cost estimates. Making comparative economical calculations as to the social impacts between the two alternatives, which have been mapped in point 5 above. Dimensioning of the interface between all categories of users and the transport system.

Building scale models of beams, cabins for passenger transport, freight containers, opensided waggons, carried motorcars, stops and stations, etc. to illustrate the technical description. Making computer models of traffic flows, aerodynamic resistance for various vehicles, statistical and dynamical resilience for conduits, calculate mean time between various types of failures, etc. Analysis of choice of material, as regards tenacity, recycleability, ability to isolate against heat or cold, fire safety, etc. Making construction drawings. Making studies of automatization of production methods, installation methods, automatization of maintenance, and automatization of recycling, with a high degree of flexibility considering the needs for changing of vehicle models and technical development. Planning of tests with target equipments, experimental designs, reporting and statistical evaluation, from laboratory tests of prototypes to full scale testing. Programming of the processors in the vehicles, the nodes, stops, information centers, maintenance workshops, etc.

Production of video recordings, descriptions, demonstration models, etc. for presentations and exhibits. Construction, building and testing of reclamation centers. Planning of demonstration sites in urban environments, for testing and evaluation by politicians and the general public. Production, installation, operation and maintenance of the first commercially operated sites. Educating schoolchildren and elderly in the use of the system. Training of personell for operating and maintaining the system.