The FlyWay® Supervising System

You cannot always be right. But it is possible to be wrong all the time.

he purpose of the "FlyWay®" Supervising system is to ensure that the traffic is not threatened by humans with bad intent and by "Acts of God". And, of course, if such a thing should occur, there must be technical and human resources, as well as established routines, to deal with this, and to minimize damage and disturbances.	This is not a technical page. It ought to be read by anyone who questions the safey and reliability of automatic transport systems in general and (maybe?) the FlyWay® system in particular. As of this writing, though, all details have not been included. They will be, in due time. List of contents of this page: General Maintenance

1. General

The task of the supervising system is to provide information from various sources to aid the operator´s staff. The FlyWay Supervising System should have these components: Surveillance cameras at stops and possibly at some nodes/roundabouts/redistribution sites Guards at centrally located stations Station hosts at some stops Smoke detectors in the ceilings of the cars Alarm buttons in vehicles and at stops.

There is a three-fold purpose for this system: To supply the security system with relevant information should something happen To provide the supervising personel information about the number of travelers at various stops. At football games etc. there could be a need to direct additional vehicles to some stops. To remedy alarms from the travelers.

The danger of violence or threats from other persons is small in vehicles that have been booked. The vehicles function in that respect as taxicabs; you only travel with people you know. If something should happen, one can always press the alarm button, and supervising personel can observe by cameras what happens, and take manual control over the vehicle, if need be, and direct it to an assigned place. Vehicles in regular traffic can be removed from service as the number of travelers decrease. This provides both for better safety and for better economy. As the number of passengers and their destinations are continually monitored, there should not be many empty vehicles travelling around.

What would happen if somebody tried to ride with an invalid card? The attempt would be pointless on a booked or hired vehicle; it would not go anywhere except to a manned control station. But on a scheduled car, running according to a timetable? Asking the person over the intercom to disembark might not work (and would not be a nice treatment of, for instance tourists). Instead, he/she should be allowed to travel (there might be others in the car who want to reach their destination on time), while the display shows that the car will stop along the way, or make a slight detour, to allow a guard to embark.		The guard's duty would primarily be to check the card (it might be faulty), to hand out or sell a new card or collect a fee, as the case might be. Regarding the smoke detector; smoking should (of course) not be allowed in the cars. Should the detector sound the alarm, this would be noted at the supervision centre. The car could be controlled manually and directed to an inspection site. Smokers encountered in the car could then be fined. This procedure could also be applied to vandals and the like.