Seriously, I'm all for innovation and investment into public transit, but this isn't it. It doesn't add speed, capacity or affordability to any projects.

This isn't even a new idea. It was done in 1910. It failed for a reason back then.

primalnebula.com/the-brennan-g…

Of course I have heard of other innovative #transport solutions. Including some really wild shit, like "reopening of disused railway lines", or "re-nationalizing railways to make public transport affordable again".

But that's naive SciFi, of course. Let's stick with proven stuff like new monorails, and airborne taxis.

It's a neat starting point, but I think we can do better.

First, accessibility. From the screenshots these look very cramped; I certainly doubt a wheelchair user can use this, to say the obvious. They're going to need to be bigger.

If they're going to be bigger, then let's accept that and see what we can do. If environmentalism is a factor here, then it probably makes sense to make these bike-accessible; people will still need to go places to and from the monocab, after all, and there's no cleaner transport than a bicycle. Give them some free space where occupants can store bikes, or maybe large bags and cases.

And then, capacity. Look, on-demand access for a couple of a people at a time sounds nice, but in practice lots of people are usually travelling on similar routes at similar times, and it's far more efficient (and so environmentally friendly) to allow lots of people to travel at once. Plus, that will enable families and friend groups to travel together easily. If scheduled stops are regular enough that no-one needs to travel far to get to them, you get the best of both worlds; comfortable, clean travel, catering for large numbers of people, available at a stop near you. So given we're making this bigger anyway, let's scale up significantly; we can get multiple dozens of people in a cabin with the footprint of a couple of cars.

With that amount of size, we can probably spare space for a few amenities; maybe every second monocab can have a small toilet around the area for bikes and bags, or every third can have a small staffed area to buy drinks and snacks, offset the costs a little bit. It all improves accessibility and overall quality.

Although, now I think about it; now it's a lot bigger, it may be a bit more difficult to reliably stabilise with a gyroscope. And besides, a gyro adds a good amount of weight and complexity. If we just add a second rail alongside the first one, the vehicles won't need any fancy tech to stay upright; at most, perhaps some suspension to handle turns, depending on how tight they are and how fast it goes. That'll let us get even more usable space, as well.

...Hang on, did we just invent trains and trams again?

This is almost the very definition of a #Gadgetbahn... no better than a private car or robo-taxi without route flexibility!

If you want public transit to succeed while efficiently transporting the masses and reducing dependence on private vehicles, then fund cycling, buses, trams and light rail instead.

Although I don't mind small-scale monorail solutions, this one feels like a scam?

It looks too cramped, and if you're already having to place all that rail you may as well just scale it up slightly so at least 8 people could fit in it right?

It also looks too glamorous making me doubt this will survive in the actual open. Especially the door mechanism seems very easy to break

EDIT: Actually on the other photos it looks a little bigger, it's an interesting little cab though.

Where does this ride, or is this just a test-track?

not sure if this account is run by the EU commission or just rage bait.

Mastodon users are thankfully not stupid enough to fall for microtransit, train reinvention etc.

I suggest you investigate who is profiting from this and other scams.

We can help with that.

Why were you in the fediverse for, again?

I find it disappointing that the ALT descriptions of pictures look like it was written by AI.

A good ALT description must explain the *meaning* of an image, and not describe irrelevant graphic details like the colour of the sky. And it should not start with "This image shows"; screen readers already know that it is an image.

Please make sure that humans write those texts, this is important for visually-impaired citizens.

1. because humans are not yet lonely enough let's give each person their own private cabin.
2. Simpsons 🎵Monorail🎵

I have heard of the innovative transportation solution called "train".

yes, I have. Only recently:
1. Bicycles
2. Trams
3. Trolley buses
4. Hybrid trains

Do you happen to know what they have in common?

No? - Existing infrastructure.

Apropos infrastructure: to this day we have different gauges on main lines in #Europe. To change that doesn’t sound as glamorous as a monocabrailthing.

So I noticed this seems to be meant for about as many people as a car, but that it doesn't have the one actual benefit of a car because it's on rails. I can't imagine very many of these things can be deployed, otherwise they'd block the traffic of real trains and either hold up potentially thousands of people or millions of euros in cargo.

Wouldn't it just be easier to, I don't know, run a smaller train to those less populated areas? Just take the trains you already have and deploy them with less train cars? That's what Chicago did with the Yellow Line (which admittedly had other problems unrelated to this thread) and American cities are not exactly known for being better at rail infrastructure than literally any European city.

hey EUCommission, question: How do you say: "I'm writing shitposts for money" without saying: "I'm writing shitposts for money"?

How much money did the person responsible for that post get? Number of digits will suffice.

This is a stupid transport solution for anyone else than those who get to make a buck selling these tin cans.

Invest in on-call taxi/minibus setups instead, or put in the effort to build proper rail transit.