Introduction to Automatic Beamcarried Transport

Do not fear the arising of thoughts in your mind, only be concerned lest your awareness of them be tardy. (old Zen-Buddhist saying)

Did you see the movie "Metropolis" by Fritz Lang? That film contained scenes from a futuristic country, where the population was transported in tubes across the city. Despite the fact that private car ownership was making headway in 1926, when this film was made, Fritz Lang envisioned a future where people did not use private vehicles, but instead used transportation provided by society. The reason was, of course, that Lang described a dictatorship, where people were not allowed to own cars. But, provided with hindsight as we are, we can see that private car ownership, especially in urban areas, gives rise to problems. There are simply too many of us driving cars! Even a city like Los Angeles, built for motorism, is suffocating. The solution is not more and better roads! That solution only leads to more mileage to travel, and to extensive destruction of land! Nor is more public transportation, functioning according to the conventional model, a viable solution! If you have a long way to your workplace, you will realize why. Numerous changes between transportation vehicles, long delays, and a travel route which is less than optimal, makes most people take their car to work, despite the traffic jams. But just imagine, if you could afford to take a taxicab, and this cab had a reserved lane all the way! You could relax with your newspaper (or why not take a nap?) with the assurance that the transport would take care of itself! The solution exists! It has been partially implemented in about 70 places around the world. It will require in part a new infrastructure, but this can be provided successively, so that the income on fares or the savings incurred through its efficiency could finance the continued expansion of the system.

	We are talking about Light Beam Traffic; driverless cars, travelling around in an integrated, computer-controlled network of light-weight beams, about 6 meters up in the air, and lowering themselves to the ground so that people can get on and off.	These beams do not have to be an annoying part of the city landscape, and there is nothing preventing city planners from putting the beams in tunnels (although this will be costlier than erecting the beams out in the open). City planners and politicians know that a solution like this will have to come sooner or later for big cities, if these cities are to continue to survive and grow. Apart from this, the world's oil supplies won't last forever.

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