Fast and efficient transportation system

Current transportation systems are unsustainable because they are polluting and inefficient in its use of energy. With evacuated tube transport people and cargo are automatically routed to their destination inside magnetically levitated capsules at 1/50th of the energy or CO2 emission of high speed trains or electric cars. It can be built for 1/10th the cost of high speed rail or 1/4 the cost of a freeway.

94% of transportation needs can be covered with a tube of 1.5m diameter. At a cruising speed of 912 km/h the traveling time between Sydney and Melbourne is less than a hour. The energy cost per km traveled is reduced as the distance is increased or the cruising speed is lowered.

The system is demand driven, does not use timetables and runs 24/7. By necessity, traffic is only injected when its route is fully calculated and its arrival time is calculated to the nearest millisecond. The ticket price will depend on a base charge, the length of the trip, energy used and time of day. Cargo will be charged a lower rate because they don't require a life support system and can be assigned a lower priority.

The elimination of air drag and rolling resistance allows most of the energy spent during acceleration to be recovered when decelerating. Energy may actually be gained when going from high elevation to low elevation. This system is unaffected by rising fuel prices or bad weather and have low impact on wild life, environment and land use. Transportation accounts for more than 61% of all the oil used each year.

The cost of a 1,700 km network that can handle 150,000 passenger trips per workday and 80 billion ton km of freight per year on the east cost of Australia is $6 billion (excluding land acquisition cost).

The mastery of the technology for a planet wide safe, fast and efficient transportation system is just a small step. A good demonstration site for this technology is the Sydney/Newcastle link. Its 120km length will allow test speeds of up to 3000 km/h.

Right click and select "view source" to see the all Javascript calculation for this web page. If anyone wishes to verify our result please perform you own calculations first before looking at our code. Please email ioserver@ioserver.com with your comments, critique or corrections if you have found any mistakes or have better data. 

     

ET3 Cost Benefit Risk

Benefits
Reduce transport CO2 emission and energy usage by more than 98%
Demand driven, no queues, no timetable, runs 24/7. No more nearly empty buses/trains at off peak hours.
New initial source of revenue for governments
Less time spent traveling, no traffic congestion
Reduce health cost and road fatalities
Cleaner air
No aircraft or traffic noise
Unaffected by weather
Increase tourism
Low impact of environment, wild life and land use
Reduce damage to atmosphere from jet contrails
Risks, events or unintended consequences that have to be managed.
Accidents or malfunctions
Floods, earthquakes or Cataclysmic events 
Earth movements, continental drift
Terrorist
Decentralisation of population 
Increased human population, domination and consumption
Increased production of steel, concrete and plastic
Infectious diseases will spread faster
Declining employment in industries affected by rising fuel prices

Capital cost, financial and operational performance of ET3 networks

Calculates the cost and performance of a ET3 network given the average distance traveled, length of the network, the expected number of passenger trips per workday and cargo capacity.  Use Google Chrome if the graph does not appear.

Show
Cruising speed km/h Network length km '000 trips/workday 
Billion ton-km cargo/year Tube Diameter m Maximum G force
¢/passenger/km  ¢/ton-km for cargo 
Network Parameters ms CPU time
Optimise speed for Lowest capital cost Lowest ticket price Highest return
Cruising Speed km/h. At cruising speed, very little energy is used. Most of the energy is used to accelerate the capsule to cruising speed. If this value is zero, it use a binary search method to find the optimal speed. The search interval is halved at each iteration. At low speed, the cost of capsules dominates. At high speed the cost of the approaches dominates.
Average distance km traveled Network total length km
Thousand passenger trips per workday Billion ton-km of cargo per year
Tube Diameter m and passenger seating width x length
Capital Costs
Land acquisition cost million Network cost million
Approaches cost million (over estimate) Station cost million
Number of capsules required to handle peak hour traffic.  Passenger capsule cost million
Number of cargo capsules.  Cargo capsule cost million (over estimate)
Extra airlocks Total cost million
Number of set of airlocks required to handle peak passenger traffic. Each mid station requires at least four airlocks. Each airlock can handle 116 capsules per hour. Transiting passengers will not need to go through airlocks. Stations that have multiple set of airlocks are less expensive because the approaches can be combined at an extra cost of 50% irrespective of the number of airlocks. Stations that can handle cargo have vacuum storage facilities to store pallets waiting for shipping or pallets outside waiting for collection.
Cost Factors
Cost US$ of station per passenger per hour Cost US$ of each capsule
% Inflation to apply to above two costs, which were calculated in 2003.
¢ per ton per km for shipping cargo. During the first year of operation only cargo will be allowed.
¢ per km for pricing ticket Steel Price US$/ton * 2 (for support and construction cost)
* Average Distance = Maximum length of each tube segment Price of electricity in $/kwh
Wh/km/passenger % Extra cargo capacity
Length of station approach m. Dedicated cargo stations requires less approach and are thus cheaper to build because the cargo can withstand higher G forces. An exiting capsule will decelerate before reaching the branch point so that it exits the branch point before the following vehicle is within the minimum distance. This model assumes a worst case scenario of 1 set of airlocks per station.  
Income and Expenses
% Passenger capacity used Gross annual income from workday passengers million
% Cargo capacity used. Gross annual income from cargo million
Passenger traffic at peak hour. Energy cost million
Liquid Nitrogen cost million
% Operation & Maintenance rate Operation and maintenance million
% Insurance rate Self insurance/replacement fund million
% Interest cost of funding. Net income million
Non-workdays passenger income are not counted. Passengers fares are half price on weekends or public holidays.
Ticket pricing for passenger and cargo
The base price of a ticket to cover interest.  Currency / USD$
Distance for calculating ticket price and travel time. Energy surcharge factor
Price per pallet for cargo.  Travel Time
Price per trip. Base price plus a distance charge and energy used. 
Stations, capsules and tube sizing

Hours in a local workday, use a value of 24 for a global network. The expected number of passengers trips per workday is divided by this value to determine the peak hour passenger traffic that the network must be able to handle. Lower this number to increase the number of stations and capsules. Spare network capacity are used for cargo and low priority traffic.
Capsule turnaround time in minutes. The time difference between its arrival at the station to its departure for an empty capsule. Capsules will be sent to where there are needed even if they are empty or partially filled. Capsules will be waiting for passengers, not passengers waiting for capsules.
The number of passengers that can be transported by each capsule in a day in one direction, the capsules are empty going in the return direction. 
billion ton-km of cargo shipments per year. Cargo stations does not require airlocks and can handle capsules at a much faster rate.
Unused cargo capacity billion ton-km per year.  Annual billion passengers-km 
Number of tube segments Capsule Length m
Tube Thickness mm Minimum distance m between capsules
Steel ton / km for each tube Capsules per hour at cruising speed
Cost of two tubes in million/km Capsule spacing during peak traffic m

Energy Consumption of various modes of transportation

Bicycle Prius XPT Transrapid Boeing 787 ET3
Air Drag Coefficient Cd
Frontal Area m2
Rolling Resistance Coefficient
Magnetic Levitation kW/ton to overcome rolling resistance
Air Pressure Bar
Passengers
Weight Empty kg
Cruising Speed km/h
Distance km
Acceleration/Retardation G
Jerk m/s^3
Regenerative Braking efficiency %
Total Weight kg
Top Speed km/h
Acceleration Time
Acceleration Distance km
Acceleration Power Watts
Rolling Resistance Watts
Air Drag Watts
Total Watts
Elapsed Time
Wh/km/passenger
Ton-km/kwh
Fuel Consumption L/100km/Passenger
Annual Energy cost million
Annual mt of CO2 emitted
Weight kg/Passenger Air Density Fuel Price $/L

Links

Tube Freight Transportation. U.S. Department of Transport, Federal Highway Administration

Evacuated Tube Transport

Key vacuum technology issues to be solved in evacuated tube transportation

Evacuated tube transport technologies (ET3) a maximum value global transportation network for passengers and cargo

United States Patent No. 5,950,543 Evacuated Tube Transport

Feasibility and Economic Aspects of Vactrains   

Australia High Speed Rail Phase 1 Report

Truck Productivity

Evacuated Tube Transport Technologies: "Space Travel On Earth"

Toward green mobility: the evolution of transport 1998

Large scale energy storage/transmission and freight transportation system

Last updated: 13 April 2012