Regional Planning

42.7 percent of all statistics are made up on the spot.

n this page, we will show that, under right conditions, the beam-carried automatic traffic system could pay its way also in sparsely populated parts of a country. They could also be viable alternatives to road and railroad-constructions in these parts, considering the low pay-offs of this kind of investments. General aspects Installation and operation of the beams Long-range developments There are many regions in the industrial world that are sparsely populated. And, yes, even in these regions, this traffic system could carry it's own costs! The conditions in northern Sweden are exceptional in this respect; one would have to go to Canada and Australia to find areas in the Industrial world that are more depopulated. Thus, northern Sweden will serve as a good example in this regard. In these areas, new roads are hardly ever built, because of the low traffic flows. The tax basis for providing money to the upkeep of these roads is also meager, considering the long distances these roads have to cover between towns and villages. And, on top of this, the rough climate in these regions (usually the very reason why they are so sparsely populated) makes heavier demands on road maintenance. In northern Sweden, one has to keep clearing the roads from snow and repairing damages from soil frost. And transporting oneself in these areas is not cheap, either, considering how much gas a motorcar guzzles while covering these distances.

1. General Aspects

he proponents of roadtraffic often maintain that heavy investments in roads will pay off in the long run because it would promote economical growth within these regions. But this growth, if it does indeed occur, would just attract people and jobs from other regions, since, at least in Scandinavia, population growth is rather marginal. The economical growth and the population growth would then lead to even further road investments. The result of all this is a spiralling trend, that just serves to increase regional differences in living standard between various regions. The proponents of road traffic rather cleverly play off various regions against each other, as they all want a piece of available investments. Instead of this development, the goal ought to be to develop cheap physical and electronical communication facilities which function well and is economical in all parts of a country, at all levels of traffic flows, independently of rough weather conditions! One of the goals of the beamcarried traffic system is to enhance the possibilities for both physical and electronic communication at the lowest possible cost.

The physical communication would be performed in such a manner that it would require lowest possible use of resources in relation to the demands put upon it. Information technology provides us with the tools to record, statistiscally evaluate and prognosticate the demand, and adjust available transport resources to this demand. The electronic communication is facilitated by use of optic fibers within the beam. Placing optic fibers in the beams adds only marginally to the construction costs, and would - apart from the necessary communication with the vehicles and the passengers (optional) communication with the surrounding world - also provide for large information flows within and between the areas served by the beam traffic system.

An old Indian chief sat in his hut on the reservation, smoking a ceremonial pipe, and eyeing two U.S. government officials sent to interview him .."Chief Two Eagles," asked one official, "you have observed the white man for 90 years. You've seen his wars and his material wealth.. You've seen his progress, and the damage he's done." The chief nodded in agreement. The official continued, "Considering all these events, in your opinion, where did the white man go wrong?" The chief stared at the government officials for over a minute and then calmly replied, "When white man found the land, Indians were running it. No taxes, no debt, plenty buffalo, plenty beaver, women did all the work, medicine man free, Indian man spent all day hunting and fishing, and all night having sex." Then the chief leaned back and smiled, "White man dumb enough to think he could improve system like that."

Electronic communication is nowadays a very versatile medium. It is used for working from the home, attending courses of education, e-mail, electronic conferences, communal and private service etc. The costs of the beam traffic system are dominated by the material and labor required for the construction. Operation and maintenance costs are relatively modest, mostly due to rational production of material and the high degree of automization. For this reason, the traffic conduits should be used as effectively as possible, by using them to transport people, motorcars, freight and also information. All this is needed in sparsely populated areas. In many regions, the tendency is to minimize investment and maintenance costs for traffic routes, often because of deferrence towards the natural environment.

It is then especially important from a regional planning point of view to be able to offer lowest possible use of resources for small traffic throughput. The costs of road maintenance in sparsely populated areas are usually not proportional to their use. As stated above, one has to battle weather and environment, as well as wear on the road from traffic.

2. Installation and Operation of the Beams

he installation of the traffic conduits could be done relatively quickly, even should the terrain be difficult, since no large amounts of tailings from excavations and blastings have to be moved, as compared to when constructing roads. Nor do any roadbeds have to be prepared. When streamlined construction methods have been developed, the supporting poles could be erected and their foundations drilled and prepared directly with the aid of cranes, running on top of or underneath the beam, as the beam grows, using the beam segments that have just been put together. This would make the construction team independend of bad terrain conditions and lack of roads. All supplies would be transported to depots by beam or by road. At these depots, the parts would be assembled to functional units and transported to the construction site on the beams. Thus, a pole´s lower parts could be assembled, transported to the site and mounted in the hole. Then the upper part would be assembled, transported to the site and mounted on the lower part. The illustration shows an alternative; in figure A is shown how the footings for the poles are drilled and prepared, while B shows erection of the whole poles with the aid of mobile construction cranes running on the top of the beam.

One could possibly also use cranes with grips as shown in figure C, running underneath the beam. No barrier effects are caused by this mode of transportation, as the traffic runs up in the air, well above the ground.

3. Long-range Developments

n the future, it might be feasible to use linear induction motors, where magnetic levitation would replace the wheels. The consequences of that would be even shorter travel times with the beam cars, as higher speeds could be achieved. The beam cars could then compete with the fastest of the regular trains! The comfort could be better than in regular aircraft, in large measure because people in beam cars need not be packed so close together.

Beam cars used for long distance travel will have room to walk about, stretch one's legs, and have toilet facilities. There is really nothing preventing us from coupling several cars together in such a fashion as passengers could move between the cars as in regular trains. Thus, one could even have dining cars and so fort. Narrow, exhaust-free tunnels could be drilled at low costs with rotating, computercontrolled drills with the same diameter as the tunnel-to-be. They could drill through mountains and underneath sea floors.