Key Message Points

Problem: Burning energy to move 2-ton vehicles to move a person in congested cities costs Americans $2.76 trillion/year. This waste is the root cause of urban traffic congestion, Climate Change, oil-wars, and rising gas prices.

  • Clever Uber YouTube of how foolish it is to design urban transportation around moving people in 2-ton boxes.

Solution:

  • It is safer and faster to driving on freeways than secondary roads. JPods® networks build their own grade-separated guideways.
  • People and cargo travel suspended from JPods' overhead guideways in ultra-light self-driving pods.
  • Solar panels mounted over the guideway structures to gather 100% of the energy needed to power the system.
  • Result: Urban traffic costs are cut by 90% to provide on-demand mobility regardless of age, ability, or wealth. Detailed list of 10X benefits follows.

10X Benefits (add details and links):

  • 3,000X fewer injuries:
    • Using the JPods' preferred standards of ASTM F24 the injuries per million is 3.7
    • Road have 11,200 injuries per million with 4 times the death rate for bike riders as some European countries with similar economies (link)
  • 10X lower operating costs (see graph above, link)
  • 10X lower capital costs (link)
    • JPods costs are $20 million per mile.
    • Light rail in the US average $202 million per mile.
  • 10X less land use (link)
    • Per car there are 3.4-8 parking spaces and 168 feet of road 12’ wide. The land area for one car supports 75 JPods, 3 miles of JPods guideways, and 12 megaWatt-hours/day of energy collection.
  • 10X greater capacity (link). Data is provided in seat per hour for uniformity of comparison. JPods and cars only move when there are people to move.
    • JPods are on-demand, 24x7 service with .5 second headways can carry 28,000 seats per hour. This is radically greater capacity than cars, buses, or trains.
    • JPods are on-demand, 24x7 service with the 3 second headways ("3-second rule require 186 feet of road between cars). So a lane of freeways can carry 4,800 seats per hour.
    • Mass transit capacity is set by 3 factors:
      • Size of the packet (50 per bus to 1,000 per train)
      • Time between service.
      • Hours of operation (generally low at night).
      • Buses moving with 5 minutes between buses with 50 seats move 600 seats per hour.
      • Trains carrying 1,000 people traveling 10 minutes between train carry 6,000 seats per hour.
  • 10X energy security:
    • Solar-power preempts oil-wars and oil-dollar funded terrorism. Cost of the War on Terror is estimated at $8 trillion (link).
  • 10X few linear barriers to commerce (link)
  • 10X less traffic congestion:
    • When demand exceeds the capacity of a JPods Network additional low-cost guideways and stations can be added.
    • Road congestion costs are estimated at $305 billion/year (link).
  • 10X more equitable:
    • US Transportation Secretary Foxx: “In the first 20 years of the federal interstate system alone highway construction displaced 475,000 families and over a million Americans. Most of them were low-income people of color in urban cores. (link)
  • 10X cleaner:
    • Solar-collectors over the guideways provide 100% of operating power with no CO2, no Climate Change (link).
    • In contrast, approximately CO2 per passenger-mile:
      • JPods: 0 pounds
      • Passenger trains: .5 pounds (DOE data link)
      • Cars: .6 pounds
      • Buses: .7 pounds

Better than cars

  • No safety risks to walking/biking
  • Quicker, your trip is non-stop
  • No wasting time at traffic lights
  • No congestion
  • No car insurance payment
  • No buying gasoline
  • No car payment
  • No parking
  • No pollution

Better than mass transit

  • No time wasted in stations/bus stops
  • No queuing, JPods are on-demand
  • No transfers, JPods take you non-stop from origin to destination
  • No fear of riding with strangers
  • No COVID or flu contagion amplification (link to MIT and London Tube studies)
  • No pollution, electrically powered mass transit burns coal/CH4 remotely

Other benefits:

  • No shutting down businesses during construction
  • 13,000 job-years per 80 miles of networks built (link)
  • Just-in-Time cargo deliveries to neighborhood stores reduces cost to mitigate food deserts