HCORT10 U

High Capacity Optimised Rapid
Transport (HCORT)
Designed by Ken Dawber
Email: KEN@JYPES.COM
Preliminary Draft Version 0.0.10u
Date: 20th Aug 2020
Website: http://HCORT.ORG
Table of Contents
Objectives:.................................................................................................................................................4
Executive Summary:..................................................................................................................................5
Introduction to HCORT Throughput Calculations................................................................................7
Intended Audience:................................................................................................................................8
Introduction to the HCORT Design:..........................................................................................................9
HCORT Construction Cost Advantages................................................................................................9
Public Transit and Dual Mode Private Vehicle Use............................................................................11
Required Progression of Current Autonomous Vehicle Efforts..........................................................13
Problems with Current Autonomous Vehicle Efforts.....................................................................13
Optimal Solution for the Problems with Current Autonomous Vehicle Efforts.............................14
Introduction to HCORT from the PRT Prospective:...........................................................................17
Ken Dawber's Demonstration Analysis of PRT's Advantages........................................................17
Business Case for HCORT:.................................................................................................................22
Current Autonomous Vehicle Dedicated Guideway Efforts................................................................23
Background:........................................................................................................................................24
Term Definitions and other Notes:......................................................................................................25
Cooperative Design..................................................................................................................................27
Advantages for states to take part in the design..................................................................................28
Early Design and Development Phases...............................................................................................28
Initialisation Phase..........................................................................................................................28
Designing the Cooperative:............................................................................................................29
Initial Transportation Network Planning Phases:...........................................................................29
Project Estimates:...........................................................................................................................30
Preliminary or Conceptual Estimates:.................................................................................................31
Initial Project Deliverable:..............................................................................................................31
Estimates of time required for the Initial Project Deliverable:.......................................................32
Minimum Project Estimates:..........................................................................................................32
Page: 1 of 142 pages

Largest or Full Project Estimates:...................................................................................................33
Project Management Methodology or Systems Engineering Standard:..............................................33
Standards Creating Phases:.................................................................................................................35
Preparations for Testing..................................................................................................................36
Appropriate Functions for a Cooperative Effort of Government Organisations.................................36
The Central Principles of Ken Dawber's HCORT Design.......................................................................38
Example List of Recommended Non Essential Projects..........................................................................52
Design: Transducers/Sensors etc:.............................................................................................................57
Assumptions........................................................................................................................................57
Summary..............................................................................................................................................57
Security risks with use of GPS and radio wave communications..................................................58
Suggested and Alternative Transducers/Sensors.................................................................................61
For each Vehicle to locate its position and track its route..............................................................61
Backup Electronic Steering Control...............................................................................................62
Faults and emergency danger sensors:...........................................................................................64
Inter-vehicle sensors for Platooning:..............................................................................................64
Vehicle to Infrustructure and Vehicle to Vehicle Communications................................................65
For the Network System to Locate a Non Communicating Vehicle...............................................65
Other...............................................................................................................................................66
Control Systems:......................................................................................................................................68
Network Control Systems:..................................................................................................................68
Monitoring, control and maintenance of network subsystems............................................................69
Synchronous versus Asynchronous:....................................................................................................70
Network System Route Advisory Concept:.........................................................................................71
Repositioning System..........................................................................................................................72
Control modules for the Feeder Network:...........................................................................................72
Control System for Side Lanes.......................................................................................................75
HCORT Freeway Control System:......................................................................................................75
Throughput Calculations..........................................................................................................................76
Assumptions for All Examples............................................................................................................76
Example 1............................................................................................................................................77
Examples for Sharper Curves or Greater Distance Between Platoons................................................78
Examples that Change the Maximum Platoon Length........................................................................78
Examples Using Multiple Guideways for Diverges and Merges........................................................79
Example Without Platooning...............................................................................................................80
Example Using Faster Maximum Freeway Speeds.............................................................................80
Platoon Coupling and Uncoupling...........................................................................................................81
Brick-wall Criteria...............................................................................................................................81
HCORT with Brick-Wall Criteria implementation:.............................................................................82
Vehicle Utilisation:...................................................................................................................................83
Disabled/Mobility Considerations...........................................................................................................85
Operation in Reverse:...............................................................................................................................85
Configurations/Topology/Topography.....................................................................................................87
Methods of achieving Grade Separation.............................................................................................87
Access for Traditional Road Traffic....................................................................................................87
Intersecting HCORT Freeway Interchange Configurations:...............................................................88
Variant U-Turn Interchange............................................................................................................90

HCORT Freeway Guideway to Road Configurations:........................................................................91
Back Street Feeder Network Guideway Configurations:....................................................................93
Implementation:.......................................................................................................................................95
Vehicle Design: Power.............................................................................................................................98
Dangers/Problems to Implementing this type of Transport System:.....................................................102
Examples of PRT Concepts Being Non Optimal..........................................................................103
Places Within Networks Where PRT Does Not Perform as Well as Competing Technologies:...105
Possible Places where costs could blow out:................................................................................105
Concepts where this new HCORT system is not in accordance to earlier PRT Concepts:...........106
Problems related to methods that optimise vehicle seat utilisation:.............................................106
Rape Wagon:.................................................................................................................................106
Appendix A: Alternative HCORT Description including Details of an Expanded HCORT..................108
Appendix B: Official Positions on PRT.................................................................................................113
USA's Official Position:....................................................................................................................113
Europe's Official Position:.................................................................................................................114
Appendix C: Size Matters......................................................................................................................115
Vehicle Scaling Effects:.....................................................................................................................116
Appendix D: HCORT vs Autonomous Vehicles....................................................................................117
Comparative Advantages of Fully Autonomous Vehicles............................................................117
Comparative Advantages of PRT..................................................................................................117
Major reasons PRT is able to give these:......................................................................................118
Attempting to get some of the PRT advantages to Autonomous Vehicles....................................118
Appendix E: HCORT vs Elon Musk's Hyperloop and other Evacuated Tube Transports.....................120
The Boring Company...................................................................................................................120
Appendix F: Skytran versus HCORT.....................................................................................................121
References:.............................................................................................................................................122
Wikipedia References:.......................................................................................................................122
Notes......................................................................................................................................................124

Objectives:
This proposal for an international cooperative effort to define and standardise a

new vehicle road guideway system has the following objectives:
• get rid of the grid lock and other congestion that is occurring on our
roads. Note that this is the primary objective
• drastically reduce the road toll of deaths and injuries
• drastically reduce the production of greenhouse gases and other airborne
pollution
• cut the time taken for people or goods to get to and from their destination
to a small fraction of the current time taken
• reduce the energy used for transportation to a small fraction of what is
currently used
• provide a public transit that is so good that a large percentage of the
population will give up using their own vehicle in favour of it
• provide a public transit that can be used safely in a pandemic
• drastically reduce environmental problems such as vehicle noise and earth
vibrations
• drastically reduce the parking problems that are plaguing most city centres
and reduce the space required for all the parked vehicles.
This proposal seeks to perform the above while achieving the following:
• costing far less than other alternatives

• getting rid of most of the confiscation and compensation of properties that
other alternatives tend to require
• Reducing estimation risks associated with building advanced new
transportation networks
• Minimising problems relating to the monopolies created by intellectual
property rights.

Executive Summary:
In order to create a transportation network that satisfies the above objectives,

this document provides:
• a proposal and details for an international cooperative effort to define and

standardise a new vehicle road guideway system based on principles that
advance on Personal Rapid Transit (PRT) concepts along with
• details of a suggested transport network design.
The suggested network design has been named 'HCORT' as it is a High

Capacity Optimised Rapid Transport system. HCORT is currently based on a
speed of 180 km/hr (112 miles/hr) on its freeway (i.e. expressway) guideways.
This design has been particularly optimised for economical transportation of

people and goods within large cities. Tasks such as transporting people living in
outer suburbs to or from Central Business Districts or other far flung suburbs are
its forté. Within large cities, it also designed as the most economic and optimal
method of transport of goods from manufacturers or warehouses to shops or
other distribution centres, particularly when the goods can be transported on a
standard fork lift type pallet, or from distribution centres direct to the customer.
The proposed design can be summarised as follows:
Network of dedicated expressway guideways for small high speed

driverless electric vehicles
HCORT attempts to ride on the back of the current explosion in availability of

high performance electric vehicles. As well as providing a public transit, HCORT
allows dual mode vehicle use. That is, a range of specially designed or modified
vehicles can utilise the new networks while these vehicles also have the ability
to drive on normal roads.
While the design is very futuristic, overall the concepts are not radical. As can
be seen by the main reference documents, [1] [2] [3] the position of transport
authorities in both the USA and Europe is that we should be directing research
towards implementing such networks. While the various authorities agree on

the need to design this type of system, there is a lack of a coordinated effort of a
type that would allow international standardisation.
HCORT has been designed to give a very high throughput of traffic while using
very little area. The main method of achieving this comes from the use of
platooning. Platooning is where vehicles are positioned on the freeway in small
groups, with each of the vehicles within the group positioned next to each other.
The current HCORT proposal suggests latching the vehicles together but similar
proposals have vehicles simply positioned near each other.
The combination of very low maximum vehicle height and very low maximum
axle weight will make the construction cost of these guideways several times
cheaper than that of standard freeway lanes.
HCORT doesn't require autonomous vehicle technology to be accepted for our

roads. If or when autonomous vehicles are accepted, this network will be able
to work in conjunction with them and utilise them.
Characteristics of provided design details include resilience against hacker/fire

bug type attacks and major catastrophic events such as earthquakes and war
with a degradation profile similar to the internet backbone.
The details of the HCORT design have all been provided as public domain open
source material. HCORT is currently the most complete design based on
current technology in the public domain.

Introduction to HCORT Throughput Calculations
The following provides a possible or likely analysis based on the envisaged speed of
180 km/hr for HCORT freeways.
We can set a maximum length of platoon as being, for example, 25 metres. With a
typical passenger vehicle length of 4.1 metres this provides a maximum of about 6
typical vehicles per platoon.
The minimum gap between maximum sized platoons can be set to 11 metres. This
provides a total length of 36 metres for the platoon plus gap. Theoretical maximum
throughputs can be calculated as follows:
180,000 metres/hr / 36 metres/platoon = 5000 platoons/hr

6 typical vehicles/max sized platoon * 5000 platoons/hr = 30,000 vehicles/hr
The above maximum 30,000 vehicles/hr is a theoretical maximum with all the platoon
positions filled. It is not practical to get this and as the number of vehicles increases
so that it approaches this, there would be major problems with the running of the
network such as excessively long wait times for vehicles to obtain allocated resources.
Until we obtain better figures we can conservatively estimate that the system will run
well with an overall average of 4.5 vehicles per platoon. That is 75 per cent of the
theoretical maximum, or a capacity of 22,500 vehicles/hr.
Our current standard freeway lanes are considered to have a maximum capacity of
2,100 vehicles/hr to 2,400 vehicles/hr. For comparison purposes we will assume that
it is 2,250 vehicles/hr. Based on this, the usable HCORT capacity of 22,500
vehicles/hr provides a usable capacity equivalent to 10 standard road
freeway/expressway lanes for each HCORT freeway lane.
Because the tracking of HCORT vehicles is tightly regulated and the lanes are
restricted to only small vehicles, an HCORT lane takes up an area less than two thirds
of that of typical standard road freeway/expressway lanes. Consequently, on a per
area basis the HCORT usable capacity per area is at least 15 times that of standard
road freeway/expressway lanes.
A later ‘Throughput Calculations’ section of this document provides a number of other

examples which includes capacities when you allow for sharper curves or bigger gaps
and demonstrates what happens when you change parameters such as maximum
length of platoon.

Intended Audience:
This document is intended for the following:
• Government members
• Transportation authorities
• Members of the public interested in future transportation systems such as
members of public transport and automobile associations.
While there is a large amount of technical information included, most of this document
has been written so that it can be read by the general public. This has been required
as the design covers a diverse range of specialist areas within civil engineering,
mechanical and electrical design, electronics, embedded computer programming,
computer networks, telecommunications and transportation networks.
Included within the document are sections that demonstrate from base principles that
the design methodology takes us towards an optimal solution. Some of the specific
sections that do this include:
• Required Progression of Current Autonomous Vehicle Efforts

• Ken Dawber's Demonstration Analysis of PRT's Advantages
• Throughput Calculations
• Appendixes such as Size Matters.
Where the design details require specific understanding of technical knowledge, links
to appropriate wikipedia sections are given. Electronic copies of this document
should allow direct linking to those internet pages.

Introduction to the HCORT Design:
High Capacity Optimised Rapid Transport (HCORT) is designed for the initial base
design of a cooperative international effort of standardisation. HCORT is a set of
principles, concepts and ideas that advance upon Personal Rapid Transit (PRT)
concepts to create a complete design for a new transportation network.
While historically PRT was normally about creating specialised railways, HCORT has
taken the PRT principles to create specialised roadways (referred to herein as
guideways) in order to solve roadway problems, particularly the roadway problem of
gridlock and other congestion.
HCORT can be seen as the required progression or advancement of the current

autonomous vehicle efforts or it can be seen as a modern implementation of the
concept of Personal Rapid Transport (PRT).
This introduction to HCORT first provides details HCORT construction cost

advantages, followed by details of public transit and dual mode use. Using these
details we then examine why the required progression of the current autonomous
vehicle efforts leads to an HCORT style of design. As part of this we get further
HCORT details on the way the network powers vehicles, provides vehicle guidance
and how the vehicles communicate to the network and other vehicles.
This is followed by a demonstration of why designs based on PRT concepts can take
our transportation systems towards a more optimal network. The later part of this
introduction provide notes on the business case for HCORT, compares HCORT with
other autonomous vehicle dedicated guideway efforts and provides other background
information along with some definitions of terms used herein.
HCORT Construction Cost Advantages
HCORT is a grade separated road guideway network. The following requirements on

the user vehicles make the implementation of the road guideways very economical.
• Low maximum size of vehicles, particularly low maximum height of vehicles.

Note: Although somewhat limited in vehicle width, it does allow longer vehicles.
• Low maximum axle weight. For vehicles that need additional weight it does
allow multiple axles.
• All vehicles must be electric and consequently will not generate combustion

exhaust products
Regardless of these requirements, the vehicles are large enough to allow the transport
of standard fork lift type pallet of goods. Consequently the vast majority of goods can
be economically transported.
Reuse of current roads will often not be needed as the small width of guideways and
low height of HCORT vehicles allows new guideways along creek beds or unused
space next to train lines with many crossings of current roads being under already built
bridges, similar to a bike path or creek running under a road. Similarly, with divided
roads (also called dual carriageways or divided highways), the HCORT guideways will
often use the medium strip (also called central reservation).
When implemented at ground level, grade separation between HCORT guideways and
traditional roads can be implemented with ‘near grade’ crossings.
The term “near grade” that is used through out this document is a PRT concept of
grade separation between “at grade” or at ground level and grade separation with
standard elevated roads. This near grade separation between HCORT lanes and
traditional roads is achieved by the HCORT lanes sinking into the ground, creating a
trench or cutting, with a slightly raised bridge over the HCORT lane for standard road
traffic. The thickness of the raised bridge can be kept low due to the small span of the
width of an HCORT lane combined with use of appropriate materials such as metal.
The length and depth of trench or cutting needed to keep grade separation between
the HCORT lane and the road is kept low due the following:
• The low maximum HCORT vehicle height requirements.
• The slight (typically less than a metre) raising of the road/bridge over the
HCORT lane
• The low thickness of the bridge.
The lack of exhaust also makes it easier to implement HCORT underground. While
full tunnelling is still expensive, another option that will often allow HCORT guideways
to be created economically is to go underground using cut and cover. This is
particularly easy under footpaths, bike paths, grass verges and through parks but
should be reasonably cost efficient to implement under most roads.
The availability of methods to create this grade separated network at ground level or
as cut and cover below ground is important in the suburbs not just due to their low
costs but due to the strong opposition by many residents to having elevated structures
near their homes.
Where no suitable space at or below ground level is available, the small size and
weight of HCORT vehicles make creating an elevated guideway very economical.

This is likely to be the main implementation in inner cities. Along with the small size
and weight, the fact that all vehicles are electric and consequently without exhaust
problems will allow the guideways, particularly the sidings and stations, to often be
created such that they go through the second, third or fourth floor of multistory
buildings.
The very low maximum axle weight will also reduce the needed road maintenance to a
small fraction of that required for our current freeways.
Public Transit and Dual Mode Private Vehicle Use
While PRT concepts that this design is based on, don’t require the ability of private
vehicles to also be able to use the guideways, the HCORT design extends the PRT
concepts to allow this. This ‘dual mode’ ability of HCORT means that any appropriate
and suitably modified vehicle can use the network. On normal roads these dual mode
vehicles can be user driven or autonomous. Each dual mode vehicle must be
modified or created with the sensors and control required for HCORT vehicles. On the
HCORT network they operate as driverless vehicles.
It is expected that initially, the new traffic carrying capacity of HCORT would
predominantly be used for public transit rather than private vehicles. This is required
as otherwise there would be a chicken and egg problem of not enough HCORT
guideways to justify people getting HCORT compatible vehicles and not enough traffic
on the initially deployed guideways to justify putting in more HCORT traffic carrying
capacity guideways.
Over time, with a larger HCORT network, there may well be a high percentage of use
by private vehicles. The public will determine how much of the network use is by
private vehicles by their decisions to purchase HCORT compatible vehicles versus
using the public transit vehicles, and indirectly via decisions by politicians elected by
this public.
The PRT concepts incorporate public stations where people can board or exit vehicles.
These not only implement public transit in an economical manner, but also provide
destinations for dual use vehicles. The network will provide repositioning and parking
of privately owned vehicles until the users request that their vehicle be available for
reboarding.
The small size of HCORT vehicles plus the fact that the users will not be in the
vehicles when they are parked plus the speed and control of the network all help to
create low cost solutions to the cost of parking. It also means that the car batteries
can be charged while it is parked.

HCORT implements public stations using a separate lower speed feeder network
composed of thrulanes and sidings. Sidings are used for vehicles to stop such as
when passengers enter or exit.
The thrulanes implement the PRT concept that vehicles that don’t need to stop at a
particular station can quickly bypass the station without being held up by stationary
vehicles on the sidings. As thrulanes are often implemented parallel and close to
sidings, they can often also be used as manoeuvring lanes for the vehicles on sidings.
The feeder network and low maximum height of HCORT vehicles is designed so that
when implemented in outer suburbs, it is easy to provide grade separation using a
near grade guideway network. “Near grade” is defined in the previous sub section
‘HCORT Construction Cost Advantages’ This near grade design allows the majority of
the guideway network to be implemented very economically at or near ground level.
HCORT changes the public transit system methodology of passenger pickup. Instead
of vehicles travelling around scheduled routes, vehicles are simple repositioned by
system computers to go to the stop most likely needing it. The vehicles simply wait at
stops until used there or until repositioned by system control. For all times outside of
peak, when a user goes to an HCORT station, they will almost always find a vehicle
waiting for them to take them on their journey. If a vehicle isn't there, the user
requests one and the system will send one to that station.
Under most circumstances, once users obtain a vehicle it takes them direct to their
destinations by the shortest route. In some installations there may be exceptions to
this in peak hours if certain ride sharing systems are implemented but these are
invariably optional.
HCORT recommends that there are at least two types of public transit vehicles
available at HCORT stations. The two types recommended are herein called Transit
Microbuses and Podcars.
Transit Microbuses are around the size of small cars or smaller. They provide shared
transport of up to 4 passengers but do not provide any significant luggage capability.
Podcars only have one or two seats but allow carriage of considerable luggage
including bikes or prams and can be used by people with walking frames, wheel chair
users and users of disability scooters.
Users can combine a number of vehicles together to create a virtual trailer or virtual
train where a user controls a number of carriages throughout a journey. This should
be supplemented with facilities which allow audio visual conversations between
passengers in different vehicles.

Required Progression of Current Autonomous Vehicle Efforts.
By use of the word ‘required’ we are indicating requirements to lead the current
autonomous vehicle design efforts to the most optimum solution to meet the objectives
given near the beginning of this document.
Problems with Current Autonomous Vehicle Efforts

Some of the specific problems with current autonomous vehicle efforts are as follows:
1. Autonomous vehicles being allowed to operate on our current roads, mixed with
non autonomous vehicles, will lead to more congested traffic than we currently
have. In most cities, road congestion is already a major problem and without
this HCORT type of solution, it is near insolvable. Note that road congestion is
the main problem that HCORT is attempting to solve.
2. Most current autonomous efforts don’t include the ability to charge the electric
vehicle’s batteries while the vehicles are in motion. This means that the
vehicles are required to include large batteries which are a major part of the
vehicle’s weight as well as a major part of the vehicle cost. It also means that
the vehicles need to spend a long time stationary between journeys in order to
charge the batteries.
3. While we may be able to get autonomous vehicles mixing in with ordinary traffic
to be somewhat safer than current driver operated automobiles, it is not
expected to have anywhere near the low level of passenger deaths and injuries
that are associated with public transport such as suburban trains. Consequently,
a shift of public transit passengers, for example from trains to autonomous
vehicles, will lead to an increase in passenger deaths and injuries.
4. Current autonomous designs make heavy use of optical sensors. Optical

methods have substantial problems with dust, snow, hail, rain, fog, insects and
buildup of dirt etc.
5. Current technologies for positioning (ie GPS) have significant variability, even
after the available corrections have been applied. The width of guideways
required can be significantly reduced using other technologies and these other
technologies will give better overall reliability across all weather conditions.
Interestingly, the sensors in vehicles required for HCORT implementation are
very much cheaper than the sensors required to make a vehicle autonomous.
6. Current technologies being used for autonomous vehicles use radio wave

technology both for positioning (ie GPS) and communication. These radio wave
technologies are particularly susceptible to inference. Particularly worrying is
purposeful interference as it will have the capability to be targeted at specific
individuals.
7. The current electromagnetic network spectrum is already overcrowded. The

use of this electromagnetic spectrum for communication to road control or other
vehicles, as many of the current autonomous efforts are incorporating, will lead
to more problems for the current use of the electromagnetic spectrum as well as
problems for this additional use.
8. Current autonomous efforts do not do much to solve the problems and cost of
parking such as the cost of parking in Central Business Districts.
Optimal Solution for the Problems with Current Autonomous Vehicle Efforts
Good solutions to all the above problems are able to be created by creating new High
Capacity guideways based on a modern version of Personal Rapid Transit (PRT)
concepts. These high capacity guideways are purely for vehicles that are under the
full control of the network.
Problem 1: As seen in HCORT Throughput Calculations, each HCORT roadway

guideway provides massive throughput. As seen in the subsections HCORT
Construction Cost Advantages, the cost of these roadway guideways is very
economical. Consequently HCORT solves the problems of congestion whereas
autonomous vehicles create it.
Problem 2: The HCORT design provides power to the electric vehicles while they are
being used. Regardless of this, the vehicles are still required to have some electrical
storage. This could be batteries, capacitors, ultracapacitors (also called
supercapacitors) or a combination of these. As the vehicles all have at least this small
storage capacity, the parts of the HCORT network providing power can be reduced to
small safe stretches at some distance apart.
Problem 3: The following features of HCORT network should make it extremely safe:
• HCORT roadways are restricted to only HCORT compatible vehicles
• All HCORT vehicles are under the full control of the HCORT system
• HCORT roadway guideways provide very precise positioning
• HCORT roadway guideways are fully fenced off so no pedestrians or intruders
can be on the roadway
• HCORT vehicles contain a number of other sensors so that the system can take
appropriate action for any dangers that may eventuate
• As detailed in the following, HCORT uses positioning and communications

techniques that stop terrorist and other attacks using electomagnetic jamming
techniques
• As per problem 4: above, the HCORT vehicles do no rely on any optical sensors
Problem 5: It is the view of this author, that current efforts to design or implement
dedicated driverless vehicle guideways while using sensors designed for making
vehicles autonomous, are far from optimal. Any use of radio wave technology, for
either communications or GPS positioning, will create the possibility of terrorism
attacks or other security concerns as well as a lower overall reliability.
Better precision tracking and greater reliability will come from utilising guideway
generated positioning. In particular, using direct magnetic coupling or similar near field
electromagnetic technology within the fenced off guideways.
The HCORT design is currently based on using one or more cables that are likely to
be physically similar to leaky coaxial cables (sometimes called leaky feeders or
radiating cables) but with communication in the near field rather than full
electromagnetic radiation. These cables are placed close to but under the surface
near the centre of the guideway. Throughout most of this document they are referred
to as embedded cables. These embedded cables would have one or a number of
frequencies that they emit being used for tracking. Additional position information
would also be provided through use of small permanent magnets embedded in the
pavement.
Problem 6: Vehicle to Vehicle' (V2V) communications or 'Vehicle to Infrastructure'

(V2I) communications using radio wave technology such as that similar to Wifi as is
being experimented with autonomous vehicles will introduce security concerns and in
our overcrowded network spectrum will not have the reliability that is required.
Direct magnetic coupling or similar near field non radiant electromagnetic technology
using the embedded cables is also used to fix the previously described problems with
communications. Vehicle to embedded cable Infrustructure would use a different
frequency or set of frequencies than that used for tracking. Similarly, Infrustructure to
Vehicles via the embedded cables would use another frequency or frequencies.
Vehicle to Vehicle' (V2V) communications is done by Vehicle to embedded cable

Infrastructure and then by Infrustructure to the second Vehicle also using the
embedded cable.
With the use of embedded cables and vehicle communication transducers emitting
frequencies in the electromagnetic spectrum for vehicle tracking and Infrustructure to
Vehicle communications, these embedded cables will emit electromagnetic radiation
even though we are not using it as electromagnetic radiation. This radiation will

extend well beyond the near field. Consequently, there will be the possibility that these
are monitored by monitors external to the fences.
Vehicle to embedded cable infrastructure is restricted to the near field or close to near
field. This is achieved by limiting the reception of signals by the embedded cable
infrastructure to signals of a magnitude that would not be reasonable to achieve from
external to the guideway fences.
Problem 7: The reduction in use of our overcrowded network spectrum is also needed
for the benefit of our Telecommunication networks and other radio spectrum users.
Problem 8: As explained in the previous section on Dual Mode Private Use, the
system provided repositioning and parking of privately owned vehicles means low cost
solutions to parking combined with automatic battery charging while parked.

Introduction to HCORT from the PRT Prospective:
Personal Rapid Transit (PRT), called Podcars in Europe, is a set of principles for
transportation systems that can be summarised as follows:
Public Transit being direct point to point provided by small driverless

vehicles on a network of express guideways
An expanded definition of PRT is given in an Appendix entitled 'USA's Official

Position'.
HCORT is a combination of guideways for privately owned vehicles and for public
transit vehicles whereas PRT is normally just concerned with the public transit
function.
Although HCORT advances the principles of PRT, it still assumes that most of the
underlying principles of PRT are correct and that PRT takes us towards a more optimal
transportation system. For this reason, the document below has a demonstration
created by this author to show the advantages of PRT for the public transit function:
Ken Dawber's Demonstration Analysis of PRT's Advantages
The following is a demonstration of how the principles of Personal Rapid Transport

(PRT) take public transit systems towards optimal.
Lets start with current public transit types such as 'Bus Rapid Transit' (BRT) or 'Light
Rail'. With these transport types, good public transit systems can have the following
characteristics:
a) Vehicles run on a dedicated path that acts like a freeway (expressway) between
stops.
b) For most stops, the vehicles determine if there is a passenger or potential

passenger requesting that the vehicle stops, and only needs to stop for such
requests.
When these characteristics are implemented, both of these transport types are
superior to other types that don't offer these characteristics. Note that there are also
many transport systems labelled as Bus Rapid Transport or Light Rail that don’t have
these characteristics.

Now let us take a route in medium density and assume that the BRT or Light Rail ran
every 10 minutes in some period.
When we look at vehicles on these transport systems we typically find them as large
articulated vehicles.
5 double door per side tram / light rail vehicle used in Melbourne, Australia.
What would happen if instead of going bigger, we went the other way and made them
smaller. Lets take each of the current large vehicles and split it into say 20 smaller
mini people movers, but keep the same number of passengers on the system. This
would cause the following changes:
1. Now, when passengers wait at a stop, they would only wait for up to 30 seconds
rather than up to 10 minutes.
2. With the low number of passengers embarking and disembarking the vehicles
only rarely stop at any stop. Consequently, the passengers get to their
destination in less than half the time.
3. The vehicles complete their route in less than half the time so they can go
around the route more than twice in the time the larger vehicle would have gone
around once. This means that we actually need less than half of those 20
vehicles to transport the same number of passengers.
4. The rarity of the vehicles stopping mean that this system already uses less

energy, and as a consequence, less damaging effects to the environment.
Further changes to network to take it to PRT specifications, as specified below
will make it that the energy used is substantially less than that of the original
transport type.
5. The rarity of the vehicles stopping also mean that the system will have a far
lower vehicle maintenance cost as maintenance cost is closely related to the
number of starts and stops the vehicles make. Similarly, the durability of the
vehicles will be substantially increased.
6. The large vehicles of BRT and Light Rail do not scale well for off peak operation.
The small vehicles can economically operate for 24 hours per day, seven days
per week.
Now there are obviously a few things that are not realistic with this.
1. When light rail vehicles and some BRT vehicles stop at a stop they hold up
those behind. This needs to be fixed but the fact that these vehicles are very
small allows the fix for this. We can now make smaller tracks for the vehicles.
The freed up width can now be used to place sidings along the side for the
stops, leaving the main route as a full freeway (expressway), not just a freeway
between stops. The overall area used by the system is still less than the original
system.
2. This is so good for the users that many people will stop using their cars and use
this public transit system. As a consequence the figures would change
drastically. In the case of public transit, this increase in use has to be treated as
a further advantage as it primarily comes from a conversion from standard car
use.
3. One is tempted to think that the vehicle cost per passenger would be more with
the small vehicles. Current costs are actually the opposite of that. This is gone
over in an Appendix entitled 'Size Matters'. Consequently, as well as needing
less than 10 small vehicles to replace the equivalent of 20 small vehicles, the
cost per passenger is significantly less.
4. Up to recently, each of these vehicles needed drivers, which would make it

uneconomic. In effect this demonstrates that the only advantage of the trend
towards large articulated vehicles is to put drivers out of work. The overall trend
of technology is to automate everything and we can expect that in time most
public transport vehicles on dedicated paths will be driverless, whether massive
in size or micro. With current costs of technology, once designed, the
incremental costs of automating additional vehicles is minor.

While the above has taken us towards PRT, it is not yet fully PRT. Other changes are
needed to take this to the PRT specifications and these changes help to optimise the
network even further. These changes are as follows:
1. PRT changes the system methodology of passenger pickup. Instead of vehicles

travelling around scheduled routes, vehicles are simple repositioned by system
computers to go to the stop most likely needing it. This is discussed in the
previous ‘Public Transit and Dual Mode Private Vehicle Use’ section.
2. Normal PRT has the vehicles available for the exclusive use of an individual or
small group travelling together by choice. Consequently, user's don't have to
stop for other travellers to embark and disembark. Transit Analysis show that
nonstop journeys are about three times as fast as those at the same speed but
with intermediate stops used for embarking and disembarking passengers.
3. Travel is point-to-point anywhere in the network in the most direct route and
without having to change vehicle. With traditional public transport, the user has
to go out of their way to get interconnections to achieve travel to many
destinations. For example, go into the city to get an interconnection to a route
coming back out from the city, sometimes to a destination reasonably close to
the origin. This becomes a lot more important when the network grows to cover
the city.
4. PRT often recommends even smaller vehicles than the 20th of the large
articulated vehicle in the above analysis. Optimal sizes in terms of minimisation
of energy are normally calculated as being in 1 to 3 people per vehicle although
most PRT designs are 2 to 6 people per vehicle. The extra size allows a family
or group to stay together.
5. The automated network makes it easy to provide a network that is available for
use 24 hours a day, 7 days a week.
6. To make BRT or Light Rail efficient in peak periods, most implementations keep
each of the stops a long distance apart as compared to standard bus or tram
stop distances. With some PRT implementations, or at least with the HCORT
implementation, there is now no need for this. Stops can be closer together
and the system runs just as efficiently.
7. As dedicated guideways for small vehicles are cheaper than dedicated

guideways for large vehicles, PRT principles recommend networks that have a
higher density of guideways covering an area, than that seen with BRT, Light
Rail or trains.

Business Case for HCORT:
Implied in the above PRT demonstration was a significant number of stops or stations
in the route. This assumption is correct for most bus, light rail, train, tram etc routes.
So long as that assumption is correct then the advantages are spectacular in all
categories, economics, service to customer and energy use/environmental.
Take away the assumption and the economics or advantages become doubtful. For
example, a new route from an airport to city centre may only have stations at either
end. In this case there is still the possibility of an economic case based on high
throughput with a cheaper guideway due to the lighter vehicles, but disadvantages
such as risk with new technology make for a doubtful case. From this situation
onwards, the advantages of PRT rapidly become spectacular as the number of stops
or stations on the route increase. The results become even more spectacular when
the complexity of the network such as number of routes increases.
PRT would normally provide additional traffic carrying capacity. Current traffic (road,
rail, other public transport etc) can continue with no or only little hindrance and PRT
provides additional traffic carrying capacity. This is different to many light rail and BRT
deployments which are often installed as a modification to current roads.
With its provision of a public transit, it is tempting to look at places most needing public
transport as the most needed places to use this technology. It is this author's opinion
that that is not the case. Rather, the places that have worst and most unsolvable
problems of road gridlock will provide the best economic case.
The provision of public transit is best considered as part of the solution to the current
problems of congestion. Simulations that accurately predict that 2% or 3% of trips will
switch to traditional public transport like trains, predict that over 50% of trips would
switch to a PRT public transit like HCORT.
When examining the catchment area of the gridlocked roads, some parts are likely to
have poor public transport. Even if this area doesn't have poor public transport, the
addition of an HCORT system is still likely to be able to solve the current congestion or
gridlock of our roads.
In the future, places that have a good road system but didn't have a good public
transport system may have their public transport problems fixed by autonomous taxis.
While HCORT has its advantages such as better speed and safety, autonomous taxis
have their advantages such as not requiring a new guideway to be built.
Many areas that have poor public transport also have gridlocked roads. The

combination of the two will provide the best business case but where there is only one
or the other, it is this author's opinion that the best economic cases will come from
fixing the gridlocked roads rather than the need for public transport.
Current Autonomous Vehicle Dedicated Guideway Efforts.
Associated with current autonomous efforts, there are certain proposals to implement
dedicated vehicle guideways while using sensors designed for making the vehicles
autonomous combined with Wifi type communications. These would also be able to
implement platooning. The use of these guideways would be available to most
autonomous vehicles including large trucks, buses and vehicles pulling large trailers
such as caravans. In general, there is an expectation that these would be
implemented on current freeways (expressways) when there are sufficient
autonomous vehicles to justify dedicating a lane to it.
While these current efforts lack many of the benefits that the HCORT proposal has,
they have the advantage of including large trucks and other large vehicles. As such,
the HCORT proposal should not be seen as an alternative, but as a further needed
addition.
Without the Personal Rapid Transit (PRT) requirements of small width of roadway,
small height of vehicles and low maximum axial weight, these guideways would not be
economically feasible for most roads that are not already designed as freeways. Due
to their use of sensors designed for making the vehicles autonomous, it is this authors
opinion that they would not be able to achieve the same safety as the HCORT
proposal.
While the HCORT proposal also works well with reuse of freeways (expressways), the
vast majority of it will be implemented within the current road network handling
suburban city traffic that is not well serviced by current freeways (expressways) or in
unused areas such as along the side of rail lines or along creek beds. Current
dedicated guideways for autonomous efforts are primarily designed for reuse of
current freeway lanes and would not work well in most of these other places.

Background:
The background to this is the history of Personal Rapid Transit (PRT) [11]. Since the
late 1960s there has been substantial research efforts on PRT with most of this being
in the 1970s and 1980s. A number of the design attempts ended up as expensive
failures. Those that were completed are or were only suitable as low capacity
systems.
How much the design project failures were due to the concepts being wrong, the
immaturity of the technology of the day, politics, the efforts of those organisations or
people that believed that they would be negatively affected by this technology, poorly
managed or engineered projects or just bad luck etc. are issues that remain hotly
debated.
Much of what is included in the concepts herein is based on the authors research on
the problems that occurred in these projects and is an attempt to circumvent or
otherwise not make the same mistakes.
Regardless of these earlier expensive failures, along with the controversy on the
concepts, there has recently been major research studies by, or on behalf of, the
transport authorities of both the USA and Europe. As a consequence of these studies,
it can be stated that the position of transport authorities in both the USA and Europe is
that we should be directing research towards implementing PRT/ATN/podcars.
Details on the findings of these studies, including a description of the main

PRT/ATN/podcar concepts, is included in Appendix 1.
Term Definitions and other Notes:
Automatic Transit Networks (ATN) is another name for PRT that is being used in the
USA. Some users of the term ATN use it to broaden the networks included to include
the larger vehicles (up to 25 passengers) of Group Rapid Transit (GRT). Regardless
of whether it is called ATN, PRT or podcars, the name used in the USA to cover all
automation of transport, particularly by the US Department of Transport, is Intelligent
Transportation Systems (ITS).
The term 'Public Transport' has many problems in its definition. The original concept
was that 'public' was used like it is used in 'public schools' with the word 'public'
meaning it is provided by the state. With such a large amount of what is considered
public transport being provided by private companies such as private bus companies,

this concept has got lost.
The term 'public' could also be thought of as being 'for the public' but taxi's and hire
cars are also for the public and these traditionally have not been considered part of
public transport.
PRT systems such as HCORT provides transport for the public, supplementing or
replacing the need for traditional mass transit such as buses, trains, trams (street
cars), Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) and light rail. The problem is that it does so using a
system that is closer to being like an automated taxi system and taxis have not been
included within traditional meanings of public transport. This document uses the term
'public transit' to indicate the extension of public transport from mass transit systems to
incorporate all Automatic Transit Networks (ATN) where the vehicles are available to
the public. This includes the use of autonomous vehicles being provided for hire by the
public.
The term 'transit' is also problematic. The dictionary gives a similar meaning to
'transport' or 'transportation' but does add 'especially public transport'. Within the
transport industry, the term has a similar meaning to public transport but what this
incorporates is often not well defined.
For rapid transit systems, 'high capacity' (such as HCORT) network designs are herein
defined as designs suitable as the primary transportation network for a large city.
Historically there were two High Capacity PRT systems that were nearly completely
finished and then abandoned. One in France and one in Japan. These were 1970s
technology.
While there are a number of PRT systems [11] that are currently implemented, or are
currently in design, the only system that this author is aware of that could be
considered High Capacity is Skytran [21] [9]. That is, in this authors opinion, all other
implemented PRT systems would not be suitable for taking the majority of a large city's
traffic as this HCORT system is designed for. An appendix to this document compares
this proposal to the Skytran system which is currently in design.

A PRT vehicle in Masdar City, a planned city in Abu Dhabi, in the United Arab
Emirates
While the HCORT network described herein is a full and specific transportation
system, each of the individual principles, concepts and ideas expressed herein is able
to be used in other PRT/ATN/podcar networks and similar (such as Group Rapid
Transport).
One of the reasons for creating this document and getting it published was to assure
that the many ideas within it are published and are therefore in the public domain.

Cooperative Design
Previous High Capacity PRT (HCPRT) network designs have been attempted by single states or
single countries. While these have often been by private enterprise, typically they have been
funded by that state's government. A central reason for the funding has been the attempt to
make that country dominant in the manufacture and supply of such networks.
It is the view of this author, that the world's need for this type of network should be taken at the
primary reason for its design, development and test. That is, the achievement of the objectives
such as getting rid of grid lock in our city traffic, the reduction of pollution, reducing the deaths
and injuries due to road accidents etc. As such, the need for this to be designed should be
treated in a similar manner to that of reducing global pollution. That is, it is best achieved as a
cooperative effort across a large number of states or countries.
The example of the very successful Vienna Convention and Montreal Protocol for protection of
the world's ozone layer shows that cooperative efforts can work. Treating the job of design,
development and test in this manner is in many ways simpler and easier than that of global
pollution agreements due to the following:
• Each country or state that participates gains significant advantages. These advantages
are given in more detail in the next sub section of this document entitled “Advantages
for states to take part in the design”
• The earlier a country or state starts to participate, the more advantage they will gain. For
example, early participants will have more input into the overall design and resulting
standards.
• There isn't any need for all countries to participate. In particular, there is no need for
developing or poor countries to participate unless they want to.
• The cost to each country or state to take part in this design, development and test is very
much lower than that required from the pollution agreements.
• As well as sovereign states, states within countries can join.
• While it is anticipated that only government organisations that have joined will have
voting rights or project control, other organisations such as vehicle manufactures and
universities can gain advantage by donating resources to the project.
A cooperative effort by a significant proportion of the industrialised nations will make the cost
to each state or country very small. The suggested design itself is naturally modular. It is very
easy for the various parts to be designed, developed and tested within different participating
countries.
While final implementations should not be connected to the internet, the backbone
communications system linking all the control elements will be an Intranet that is compatible
with the internet. Consequently, for design, development and test purposes, the internet can be

used for communication purposes allowing for example, software to run in one country
controlling test vehicles in another part of the globe. Of course, the communication would
have to be secured with appropriate encryption and resend protocols.
Advantages for states to take part in the design
It is envisaged that the various states and countries that take part in the design, will do so
primarily by taking on the design, development and test of various components, with the
various transportation authorities employing these designers. Ultimately, these designers
become the experts in this type of system so when the state or transport authority employing
them ultimately implements a network, the fact that they are already employing the experts will
mean that they are likely to have less problems in their implementations.
Advantages for states to take part in the design include the following:
• Designers become experts in the system so when the state or transport authority
employing them ultimately implements a network, they are likely to have less problems.
• States that take part will have first access to the emulation facilities and testing track
facilities to test out their own proposed implementation. Included in this is the need to
test out all the needed software with an implementation the same or close to that
proposed.
• The Intellectual Property of the design of machinery for automated construction remains
the property of the project. Although this would then be released to manufacturers
without monetary payment, the release could be with the proviso that project
participants would have preference to the machinery produced using the information,
ahead of non participants.
• States that take part are in a position to specify aspects of the designs and standards that
are suitable for their cities.
• The people of the states that have taken part can feel comfortable that they have done
their bit to help the world for such items as reducing pollution and reducing road deaths
and trauma.
Early Design and Development Phases
The following are some early phases in the design and development. These phases are likely to
overlap.
Initialisation Phase
Initialisation Phase should include promoting the overall concept to all states and nations.
Bring into the cooperative as many as possible nations, states and others that will contribute to
the development. The type of development done in this early phase is likely to include the

following:
• Create diagrams that demonstrate the envisaged transportation network.

• Create animated films that demonstrate the concepts.
• Create working scale models suitable for demonstration purposes.
Designing the Cooperative:
The cooperative planning phase needs to settle the following questions;
• Voting rights etc

• Who manages or controls the various parts of the project, both technical and other
• Which parts of the design is assigned to which entities
• Rules for countries, states or other entities to enter or leave the cooperative
• Rules on use of test tracks for testing specific state configurations.
• Participant rules relating to Public Domain vs Intellectual Property rights
There needs to be minimum requirements for a state to be classified as a full participant. While
the minimum needs to be defined, it is expected that most participating states will be providing
resources well above their required minimum.
Each participating state should be required to employ a number of professional designers.

These could be engineers, programmers, project managers or scientists. The minimum number
for each state will be related to the size of their non rural population such as a minimum of one
professional designer per million non rural population.
There needs to be some specification for the classification of professional designer which will
probably include a minimum requirement of a relevant University Degree. As well as
professional designers each state would also need to employ technicians etc.
Each state will also be required to either provide additional resources (such as converted
vehicles to be used on the test track) or additional finance for the project. The main reason for
the additional resources is to help finance the test track(s) which will be a substantive effort
placed on individual state(s). It may also be used to even out the resource effort per non rural
population but it is not intended for that except in the case of major inequities.
Any use of the collected finance or other resources, other than for the test tracks, would have to
be approved by a majority of the participants.
Initial Transportation Network Planning Phases:

The initial participants need to agree on an initial overall design. The following section,

entitled “The Central Principles of Ken Dawber's HCORT Design”, provides in an abbreviated
list form most of the elements that need to be settled on. It should be noted that many of the
items in this list would benefit from further research to ascertain whether they are optimal. For
example, do the advantages of having a latched coupling justify the additional cost to the
vehicles?
Overall, in the later sections of this document a potential initial design is provided. Note that
designs such as HCORT are likely to change as development progresses.
Project Estimates[110]:
While the project planning will include and expand upon all that is herein within this 'Early
Design and Development Phases' section, it ultimately needs to attempt the following two
items.
• Project cost estimations

• Project time estimations
The 'Sydney Opera House Design Problem' is that we cannot provide reliable estimates of cost
or time to implement any large complex thing that is very different to anything previously built,
previous to building it. When things are sufficiently different, they generally end up costing
several times the cost of anything that could be estimated at the beginning.
The problem worsens when attempts are made to take this into account. Each person, group or
section involved in the design or implementation expands their resource uses to use up the extra
allocated. When problems ultimately surface, the extra resources allocated have already been
used.
There needs to be a recognition that until each project or sub-project is at least 10 per cent
completed, the management and designers will not have enough information to make reliable
cost or time estimates. The best that management can do is to subdivide the project into stages
and only give time and cost estimates for the stages about to happen. Unfortunately, this will
mean that financial budgets are only allocated for these early stages.
Note that while this document doesn't provide anything that will substantially modify the
estimation risks of this design project, the objectives have the objective of
“Reducing estimation risks associated with building advanced new transportation
networks”
That is, the HCORT design project should as deliverables produce tools to help allow cost and
time estimates of building or purchasing these new guideway networks and the fleet of public

transit vehicles.
As the government organisations managing this design project will generally be the purchasers
of the resultant network, it is hoped that they would not have the incentives to underestimate
implementation costs, overestimate revenues, undervalue environmental impact, and overvalue
economic development effects that private industry have [111].
Preliminary or Conceptual Estimates:
The following are Class 5 [https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cost_estimate][110] preliminary or

conceptual estimates of cost and time for the project. These estimates are given in US $ as is
traditional for international project estimates but better estimates will be based on man years
work of professional designers as we don’t know where the design work will be performed.
There are major cost differences between cost per man year of work performed in different
countries such as work performed in Russia versus work performed in Australia etc.
The majority of the essential parts of the minimum project is software design and testing, this
being both software within the vehicle and software for the infrastructure. Excluding testing,
the cost per programmer is lower than cost per other design professional for most parts of the
extended project as the programmers don’t need many additional technicians and a large part of
their work can be done with just a desk and computer.
As a rough average through out the world, this document assumes that for each degree
qualified design professional, an average of one technician or other design support personal is
needed. Using this we assume an average cost per year per design professional plus support
personal pair is US $200,000. This includes all overheads including buildings, cost of parts
and materials etc. This provides that for each US million dollars equivalent per year spent we
would get the output of five qualified design professionals plus five design support personal.
The assumption herein is that the project has some minimum requirements for each participant.
The major part of this is best given in terms of number of degree qualified design professionals
plus number of support personal. For parts that need a high or low percentage of technicians,
there needs to be some equivalent calculation. Perhaps each degree qualified professional is
treated as the equivalent of two support personal.
Initial Project Deliverable:

The initial project deliverable will be a preliminary HCORT interface specification. Many
companies are designing or building product based on such preliminary interfaces and it is
hoped that the availability of such a specification will get companies to start designing product
around that specification long before the project completes.

Estimates of time required for the Initial Project Deliverable:
There should be a document detailing the expected interface well before 6 months after the
project starts. This is likely to be released as a ‘Request for Comments’ document.
Private industry has many times shown that they are prepared to design real world product just
on preliminary interface specifications.
A preliminary HCORT interface specification should be released within 12 months of the

project starting. Note that the release of this document is long before it has been fully tested.
Minimum Project Estimates:

It is hoped that this project will attract a large number of states to participate, such that the
project includes a lot more than is specified for a minimum project. Many hands make light
work. Regardless, we need to examine what could happen if the hoped for number of
participants is far less than we would like. For this eventuality, we define and examine an
absolutely minimum project that would make it worth while to proceed.
This document provides many alternatives that implementing cities are able to implement. The
following ‘Minimum Project Estimate’ is based on the project participants picking a specific
implementation type early in the design and only designing and testing that type. With this
minimum project, most of the structural design, such as how to build an elevated HCORT
station above a train station, would be put off to the first implementation cities and therefor
isn’t included.
The following cost estimate is just the design cost. It doesn’t include actual implementation
costs that will occur when the cities try to implement it. The suggested design methodology
requires participants to plan actual proposed implementations early in the project. Costs
associated with this are not included.
An estimate of the cost of implementing and testing the essential parts of the project sufficient
to allow cities to implement an HCORT network is US $100 million dollars across 5 years.
That is, US $20 million dollars per year.
Between 10 and 20 per cent of this would be the cost of purchasing electric vehicles to be used
on the test track and making appropriate modifications to these vehicles. This estimate is
based on a need for 200 vehicles for this testing.
Fifty per cent of the above estimate is the estimate of the cost of making the test track,
including purchasing the vehicles, and testing using the test track(s). Note that there is a lot of
testing going on before this. When one also takes in the cost of changes required due to

problems found in testing, the overall cost of testing becomes at least 60 per cent of the project.
The assumption for this minimum project is that the land used for the test track(s) is either
provided free or leased at a low cost or uses a desert like area where land is not very valuable.
A minimum 10 participating states with an average contribution of 8 professional

designers/state plus an additional contribution of $400,000 per year per state would provide:
80 professional designers plus 80 technicians or similar support personal and associated costs
@ $200,000/year/professional designer
= $16 million / year
= US$80 million / 5 year project
plus an additional contribution of $400,000/yr x 5 years x 10 states = US$20 million
The average cost per participating state is $2 million per year for 5 years.
Largest or Full Project Estimates:
Attempting to implement a full complement of recommended projects similar to the list of

possible projects given below, plus others that the initial team or the public is likely to
recommend would bring the initial cost estimate to one billion US dollars.
While the full project is estimated to be a minimum five year project, the additional resources
that would added to the essential parts of the project should allow completion of the minimal
essential parts of the project within 3 to 4 years.
The financial requirement for this is for the total of all participants to provide $200 million
dollars per year for five years. If we assumed 100 participants for the expanded project, the
costs remain at $2 million per year for 5 years on average for each participant. Alternatively,
ten participating states by themselves could do the full project or some similar expanded
project with an average cost of US$20 million per year for 5 years.
Project Management Methodology or Systems Engineering

Standard:
This HCORT system is large and complex and many of the components of it are also large and
complex. A key requirement for the management of this is a strategy for the decomposition of
such systems into smaller subsystems and then of the subsystems into more manageable
hardware and software components.
To achieve this, early in the setting up of the initial project, the initial participants need to agree
on a common standard for their Project Management and Design methodology or Systems
Engineering for all participants to use for the management of their projects.

The US Department of Transport, along with their Federal Highway Administration and
Federal Transit Administration, created and published a standard for Systems Engineering
which is to be used by all Intelligent Transportation System (ITS) Designs throughout USA.
The document that this is published in, is entitled:
“Systems Engineering for Intelligent Transportation Systems

An Introduction for Transportation Professionals”
The document is available for download from the internet and appears to now be in the public
domain. Just as this initial design document is intended to be able to be read by all design
participants regardless of their expertise area, the above System Engineering for ITS has been
written to allow all design participants to understand and use the concepts regardless of their
expertise area.
It should be noted that the Cooperative Project as herein described is only about the initial
design and test of the common components. Systems Engineering, both as a concept and as
used in this document is designed to cover all of the management of this plus the management
of each of the participants final implementations along with their complete life cycles. As a
consequence of this, large parts of what is required by this standard are not included in the
previous estimates of cost.
The assumption made in this document is that this System Engineering for Intelligent
Transportation Systems (ITS) will be used by all participants. Consequently, it will classified
as the herein suggested design methodology.
Some parts of the analysis recommended in System Engineering for ITS do not fit in with this
project. For example, as far as procurement options for the final implementations, there will be
an assumption that they will quickly become available once the standards or preliminary
standards are defined. Consequently, implementation procurement options can not be
adequately analysed until very late in the design.
The System Engineering for ITS is based on “V” systems engineering model with wings.
Many different process models have been developed over the years that specify a series of steps
that make up the systems engineering approach . Among these models, the “V” model is
emerging as the de facto standard way to represent systems engineering for ITS projects.
Wings have been recently added to the “V” as part of its adaptation for ITS to show how
project development fits within the broader ITS project life cycle. The left wing shows the
regional ITS architecture, feasibility studies, and concept exploration that support initial
identification and scoping of an ITS project based on regional needs. In other words, each
participant should make initial preliminary designs of an HCORT network within one or more
of the cities it is intended for.

The central core of the “V” shows the project definition, implementation, and verification
processes. This is the part that would be used to design, test and standardise HCORT networks.
The right wing shows the operations and maintenance, changes and upgrades, and ultimate
retirement of the system. While these should be used by each participant, they are not part of
the HCORT design, test and standardise efforts. The wings are a key addition to the V model
since it is important to consider the entire life cycle during project development.
Standards Creating Phases:

The main ultimate output of the project is the standards, so they are unlikely to be finalised
until late or after the project has completed.
Regardless of this, at an early stage of the project there should be initial or preliminary
standards and/or agreements for the various design details needed in order to have compatible
systems world wide.
Following are some examples of what this should include:
• Vehicle track width, wheel size, maximum vehicle width, minimum turning circle,
maximum vehicle height, maximum vehicle weight and maximum axle weight.
• Sensors for vehicle position and tracking. Position and number of objects in the
guideway that are to be sensed by the sensors. This should include backup systems.
• Type of communication between vehicle and infrastructure, infrastructure to vehicle and

between vehicles.
• Message Protocols for messages between vehicle and infrastructure and between
vehicles.
• Frequencies to be used by Vehicle to Infrastructure and Infrastructure to Vehicles

communications
• Frequencies to be used for Vehicle Tracking.
• Message encryption.
• Definitions of messages
• Platooning specifications. Maximum length of platoon is probably better made as being

implementation dependant.

• Vehicle speeds, turn radius and banks.
• Mechanical and Electrical specifications of the latch and any bumpers at front and back
of the vehicles.
• Specifications (position, size, shape, voltage etc) of the supply rails/catenary lines. This
should include a minimum distance between the sections with supply rails/catenary
lines.
Note: Some of these may still require significant research such as whether to have rare and
small power charging supply rails/catenary lines with capacitor banks or ultracapacitors (see
section on Vehicle Design: Power) or batteries in vehicles. These details can be changed later
whenever research has shown more optimal methodology.
Preparations for Testing

At least one, and preferably several of the nations involved should be creating full test tracks.
A full test track will need large guideway lengths. This is expected to be greater than 100 km
of guideway.
The likes of Australia with many government owned large and flat desert like areas combined
with a well educated population makes it an ideal place to position such a test track. For
reduction in costs, most of this can be built at ground level without fences so long as there is a
method of keeping out people who might inadvertently stray in front of vehicles travelling at
180 km/hr.
Rather than the cost of test tracks just being borne by the countries hosting them, other
countries in the cooperative should contribute to the costs. This could be by contributing other
parts such as the vehicles. The test track will continue to have a purpose well after design
completion and full implementations exist. For example, as a way to test new versions of
software.
Appropriate Functions for a Cooperative Effort of Government

Organisations.
In most parts of the world, roads, road control systems and the rules for the use of the road are
all considered appropriate Government functions. Even where manufacture and maintenance is
pushed to private industry, a large part of the design effort tends to remain with the
Government. Ultimately when these systems fail or are considered inadequate, the
Government responsible is considered to have failed.
Typically, vehicle designs and their manufacture are considered functions for private enterprise,

although even here, many of the rules relating to their design are considered the province of
Government. The HCORT project will need completed vehicles that are compatible with the
network in order to test the network, to ensure that the standards are workable and to ensure
that design concepts brings transport design towards optimal. The suggested vehicle design has
the requirement that the project should not design or create any vehicles in total for the system.
Rather, the design or creation should be that of kits that allow modification of currently
manufactured electric cars.
Note that this is in line with the principles in the herein suggested design methodology. This
methodology states as one of its major principles to delay technology choices. It states
“Specifying technology too early will result in outdated technology or constant baseline
changes as you try to keep up with technology advancements.”
While the overall intent of the document is to enable the initial design and resultant set of
standards, much of the detail included herein would not be included in these initial design
specifications. Details included herein such as the following:
• suggested initial implementation strategies
• envisaged peak period utilisation strategies
• configurations/topology/topography
are documented herein in order to get a full understanding of a typical network after
implementation but each such detail would remain optional to each individual country or cities
implementation. The initial created design and standards simply need to ensure that everything
complements rather than hinders these implementation details.

The Central Principles of Ken Dawber's HCORT Design
The Central Principles of Ken Dawber's HCORT Design are as follows:
1. The Minimum Project or base design needs to be based on technologies that are proven
as currently economically optimal or near optimal. While there are many technologies
that show great promise for the future the addition of each such technology adds risk to
this project. The size of the advantages that the base HCORT design provides, justifies
getting it done with the least additional risk. This doesn't mean that these other
technologies shouldn't be worked on as alternative implementations in expanded
projects, but the base system should be initially designed tested and implemented
without them. Other technologies can then be implemented into specific guideways,
preferable in such a way that vehicles designed for the new technologies are also able to
work on the initial implementation. Promising technologies of the future that are not yet
economically proven include magnetic levitation, ground effect vehicles, linear motors,
evacuated tube and roadway magnetic resonant coupling.
2. Initial design, development and test is best performed as a cooperative effort across a
large number of states and countries. More information on this is provided in a section
entitled “Cooperative Design”.
3. All states and countries that will implement an HCORT system or similar will benefit
from international standards and/or agreements that specify details of guideways,
vehicles, interfaces and communication protocols.
4. Vehicles must be based on four or more wheels with rubber or rubber like tyres which
do not require rails. These tyres will probably be pneumatic although there are other
alternatives. Reasons for rubber like tyres are:
◦ Allows Dual Mode. That is, allows vehicles to also run on normal roads.
◦ Ability to use standard car technology for suspension, wheels, brakes, steering, shock
absorbers etc.
◦ Reduces Intellectual Property problems. Cities don't want to run on a road or
guideway system where some private company owns rights to it.
◦ Rubber tyres don't have switching problems that are inherent in most other
guideways. A vehicle on tyres can individually steer even when travelling fast and
close to other vehicles. With most other means of guideway there are major
problems with trying to steer individual vehicles differently to those just before and
after when vehicles are running fast.
◦ Vehicles are able to stop (brake) and start (accelerate) quickly
◦ Quiet
◦ Good ability to handle steep grades

◦ Vastly superior cost per capabilities.
◦ Large range of vehicles already developed.
5. The overall base system design should be open source, open design and in the public
domain. It is critical that all guideway definitions are in the public domain. Specifically,
the guideway design itself, all interface definitions and the design of any component
required by vehicles must be in the public domain. Reasons for this include the
following:
◦ Cities don't want to run on guideways (alternatives to roads or rail) where some
privately owned company owns the rights to it.
◦ Needed in order to create appropriate international standards as it is not appropriate
to create international standards that that have a requirement of purchasing
intellectual property rights from a privately owned company.
6. Should allow specially designed vehicles to utilise the system where the vehicle also has
the ability to drive on normal roads. i.e. Dual mode vehicles.
7. HCORT stations serve a similar purpose to taxi stands (taxi ranks) or bus stops. Rather
than having stations along the HCORT freeways, all stations are part of a feeder network
of side branches made up of thrulanes and sidings. These branches are typically at or
near a right angle to the HCORT freeway, with many stations some distance away from
the HCORT freeways. Each station is on a siding. Reasons for this feeder network are
as follows:
1. Due to the fact that multiple HCORT stations on feeder networks can now share
acceleration/deceleration lanes, the cost per station is decreased.
2. Due to the lower speeds on the feeder network, the cost to produce this feeder
network is substantially less.
3. This substantially increases the percentage of the population that the system services.
4. Not having HCORT stations alongside HCORT freeways makes it easier to fit the
HCORT freeways into existing roads while still providing access to properties on
those roads.
8. The HCORT network system uses multiple types of guideway. The guideway types
required for the minimum project are as follows:
◦ HCORT freeways (expressways) providing fast speed and high traffic throughput.
◦ Deceleration and acceleration lanes. These are normally next to the main HCORT
freeways. These are sufficient in length for the speed change plus some buffering of
vehicle position to allow the vehicles to merge into the stream of traffic they are
entering.
◦ Feeder Network Thrulanes. The PRT requirement that vehicles don’t have to stop at
a station when other vehicles have stopped at the station, is implemented by
thrulanes. Thrulanes typically connect a small group of stations via their associated
sidings to one or more HCORT freeways via their deceleration and acceleration

lane(s). For this, they often start at the exit from a deceleration lane and end at the
entry to an acceleration lane. Additional thrulanes can be created by diverge and
merge from other thrulanes to expand the feeder network. A particular type of
thrulane is the HCORT station manoeuvring lane that occurs in larger stations.
◦ Feeder Network Sidings. These are used for allowing vehicles to come to a stop as
needed for passengers to enter and exit a vehicle or to park a vehicle. Sidings start as
a diverge from a thrulane, and most end with a merge to a thrulane. Exceptions to
the above merge occur in parking lots for HCORT vehicles. Where parking lot
sidings don’t include the merge to the thrulane, the parked HCORT vehicles need to
be backed out. After the diverge and up to the merge most sidings run close to and
parallel to a thrulane and HCORT vehicles can cross from one to the other at any
point of this. If the thrulane has heavy traffic on it, a second thrulane can be created
between the siding and the main thrulane. This additional thrulane is used as a
manoeuvring lane.
◦ Entry lanes for dual mode vehicles connect the standard road network through to
thrulanes. From the standard road network, the entry to dual mode vehicle entry
lanes will have substantial protection to stop non compatible vehicles being able to
enter. This will include a bypass to funnel non compatible vehicles back to the
standard road network. It will also do this for pedestrians and animals that attempt to
enter.
◦ Exit lanes for dual mode vehicles connect thrulanes to the standard road network.
These dual mode vehicle exit lanes will include protection to stop vehicles, people or
animals entering it from the standard road network.
◦ Turn lanes such as U-turn lanes or lanes connecting one HCORT freeway to another.
◦ Sidelanes in the minimum project only carry traditional traffic. As the HCORT lanes
will sometimes be implemented as one way lanes in the center of a traditional
roadway, the HCORT lanes will leave a lane of traditional traffic on each side of it.
These are referred to as sidelanes. Although not used for HCORT traffic in the
minimum project, in any implementation there will normally be substantial changes
to this part of the road, such as stopping all parking at the side of the road.
9. The HCORT freeways (expressways) are designed for vehicles to travel in platoons.
Platoons are convoys or groups of vehicles that travel together like a train of carriages.
This document has assumed that freeway platoons will have up to 6 typical vehicles per
platoon although the actual number will be system dependant and dependant on the
length of each vehicle in the platoon. There is also a requirement for thrulanes, sidings,
deceleration and acceleration lanes to be able to handle a platoon of at least any three
vehicles for handling vehicle breakdowns.
10. The HCORT recommendation is for the vehicles to perform the grouping and
ungrouping into and out of platoons on the freeways at the full speed of the freeways. A
variant form of HCORT allows the vehicles to perform the grouping and ungrouping
outside freeways at very slow speeds. This variant form is not included in the

Minimum Project. This variant form allows the network to achieve a brickwall stop
criteria or near brickwall stop criteria that has traditional use in railway design. The
variant form requires additional thrulanes and sidings along with some variation in the
transportation network design. More details of this are provided in the section entitled
'Platoon Coupling and Uncoupling'
11. Should include latched platooning. When vehicles platoon, the vehicles approach each
other, gently touch and latch together. i.e. clamp, clasp, attach or otherwise fasten
together. The electronically controlled latch can be controlled by either vehicle. Reasons
for adding this latch are as follows:
◦ We currently have a history of major projects that failed due to or related to
platooning without latches. These problems included:
▪ Authorities not accepting the concept of non latched platooning (i.e. groups of
vehicles travelling close together) as a safe way to travel.
▪ Problems getting non latched platooning to work reliably and the vehicles
bumping into each other.
◦ We have a history of good safety with having vehicles latched together as trains or
trailers. Therefore, with only a very small period of time when any distance between
vehicles exists, the overall journey will be safer than having distance between
vehicles throughout the journey.
◦ The latches will have additional advantages for clearing malfunctioning vehicles
from the guideways.
◦ The latches can be used by Dual Mode vehicles to achieve a vehicle plus trailer on
the standard road network.
12. Initially, or at least for the Minimum project, projects creating or designing HCORT
systems should not design or create any vehicles in total for the system. Rather, the
design or creation should be that of kits that allow modification of standard electric cars.
Reasons for this are as follows:
◦ Electric car technology is advancing too quickly for systems designed for large
networks to keep up with. Large new networks like these will have a slow
implementation or uptake.
◦ The recommended methodology has the requirement that technology choices should
be delayed as long as possible.
◦ There is a large range of types of HCORT vehicles needed, both those described
herein and others, and a generalised kit will be needed to allow all of these to be
created.
◦ Cars originally designed for roads are a lot more sophisticated than specifically built
vehicles, particularly in terms of safety features that the HCORT system should
utilise. For example, cars are generally built with anti-locking brakes, stability
controls and air bags and all of these would be used by the HCORT passenger
vehicles.
◦ Designing specific vehicles are generally attempts to lock in the manufacturer as

always being the supplier. This will limit the usefulness of the system.
◦ Once a major implementation occurs there will be a substantial number of vehicles
purchased. With this purchasing power, there will be a large number of further
modifications implemented such as taking away the steering wheel and other
controls etc., adding an emergency exit to the front of the vehicle and only having a
very small battery.
13. The maximum height of all vehicles must be severely limited to a low height. Reasons
for this is as follows:
◦ This is needed in order to allow easy implementation of the 'near grade' sections.
◦ This makes is easier to have covered guideways in areas of high snow and ice.
◦ This is needed to allow easy implementation of tunnels, particularly the cut and
cover tunnels.
◦ This helps to lower costs while making other forms of grade separation. For
example, it helps reduce the costs of interchanges and U-turns.
◦ Reduces inconvenience to other road users. For example, ramps/bridges over the
new guideways for pedestrians and bike riders can now be low.
◦ This decreases energy consumption as it decreases wind resistance.
14. The system can utilise areas within the previous roads as a 'near grade' system through
out most of the outer suburbs. This is particularly so for the outer suburbs feeder
network as these are best placed on back streets substantially reducing implementation
costs. The HCORT freeways in many outer suburbs can run down the centre of what
was previously minor arterial or distributor roads. When these roads intersect with
standard roads the HCORT lanes will sink into the ground, creating a trench or cutting,
with a bridge over the HCORT lane for the standard road traffic. Note that this is only
'most' of the time. It is expected that there will be many streets where the use of any part
of the street will cause excessive disruption to the road traffic or for various other
reasons will not be possible. In most of these other cases the new network will be
implemented as elevated guideways, although it may be implemented as tunnels.
Economical tunnels under roadways can be implemented by cut and cover techniques.
15. All design aspects such as maximum height of vehicles will support an implementation
strategy of heavy use of near grade for creating grade separation. While the HCORT
feeder network is expected to be largely implemented as near grade, it is also expected
that near grade will be used for HCORT freeways, particularly those in the outer
suburbs. The use of near grade for thrulanes and sidings requires a large number of near
grade crossings. With most of these the HCORT lanes will sink into the ground,
creating a trench or cutting, with a slightly raised bridge over the HCORT lane for
standard road traffic. The number and placement of these bridges will depend on the
street pattern but one of the most common places they will be needed is close to the end
of the thrulanes where the thrulanes connect to deceleration or acceleration lanes.
Typically this will be close to a sharp 90 degree turn. In this case the bridge needed for

road traffic is only one side lane for road traffic plus space for pedestrians and bikes in
both directions. Only one thin HCORT lane has to be crossed over.
16. When HCORT freeways are at or near ground level or otherwise able to be accessed,
they are fenced off . The fences will also enclose the acceleration and deceleration
lanes. These fences will be substantive protection. That is, even if individuals decide to
try to intrude into the guideway, the fences will make it beyond most people's capability.
17. The feeder network connecting stations to the HCORT freeways should be composed of
dedicated HCORT feeder lanes which are fenced off from both pedestrians and standard
road traffic. As this option is the safest, it is the preferred option and is included in the
Minimum Project/base system, although other options are given in the expanded or Full
Projects. The allowed vehicle speed allocated to that part of the thrulane will be related
to the safety of that speed which will be substantially determined by the guideway
fencing.
18. Alternatives to the fully fenced off feeder network are only in an expanded or Full
Project. These alternatives include the following:
◦ Feeder network composed of roads shared between HCORT vehicles and traditional
vehicles. Special rules apply to the traditional vehicles and these traditional vehicles
must carry a special electronic device or be running a particular mobile app that
provides their position to the system and some instructions to the driver. These rules
may include the following:
▪ All drivers of standard street traffic are required to follow a set of rules that under
most circumstances will stop their vehicles interfering with HCORT vehicles.
▪ Drivers of these standard street vehicles are required to undergo a special course.
▪ Standard street vehicles using these streets must carry an electronic device that
provides the HCORT network their position. This device may also provide the
drivers instructions as to when they can move.
▪ These streets have traffic restrictions, such as only residents, so that there will be
very little standard street traffic on these streets.
▪ All vehicles (including HCORT vehicles) drive at a slow speed in these streets.
◦ Feeder network that as well as having the fenced thrulanes and sidings, allowed
HCORT vehicles to enter and travel along the sidelanes and from there enter and exit
properties. The assumptions here include the sidelanes being provisioned with the
electronic guideway facilities such as leaking cable, as well as the assumption that
HCORT vehicles shared the sidelanes with traditional vehicles. Note that if this is
included in the project, it would only be an option for each implementation. When
used, these side lanes also allow traditional road vehicles to enter properties. The
traditional vehicles must use a mobile app or electronic device for their control. This
effectively provides time multiplexing so that HCORT vehicles are not on the lane or
in the entrance to the property at the same time as traditional vehicles. Properties
will often need their kerb ramp (also called curb cut, curb ramp or dropped kerb)

extended in order to make the sharp turn entering or leaving their property.
◦ Feeder network composed of largely standard roads with vehicles providing the
public transit function being required to be autonomous road vehicles as well as
being HCORT compatible. As these vehicles are autonomous road vehicles they will
be able to pick up passengers from their own properties.
19. A range of different vehicles is designed for use with the system. These have the same
width and maximum height but can be different lengths up to a maximum length. Some
of these vehicle types are purely designed for carriage of goods or special purposes.
Goods vehicles include vehicles that can transport a standard pallet of goods with the
vehicle providing easy access for a fork lift. A maximum length vehicle may be
available which would allow the carriage of certain goods that would not fit on a pallet
such as a couch (sofa, settee) or other household items and various building materials.
All goods vehicles will be required to be fully enclosed when travelling.
20. There will be a very light maximum axle weight for all vehicles. Vehicles may have
more than two axles. Generally, the primary deterioration of roads is due to damage
from vehicles with effective damage being roughly proportional to the fourth power of
axle weight [11]. For example, a 10 tonnes heavy goods vehicle axle causes 160,000
times the damage as a 0.5 tonne car axle [11]. Multiple axles would be particularly
expected for vehicles carrying liquids such as carriage of water, beer, milk, petroleum
etc.
21. At least two types of automated driverless vehicle are available at HCORT stations. If
the particular vehicle type that a passenger wants is not at the station, then the user can
request it from a console or from a mobile phone app. Details of these two types are as
follows:
◦ Transit microbuses are around the size of small cars. They are designed for shared
transport but only allow a small number of passengers, such as 4 passengers, and
only provide simple seating. They do not provide for any significant luggage. Even
parents with prams are unable to use them with their prams. Other than peak
periods, most HCORT stations would have several microbuses waiting for
passengers. The passengers tells the microbus which station they wish to go to and
the microbus only goes to that station. For the minimum project, these transit
microbuses are always available for the exclusive use of an individual or small group
travelling together by choice. In the expanded project, other strategies to allow
better utilisation in peak periods will be examined.
◦ Podcars (also called 'Personal Rapid Transits' or PRT) allow a user to travel in a
single hop to any HCORT station through out the new system. They only have one
or two seats. They allow carriage of considerable luggage including bikes or prams
and can be used by people with walking frames, wheel chair users and users of
disability scooters. An enhanced shopping trolley is also designed for their use. The

provision of podcars provides better transportation service to otherwise excluded
people compared to that of the transit microbus system. This along with appropriate
subsidies, allows the system and the state to fulfill its obligations.
22. The speed of vehicles on the main HCORT freeways (expressways) is faster than those
normally seen on metropolitan transport. Higher speeds have the following advantages:
◦ Allows passengers to get to their destination quickly.
◦ Reduces wait time for vehicles.
◦ Reduces the number of vehicles needed for the system to transport a given
throughput.
The current Tesla Model S electric car with a maximum speed of 249km/hr is an
example of current electric car technology where the technology of our road system
hasn't kept up with the technology of the vehicles that travel on it.
23. Speeds envisaged for the initial HCORT system are as follows:
1. 180 km/hr on HCORT freeways (i.e. 112 mph)
2. 180 km then slowing to 80 km/hr in 90 degree turn from HCORT freeway to HCORT
freeway (with 10% bank)
3. 30km/hr in 90 degree turn from HCORT freeway deceleration lane to thrulane (with
10% bank) and the same for thrulane to HCORT freeway acceleration lanes.

4. 60 km/hr on thrulanes and sidings where fenced or otherwise fully separated
5. 30 km/hr on thrulanes and sidings where unfenced, as used in the Expanded or Full
Project
6. 10 or 20 km/hr on thrulane side lanes if HCORT vehicle use is incorporated onto side
lanes as options in the Expanded or Full Project allow
24. The vehicles are electric vehicles powered by battery, capacitor or super capacitor.
Power for charging is provided at various places along the HCORT freeways and while
parked at most parking bays. More details on this are provided in the section entitled
'Vehicle Design: Power'
25. In the standard or Minimum Project, the HCORT network lanes will only have power
charging supply rails/catenary lines for short periods at distances of about a kilometre
apart or at HCORT parking bays. The HCORT parking bays that provide power will
only be able to be used while there are no occupants in the HCORT vehicles. It is
recommended that each HCORT vehicle has small batteries along with capacitor banks
or ultracapacitors, although it could be done without batteries.
26. In the standard or Minimum Project each HCORT vehicle will be required to have two
pantograph, bow collectors or trolley poles to connect to the supply rails/catenary line.
Two of these are required as the tyres don’t allow for an electrical earth connection. It is
expected that these will be above the vehicles and will be retracted when not in use.
27. In the expanded project, an option to be studied is coils under the HCORT stations and
parking bays to provide additional power while the vehicle is stationary. This may be
advantageous as it will most likely be too hard to provide adequate safety for passengers
with live rail/catenary lines. If used this is expected to be low power charging, primarily
maintaining the vehicle’s power storage with the low power use while stationary. In the
absence of such a powering system, vehicles that are stopped at HCORT stations will
have their battery charge monitored while stopped. If it goes below a certain level the
HCORT vehicle will be instructed to leave the HCORT station without passengers in
order to get charged either on a journey or at an HCORT parking bay.
28. Multiple methods are used by the HCORT vehicles for the gaining of position and track
at any point of time. The primary method of tracking is for the vehicles to follow one or
more frequencies being broadcast from an embedded cable or cables in the guideway
below the vehicle. The secondary method of track is to follow magnets embedded in
guideway below the vehicle. The magnets also provide additional position information
and this is their primary purpose. A possible third method of track is to maintain
position information from the accumulation of wheel rotation and steering change
information.
29. There will be two parallel embedded cables throughout most of the HCORT guideways.

Two options for the end of each section are as follows:
◦ Non Overlapping ends: Short periods of a single embedded cables may occur at the
ends of each section. Each such break would only occur on one side at a time. This
also occurs with guideway merges and diverges. For example, at a diverge, one of
the embedded cables from before the merge will go into the left guideway and one
will go into the right guideway, with a new embedded cable section being added for
each guideway.
◦ Overlapping ends: Short periods of an overlapped embedded cable may occur at the
ends of each section and with guideway merges and diverges. While this guarantees
a backup throughout the length of the guideway, it has the disadvantage that it will
require additional sensors in all the vehicles.
30. The embedded cables will be like leaky coaxial cables (sometimes called leaky feeders
or radiating cables) but used in a different way (see next point). The embedded cable
will be placed close to but under the surface near the centre of the guideway.
31. Communications between vehicles and the embedded cables will use direct magnetic
coupling or similar near field electromagnetic technology within the fenced off
guideways. Vehicle to embedded cable Infrastructure would use a different frequency or
set of frequencies than that used for tracking. Similarly, Infrastructure to Vehicles via
the embedded cables would use another frequency or frequencies.
32. Vehicle to Vehicle' (V2V) communications is done by Vehicle to embedded cable

Infrastructure and then by Infrastructure to the second Vehicle also using the embedded
cables. In the expanded project there is the possibility that the receiver vehicle reads
the message from the embedded cable as the transmitter vehicle transmits it when both
vehicles are on the same segment of embedded cable.
33. With the vehicle transducers and the infrastructure embedded cables emitting
electromagnetic frequencies for vehicle tracking and Infrastructure to Vehicle
communications, the emissions will create electromagnetic radiation that is able to
extend well beyond the near field. Consequently, there will be the possibility that these
are monitored by monitors external to the fences.
34. Vehicle to embedded cable infrastructure is restricted to the near field or close to near
field. This is achieved by limiting the reception of signals by the embedded cable
infrastructure to signals of a magnitude that would not be reasonable to achieve from
external to the guideway fences.
35. Users are able to implement virtual trailers or virtual trains, where the users control
multiple carriages throughout a journey. Examples of this are:
◦ A user can order a goods carriage to carry goods then have a separate carriage to
carry themselves.

◦ A school teacher can control multiple carriages carrying their students.
◦ Where the height of a disabled person on an electric mobility scooter is too tall to
allow them to ride on the scooter while the scooter is in a new HCORT vehicle, then
the disabled person can ride in one carriage while the scooter is carried in a separate
goods carriage.
◦ Tradespeople, lawn mowing services and gardens services etc., can have multiple
carriages carrying their tools and bring in further vehicles for the disposal of waste.
◦ Police can implement police vans (i.e. paddy wagons) for carriage of prisoners
separate from the vehicle that the police travel in.
◦ Specially designed fire engine vehicles are likely to require multiple vehicles.
◦ Specially designed ambulances are likely to only have room for one or two
ambulance officer/paramedic(s) with the person on the stretcher. Further ambulance
officers/paramedics would travel in a more standard vehicle.
◦ Pets can be carried in a separate carriage designed for pets
36. Each vehicle designed for carriage of people will have a number of video cameras and
microphones. The network system control will have substantial video surveillance
capability. Computers will be used to evaluate the audio video data to locate data that it
recommends the network system control operators to review. For more information on
this see the section entitled 'Rape Wagon'.
37. At least in the expanded project there should be the availability of audio visual systems
between carriages that allow audio visual conversations between passengers in different
vehicles when the virtual train concept is used to carry people and or animals in different
carriages. These should be of a high standard to provide a significant virtual presence of
those passengers physically in other carriages. The operation and control of this would
have several modes so that there were options to make it suitable for teachers with
young students, parents with children or groups of people travelling together.
38. The minimum project must include one or more tolling systems. This could be created
by designing appropriate modifications to current public transport tolling systems. This
would allow passengers to identify their account before, or as they enter the vehicle, or
after they have entered the vehicle. All passengers must have an appropriate electronic
identification. The primary method of doing this is likely to be via an HCORT app on
their mobile phone.
39. Each vehicle must have consoles where passengers can tell the system which HCORT
station they wish to go to. In the special and hopefully rare case where a vehicle
approaches a station that the passengers wish to stop at and all vehicle positions at that
station are already filled by vehicles, the consoles will offer the passengers the options
of nearby stations or to continue circling until a place becomes available. This
eventuality is required to be catered for as the system cannot fully control when vehicles
leave a station, as passengers are able to hold a vehicle’s door open. The HCORT

mobile phone app may provide an additional means to instruct the vehicle.
40. The HCORT mobile phone app can be used for ordering vehicles. This includes
ordering vehicles before the passengers get to the HCORT station which will provide the
system with information as to where to direct empty vehicles.
41. U-turn lanes are provided at both ends of HCORT freeway lanes so that the two lanes
(one in each direction) combine to create an infinite loop. The U-turn lanes operate at
the same speed as the freeways. The time slots used for synchronisation of platoons
continue throughout these infinite loops.
42. The system must extend out beyond the outer suburbs. Reasons for this include the
following:
◦ Needed to purchase land cheaply for HCORT vehicle night parking space.
◦ Land purchased would also be used for a vehicle maintenance facility. This facility
includes a local test track guideway.
◦ Land purchased would also be used to provide parking to properties that had lost
their street parking.
◦ Land purchased would also be used to provide parking to users that were not within
walking distance of the HCORT stations.
43. For properties which have lost parking or otherwise without full access to a traditional
road, the system will offer free or cheap parking at large traditional car parking bays.
These parking bays have full access to the traditional road system as well as to the new
HCORT network.
44. All HCORT vehicles must be able to operate in reverse. They must be able to do this in
all guideways and in the case of HCORT freeways, they must be able to this at a
substantive speed in order to be able to clear a freeway after an accident. More details
of this is given in a section entitled 'Operation in Reverse'
45. Each vehicle needs sensors at the front and back of the vehicle for the vehicles to take
appropriate action to obstructions in their path. The back one is required as there is a
requirement for the vehicles to be able to operate in reverse.
46. Each vehicle needs sensors to aid in the vehicles approaching each other and joining into
platoons. These may be the same sensors as used for sensing obstructions in their path.
47. The network will maintain expected responses from the sensors at all points in all routes,
along with data on likely variability of the sensor responses at all points. The vehicles
will either have this data for the whole network or be given the data before the vehicle
would use it.

48. The guideway system should primarily be treated as an alternative to adding extra road
throughput such as an alternative to adding a road freeway (expressway) rather than as a
way of adding an extra public transport network like a railway. Its costing should
primarily be compared to that of adding extra capacity to the current road network with
the public transit vehicles being considered in a similar manner to that of taxis or buses
as being over the top of roads. Implementation of guideways should be done by the
authorities creating new road transport. Reasons for this include the following:
◦ Some vehicles are dual mode, able to go on both normal roads and on this HCORT
system. In time, these may be a major part of the traffic.
◦ The vehicles used within the system are the same or close to vehicles used on roads
and have the same limitations and requirements such as headways etc.
◦ Overall the system becomes a full network in the same way as the roads are a
network, which is distinctly different to the route system of trains, light rail and
trams etc.
49. Safety objectives should be specified with reference to current road safety.
50. The design must be built for resilience, robustness and adaptability. This requires that
the whole system doesn't stop for individual breakdowns or non functioning parts.
Infrastructure embedded cables should be able to break and system computers should be
able to fall over without the overall transportation system coming to a halt. Lower level
parts of the system, particularly the vehicles, all have alternative operational modes that
are activated when the module or vehicle cannot communicate to one or all of the
control systems.
51. The transport network control needs to be distributed. Each component of the transport
network control needs to be designed to be modular, scalable and extensible.
52. The recommendation for HCORT transport network control is to use a synchronous
control wherever possible with the possible exception of HCORT station stops. If the
journey is short, then a station stop position would be included in the initial allocation.
For longer journeys, an attempt at station stop position allocation is made as the vehicle
nears its destination station. If all stop positions are occupied at the destination station,
an unused vehicle stopped at the destination would be shifted to another station.
53. For safety, synchronous networks need to also be able to operate in an asynchronous
manner, either for specific vehicles that need it in specific situations such as when a stop
position at the destination is not available or for all vehicles under emergency
conditions.
54. The network route control will consist of a distributed set of guideway controllers plus
some additional network route advisory modules. The guideway controllers perform the

actual time slot allocations and the HCORT station stop position allocations For
vehicles to be assigned a route, the vehicle would normally start by sending a message
to a network system advisory module. Using the data it has of the whole network, the
advisory module would respond with a complete route of unallocated timeslot/platoon
positions. With this data, the vehicle now messages each of the distributed guideway
controllers that are on the route to get those timeslots/platoon positions and stop
positions allocated. Should a vehicle not manage to get all of these timeslots and stop
positions allocated, it will start again with a new request to the advisory module to get a
new route.
55. Public Transit Repositioning modules instruct empty vehicles to go to the stop most
likely needing it. The vehicles simply wait at stops until used there or repositioned by
the Public Transit Repositioning modules. For all times outside of peak, when a user
goes to a HCORT station, they will almost always find a vehicle of the type that they
require waiting for them to take them on their journey. If a vehicle isn't there, the user
requests one and the system will send one to that station.
56. The design needs to have a method of backup steering control in vehicles in case of loss
of vehicle power or similar malfunctions. For a minimum project it is recommended to
just have a separate electronic backup module with its own battery which monitors the
power being supplied to each relevant module along with monitoring all other possible
functions that could result in loss of steering control. If any of these is seen to be
malfunctioning then it would take over control of the steering function. This and other
alternatives for the backup steering control are described in the “Backup Electronic
Steering Control” sub section of the “Design: Transducers/Sensors etc:” Section.

Example List of Recommended Non Essential Projects
Example list of non essential projects that are recommended to be done and would in the long
term pay for themselves many times over. In the case of projects listed here that are listed with
multiple alternatives, the Minimum Project may early in the project have to chose which
alternative to use. With that exception, these non essential projects are not included in the
Minimum Project. All are likely to be in the Full Project. As well as the following there are
likely to be a large number of projects suggested by participants or suggested by the public.
• Multiple competitive designs for each module needed in the essential design project.
• Multiple large testing tracks, each with the capability to completely emulate large
proposed installations.
• Construction of a large number of HCORT vehicles of different types to be used with the
large testing tracks.
• Multiple research projects to test and find the optimal leaky coaxial cables (sometimes
called leaky feeders or radiating cables) or alternatives to use for the embedded cables.
• Multiple working scale models of complete HCORT networks. Several of these to be

used as demonstration systems, taken to various cities for demonstrations. Others to be
used for emulations capable to perform some of the testing of software that will be used
in final installations.
• Multiple competitive designs of elevated HCORT freeways using different materials (ie
precast concrete vs metal vs various fibre based designs)
• Machinery for automated construction of elevated HCORT freeways
• Multiple competitive designs of near grade bridge/tunnels on HCORT freeways and on

HCORT feeder thrulanes and sidings.
• Multiple competitive designs of machinery for automated construction of near grade

bridge/tunnels on HCORT freeways and on HCORT feeder thrulanes and sidings.
• Multiple competitive designs of machinery for automated construction of cut and cover
tunnels
• Multiple competitive designs of elevated HCORT stations using different materials (ie
precast concrete vs metal vs various fibre based designs). Such designs are best based

on placing large stations above single story ground level railway stations.
• Machinery for automated construction of elevated HCORT stations
• Multiple competitive designs of walkway and bikeway bridges over HCORT freeways,
feeder thrulanes and sidings
• Multiple competitive designs of machinery for automated construction of walkway and

bikeway bridges over HCORT freeways, feeder thrulanes and sidings
• Multiple competitive designs of guideway fences, both as needed for HCORT freeways
and HCORT feeder thrulanes.
• Multiple competitive designs of machinery for automated construction of guideway

fences, both as needed for HCORT freeways and HCORT feeder thrulanes.
• Multiple competitive designs of machinery for automated construction of at grade

HCORT freeways and HCORT feeder thrulanes.
• Multiple competitive designs of vehicle bodies that allow emergency exit from the front
of the vehicle.
• Multiple competitive designs of low height mobility scooters and wheel chairs that
allow users to be comfortable while being transported. Requirements for this need to
include the ability to exit HCORT vehicle to the front after an emergency and be able to
travel along the HCORT guideway.
• Multiple competitive designs of inter carriage audio visual systems. When the virtual
train concept is used to carry more people or to carry animals, there should be the
availability of audio visual systems between carriages that allow audio visual
conversations between passengers in different vehicles within the train. These will be of
a high standard to provide a significant virtual presence of those passengers physically
in other carriages. The operation and control of this would have several modes so that
there were options to make it suitable for teachers with young students, parents with
children or groups of people travelling together.
• Multiple competitive designs of vehicles that can transport a standard pallet of goods
with the vehicle providing easy access for a fork lift.
• Multiple competitive designs of vehicles that can transport fluid such as milk and water.
• Multiple competitive designs of vehicles that can transport flammable fluids such as
petrol.

• Multiple competitive designs of automatic filling and dispensing of fluids from these
fluid transport vehicles.
• Multiple competitive designs of vehicles to perform automated collection of rubbish

from the rubbish bins at HCORT stations.
• Multiple competitive designs of incorporating mail boxes in HCORT stations for local
properties to send their mail and having automated vehicles pick up that mail.
• Multiple competitive design of incorporating post office boxes in HCORT stations for
local properties to have their own box and having automated vehicles deliver the mail to
those post office boxes.
• Multiple competitive design of incorporating goods delivery boxes in HCORT stations.

This could be implemented as local properties to have their own box and having
automated vehicles deliver the goods to those boxes. An alternative to local properties
having their own boxes might be for goods delivery companies to have control of the
boxes or a system where goods delivery companies can rent the boxes. Presumably a
code would be sent to the recipients of the goods for them to be able to get the goods
from the box.
• Multiple competitive designs of shopping trolleys to be used in conjunction with the

HCORT reservation system.
• Multiple competitive designs of automated collection of shopping trolleys from HCORT

stations.
• Multiple competitive designs of each alternative method of having a backup steering

control in vehicles in case of loss of vehicle power or similar malfunctions. These
alternatives include the following:
◦ A separate electronic backup module with its own battery which monitors the power
being supplied to each relevant module along with monitoring all other possible
functions that could result in loss of steering control. If any of these is seen to be
malfunctioning then it would take over control of the steering function.
◦ A ridge to the outside of the vehicles running tracts along with minimum fences on
both sides of the tract which will guide a vehicle along the guideway in the case of
loss of steering control. This could be designed in conjunction with a special profile
to the vehicle tyres to aid in this guiding.
◦ A slot in the guideway near the inside edge of one of the front wheel running tracts..
Each vehicle would have a bar with one end that can run along the slot. The bar
would be used by the vehicle to maintain steering control. Until there was a loss of
power or other malfunction, the bar could be held off from touching the slot.

• Multiple competitive designs along with testing of each method of handling heavy snow
and ice conditions, including:
◦ Designs for covers over all different types of guideways and stations.
◦ Designs of machinery for automated construction of covers over all different types of
guideways and stations.
◦ Guideway heating systems including heating of covered guideways
◦ Automatic snow and ice clearing machines
◦ Linear motors as an add-on to vehicles to add an additional percentage of grip for
braking and acceleration rather than just using the vehicle tyres. Design alternatives
of linear motor rails with and without permanent magnets.
• Multiple competitive designs of gardens underneath the various HCORT fences.
• Multiple competitive designs of automated machinery to create the gardens.
• Multiple competitive designs of automated gardening equipment for these gardens.
• Multiple competitive designs of HCORT ambulances.
• Multiple competitive designs of HCORT fire engines.
• Multiple competitive projects relating to catastrophic events, including:

◦ Warning and reaction system to approaching earthquakes
◦ Warning and reaction system to approaching tsunamis
◦ Warning and reaction system to various types of excessive winds
◦ Warning and reaction system to floods
• Multiple competitive research projects relating to the creation of new tyres and to new
pavements in order to optimise the performance of the tyre to pavement interface for
these light high speed vehicles.
• Multiple competitive research projects relating to increasing the available height within
vehicles. This could be achieved by ensuring that the HCORT network track surface
will be guaranteed free of bumps to a degree that allows vehicles to be lowered,
compared to vehicles on ordinary roads. Dual-mode vehicles could use height adjustable
suspension [19] to lower the ride height or ground clearance as they enter the HCORT
system.
• Multiple competitive design, implement and Test of all alternatives to the fenced feeder
network. In particular, the following alternatives:
◦ Feeder network that includes roads shared between HCORT vehicles and traditional
vehicles. Special rules would apply to the traditional vehicles and these traditional

vehicles must carry a special electronic device or be running a particular mobile app
that provides their position to the system and some instructions to the driver.
◦ Feeder network that as well as having the fenced thrulanes and sidings, allowed
HCORT vehicles to enter and travel along the sidelanes and from there enter and exit
properties. The assumptions here include the sidelanes being provisioned with the
electronic guideway facilities such as leaking cable, as well as the assumption that
HCORT vehicles shared the sidelanes with traditional vehicles along with the same
special rules as in the previous alternative.
◦ Feeder network composed of largely standard roads with vehicles providing the
public transit function being required to be autonomous road vehicles as well as
being HCORT compatible.
• Along with the implement and Test of all alternatives to the fenced feeder network, for
the alternatives that allowed HCORT vehicles to access properties, there would be a
large number of additional projects. These would include the following:
◦ Multiple competitive designs of vehicles to perform automated collection of rubbish
from the rubbish bins at properties.
◦ Multiple competitive designs of automated mail delivery to properties.
◦ Multiple competitive designs of automated goods delivery to properties.
• Multiple competitive projects relating to optimising transit in peak periods. These

optimisation strategies would be designed to increase the average number of passengers
in each transit microbus. In the minimum project Transit microbuses are for one or a
small group of people going to the same destination. The vehicles are for the exclusive
use of the individual or small group traveling together by choice. One alternative
strategy is for waiting microbuses to be pre-destined to a range of destinations. For
example, a suburban HCORT station might have a microbus pre-destined to head
towards the city and another pre-destined to head away from the city. After the first
passenger has entered the vehicle, the microbus would wait up to a short period to allow
more passengers to enter. Each passenger tells the microbus which station they wish to
go to and the microbus only stops at those stations. Even in peak periods they would
typically pick up all their passengers for their current journey from just one station.
Strategies such as this are only needed for peak periods and should not be implemented
outside of peak time. It would also be better if the sharing of the microbus was optional.
That is, each passenger or small group could request a vehicle without sharing. These
passengers would pay a higher peak fare for such uses and they may have significant
wait times to get their vehicle.

Design: Transducers/Sensors etc:
Assumptions.
Need to assume the following:

• There are some people with the mentality that they want to place large rocks on
railway tracks or equivalent.
• Some people with this mentality have the capability to create electronic devices such
as radio jammers.
• Some people with this mentality have the capability to hack into insecure networks.
Summary.
It is the view of this author, that current efforts to design or implement dedicated
driverless vehicle guideways while using sensors designed for making vehicles
autonomous, are far from optimal. Any use of radio wave technology, for either
communications or GPS positioning, will create the possibility of terrorism attacks or
other security concerns as well as a lower overall reliability.
Further, Vehicle to Vehicle' (V2V) communications or 'Vehicle to Infrastructure' (V2I)

communications using radio wave technology such as that similar to Wifi will introduce
security concerns and in our overcrowded network spectrum will not have the reliability
that is required.
Better precision tracking and greater reliability will come from utilising guideway
generated positioning. In particular, using direct magnetic coupling or similar near field
electromagnetic technology within the fenced off guideways.
The HCORT design is currently based on using one or more embedded cables which
are likely to be physically similar to leaky coaxial cables (sometimes called leaky
feeders or radiating cables). These cables are placed close to but under the surface
near the centre of the guideway. Most of this document refers to these cables as
embedded cables. These embedded cables would have one or a number of
frequencies that they emitted being used for tracking. Additional position information
would also be provided through use of small permanent magnets embedded in the
pavement.
Although the embedded cables may be physically like leaky coaxial cables, they are
used differently. Whereas leaky coaxial cables are normally used for radiant

electromagnetic communication these embedded cables are used by direct magnetic
coupling or similar near field non radiant electromagnetic technology for both the
tracking function and the communication function. Vehicle to embedded cable
Infrustructure would use a different frequency or set of frequencies than that used for
tracking. Similarly, Infrustructure to Vehicles via the embedded cables would use
another frequency or frequencies.
Vehicle to Vehicle' (V2V) communications is done by Vehicle to embedded cable

Infrastructure and then by Infrustructure to the second Vehicle also embedded cable.
There is also the possibility that vehicles close to the transmitting vehicle may be able
to directly monitor the messages on the wire as they are being sent. This would only
be while these vehicles were on the same segment of embedded cable as the
transmitting vehicle.
With the use of leaky coaxial cables radiating electromagnetic frequencies for vehicle
tracking and Infrustructure to Vehicle communications, the radiation is able to extend
well beyond the near field. Consequently, there will be the possibility that these are
monitored by monitors external to the fences.
Vehicle to leaky coaxial embedded cable infrastructure is restricted to the near field or
close to near field. This is achieved by limiting the reception of signals by the leaky
coaxial embedded cable infrastructure to signals of a magnitude that would not be
reasonable to achieve from external to the fences.
Security risks with use of GPS and radio wave communications.
Radio signals, such as GPS Signals and Wifi type communications consist of wave
propagation. These radiative waves are easy to block or modify.
From a long term safety prospective, it is important that critical components of

transport are not dependant on them.
While the blocking or modification can be accidental or purposeful, it is the purposeful

ones that are most concerning. Purposeful efforts could be due to any of:
• As a terrorist attack
• An equivalent to pyromania firebug or arsonist mentality who wishes to create
an event or get rid of anger.
• A person who wishes particularly people, perhaps an ex partner or specific
politicians or other celebrities, should have a fatal accident.

It needs to be recognised, that the creation of a radio jammer is extremely simple. It is
able to be done as a first hobbyist electronic project for a newbie.
Further, as it is easy to carry and power a radio jammer from any vehicle, including a
motor bike, it means that the jamming can be continued to specific vehicles over a
long period. This means that it won’t be stopped by back up systems such as inertial
guidance with accelerometers and gyroscopes, that rely on the communication breaks
being short.
While the world hasn’t yet had significant experience of these events, the fact that it is
both easy and possible, and able to be targeted at specific people, makes it likely that
it will become a significant factor.
A safer alternative to this uses direct magnetic coupling, sometimes called

Electromagnetic (EM) near-field transmission.
Unfortunately, some specific near-field communication standards and technologies

have taken over the term ‘Near Field Communications’ (NFC) to mean only those
specific protocols, but the EM near-field transmission and reception is a lot wider than
those standards.
The most agreed upon definition submits that the Electromagnetic (EM) near field is
less than one wavelength (λ) from the antenna.
The EM near field is generally said to be divided into two areas, the reactive near-field,
also called the inductive near-field and the radiative near-field. The reactive part, or
non radiative part of the near field is sometimes considered to be from an antenna out
to λ/2π = 0.159λ distance.
In the reactive area, the E and H fields are the strongest and can be measured
separately. The receiving antenna interacts with the transmitting antenna via
capacitive and/or inductive coupling. One field or the other will likely dominate,
depending on antenna type. A loop antenna, for example, as is expected in the
vehicles, is dominated by the magnetic (H) field.
Far-field E (electric) and B (magnetic) field strength decreases inversely with distance
from the source, resulting in an inverse-square law for the radiated power intensity
of electromagnetic radiation. By contrast, near-field E and B strength decrease more
rapidly with distance: part decreases by the inverse-distance squared, the other part
by an inverse cubed law, resulting in a diminished power in the parts of the electric
field by an inverse fourth-power and sixth-power, respectively. The rapid drop in
power contained in the near-field makes it easy to ensure that communication
attempts from outside the fenced off area don’t succeed.

In the far-field region of an antenna, absorption of the radiation does not feed back to
the transmitter. However, in the near-field region, absorption of radiation does affect
the load on the transmitter. Magnetic induction as seen in a transformer can be seen
as a very simple example this type of near-field electromagnetic interaction.
http://www.electronicdesign.com/energy/what-s-difference-between-em-near-field-and-
far-field
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Near_and_far_field
For example:
At 900 MHz, the wavelength is:

λ = 300/fMHz
λ = 300/900 = 0.333 meter or 33.33 cm
Subsequently, the reactive near field is calculated as:
λ/2π = 0.159λ = 0.159(0.333) = 0.053 meter (about 2 inches)

Suggested and Alternative Transducers/Sensors
For each Vehicle to locate its position and track its route.
Need multiple methods of gaining position and track at any point of time.
Suggested Transducers/Sensors for position and track.
Suggested methods able to be used for position fixing and vehicle tracking are as follows:
A combination of the following:

• The vehicles follow one or more frequencies being broadcast from an embedded wire or wires
in the ground or otherwise below the current track. This is better than the radio signal
trilateration/multilateration as the detectors are so close to the wire there isn't a chance for
jammers to stop the vehicles receiving the signal. Problems with it are breakage of embedded
cable due to ground movement and loss of signal due to loss of system power. Multiple
embedded wires in parallel could be used to cover most ground movement faults except those
caused by extreme events such as major earthquake faults.
• Location of position along the wire (a fix) can be done by locating magnets buried in the
ground. Magnets can have North or South pole positioned upwards and a group of them can
provide a digital number. Magnets may be no more than permanently magnetised nails, bolts or
similar embedded in the ground. These magnets can be measured by a number of cheap and
easy methods such as Flux-gate magnetometer sensors, Hall effect magnetometers, Magneto-
resistive devices or inductive pick coils.
• Inductive pick up coils require movement between the sensor and magnet.
• Solid-state Hall effect sensors are the most common magnetic sensing devices
where the magnetic field strength is relatively large. These can be mass-
produced as an integrated circuit.
• Flux-gate magnetometers are currently being used in similar applications. They
"are affordable, rugged and compact with miniaturisation recently advancing to
the point of complete sensor solutions in the form of IC chips"
• One or more continuous lines of magnets may be useful as a way of backing up the embedded
cables(s) in case of loss of power to the wires. Several of the currently designed PRT and
automated bus systems use similar magnets as their primary source of tracking. The problem
with using it as the primary source of tracking is that there is a possibility of someone throwing
some magnetised bolts or nails on the track. That is, as a modern form of placing rocks on
railway lines.
• Counting rotation of drive wheels such as counting of stepper motor steps in order to locate
distance along from the previous fix. This can be used in conjunction with a history of the
steering position. While this data can be used for vehicle tracking, it is herein anticipated that it
would only be used as a last resort backup or as a fault detector. This style of measurement
suffers from accumulated errors. Consequently it needs frequent resetting or initiating at known
set points.
• An inertial measurement unit (IMU) can also be used as a last resort backup or fault detector. As
with the above history of steering and drive wheels, this style of measurement suffers from

accumulated errors and consequently needs frequent resetting or initiating at known set points.
Notes:
• By having multiple sensors of each type, most of the objects to be sensed such as magnets in the
ground or rf transmitters, including wires in the ground, can be positioned inaccurately and the
system can allow movement such as can occur with ground movement. For example, in the
case of multiple magnet sensors or multiple rf sensors for wires, the sensors would be
positioned across some part of the width of the vehicle. Previous to any vehicle utilising the
objects in their final application (at their final speed and with passengers) the vehicles are told
the position with respect to the sensor positions that the objects should be sensed. This allows
the vehicles to accurately position themselves regardless of the inaccurate initial positioning of
the objects. The overall system would then monitor differences from the original data as to
where vehicles are sensing the objects. Using this data, the system can monitor if most vehicles
are seeing a different position or just specific vehicles and from this determine if the changes
relate to changes in the guideway or changes in the vehicle. This would be used to correct
position data of the vehicles and would be used to initiate appropriate maintenance.
• In order to use alternative systems as backup, you need an orderly plan as to which to use when
the two systems are not in agreement. The most common situation will be that one sub-system
recognises that it is not able to read the directional information while the other still has a lock
on its direction information. In this case, the sub-system that believes it still has valid direction
information would be used.
• It would be better to have a third sub-system just for the possibilities that both subsystems think
they are OK but they report a different output or that neither sub-system believes they are OK.
A possible third sub-system is to use information from measuring the wheel rotation and
measuring the steering movements. For example, we may just use the one that is closest to that
which occurs when the front wheels are positioned for straight ahead.
Backup Electronic Steering Control.
Position and track sensing are critical functions within the overall Electronic Steering Control. Even
with a triple backed up system there remains the possibility of all modules failing such as when there is
a loss of power. The design needs to have a method of backup steering control in vehicles in case of
loss of vehicle power or similar malfunctions.
The recommended method of handling this is as follows:
A separate electronic backup module with its own battery which monitors the power being
supplied to each relevant module along with monitoring all other possible functions that could
result in loss of steering control. If any of these is seen to be malfunctioning then it would take
over control of the steering function.
Whenever this occurred on freeways the backup steering module would always steer it into the

first deceleration lane for it to exit from the HCORT freeway. When on the feeder network
thrulanes it would be steered to the first siding and brought to a stop at an appropriate place on
that.
In the case of vehicle power failure or some other emergencies, the following vehicle would be
able to push the failed vehicle, with this mechanical steering system automatically directing it
to the best place. Such a system needs to continue working even when the vehicle has a tyre
blowout, including a blowout of one of the steering wheel tyres.
Other alternatives for the backup electronic steering control include the following:
◦ A ridge to the outside of the vehicles running tracts along with minimum fences on
both sides of the tract which will guide a vehicle along the guideway in the case of
loss of steering control. This could be designed in conjunction with a special profile
to the vehicle tyres to aid in this guiding.
◦ A mechanical or hydraulic steering system based on a slot in the guideway near the
inside edge of one of the front wheel running tracts. Each vehicle would have a bar
with one end that would run along the slot. The bar would be used by the vehicle to
maintain steering control in power cuts or similar loss of electronic steering control.
This can be used as a backup without creating friction by having runner wheels that in
normal operation are a short gap away from the slot’s running track. This would only come
into play when other systems failed such as when the vehicle loses its power. That is, when
a vehicle loses all power it would be automatic that the runner wheels would lower, move or
close such that they griped or pushed against the running track of the slot. The lowering,
moving or closing could be implemented by springs. Holding the running wheels off the
track, creating the short gap, could be implemented by electromagnets that are normally on
when the system is running normally. A loss of power means the electromagnets turn off,
which allows the springs to push the runner wheels to the running tracks.
Alternative Transducers/Sensors for position and track.

The following alternative transducers/sensors for the vehicle to locate its position and track its route are
ones that are not suggested as being as good as the suggested ones.
• Radio transmitters at various distances on both sides of each track. These could be used to give
position by triangulation, trilateration or multilateration. Their cost and their transmit distance
allows for multiple trilaterations/multilaterations so that some number of transmitters can be
faulty and yet there is still an accurate position fix. Problems with using these for primary
vehicle tracking include:
~ they would stop working on loss of system power
~ they are too easily jammed

• GPS is too inaccurate to use as a main system. It may be used as a last ditch backup in the case
of emergency. Even to be used in this backup, it needs to have significant corrections such as
Differential GPS (DPGS) (and/or WAAS). Specific DPGS stations for this system may need to
be implemented to get enough accuracy. Also, an inertial measurement unit (IMU) would be
used as an aid for when GPS signals are unavailable, such as in tunnels, inside buildings, or
when electronic interference is present.
• While a number of optical methods (including laser) are cheap and accurate, optical methods
have problems with dust, snow, hail, rain, fog, insects, buildup of dirt, repositioning after bumps
etc.
Faults and emergency danger sensors:

- Radar and/or Ultrasonic and/or Lidar ('light and radar') can be used for detecting emergency situations
such as people or animals on the guideways or tree branches or roofs that have been blown on to the
guideways. Such sensors are needed at both the front and the back of the vehicle. At the back because
the vehicles have to operate in reverse.
With this system, it is expected that before full operation of each new freeway, subsidiary extension or
part thereof, vehicles are given expected sensor input that was directly derived from sensors of previous
vehicles travelling on that part of the route. In order to initially get the sensor input, a number of
vehicles travel the new part of the system in test mode.
Before any new vehicle is used, or any vehicle that has had maintenance that may have modified the
placement of its sensors, the vehicle is required to run around a test track comparing its sensor inputs to
that of an average of test vehicles. Using the differences between its inputs and those of the test
vehicles, it sets up an error map. The error map allows it to accurately correlate between what it sees
on its sensor inputs and what is expected based on sensor input previously obtained from other vehicles
via network system computers.
Inter-vehicle sensors for Platooning:

The following are some options for implementing Inter-vehicle sensors for platooning.
• The emergency danger sensors such as Radar could double as Inter-vehicle distance
measurements for Platooning.
• Small radio transmitter/receivers can be placed along each of the bumper bars, front and rear.
As vehicles come close to each other for platooning, each receiver does a Trilateration or
Multilateration with the other transmitters. This may be used to give more precise distance
measurements as vehicles are brought together for platooning. The particular frequency being
transmitted by each transmitter would be given to these transmitters by the network system, for
each platoon connection. Note that unless very high frequencies are used, these
transmission/receptions will occur in the transmitters 'near field'. While this has advantages in
stopping outside interferance, it can also cause some problems. For example, metal objects
such as steel beams can act as antennas by inductively receiving and then "re-radiating" some of
the energy in the radiative near field, forming a new radiating surface to consider. Main
options are:
- trilateration: To get a distance for trilateration, each receiver transmitter would return the

signals (frequencies) received from the other vehicle or some related in phase signal
(such as double or half the received frequency). The original transmitter of each signal
would compare the phase of the received signal returned back to the original sent, in
order to measure the distance
- Multilateration: [13] Each transmitter simply transmits its own frequency. Pairs or
groups of receivers work out the "time difference of arrival" (TDOA) to the receivers by
comparing the phase difference of the signals received at different receivers. While this
requires more transmitters and/or receivers it is simpler to implement and should
produce a more accurate or just as accurate output.
• Another alternative for precise distance measurement for platooning is to use a light or laser
based system. As mentioned earlier, these have problems with dust, snow, hail, rain, fog,
insects, buildup of dirt etc. Having multiple sensors is easy as they are cheap. Finally, if all of
the multiple sensors fail (which should be rare) then we can simply not make a platoon
connection with these two vehicles.
Vehicle to Infrustructure and Vehicle to Vehicle Communications
For platooning we need to gain a fast enough response to ensure a following vehicle acts near
simultaneous to the vehicle in front. For this we need a fast vehicle to vehicle communication. While
this could be a range of communication types, it is easier and safer to use the wire embedded in the
ground. This is discussed more fully in the Summary section at the beginning of this chapter.
The biggest advantage of this is that by utilising the characteristics of the near field we can set it up
such that transmitting a message into the embedded cable is not realistically possible from external to
the fences.
Regardless of the security of this, it would still be advantageous to have sufficient encryption to ensure
that the system isn't interfered with by hacking or similar and cannot easily be monitored. The
communication between each pair of vehicles would be setup by the Network System before the
vehicles came close enough to need it. There needs to be a constant data stream within the
communication such that both vehicles and the Infrustructure can detect quickly if there is any break in
the communications. In the case of any break of communications, the attempt at joining the vehicles
for platooning is abandoned.
For the Network System to Locate a Non Communicating Vehicle.
Assume vehicle loses all power when it is meant to be accelerating into the merge on a main Freeway.
How can an oncoming vehicle on the main freeway be informed of this early enough to allow it to slow
down so that it doesn't smash into it?
The cheapest and easiest way is to simply note that the vehicle that has lost power has stopped
communicating with the network system computers and assume that it is no longer driving the wheels.
This is not particularly good as we don't know if it is just some communications fault and the vehicle is

still able to go at full speed. Consequently we really need a method of identifying the position of each
vehicle that is independent of the vehicle having power.
Possible methods are as follows:
• Utilise contactless smart card technology. The integrated circuits designed for this technology
are embedded into the outer surface of the vehicle. This method has an advantage in that the
card can provide more information such as specifying the particular vehicle, specifying which
card, front, middle or back of the vehicle etc along with error checks.
• Sets of permanent magnets are placed on the vehicle where they can be read by system
sensors. Placing multiple sets of magnets in each vehicle, such as one in the front, one in the
back and one in the middle will reduce the number of system sensors needed. The magnets
could be placed on the side of the vehicle just below the body of the vehicle. These magnets
can be measured by a number of cheap and easy methods such as Flux-gate magnetometer
sensors, Hall effect magnetometers, Magneto-resistive devices or inductive pick coils.
• Sets of objects with specific magnetic properties (typically metals with specific compositions)
are placed on the vehicle where they can be read by system sensors. The objects are read by
what is effectively miniature metal detectors. These could be single coil or double coil
sensors but at least one of the coils has to be energized. Energization of the coil could be by
continuous AC frequencies or by pulses. The received signal can provide both distance to the
objects (by amplitude of the received signal) and an indication of composition/magnetic
properties of the objects (by phase of the received signal). This may have problems with
interference with the metal bodies of the vehicles. This is particularly so as the system will
have different types of vehicles, most of which have a metal body with different compositions
of metal and difference configurations.
• Some visible tags such as barcodes are placed on the vehicle and these are read by system
sensors as they pass by. This method has an advantage in that the barcode can provide more
information such as specifying the particular vehicle, specifying which tag, front, middle back
etc along with error checks. As well as the barcode we could have begin and end lines at the
beginning and end of the tag and by measuring the time taken for these to pass a sensor we
can have an accurate measure of the vehicles speed.
• While such optical methods are cheap and accurate, these optical methods have problems with
dust, snow and ice, insects, buildup of dirt, repositioning after bumps etc. If continuous
maintenance is done, the likelihood that these were not working when needed is
infinitesimally small. Note, that at any time any vehicle or any specific tag on a vehicle goes
past a sensor and that tag is not correctly recognized, that information should be available to
the system and the system should be able to get the vehicle or system sensor fixed. Utilizing
this with continuous maintenance combined with multiple sensors and multiple tags per
vehicle should produce a very reliable system.
Other
(To be investigated further)
Other sensors that will or may be needed are ones to sense if the car is performing correctly. In
particular, there should be sensers for the following:
• tyre punctures, blowouts etc
• electric motor vibrations/excess noise etc

• other signs that maintenance is needed.
• battery charge
• doors open/shut
• smoke/fire alarm
• acceleration (G meter)
Some of these, such as sensors for tyre punctures or sensors for vibrations, would not be included in the
Minimum Project unless they were already part of a car manufacturer’s electric vehicles.

Control Systems:
The design must be built for resilience, robustness and adaptability. This requires that the whole
system doesn't stop for individual breakdowns or non functioning parts. Major requirements for this
include:
• Distributed control of the transport network. Each component of the transport network
control is designed to be modular, scalable and extensible. Examples of how this is achieved
include the following:
▸ Either a lack of central control or central control modules and other controls only
enhance an otherwise running system. ie. non critical.
▸ Individual system components such as HCORT station controllers and guideway
controllers are able to operate in an autonomous manner.
▸ High autonomy of vehicles so break downs in system control, intersection control or
guideway control components doesn't bring the system down.
• Communication between the control modules use a resilient network architecture. Note: The
original internet architecture and protocols were designed by the military for this type
resilience. Some newer network architectures may be able to enhance it.
• Quick handling of broken down vehicles.
• Create all software components as platform and hardware independent modules. Where there
is a requirement for an initial platform, (e.g. Operating System) that platform should be an
Open Source platform with the software written to allow easy change of platform.
• All designs, software and hardware etc, should be open source
• Major network control components such as freeway (expressway) guideway controls have a
triple hot backup arrangement with continuous comparison of results with automatic two
versus one having priority.
Network Control Systems:
Network Control Systems would be used to implement the following:
• Monitoring, control and maintenance of network subsystems

• Route advisory.
• Optimising HCORT vehicle positions to reduce passenger wait times.
• Night-time or off peak parking of unused vehicles
• Parking and return from parking of private dual use vehicles
• Updating software and data on all vehicles and network control systems
• Ensuring all vehicles using the new system have needed maintenance and testing.
• Network system control consoles for human operators.
• Security camera (audio video surveillance) access
• Requests for help
• Emergency procedure override
• Tolling(i.e. charging users)

Note that all of these are non critical functions or can be designed as non critical functions. System
computers should be able to fall over without the overall transportation system coming to a halt. Lower
level parts of the system, particularly the vehicles, all have alternative operational modes that are
activated when the module or vehicle cannot communicate to one or all of the control systems.
Monitoring, control and maintenance of network subsystems
In order for the distributed network control to be modular, scalable and extensible the network needs to
be divided into small subsystems and each subsystem should have its own control module. These
control modules need to operate in an autonomous manner. Separate modules could be made for each
of the following:
Guideway Controllers:
Multiple guideway controllers can be used to control a single guideway. This would be used for
major guideways such as some of the freeway (expressway) guideways. The preferred method of
distributing the guideway controller task is to have each one look after stripes of time slots. For
example, if there were three of them that looked after a particular guideway, each one would look after
every third time slot. If any of them fall over, then one of the others will handle two of 3 time slots.
Another method is to have each guideway controller in charge of all traffic that uses a series of
synchronous time slots. As these synchronous time slots travel around the guideway the physical area
that each guideway controller controls also changes.
The advantage of multiple guideway controllers for a single guideway is that if one of the guideway
controllers malfunctions or otherwise cannot be communicated with from some particular vehicles, it
doesn't stop the whole guideway from being used.
Intersection Controllers (merge/diverge)

Most control actions relating to vehicle position are best performed by Guideway Controllers rather
than Intersection Controllers. Intersection Controllers could be used to reduce the work load on
Guideway Controllers but the workload for guideway controllers would never be large for today’s
microprocessors.
HCORT station Controllers:
Control of sidings and stations could all be handled by Thrulane guideway controllers. The workload
for these guideway controllers would never be very large for today’s microprocessors.
Other Parking Area Controllers:
Control of all other parking areas could also be handled by Thrulane guideway controllers on the route
to the parking area.

Synchronous versus Asynchronous:
Automated Vehicle Control Systems can generally be classified as 'synchronous' or 'asynchronous'.

Typically, synchronous control systems allocate time slots for each resource needed by a vehicle
previous to the vehicle's journey. Synchronous system control is sometimes called 'clear path' as it
should normally mean that once full journey resources have been allocated, the vehicle can complete
the journey without further conflicts in allocation.
Note: Even with synchronous control systems there can be allocation conflicts. For example, rather
than reserve a HCORT station bay at a final destination for a vehicle performing a long trip, this
allocation may be delayed on an expectation that one will be available. In general, parking bays are
problematic due to the following:
• We don't know when people will enter vehicles.
• People can hold doors open to stop vehicles leaving when the automation controls attempt to
make vehicles leave.
If the expectation of an available parking bay turns out to be false then the vehicle would have to
continue travelling (probably in a loop) with an offer to the vehicle occupants of alternative
destinations.
In this situation, once the vehicle arrived at the destination without having a station bay allocated, the
vehicle is effectively in asynchronous control. Asynchronous control systems are analogous to the
control of vehicles by human drivers. They perform their movements without full pre-planning and
adjust speeds and, in some cases, routes as needed.
For safety, synchronous networks need to also be able to operate in an asynchronous manner, either for
specific vehicles that need it in situations similar to the above or for all vehicles under emergency
conditions. Examples of other conflicts that can occur include the following:
• Conflicts created when HCORT emergency vehicles such as ambulances, fire engines and
police cars have overriding priority.
• Conflicts created when a vehicle on an HCORT freeway lane or the system detects an intruder
into the lane such as an animal and slows the vehicle down to such a slow speed that all
following traffic are quickly forced to slow down also. In such a situation, it is preferable that
only those vehicles closely following are affected and that remaining parts of the freeway lane
can continue their function at their original speeds.
Both synchronous and asynchronous controlled networks need long buffer zones related to each merge
and diverge. The buffer zones allow vehicles to alter their speed such that they re-arrange the time they
enter the next lane.
For turns into thrulanes, and for re-entering the HCORT freeways from the thrulanes, the easiest place
to add this buffering will generally be in the thrulanes in the length between the nearest station and the
acceleration and deceleration lanes. There may also be some buffering in the acceleration and
deceleration lanes.
With asynchronous controlled networks, regardless of having those buffer zones, when the system

becomes busy there becomes high likelihoods of conflicts where the vehicle ends up being rerouted in
sub optimal ways. With synchronous systems, most conflicts are resolved previous to the vehicle
leaving their origin.
The recommendation for HCORT is to use a synchronous control wherever possible with the exception
of parking bays at the destination. If the journey is short, then a parking bay would be included in the
initial allocation. For longer journeys, an attempt at parking bay allocation is made as the vehicle nears
its destination station. If all parking bays are full, an unused vehicle would be shifted to another
station.
Network System Route Advisory Concept:
While we want a distributed set of individual system components such as intersection controllers and
guideway controllers to operate in an autonomous manner, this can be cumbersome for the allocation of
time slots or platoon positions.
For example, assume a vehicle first gets a time slot/platoon position assigned on the first HCORT
section of its route only to discover that when it requests a time slot on the next section or any later
section of the route, it can't get one that matches up. It now has to go back get the initially assigned
position unassigned and then attempt to get a later time slot/platoon position. In busy periods this may
repeat several times and may occur with a high proportion of vehicles. This creates many messages, is
very inefficient and can end up being very slow. Vehicles and their occupants, sitting in station bays,
would end up waiting for this to complete before their vehicles can start their journeys.
There are also a number of problems associated with requests to multiple controllers controlling a
single guideway. Without route advisory modules, each vehicle’s requests would need to go to all the
controllers controlling a route. As there could then be two or more allocations, there would be a
number of cancellation of allocated timeslots all taking time to do.
Central control modules that have knowledge of all time slots on all routes would be be far more
efficient. The problem in having a central control module perform route assignments like this is that
this breaks many of our design objectives. In particular, central control needs to be made non critical.
This requires that central control modules only enhances an otherwise running system.
To get the best of both worlds we can have a distributed set of guideway controllers performing the
actual allocations but we can have one or some additional network system control module(s) acting as
route advisory module(s).
For vehicles to be assigned a route, the vehicle would normally start by sending a message to a network
system route advisory module. Using the data it has of the whole network, the route advisory module
would respond with a complete route of unallocated timeslot/platoon positions. With this data, the
vehicle now messages each of the guideway controllers to get those timeslots/platoon positions
allocated.
Under various (but rare) circumstances, vehicles can go direct to the distributed set of controllers to get
their allocations. In these circumstances the advisory modules would be updated soon after so there

may be periods when the advisory modules don't have the latest information. Consequently, it is
possible for a vehicle to be advised of a complete route of timeslot positions where one or more of the
timeslots is not actually available.
In such a case, the vehicle would not get their requested timeslots/platoon positions allocated.
Typically, in such a case, the vehicle would wait in the station bay until they got another suggested set
of timeslot positions and ultimately got them allocated. As this situation is rare, the odd occurrence of
it will not impact the efficient running of the network.
The route advisory modules assume that if they advise a vehicle of a set of timeslot positions, these will
not be available for another vehicle. Another rare occurrence that can happen is that a route advisory
module can advise a set of timeslot/platoon positions to a vehicle but the vehicle doesn't use that data.
This could occur with someone stopping the vehicle from leaving a station bay. In any circumstance
where a vehicle doesn't use that data, it needs to tell that to the route advisory modules.
Repositioning System
PRT changes the system methodology of passenger pickup. Instead of vehicles travelling around
scheduled routes, vehicles are simple repositioned by system computers to go to the stop most likely
needing it. The vehicles simply wait at stops until used there or re-positioned by system control. For
all times outside of peak, when a user goes to a station, they will almost always find a vehicle waiting
for them to take them on their journey. If a vehicle isn't there, the user requests one and the system will
send one to that station.
As well as public transit vehicle repositioning, there will need to be some repositioning of private dual
use vehicles in order for these vehicles to use the most appropriate parking. People with dual use
vehicles are able to exit the vehicle at any station and allow the system to find parking. When these
people want the vehicle back they can use a mobile phone app to request the return and tell it which
station they are now at.
All these repositioning functions need to be designed so that they are not based on a single central
computer.
Control modules for the Feeder Network:
The control system for thrulanes needs to know the destination of each vehicle. Whenever we have
consecutive vehicles on a thrulane there may need to be a number of empty time slots between the
vehicles depending on their destinations. In particular, when the first of the two vehicles is
• going to stop at a station previous to that station that the second vehicle is going to stop at and
• is not going into first place at that station and consequently needs to maneuver in order to get to
its stop position

then additional time slot or slots between the vehicles need to be allocated in order to give the first
vehicle time to maneuver into its stop position before the following vehicle gets there.
One way to slightly reduce this it to allocate the first position at each station as being only used for
passenger drop offs.
If the thrulane is heavily used then each station should have a manoeuvring lane so that these additional
time allocations are not needed.
The control system for the feeder network must take into account the maximum possible length of a
vehicle. Let us assume here that this is 9 metres. Note: Such a 9 metre vehicle would need to be
significantly rounded at the ends in order to negotiate the turns being envisaged for this system and
would not be allowed in ordinary station bays.
A synchronous control system is easier done without the possibility of long platoons. Since we have to
allow up to something like 9 metres for the length, we could also allow platoons of 2 vehicles latched
together on thrulanes but only when those vehicles were 4.5 metres or less along with an assumption
that the typical passenger vehicle was 4.5 metres or less long.
Longer lengths or platoons may be better handled by allocating multiple consecutive time slots. This
would allow the time slots to be smaller. As the feeder network is lighter loaded than the freeways, it
should generally be easy to allocate multiple consecutive time slots.
Note that we also have to allow a platoon of any three vehicles. This is needed with malfunctioning
vehicles to allow the vehicles behind and in front to latch to the malfunctioning vehicle to shift it out of
the road of other vehicles. Since this is relatively rare, it can be handled by allocating two or more
timeslots to such a platoon.
We can set a time slot of 4 seconds per vehicle or pair of vehicles. This doesn't have to match the time
slots on the HCORT freeway as there will be buffering between these guideways.
For synchronous systems, the whole guideway does not have to have the same speed. Various speeds
can be assigned to various parts of the guideway so long as:
• all vehicles that go down those parts of the guideway travel at the assigned speed for that part
of the guideway.
• the assigned speed provides a reasonable headway given the maximum length of a platoon.
For the purposes of this analysis the headway is the distance from the front of a vehicle or platoon to
the front of the following vehicle or platoon. Consequently they must be able to contain the maximum
length vehicle/platoon plus have some additional gap between the back of the vehicle/platoon and the
following vehicle. With the assigned 4 second time slots the headways (ie distance from front of
vehicle or platoon to front of the next one) at different speeds are as follows:
90 km/hr – 100 metres

80 km/hr - 88.89 metres

The first 5 of the above are all reasonable headways for automatic controlled vehicles at the specified
speed with a maximum length vehicle. The standard assigned speeds for each section of the thrulane
guideway would always be 10 km/hr or more. The 10 km/hr would be the minimum used for very
sharp bends.
The last of the above at 5 km/hr(walking speed) is not reasonable, even though most of the vehicles are
4.5 metres or less long. If some situation occurs where a vehicle has to slow down to walking speed or
less while on the guideway, that vehicle and vehicles coming directly behind will have to be changed
from synchronous to asynchronous control.
For example, a vehicle detects an intruder into the guideway lane such as an animal and slows down
from the assigned speed of, for example, 20 km/hr. Lets assume that the situation clears before the
vehicle had slowed below 10 km/hr. Regardless of the fact that the speed is still within the speeds
allowed for synchronous control, the vehicle needs to be changed from synchronous to asynchronous
control.
While it can now go back up to the 20 km/hr of the section, in order to put it back into a synchronous
time slot it must now be controlled so that it is in one of the following time slots 4, 8, 12... seconds
after the one it was in. All the following vehicles will be similarly shifted back in time slots (by
slowing them down) until there was enough empty time slots to cover this rearrangement.
Each of the vehicles that underwent this rearrangement of time slots would now need the resources for
the rest of their journey, to be re-assigned. There may be a period of time where some of these vehicles
don't have assigned resources (clear path) for all their journey. They would be partially in synchronous
mode as they were now being controlled in synchronous time slots on this guideway but they don't
have clear path through out their journey.
In this situation these vehicles would have priority of assignment of resources over those waiting at
stations to be assigned their trip resources.
Let us assume that these vehicles were on the thrulane heading towards the HCORT freeway. Each of
these vehicle needs to be assigned a place on the HCORT freeway before it enters the acceleration lane.
If any fails to get a place before it reaches the exit or near the exit of the thrulane it will have to come to
a stop and wait for an assignment. All following vehicles will similarly have to stop behind it and wait
for re-allocation to get into the HCORT freeway.
The vehicles do not have to be allocated clear path for all the journey in order for them to continue onto
the HCORT freeway. They only need to be allocated a place on the HCORT freeway.
Once they have entered the HCORT freeway without full clear path allocation for the rest of their
journey, the possibility exists that they will not find slots to make turns into other HCORT freeways or
into thrulanes that would make their journey optimal. In each such case, when they reach that turnoff
without gaining an allocation they would simply continue onwards in the HCORT freeway they are in.

The HCORT freeways all have U turns at each end of them. This makes each HCORT freeway an
infinite loop. As well, most freeways will have frequent U turn lanes along them. Once a vehicle has
been allocated to a platoon time slot on an HCORT freeway it has this place, above all other vehicles,
even above those with high priority. It can only be re-allocated after this vehicle has been allocated a
place on an exit guideway.
Control System for Side Lanes
Should HCORT be expanded to include the use of HCORT vehicles using side lanes, then there would
need to be is a completely different control system for the side lanes of the thrulanes which is
mentioned in various parts of this document but not fully detailed herein.
HCORT Freeway Control System:
The combination of platooning and variable vehicle length makes synchronous control systems more
difficult than normal but they can be done. For the HCORT freeways, timeslots need to be allocated to
the platoons rather than the individual vehicles. The following section of Throughput calculations
provides a possible or likely analysis based on the envisaged speed of 180 km/hr for HCORT freeways.

Throughput Calculations
Assumptions for All Examples
Transit microbuses and Podcars, which are the main vehicles used for the public transit
function, and standard goods vehicles designed for carrying a single standard fork lift pallet
are all expected to be short in length compared to our current automobiles. Note: It is
probable that transit microbuses will only carry up to 4 people and Podcars only carry a
maximum of 2 people. These should be less than 4 metres in length. As some of the other
special vehicles will be significantly longer we have used an expected average vehicle length
of 4.1 metres
For many of the examples we use a maximum platoon length of 25 metres. This length
allows us to assume a platoon will have up to 6 average length vehicles per platoon. Utilising
this for all platoons will give theoretical maximums with all the platoon positions filled.
It is not practical to get such a theoretical maximum and as the number of vehicles increase
so that it approaches this, there would be major problems with the running of the network
such as excessively long wait times for vehicles to obtain allocated resources. Until we obtain
better figures we can conservative estimate that the system will run well with an overall
average of 75 per cent of the theoretical maximum. In all the following examples, we consider
the calculated throughput to be realistically achievable after we have degraded the theoretical
maximum throughput to this 75 per cent.
Throughout the following examples we compare the calculated throughput/HCORT guideway

to that we currently obtain from our standard freeway lanes. Our current standard freeway
lanes are considered to have a maximum capacity of 2,100 vehicle/hr to 2,400 vehicles/hr.
For these calculations we will assume that that standard freeway lanes have a maximum
usable capacity of 2,250 vehicles/hr.
Through out the following examples we also compare HCORT freeway throughputs per land
area to that of standard freeway lanes. Because the tracking of HCORT vehicles is tightly
regulated and the lanes are restricted to only small vehicles, an HCORT lane takes up an
area less than two thirds of that of typical standard road freeway/expressway lanes. Utilising
the area needed for one standard roadway lane provides an equivalent capacity of one and a
half times the calculated capacity per HCORT guideway.
With most of the following examples we also make assumptions as to what the minimum gap
between maximum sized platoon will be set to. The minimum gap is used to allow vehicles to
merge in and connect to their platoon or for disassembly of the platoon or for allowing the
vehicles to slow down in order to safely travel around a sharp bend.
Throughout the following examples we calculate the minimum speed available in order to turn

a sharper curve for each of the minimum gaps. These calculations assume that the design
doesn’t allow vehicles to enter or leave a platoon just before or after such a sharper curve
while there is a reduced gap. The minimum speed calculated is that which would bring the
gap to zero. For safety we would still want some gap so the usable minimum speed would
be one or two km/hr higher than that.
It should be noted that all maximum capacities are in each direction as there is a requirement
in the HCORT design that each freeway guideway is part of an infinite loop. That is that the
ends of each freeway are looped back to their opposite direction.
The beginning of each platoon is set to the beginning of a timeslot with all timeslots being the
same size. These equally spaced timeslots continue through out the infinite loop of the
bidirectional freeway regardless of the number of vehicles in the platoon and regardless of the
speed of the HCORT lane at any point.
The time slot is allocated even if there are no vehicles in the platoon. Regardless of this, the
parameters, including the length of time slot can be set differently for different freeways, but
doing so will give complications for the control when vehicles turn from one freeway to
another with different parameters.
Example 1
The following provides a possible or likely analysis based on the envisaged speed of 180
km/hr for HCORT freeways. This example is the same as the “Introduction to HCORT
Throughput Calculations” in the Executive Summary at the beginning of this document.
We can set a maximum length of platoon at 25 metres. At 180km/hr this maximum length
requires a half second to pass a point. The minimum gap between maximum sized platoons
can be set to 11 metres.
Theoretical maximum throughputs can be calculated as follows:
180,000 metres/hr / 36 metres/platoon = 5000 platoons/hr

6 typical vehicles/max sized platoon * 5000 platoons/hr = 30,000 vehicles/hr
Based on the conservative estimate of 75 per cent of the theoretical maximum, the usable
capacity is 22,500 vehicles/hr.
The above HCORT freeway guideway capacity of 30,000 provides a theoretical maximum
capacity of over 14 standard road freeway/expressway lanes and a realistically achievable
throughput of 10 standard road freeway/expresslanes.
As a comparison for land area, the above capacity provides a realistically achievable
throughput of 15 standard road freeway/expressway lanes for the same land area as one

standard freeway/expressway lane.
The gap of 11 metres can be used to allow reduced speed for sharper bends down to as
follows:
25 metres/platoon * 5000 platoons/hr = 125 km/hr minimum speed.
Time required for each platoon plus gap to pass a point can be calculated as follows:
3600 secs/hr / 5000 platoons/hr - 0.72 secs/platoon
Examples for Sharper Curves or Greater Distance Between

Platoons
Sharper curves can be provided for by increasing the distance between platoons. There is also the
possibility that certain districts will want a bigger distance between platoons in order to increase the
safety margin. Alternatively, the distance between platoons can be reduced in order to increase the
traffic throughput.
The following makes the same assumption of 180km/hr with a maximum 25 metre platoon length.
Distance between Platoons (metres) 2 4 6 8 10 12

Max Platoons/hr (platoons/hr) 6666 6206 5806 5454 5142 4864
Platoon + Gap Timeslot (seconds) 0.54 0.58 0.62 0.66 0.7 0.74
Minimum Speed (km/hr) 167 156 146 137 129 122
Theoretical Max throughput (vehicle/hr) 40000 37241 34838 32727 30857 29189
Achievable Max throughput (vehicle/hr) 30000 27931 26129 24545 23143 21891
Achievable freeway lane equivalents 13.3 12.4 11.6 10.9 10.2 9.7
Achievable/area freeway lane equivalents 20 18.6 17.4 16.3 15.4 14.5

Max Platoons/hr (platoons/hr) 4500 4186 3600 2400 1800 1440
Platoon + Gap Timeslot (seconds) 0.8 0.86 1 1.5 2 2.5
Theoretical Max throughput (vehicle/hr) 2700 25116 21600 14400 10800 8640
Achievable Max throughput (vehicle/hr) 20250 18837 16200 10800 8100 6480
Achievable freeway lane equivalents 9 8 7.2 4.8 3.6 2.8
Achievable/area freeway lane equivalents 13.5 12.5 10.8 7.2 5.4 4.3
Examples that Change the Maximum Platoon Length
Should a system as specified initially, run out of capacity, it could change the setup to get extra capacity

by increasing the maximum platoon length. The following shows the calculation of capacity if the
maximum platoon length is changed.
The following examples make the assumption of 180km/hr with an 11 metre gap between maximum
length platoons.
Number typ 4.1m vehicles 1 2 3 4

Maximum length of platoon (metres) 5 9 13 17
Theoretical Max throughput (vehicle/hr) 11250 18000 22500 25714
Achievable Max throughput (vehicle/hr) 8437 13500 16875 19285
Achievable freeway lane equivalents 3.7 6 7.5 8.5
Achievable/area freeway lane equivalents 5.6 9 11.2 12.8
Number typ 4.1m vehicles 5 7 10 14

Maximum length of platoon (metres) 21 29 41 58
Theoretical Max throughput (vehicle/hr) 28125 31500 34615 36520
Achievable Max throughput (vehicle/hr) 21093 23625 25961 27391
Achievable freeway lane equivalents 9.3 10.5 11.5 12.1
Achievable/area freeway lane equivalents 11.2 12.8 14 15.7 17.3 18.2
Note: Increasing the maximum number of typical vehicles per platoon from 5 to 10 only changed the
maximum capacity from 9.3 standard freeway lane equivalents to 11.5 standard freeway lane
equivalents. This isn't a big difference. If entry and exits are close together, it may be hard to
manoeuvre vehicles into and out of such large platoons.
Examples Using Multiple Guideways for Diverges and Merges
HCORT freeways can be implemented without the allowance for wide gaps between platoons and yet
still turn tight corners. Implementing this requires that each high speed guideway diverges into
multiple guideways before each tight turn that requires the vehicles to slow down. Following the tight
turn, the guideways would merge again. The following makes the same assumption of 180km/hr with a
maximum 25 metre platoon length as well as that no manoeuvring is allowed near the corners.

Minimum Speed (km/hr) without diverge 167 156 146 137 129 122
Minimum Speed (km/hr) diverge to 2 lanes 84 78 73 69 65 61


Example Without Platooning
An alternative to platoons is to simply allocate a timeslot for each vehicle. One example of this has
already been shown in the above ‘Examples that provide for sharper curves or greater distance
between platoons’.
In order to create high vehicle throughput without platooning, the maximum vehicle length per single
timeslot needs to be reduced and the distance between vehicles needs to be substantially reduced.
Assume that the maximum vehicle length for a single slot is 5 metres and that we can have a gap
between vehicles of 5 metres at 180km/hr.
180,000m/hr / 10m/vehicle = 18,000 vehicles / hr maximum
The above initial example (Example 1) with 25 metre platoons and 11 metre gap provided a maximum
throughput of 30,000 vehicles / hr. This example with 5 metres gap / slot would allow the speed in a
tight turn to be reduced to a little above 90 km/hr.
Longer vehicles could still be accommodated by having them use two or more adjacent slots. We can
assume vehicles longer than 5 metres to be rare so our throughput calculation assumes that there are no
longer vehicles.
The concept of using a timeslot for each vehicle is likely to be used through out the HCORT Feeder
network. In this case, as well as large vehicles being allocated multiple timeslots there is also the
capability for some platoons to use the Feeder network using multiple timeslots. This could occur with
dual use vehicles that have trailer vehicles attached or for disabled vehicles being pushed and pulled off
the HCORT freeways/
Example Using Faster Maximum Freeway Speeds
The above examples have assumed that the speed on the HCORT freeway is 180km/hr. There is no
absolute reason why the speed should be set at that. It could well be significantly faster or slower.
There are advantages and disadvantages of each speed. For example, a faster speed either requires
longer acceleration lanes or more powerful motors. The direction of vehicle technology is to make it
easier to go faster and it could well be that the system is implemented at 240km/hr.
The following assumes 240km/hr with some bends that require the speed to decrease to 120km/hr.
Tight corners requiring further decreases in speed could be implemented by multiple guideway
diverge/merges. It assumes that a typical HCORT vehicle is 4.1 metres long and platoons have a
maximum of 6 vehicles/platoon. This provides for maximum platoon length of 25 metres. At
240km/hr this length is travelled in 0.375 seconds.
Setting the time slot to 0.5 seconds allows the gap between platoons to decrease to 0.125 seconds. This
is a gap between maximum sized platoons of 8.333... metres.
maximum of 6 vehicles/platoon
1 platoon/0.5 seconds = 2 platoons / second
6 vehicles/platoon x 2 platoons/second x 3600 seconds/hr = 43,200 vehicles/hr per lane or a usable
throughput of 32,400 vehicles/hr per lane.

The HCORT lane has a usable maximum capacity greater than 14 standard freeway lanes. The area
needed for one standard roadway lane would provide the equivalent of over 21 extra freeway lanes of
traffic.
With this configuration, when at a bend that requires the lowest speed, the minimum speed can be
reduced to just over 180km/hr.
Platoon Coupling and Uncoupling

The HCORT recommendation is for the vehicles to perform the grouping and ungrouping into and out
of platoons on the freeways (expressways) directly after entering from the acceleration lane. This
requires it to occur at the full speed of the freeways (expressways) in that section.
Brick-wall Criteria.
On traditional roads our drivers recognise that it is impossible for a car traveling at speed just ahead to
suddenly stop. It is against the laws of physics and if the vehicle approached such a rapid stop then the
vehicle occupants would be killed.
Each driver can recognise when the car in front starts to brake and can take action. Often, they can
only stop in time without an accident due to the fact that the vehicle in front can't stop instantaneously.
A similar system is also used with trams.
With train lines the distances between trains are so large the following trains drivers either can't see the
train in front and can't see it with enough precision to know when it is braking. When this is added to
the fact that trains take a long time to slow down, for safety they have to add additional criteria.
Due to these types of conditions the minimum headway between trains is specified with the condition
that, if one train stopped instantaneously the train behind must be able to stop before a collision occurs.
This is known as the Brick-wall criteria.
PRT systems have historically been designed as vehicles on rails or as monorail systems. With this rail
appearance, transport authorities have often attempted to apply the Brick-wall criteria to PRT systems.
PRT proponents have always been adamant that the Brick-wall criteria wasn't required with PRT.
With most PRT systems, the application of the Brick-wall criteria, substantially reduced the throughput
of the system, often to the point of making them uneconomic.
HCORT, being a method of creating road traffic or road traffic equivalent, should not have this
problem. For various historical and political reasons it could still be wanted. The structure of HCORT
networks makes it possible to be incorporated.

HCORT with Brick-Wall Criteria implementation:
A variant form of HCORT allows the vehicles to perform the grouping and ungrouping outside
freeways (expressways) at very slow speeds. This variant form allows the network to achieve a
brickwall criteria that has traditional use in railway design. The variant form requires additional
capabilities to thrulanes and sidings.

Vehicle Utilisation:
Statistics on freeway use have shown that there is typically 1.2 people transported per vehicle on a
normal freeway.
If the new HCORT system operated only with the public transit vehicles being for the "exclusive use of
an individual or small group travelling together by choice" then the number of passengers transported
per vehicle will also be close to this 1.2 per vehicle.
It is anticipated that the public transit vehicles will be "available for the exclusive use of an individual
or small group ..." throughout day and night but have an additional option in peak periods. Although
optional, there would be substantive incentive(s) to utilise it. For example, users that required
exclusive use in peak periods would be charged significantly higher fares.
The additional option provides a strategy to increase the per passenger per vehicle utilisation. It will
work as follows:
The booking/request (i.e. mobile phone app or device at station) for vehicle system will provide the
control system both the location where the user is travelling from and the destination. The control
system will try to match requests.
If a user enters a vehicle in a peak period without a booking/request, after the user has entered their
destination, the control system will attempt to find other users to share the vehicle. This would include
displays that showed the stations that were appropriate for sharing this vehicle. Such displays would be
on both the vehicle and the station bay.
When the vehicle is full or after a specific time attempting to get it full, it will perform the journey.
There would likely be an acceptance of another passenger where that other passenger was going to a
different station but it was in the same direction. This may be limited to stations on the same siding or
thrulane as the first passenger in the vehicle. Alternatively, it could allow for going down different
sidings or thrulanes in the journey. It would limit this so that a passenger would only have to wait for
the vehicle to go down a maximum of one thrulane not needed for their journey.
When passengers alight previous to the end of the vehicle's current journey, the station bay and/or
vehicle will display where the vehicle is going to and attempt to replace them if possible. If there were
passenger(s) immediately available it will take them but there would not be any significant wait.
Many cities have a traffic pattern where the majority of people are heading towards the city in the
morning and returning home, away from the city, in the late afternoon.
The small stations in the outer suburbs are likely to have several bays where one bay could be specified
as for people heading towards the CBD and one specified for people heading away from the CBD.
In the CBD or nearest to the CBD the stations would have a large number of bays. Most bays would be

reserved for people going to specific destinations or range of destinations.
One advantage of transport systems like this compared to standard roads is the ease in which strategies
like this provide for high seat utilisation.

Disabled/Mobility Considerations
There is a need for the network to provide reasonable transport functionality for disabled or impaired
users along with transport of their mobility devices. to use the network mobility devices into network
vehicles
The maximum allowed vehicle height will be a major determinant of the cost of implementations.
Setting a height that allows full functionality by disabled or impaired users that need mobility devices
is likely to be a major determinant of what that maximum vehicle height is.
Operation in Reverse:
All HCORT vehicles must be able to operate in reverse. The most common uses of this are in sidings
and side lanes. Typical places it may be used are entering and leaving station bays, entering and leaving
properties and performing 3 point U turns. Each of these places it would be used at slow speed.
Vehicles must also be able to travel backwards on HCORT freeways, acceleration and deceleration
lanes thrulanes and sidings at a substantive speed, although this is expected to be a lot slower than the
normal HCORT freeway speed. This is needed in the case of accidents and similar events.
For example, assume a large wind blows a roof off a house and onto an HCORT freeway guideway
such that the first vehicle to encounter it is unable to stop in time. Assume that following vehicles are
able to pull up in time but we need an ambulance for the people in the first vehicle. Now the quickest
way for the ambulance and other emergency vehicles to arrive is for the use of an HCORT ambulance
using the HCORT freeway. The problem with that is that there may be a number of vehicles between
the last exit and the accident. These vehicles can't forward past the house roof and smashed up vehicle.
They need to be able to back up to and into the last thrulane in order to clear the way for emergency
vehicles. The emergency vehicles can then travel directly forward to the accident site.
Backing also provides a second route to the accident site. The vehicles just past the accident will
continue unaffected and clear the guideway after the accident. Network system controls can also stop
any more vehicles entering the guideway from the thrulanes that are just after the accident. Once the
guideway past the accident has been so cleared, emergency vehicles can get onto that guideway past the
accident and then travel backwards to the accident. The easiest places it can use to get onto that
guideway would be simple turns or U-turns which exit onto that guideway. It may also be possible to
get onto that guideway through a thrulane but that would require removing any vehicles in the way
such as putting them into station bays, putting them into the side lanes or getting them to exit through

the HCORT freeway guideway.

Configurations/Topology/Topography
The HCORT freeway (expressway) guideways need to have complete grade separation both between
other HCORT guideways and between the HCORT freeways and other modes of transport such as
roads and rail.
Methods of achieving Grade Separation
Near Grade
Elevated
Viaducts
Underground
Cut and Cover
Traditional Bored Tunnels
If you only envision electric vehicles in your tunnels you don’t need to do the air handling for all the
carbon monoxide and carbon dioxide pollutants from the exhaust. You could have scrubbers
(https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Scrubber) and a variety of simpler things. These help to reduce the
overall size of the tunnel as well as reducing cost
Traditional Bored Tunnels
Cut and Cover Tunnels
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tunnel#Cut-and-cover
Access for Traditional Road Traffic
The new system is able to handle the majority of people and goods transport, but not all. A complete
implementation for a city could ultimately replace all trains, buses and trams as well as the majority of
road traffic.
Remaining road traffic would generally be goods that could not meet the size constraints such as
carriage of large cranes, cherry pickers, construction vehicles and carriage of larger items along with
vehicles and trailers leaving the city. In order to allow these to be driven to and from where they are
needed, each alternate arterial or distributor road or every third or fourth arterial or distributor road
along with most highways and freeways will remain unhindered for their use.

Most roads being used by the new system will still have enough room left on the road to allow these
vehicles access via side lanes but in order to allow this, traditional street parking will be stopped or
substantially reduced.
Intersecting HCORT Freeway Interchange Configurations:
When HCORT Freeway Guideways intersect with each other they will be grade separated by elevation.
That is one HCORT Freeway going over and one going under. These freeways need methods to turn in
both directions. With traditional road freeway/expressways there are common ways of doing this such
as the Clover Leaf Interchange.
In many HCORT configurations there will be a need for a large number of U-Turns as well as the
options of straight through, left turn or right turn. This need for U-Turns is a result of the fact that the
Feeder network will normally be implemented as one way paths. Clover Leaf Interchanges and most
other freeway to freeway interchanges do not provide U-Turn facilities.
While each of the different forms of free-flow interchange that traditional road freeway/expressway use
such as clover leaf could be used by HCORT interchanges, the recommended one herein is one that is
hardly ever used by standard road freeway/expressways. This herein recommended one is the U-Turns
Interchange.
Like most interchange designs, the U-Turns Interchange has for each direction of traffic, Simple Turn
Lanes from the direction being travelled to the direction away from opposing traffic. That is, if
vehicles of a bidirectional pair of guideways travel on the left hand side then these are turns to the left.
If they travel on the right hand side, these are turns to the right. For the purposes of this document,
these turn lanes are called 'Simple Turn Lanes'.
The Minimum U-Turns Interchange has two grade separated U-turn Lanes on one of the bidirectional
freeways, one in each direction. The entrance to these U-Turn Lanes is situated after the completion of
the Simple Turn Lanes. That is, if a vehicle travels straight down the freeway containing the U-Turns,
it first passes the entrance from the opposite direction's U-Turn Lane, then it passes the exit into the
Simple Turn Lane, then it crosses under or over the other freeway, then it passes an entrance from the
other freeway's Simple Turn Lane and finally it reaches the entrance into the U-Turn Lane that it is able
to enter.

A diagram of the minimum U-Turn Interchange
Using this interchange configuration, vehicles travelling in any direction are able to make any turn
including U-turns. That is they can continue directly through or make a left turn or a right turn or a U-
turn regardless of which direction they were initially travelling. All of these turns are free flow. This
includes turns both from and to the freeway that doesn't have U-Turn guideways.
Some of these turns require combining multiple turn lanes. The most complex is performing a U-turn
while travelling on the freeway that doesn't have U-turn Lanes. To do this the vehicle makes a simple
turn followed by a U-turn on the other freeway followed by travelling to the other U-turn, making
another U-turn and then finally making a simple turn back into (but in the opposite direction) the
freeway it was in previously.
The above Minimum U-Turns Interchange can be expanded to have pairs of grade separated U-Turn
lanes on both freeways. These extra lanes provide full redundancy for every turn lane or the straight
through paths. That is any turn lane, or the straight path under or over the other freeway, can be out of
operation with the remaining paths providing a route to complete any turn, including U-turn, or straight
through journey. In a 24 hour network we need this in order to perform maintenance on the
interchange lane guideways.

This Expanded U-Turn Interchange is herein the recommend interchange to be implemented for the
interchange of HCORT Freeway Guideways. Other advantages of this interchange include:
- It makes U-Turns easy. Other aspects of this HCORT design mean that there will be a higher
frequency of U-Turns than the other turns. The way HCORT configurations are designed herein with
one way thrulanes entering the HCORT freeways mean that vehicles are often entering in the opposite
direction to that required for their journey. A similar problem exists for vehicles exiting to thrulanes.
- It maintains all the interchange on just two levels (grades) and the heights between those levels.
- These U-Turns are a lot more compact than configurations such as clover leaf. Implementation in a
tear drop shape will typically allow the U-turn lane to be implemented without requiring external
properties to be purchased.
- Maximum turns per turn lane are only 180 degrees rather than the 270 degrees of cloverleaf lane, but
vehicles may have to implement more than one turn lane to complete their change of freeway.
- The four Simple Turn Lane guideways plus four U-Turn Lane guideways per interchange produce
the possibility of production line techniques with off-site manufacture.
- Alternative routes can be used by the network system control to find a route that has a clear-path to
the destination within the various synchronous time slots.
- The long lengths of the U-turn lane guideways provide greater capability for buffering in order to
synchronize the coming merge. Note that the simple turns may need their length increased above that
needed for the turn in order to provide greater capability to buffer the traffic to allow each vehicle to
synchronize into the coming merge. See below Variant U-Turn Interchange.
Variant U-Turn Interchange.
There is a variant to the above described U-Turn Interchange which I call herein the Variant U-Turn
Interchange. To the freeways containing U-turns, this variant adds a side lane from which each of the
turns can be made. This allows the order between simple turn and U-Turn to be changed. For example,
it can extend the Simple Turn Lane so that it connects into the entrance of the U-Turn lane and allows
vehicles to enter the destination freeway after the U-Turn lane.
This author is not aware of any road that uses the standard U-Turn Interchange exactly as described
earlier but there is one example of a Minimum Variant U-Turn Interchange built on the Dongbu
Expressway in South Korea. This can be seen on google maps at:
https://www.google.com/maps/place/37%C2%B033'35.8%22N+127%C2%B004'19.5%22E/
@37.5597444,127.0732187,16z/data=!4m5!3m4!1s0x0:0x0!8m2!3d37.55994!4d127.072071?hl=en
An expanded version of the Variant U-Turn Interchange may be a better option for HCORT free
interchanges as it provides longer length for buffering in order to complete synchronization of vehicles
in the coming merge of their journey.

HCORT Freeway Guideway to Road Configurations:
In the outer suburbs the HCORT freeways will go along the centre of roads that were previously minor
arterial or minor distributor roads. Road changes required due to placing this guideway in the centre
will often involve changing the function of the road to simply being for local traffic.
There are a number of options on how to place HCORT freeways and feeder network guideways. The
main ones are as follows:
A) Place a bidirectional pair of HCORT freeway guideway lanes in the centre of an

arterial/distributor road. This may be significantly cheaper than options B: or C: below but this
primarily depends on the cost of the fencing and the costs associated with adding U turns. It
also depends on if there is enough room in the arterial/distributor road for these and associated
acceleration/deceleration lanes while still providing sufficient roadway use for standard traffic
such as access to properties.
The primary advantage of this configuration (compared to B: and C: configurations) is that the
cost to fence the pair of HCORT freeway guideways will be similar to the cost to fence just one
of the single direction HCORT freeways and both need to be fenced. There may also be
reduced costs in having fewer but larger overpasses/underpasses along the length of the HCORT
freeway guideways. When the pair of HCORT freeway guideways become elevated, which is
likely as they approach the CBD, there may also be cost savings in the pair of guideways being
able to share foundations and support.
The thrulanes near the entry of acceleration lanes and near the exit of deceleration lanes are
generally required to go near grade/underground in order for these guideways to cross the path
of traditional vehicles using the freeway guideway side lanes. Consequently it will not be hard
for these guideways to also go under the freeway guideways so that thrulanes can be connected
to both directions of freeway traffic.
It will be cheaper for thrulanes, to only connect into the HCORT freeway guideway on the same
side of the arterial/distributor road as them. That is, they only connect into the nearest freeway
guideway, not the one in the opposing direction.
This would mean that turns from the thrulanes into the HCORT freeways (via acceleration
lanes) will often have to be done such that the vehicles on the HCORT freeways are going in the
opposite direction to that wanted. The vehicles would then perform a U-turn to go where they
wanted.
A similar problem exists for vehicles attempting to enter a thrulane. Their journey will often
have them travelling on the opposing direction freeway lane. To get to their thrulane they will
go past their thrulane, perform a U-turn then on the return to that thrulane they will be able to
make a simple diverge into the deceleration lane of that thrulane.
Another problem with this configuration is that it assumes that there is a reasonable route for

thrulanes to travel around some block or blocks of back street, or at least it assumes it for the
initial implementation. It is preferable for it to travel around some block or blocks as that
allows the thrulanes to be implemented as one way lanes.
This will not always be the case and the feeder network will then have to be implemented with
two guideways down the back street in order to return the traffic. It may also require the
vehicles to perform a U-turn on the thrulane. If the thrulane or siding has very low traffic it
may be possible to implement a time multiplexed single lane with bidirectional traffic.
Note that this type of problem will only be a problem in the early implementation of a city. As
more HCORT freeways become implemented such that there is another HCORT freeway lane,
two or three blocks over, then some of the thrulanes will be converted to allow travel across to
the further away HCORT freeway.
B) Place a single direction of HCORT freeway guideway on one arterial/distributor road and
place the opposite direction of HCORT freeway guideway on an arterial/distributor road that is
roughly parallel but one block over.
Some thrulanes would go as one way guideways in one direction between the HCORT freeway
guideways and some would go in the opposite direction.
The advantage (compared to A: above) are as follows:

• Only requires a single lane freeway guideway plus associated acceleration/deceleration
lanes in the middle of the road used for the freeway.
• The thrulanes can be used to implement U-turns. These U-turns would be slow and
would add extra traffic to the sidings.
• This adds to the transport network coverage.
C) Place a single direction of HCORT freeway guideway on one arterial/distributor road and
place the opposite direction of HCORT freeway guideway on an arterial/distributor road that is
roughly parallel but two or more blocks over.
The disadvantage of this (compared to B: above) is that most of the thrulanes will require
crossing the in-between arterial/distributor road, presumably by near grade underpasses.
The advantages of it (compared to B: above) are

• Allows alternate arterial/distributor roads to continue their original function.
• Allows a single pair of HCORT freeway guideways to cover a wider section of the outer
suburbs.
• Easier to provide standard road users access to side lanes and consequently easier for
ordinary vehicles to reach their own properties.

Back Street Feeder Network Guideway Configurations:
Narrow back streets converted to containing HCORT feeder network guideways or designed originally
for such guideways will typically have the following configuration:
• A single one way lane for the new HCORT system near the center of the road. This will
generally be fenced off to stop pedestrians crossing it. Note that the fences used here may not
be of the same quality as those used for the HCORT freeway guideways.
• Near one end of the road or road block there will be a station where the HCORT vehicles can
park on one side of the road. Near the other end of the road or road block there will be a
station where the parking of HCORT vehicles will be on the other side of the road to that of
the other station.
• At or near the stations there will be a small bridge over the HCORT lane to allow pedestrians
and bikes to cross.
• Along both sides of the HCORT feeder guideway, there will be roadway lanes that allows
traditional road traffic access to properties along the street. Through access will often be
blocked by the stations. Consequently, these become alternating direction single lanes with
the direction and access being controlled by an electronic control. Herein, these lanes are
called side lanes.
• The electronic control for these can be just a mobile phone app. This app. would require the
road user to request permission to travel the roadway lane and the user would state the
property driveway that it was going into. It would only be given access to the roadway lane if
the property driveway requested was available and it had permission to use that property
driveway. It would only be given permission if the mobile phone device provided its GPS
location data.
- Automated vehicles designed for the new HCORT system can also go up and down the side lanes.
Reasons for them doing this could be as follows:
• People using the system for transport can request a vehicle to deliver them to their driveway
instead of a station. Similarly users can request a vehicle to pick them up from their driveway.
This can be particularly important for safety late at night and it would be a major advantage in
inclement weather. Except for disabled people etc, one would expect extra charges for this.
• Specially designed automated vehicles to implement various utilities such as rubbish
collection, street gutter cleaning, letter and parcel delivery etc
• Automated delivery of goods such as pizza delivery.
• Tradespeople, lawn mowing and garden services etc may use the new HCORT vehicles rather
than traditional road vehicles.
• Some of the above services require the vehicles to enter a property's driveway. For driveways
to be able to be used for this, they will have to have a number of extra sensors. These sensors
will detect things such as, if the gate is open, is there any vehicle or other objects (bikes, toys
etc) blocking the driveway etc.
- Problems with the side lanes are as follows:

• When roadworks are needed on the side lanes there will typically be a blockage to property
access.
• When street tree pruning with a cherry picker is needed there will typically be a blockage to
property access.

• Large property building developments often use a parking lane on the street. Typically, this
will not be available for new developments.
Thrulanes are often implemented as a loop. The HCORT vehicles go one way away from the freeway
on one thrulane and return to the freeway a block or two away on another thrulane. This loop along
with the freeway will sometimes enclose a road (a back street) and will normally enclose several of the
side lanes. Consequently, most such loops require there to be several bridges over the single HCORT
lane. These bridges must be able to hold the weight of all traffic able to enter properties. The most
common place where such a bridge is required is just before or after, entry or exit to the acceleration
and deceleration lanes.
The above design keeps the HCORT lanes (feeder network and freeways) completely separate from
pedestrians or normal traffic. HCORT vehicles are only on side lanes when there is no normal traffic.
There may be situations where it is advantageous to allow a degree of mixed traffic but with the
HCORT vehicles driving at a very slow speed. For an HCORT vehicle to enter and exit properties it
must cross a footpath and consequently not run over any pedestrians or other footpath users. Possible
methods to allow bikes on these roads are as follows:
• Provide a separate bike lane. This is best situated between a side lane and the centre HCORT
feeder guideway. This must be crossed for the HCORT vehicle to enter the side lane. It is
preferable for this crossing to be with grade separation, either the HCORT lane under the bike
path or the bike path under the HCORT lane.
• Provide a separate pedestrian + bike path that was elevated. This could be situated over the
top of the centre feeder guideway so that it would only ever need to be just above the height of
HCORT vehicles.
• Allow bikes to travel on the footpath
• Require bikes to also use the mobile phone app used by cars to request access to the side lanes.

Implementation:
Initial implementation is problematic as:
• The advantages of the system are not as clear when there is a low number of destinations. The
available number of different origin to destination journeys is proportional to the square of the
size of the network.
• The advantages of high speed is only felt when there is sufficient length to a journey.
• The initial implementation will not give good reliability as it doesn't have alternative routes to
bypass parts of the system that are out of service such as when maintenance is needed. This
will be exacerbated in the early stages as there will be teething problems.
The recommended initial implementations herein tries to show off the system under these conditions,
while reducing the costs and problems of the recommended near grade installation.
The best initial implementation would be for the majority of resident coverage (most of the HCORT
stations) being from new outer suburbs being built and sold at the same time as the HCORT network is
initially installed and the HCORT freeway to be able to carry these people to and from a train station in
the CBD or close to the CBD as well as to and from a number of major centres. The advantages of
making this the initial implementation include the following:
• This will increase the coverage as many people who can see themselves using this network
will purposefully purchase these new properties when they are sold and those with a lifestyle
which will likely see them them not using it will purchase elsewhere.
• This will reduce complaints and political fights against the making of the system. Note that
the overall effect is that it will increase the value of properties in these outer suburbs so the
land developers should be supporters of it.
• New suburbs tend to be in the far outer suburbs which is the best place for early
implementation for a number of reasons discussed elsewhere.
• This makes it easier to design the road system in a way that is conducive to including the near
grade network and consequently allows the near grade network to be built economically.
• The long length of HCORT freeway to the train station in or close to the CBD will show off
the advantage of this network's high speed.
• New outer suburbs cause problems with adding extra traffic to already overcrowded roads.
This should solve or help to solve this problem.
• New outer suburbs need access to facilities that are expensive to build. This network may
allow access without new facilities being built. For example, rather than providing new
schools, it may be more cost effective to transport children to established schools in the middle
or inner suburbs if these schools are half empty. When schools become half empty due to
changing demographics, it becomes very difficult politically to shut the schools down.
Similarly, changing demographics can result in swimming pools and sport ovals being in
suburbs that have few children.
The following implementation is based on large cities of the style of Melbourne, Australia, where the
author of this submission is resident. The characteristics of such a city are as follows:
• A large percentage of travel is to and from the CBD or to and from inner suburbs.

• Public transport within inner city or near city is generally good so long as both source and
destination are also inner city or on specific routes.
• The population of the city is expanding at a fast rate. The government has problems with
releasing sufficient land for housing which is causing excessive growth in property prices.
• The city has a train system which radiates out from the CBD. Although it branches somewhat
as it gets further out, train systems cannot branch out sufficient to directly cover most of the
outer suburbs.
• Attempts to provide public transport to the remainder of the outer suburbs use the following:
~ Buses along circumferential routes.
~ Large parking spaces at outer suburban train stations
~ While train travel can be fast when express, for large parts of the train network the
travellers have slow journeys where the train stops at a large number of train stations.
• For a large proportion of people in the outer suburbs the total time to travel to their destination
by public transport becomes so great that they end up using a car. This is putting excessive
pressure on the road network which is not coping adequately with the traffic. The congested
road traffic uses a lot more energy and creates far more pollution than public transport. The
road traffic also creates a very high death and injury rate.
An HCORT implementation plan for such a city would be as follows:
• The initial implementation would be based on one or more radial HCORT freeways that
allowed passengers to go directly to the CBD or to an inner suburban train station where they
can get a short express train to the CBD. These initial implementations would also connect into
shopping centres, schools, factories, hospitals, police stations, theatres and other centres. The
majority of the HCORT freeway and almost all the outer suburban feeder network would be
implemented at ground level as near-grade guideways with grade separation. As the HCORT
freeway approached the middle and inner suburbs, it would run on an elevated track that
allowed the original use of the roads below to continue. The main inner suburban HCORT
station would be implemented elevated on top of a major train station.
• Initially, most of the feeder network would be in residential areas in the outer suburbs,
particularly the far outer suburbs. It would be easier still if the suburbs were new suburbs, just
being created as the new system was implemented. Feeder networks in inner and middle
suburbs would be for access to specific shopping centres, schools, factories, hospitals, and other
major centres along with police stations. Note that these early implementations would not
connect to sports grounds etc. that had events with large special event crowds.
• The first HCORT freeway would extend outwards beyond the outer suburbs. As well as having
night parking for HCORT vehicles, there would be extensive parking for standard road vehicles
for those that needed to drive to get access to the new HCORT system along with permanent
parking for vehicles owned by residents who have lost their roadside parking.
• The next implementation would include implementing an HCORT freeway guideway roughly
parallel but one or two blocks over from the initial implementation. Included with this
implementation would be thrulanes that connected to both the initial HCORT freeway and this
new one. There will be a number of thrulanes running in each direction. These would be
created by modifying the initial feeder network as well as by adding new ones. Once this has
been implemented the transportation network will contain alternate routes that allows
maintenance to some parts of the HCORT freeway guideways while still allowing some
journeys to complete.

• After more radial HCORT freeway implementations as above occurred, there would be outer
and inner ring HCORT freeways connecting the radial freeways together as a network. Until
there was a reasonable network, there would be poor network dependability as maintenance on
a HCORT freeway would bring down a large proportion of the use of the complete system, a
similar problem to that of railway lines.
• This would first be continued throughout the radius of all the outer suburbs not supported by
train lines. The circumferential ring HCORT freeways would cross the train lines to network
the various radial HCORT freeways. As they crossed the train lines, HCORT stations would be
created at nearby train stations.
• The earlier implementations would be extended to include a feeder network so that middle and
inner residential suburbs had good access.
• There would then be implementations along the train lines, Bus Rapid Transit (BRT) and Light
Rail in the outer suburbs, replacing those rail and BRT branches. As by this time, the standard
road traffic would be reduced, the land freed up by this replacement could become bike lanes
and extra park land although some could be sold for residential use etc.
• Initial implementation within the CBD would be for goods carriages into the various businesses
within the CBD.
• As creation of HCORT stations in the CBD is after almost all the suburbs have good HCORT
access, it will involve a complete level of network throughout the CBD. This would be at
elevated levels with stations attached to the sides of most of the large buildings throughout the
CBD.
• As or after several cities were implemented, HCORT freeways would be implemented between
cities.

Vehicle Design: Power
The vehicles are electric vehicles powered by battery. Power for charging the battery is provided at
various places along the HCORT freeways and while parked at stations and other parking bays. At
parking bays, inductive transfer is used. Along the HCORT freeways are short sections of catenary
lines or supply rails which the vehicles utilise through a pair of collectors (trolley poles, small
pantographs or bow collectors). Two supply rails/lines along with two collectors are needed due to the
rubber tyres isolating the vehicle from ground.
The best place to put the supply rails/lines is likely to be below the vehicle. The supply rails can be
rails that have been set at a raised level above the ground. That is, there is no need for the wheels to
run across them as they can always be placed away from any possible guideway merge or diverge.
Due to the problems of skin effect when the supply is AC, it is best not to conduct electricity through
the whole rail. Rather the rail becomes a support for a thinner electrical conductor (e.g. wire) which
runs on the top or to the side of the rail. If the conductor is to the side then the electrical conductor may
be below the rail's top lip. This thin electrical conductor will have insulation between it and the rail or
the rail itself will be an insulator. The collectors either rub against the thin electrical conductor or rolls
along it with electric conductors that collect and conduct electricity to the vehicle.
The sections of supply rails (catenary lines) on the route are turned on only when vehicles are in
contact with them and all the vehicles are at or near full speed for that section. Note that these sections
are longer than the length of a vehicle so there still is some possibility of, for example, an animal
touching the track while a vehicle is on the track. The requirement for speed detection ensures that the
supply rails are off in the case of a major event such as earthquake where people were being evacuated
from stationary vehicles by walking along the guideway.
These short sections of the route are all well fenced off to stop any person coming onto the track. These
sections of the route are away from overhead crossings or any other places where a person could access
them or urinate on them as a vehicle goes past. A ground fault interrupter switch will switch off power
if any person, animal or object touches one of the rails such that they or it conduct electricity to earth.
Ground fault interrupters are also called 'ground fault circuit interrupters' (GFCI) or 'Residual Current
Devices' (RCD). The use of the ground fault interrupter switches requires that there is a method to
return the system to normal after a ground fault interrupter switch has been tripped. This could be
manually from the network system control command station but that would require that each section of
supply rail had good video surveillance along the whole length of supply rail along with good lighting.
Alternatively it could be automatic. Whether manual or automatic it would be better for the system to
be able to measure and monitor the current leakage to ground.
Capacitors (or ultracapacitors or supercapacitors) in vehicles can be used to increase the energy transfer
in the sections that the vehicle collectors are in contact with the supply rails/lines. This allows the
batteries to continue being charged from the capacitors after the vehicle has passed the short sections of
supply rails/lines.

Capacitors can be used to serve a similar purpose to batteries in that they store energy. Compared to
batteries they have poor energy storage per mass. Their advantage is that energy can be transferred into
and out of them at rates many times faster than that of batteries.
The resultant advantage of using capacitors is that the guideways can be built with very short sections
of supply rails/catenary lines and long distances between them. As this allows better isolation from
humans, exposed supply rails along with a higher voltage and a higher frequency can be used. A more
thorough cost analysis of including capacitors versus ultracapacitors versus not including capacitors
needs to be done. The following assumes that capacitors are added.
Including capacitors, subsystems in each vehicle to implement the collection of power from the supply
rails/catenary lines through to the charging of the vehicle batteries, in the order or route of the energy
transfer, are likely to be as follows:
1. Pair of power collectors collects power from supply rails/catenary lines.

2. Input protection. Particularly protection from lightning strikes.
3. Intelligent AC to DC switch mode power supply with active power factor correction. This
power supply will control or limit the output current, and consequently the input current, to that
appropriate for the system and limit the maximum output voltage to that allowed by the
capacitor bank.
4. Electronic switch(s) or diode(s) to disconnect capacitor bank from the AC to DC switch mode
power supply when the vehicle is not collecting power.
5. Capacitor bank. Additional inductor(s) and/or resistor(s) may be added to the capacitor bank in
order to create a low pass filter to protect the capacitors from voltage spikes.
6. Intelligent DC to DC switch mode power supply converting the varying DC of the capacitor
bank to the appropriate battery charging current.
7. Electronic switch(s) or diode(s) to disconnect batteries from the DC to DC switch mode power
supply when the power supply is not charging the batteries.
8. Low Pass Filter (may not be needed).
9. Vehicle Batteries.
In recent years, new types of capacitors or pseudo capacitors have come onto the market which have a
far higher capacitance per area or per kilogram mass. These are called supercapacitors or
ultracapacitors, two names for the same thing.
The higher capacitance means that they can store a higher amount of energy. The problem is that they
don't handle energy transfer into them as fast as do normal capacitors although they handle it better
than batteries.
They have slightly different properties to normal capacitors. For example, they don't handle higher
frequencies very well. With frequency they substantially reduce their capacitance. Because of this, it
is better not to use them for frequency filters.
Including ultracapacitors, subsystems in each vehicle to implement the collection of power from the
supply rails/catenary lines through to the charging of the vehicle batteries, in the order or route of the
energy transfer, are likely to be as follows:

power supply will control or limit the output current, and consequently the input current, to that
appropriate for the system and limit the maximum output voltage to that allowed by the
ultracapacitor(s).
4. Electronic switch(s) or diode(s) to disconnect ultracapacitor(s) from the AC to DC switch mode
power supply when the vehicle is not collecting power.
5. Low pass filter. The capacitor(s) as part of this will be standard capacitors.
6. Ultracapacitor or ultracapacitor bank.
7. Intelligent DC to DC switch mode power supply converting the varying DC of the ultra
capacitor(s) to the appropriate battery charging current.
8. Electronic switch(s) or diode(s) to disconnect batteries from the DC to DC switch mode power
supply when the power supply is not charging the batteries.
Another option with ultracapacitors is to use ultracapacitors without using a battery. In that case
subsystems in each vehicle to implement the collection of power from the supply rails/catenary lines
through to the charging of the vehicle batteries, in the order or route of the energy transfer, are likely to
be as for 1 to 6 in the above subsystems.
A more thorough cost analysis of including a capacitor bank or ultracapacitor(s) may find that the
overall system is cheaper without including it in the vehicle charging system. The main savings would
be the lack of capacitors and lack of DC to DC switch mode power supply.
Without the capacitor bank or ultracapacitors, subsystems in each vehicle to implement the collection
of power from the supply rails/catenary lines through to the charging of the vehicle batteries, in the
order or route of the energy transfer, are likely to be as follows:

power supply will control or limit the output current to the appropriate battery charging current.
4. Electronic switch(s) or diode(s) to disconnect batteries from the AC to DC switch mode power
supply when the vehicle is not collecting power.
Without the capacitors, the HCORT guideways would have to have longer and far more of the supply
rails/catenary lines. For example, they could be an average of 30 metres long and occur on 20 percent
of the guideway's length.
Whether capacitors are included or not, the above battery charging system allow the vehicles to have
very small batteries. For example, a battery that would only power the vehicle for 10 kilometres
without extra charge would probably be sufficient. This is far smaller than that typically used in
electric cars.

For dual mode vehicles with sufficiently large batteries, the addition of this charging system would be
optional. Regardless of whether the charging system is installed, all vehicles will need to have the state
of their battery constantly monitored along with an appropriate exit strategy if the battery charge is
below a reasonable amount.
In countries where heating is needed, power for heating may be extracted either directly after the input
protection or directly from the capacitor bank.
Coils embedded within the parking bays are used to provide inductive transfer when vehicles are
parked at HCORT stations and overnight parking areas and similar. The coils are only energised when
a vehicle is parked above it. The coils are energised with an AC voltage.
Each parking bay monitors how much energy is supplied to each vehicle and each vehicle monitors
how much energy it receives. These details are sent to the control system which checks that they
reasonably match. In this way, the system can recognise if there is any attempt by local residents or
others to harness the power supplied at parking bays.
Each vehicle has a power receive coil which, when the vehicle is parked in a parking bay, will be close
to the coil embedded in the parking bay just below it. Both the power receive coils in the vehicles and
the power transfer coils embedded in the parking bays are wound on appropriate cores which are
designed and arranged to provide high magnetic coupling between coils and low energy loses.
Implementation of the collection of power from the receive coil through to the charging of the vehicle
batteries should be able to utilise most of the subsystems used in the above supply rails/catenary lines
through to the charging of the vehicle batteries.
The receive coil can be connected through an electronic switch to an input to the AC to DC switch
mode power supply from 3. in the subsystems above. As well as providing the appropriate AC to DC
conversions, this means that the capacitors or ultracapacitor(s) are used to continue charging the
batteries for some time after the vehicle has left the parking bay.
The subsystems used on the HCORT freeways for collection of power from the supply rails/catenary
lines through to the charging of the capacitor bank can be used at a very high rate of power even if
designed without large heat sinks. The reasons it can handle such a high rate of power are as follows:
• It is only used for a very short period of time with a substantial gap between each usage. For
example, if we assume that each supply rail/catenary line was 10 metres long and that these
were set up at intervals of one kilometre, it would be collecting power for less than a quarter of
a second and have a gap of about 22 seconds without power where it can cool down.
• As the vehicles are travelling very fast it should be easy to arrange a good airflow.
The same conditions do not apply to the use of these subsystems for collection of power from the
parking bay coils. For this reason the intelligent AC to DC switch mode power supply needs to
recognise when it is getting its power from the parking bay coils and control or limit its output to a far
lower current than when it is getting its power from the power collectors collecting from supply
rails/catenary lines.

Dangers/Problems to Implementing this type of Transport
System:
• Creates unemployment (or appears to).
Business needs good transportation. Consequently, the overall effect of a better
transportation network is likely to be an increase in business and consequently an
increase in jobs. Unfortunately, many of the jobs lost as part of this process are more
obviously associated with the creation of the new transportation network.
• Major threat to profits of large corporations such as the gas industry, automotive insurance and
car manufacturing.
• IP Intellectual Property problems:
Creation of patents for what is essentially obvious to those with a good technical
knowledge. The current low historical usage of the concepts along with the complexity
of a full network and the range of types of implementation, many of which have not
been implemented, means that there is a large range of likely designs that may end up
being optimal for specific situations. Any person or corporation with a good knowledge
of current and upcoming technology trends can easily match those trends with
requirements of implementation to create patents which in reality do little to advance our
knowledge but rather tie up and act as a deterrence to proper research. As a possible
example of this it should be noted that in 2004 the US granted a patent for the concept of
adding solar and/or wind power collection into PRT network infrastructure (U.S. Patent
6,810,817).
Note: One of the objectives in the creation of this document is to publish a substantial
proportion of the concepts likely to be used in implementing a High Capacity
PRT/podcar network so that these concepts become public domain.
• Regulatory powers can produce excessive regulations that make this type of system prohibitive
and can block full systems after they have been fully designed. This is particularly problematic
as the technical experts who produce the regulations often see these systems as a threat to their
career. That is, they don't want to be steam train experts when no one wants new steam trains.
• Regulatory requirements for disabled access. For example, more and more, fire departments
and other emergency service providers are requiring elevated guideway systems, such as
monorails, to be equipped with emergency evacuation walkways, wide enough for wheelchairs.
• Change in legal responsibility in case of accidents shifts responsibility for accidents from the
drivers to the transportation system.

Examples of PRT Concepts Being Non Optimal
While the 'Demonstration Analysis of PRT's Advantages' section in the Introduction should have
demonstrated that PRT principles will generally take a transport system towards optimal, it should be
noted that it does not do so in all circumstances. For example, if a route such as an airport to city link
had only two stations, analysing the optimal in that circumstance would produce the result that the
larger the vehicle or train that could be filled up, by waiting the most time allowed, would produce the
most optimal.
PRT only becomes optimal when there are a significant number of stations and its advantages increase
with very large numbers of stations.
PRT assumes typical traffic pattern. These typical patterns show that there is an average of 1.2 people
in each vehicle on freeway/expressways or other highway roads. This result has been repeated in
many countries.
An example where this pattern was quite different was the first implementation that was roughly of this
PRT type. This was the implementation in Morgantown [17]. This town is a University town with
Campuses in different locations. In this situation, students start and finish their lectures at the same
time such that groups of people all need to move from or to either another campus or to their
accommodation at the same time.
In this case optimising required a larger size so it was implemented as a Group Rapid Transit (GRT).
GRT is like PRT except that the vehicles can be designed for up to 25 people. The highly successful
Morgantown PRT [17] (it was called PRT by the implementers) can be classed as an Optimised Rapid
Transport (ORT) that met the needs of the town of Morgantown but it doesn't meet the full
requirements of High Capacity needed for handling the traffic of large cities. This has yet to be
implemented.

Morgantown PRT vehicle on guideway
It should also be pointed out that taking extreme views on each concept does not necessarily produce
the most optimal result. For example, always sticking to the PRT requirement that 'all trips should be
just direct origin-to-destination with no need to stop at intermediate points'. Breaking this rule, along
with breaking the 'for exclusive use of an individual or small group travelling together by choice' rule
can be used to increase efficiency.
Examine what happens if instead of the first passenger going direct to their destination, our passenger
pickup strategy allows another passenger to share the vehicle, with the second passenger going to an
intermediate station on the route of the first passenger. It is fairly clear in this instance that the total
energy of getting these two passengers to their destinations is less with them sharing than if they used
different vehicles.
This appears to contradict the earlier findings. If the above principle of sharing was continued with
multiple destinations on the route, and then expanded with larger vehicles to allow more sharing etc,
we would end up with the original BRT or Light Rail systems which we showed was not optimal.
The above sharing of route arrangements only shift us towards optimal if kept to a small amount.
Particularly, increasing vehicle size will take us away from optimal except very specific and rare cases.

Places Within Networks Where PRT Does Not Perform as Well as
Competing Technologies:
• Compared to train stations, its ability per land area used to handle massive traffic after major
events such as Football grand finals is not as good. Note that although beaten here by trains, it
is able to handle these per land area used several times better than cars in car parks can handle
it
• Seat utilisation in peak periods is poor in comparison to other public transport methods. This
can be mitigated to some degree by the strategies suggested in this document for peak periods.
• HCORT Subway stations (metro) in centres of major CBDs may be more costly per user than
for train stations as it can take more area with thrulanes and sidings etc to handle a large
amount of traffic. In general, PRT systems works better and are more economical when
elevated than going underground. With current train subway stations, the subway track
normally acts as the main thoroughfare. If subways were required, the better design for PRT
is to make the subway line a siding, with the thoroughfares outside the tunnel. Problems with
using PRT for a subway mainly occur when an already finished subway designed for trains is
allocated to be used for PRT.
• Earthquake resilience is not as good as roads but probably equal to or better than that of rail.
• PRT has a lot of unknowns and consequence risk. The 'Sydney Opera House Design Problem'
is that we cannot reliably provide estimates of cost or time to implement something that is
very different to anything previously built. When things are sufficiently different, they
generally end up costing several times the cost of anything that could be estimated at the
beginning. The problem worsens when attempts are made to take this into account. Each
person, group or section involved in the design or implementation expands their resource uses
to use up the extra allocated. When problems ultimately surface, the extra resources allocated
have already been used.
The HCORT variant of PRT described herein adds the following problems:
• Pneumatic tyres are subject to punctures and blow outs

• Pneumatic tyres have a significant negative impact on the environment
• Flooding. The Near Grade design introduces a lot of underpasses where it will be critical to
ensure that water is removed.
Possible Places where costs could blow out:
• Water removal from trenches

• Fences/separation of people from vehicles
• Elevated guideways
• Elevated stations
• Mechanical/hydraulic backup of steering systems based on running tracks
• Inter-vehicle latch
• Supply rails/catenary wires, collectors, trolley poles,

• Capacitive/ultracapacitor charging
• Near grade overpasses
Concepts where this new HCORT system is not in accordance to earlier

PRT Concepts:
• Some places on the network are not fully fenced from pedestrians, particularly side lanes.
• Ordinary non automatic road vehicles can travel on side lanes used by HCORT vehicles.
• Suggested station passenger pickup strategy for peak traffic.
Problems related to methods that optimise vehicle seat utilisation:
• "Rape Wagon!" This is discussed in the next section.

• Having to share a vehicle with someone who smells.
• Having to share a vehicle with someone intoxicated.
• Having to share a vehicle with someone who is noisy while you want to rest or talk to
someone on the phone.
• Having someone next to you that wants to talk to you when you don't want to talk to them.
Rape Wagon:
In the 1970s and early 1980s there was a major (and expensive) attempt at designing a PRT system
with money from the French Government. The PRT system (Aramis) had a similar seat optimisation to
that being suggested in this document. The government money being put into this PRT system was at
times controversial with the following being said in their parliament:
" Senator Wallace: "If I may say so, there's something else that hasn't been perfected in
this business. What if instead of finding her 'cronies,' as you put it, in this closed car with
no driver, your housewife runs into a couple of thugs? (I didn't say 'blacks '-be sure to get
that straight.)
Then what does she do? What happens to her then?"
Jim Johnson (at a loss for words): " Uh . . . "
Senator Wallace: " Well, I'll tell you what happens, she gets raped!
And the rapist has all the time in the world, in this automated shell of yours with no doors

and no windows. You know what you've invented? You've invented the rape wagon!"
[Shouting, commotion]"
Since the 1970s technology has made major strides with the costs of audio visual equipment being
orders of magnitude cheaper and better. It is now no longer a problem to have multiple cameras and
microphones in each vehicle along with continuous transmission to a network system control and
continuous recording of the audio visual data.
It is now also relatively easy and cheap to have these video and audio streams monitored by computers
so that people don't have to watch it all. Computers may not yet be able to recognise all actions that
happen in the way that people can but they can recognise certain warning signs and suggest certain
audio video for the network system operators to monitor. For example, it is easy for computers to
recognise that an attempt is being made to cover over the cameras. Voice recognition may not yet pick
up all words of all people but the combination of voice recognition along with tones and/or pitch or
similar that suggest a cry for help etc should not be that hard for computers to recognise and take
appropriate actions.
Network system operators will have the ability to talk to people in vehicles, letting them know that they
are being monitored and persuading them not to do particular actions. Network system operators will
have the ability to re-route vehicles including being able to route a vehicle to a police station with the
doors locked. This makes all HCORT passenger vehicles potential paddy wagons rather than rape
wagons.
The sharing arrangements suggested only occur in peak periods. Peak periods are mainly daylight
hours and the above attempts at rape or similar are more likely to occur late at night.
Any person is able to have their own vehicle in peak periods. They just have to pay more. People with
special requirements should not have to pay extra.
The ability to have the new transport system drive passengers right to or from their property provides
far greater safety than that obtained from other public transport systems. The problem with this, at
least in the early implementions, is that only a subset of passengers will have this capability. Many of
the users will be people who live in a street near to a station but since the system isn't in their street,
they initially will only access it by walking to and from the station. When ultimately, full autonomous
vehicles are road safe and integrated into the system, they will have other options.

Appendix A: Alternative HCORT Description including
Details of an Expanded HCORT.
HCORT is a fully automated rapid transport network suitable for cities, towns and their
interconnections which is extremely cheap to implement and run. All vehicles are automated
driverless vehicles that run on pneumatic tyres on a near standard road surface.
The assumption is that all vehicles in this new transportation system are electric vehicles and
sometimes utilise two trolley poles for power. They all have some storage of power so can go some
distance without the power lines.
It could alternatively be implemented with standard combustion engine vehicles or allowing a

combination of both electric and combustion engine vehicles but the proposal herein is electric.
A road that was previously a minor arterial or distributor road is converted to a new single lane each
way HCORT freeway (expressway) system. Alternatively, a pair of minor arterial roads, possible
several blocks apart, are converted to one way single lane HCORT freeways with each being in
opposite directions, the pair together acting as a two way system. Either way, full speed U turn lanes
are provided at either end of the HCORT freeway so that the two lanes combine to create an infinite
loop.
Vehicles on this HCORT freeway system are arranged in platoons of vehicles where groups of
automated driverless vehicles with large bumper bars are able to travel at very high freeway speeds
with each touching the adjacent vehicle(s). Consequently, a single lane each way HCORT freeway
system is able to handle more traffic than an ordinary ten lane road freeway/expressway.
The freeways have embedded within them electronic guideways. The vehicles simultaneously use
multiple guideway technologies. The area taken up by the HCORT freeway lanes is a lot less than
normal roadway lanes as the vehicles are precisely positioned within the width of the laneway and the
maximum width of vehicles is small. The HCORT freeways are separated from the remaining area of
the roadway by fences.
All vehicles on the new system have a low maximum height. At each overpass (flyovers or grade
separation) the new HCORT freeways can be dug down. Beside the new HCORT freeway, the new
system can provide a walkway and bikeway boulevard that the overpasses must pass over.
The characteristics of this new HCORT freeway system is designed so that it can be implemented
through out a city on what was previously minor arterial or distributor roads with little need for
purchase of properties or compensation of the residents or businesses residing alongside it. Use of
space from major arterials, highways, freeways and expressways would be rare so the original
transportation system is little hindered. While many overpasses have to be created, they are of low cost
due to the low or no ramps, low span size, low pier height, high numbers to be manufactured, ease of
manufacturing offsite and lack of ability for traffic to turn at these overpasses.

It is also possible for these high speed HCORT freeways to be implemented on elevated flyovers. The
above 'near grade' design allows residents to drive their traditional vehicle into and out of their
properties but destroys the road's ability to handle through traffic and stops most of the parking on the
side of the road. Where this near grade would be implemented, the increase in transport provided by
the system far outweighs the loss of traffic. Where the loss of through traffic was considered
important, elevated flyovers can be created that allow full traffic flow underneath. Elevated flyovers
can also be used to cross over areas where there are no current roads such as crossing over parks etc
and can be used to provide turns such as the frequent U turns that the system needs.
Either near grade or elevated, it is possible for the HCORT freeways to be multilane. In the case of a
three lane system the middle lane can be used to enhance throughput in the direction most needed at
any time. As the HCORT vehicles are generally not parked in the CBD, most of the time the traffic
towards and from the CBD will tend to be symmetrical. The extra lane can also be used to provide a
branch around while a malfunctioning vehicle is being removed.
On each side of this HCORT freeway are a number of feeder network guideways. These guideways are
slow speed side branches down side streets. Typically, these feeder guideways go around a block or
two.
At the stations two types of automated driverless vehicle are available. These types are podcars (also
called 'Personal Rapid Transits' or PRT) and 'transit microbuses'. In normal use these podcars and
microbuses don't have driver controls such as steering wheel, brake pedals or accelerator pedals.
Transit microbuses are around the size of small cars. They are designed for shared transport but only
allow a small number of passengers and only provide simple seating. They do not provide for any
significant luggage. Even parents with prams would be unable to use them.
At any time other than peak periods, most stations would have several microbuses waiting for
passengers. The waiting microbuses are pre-destined to a range of destinations. For example, a
suburban station might have a microbus pre-destined to head towards the city and another pre-destined
to head away from the city. Typically they would pick up all their passengers for their current journey
from just one station. Each passenger tells the microbus which station they wish to go to and the
microbus only stops at those stations.
Podcars allow a user to travel in a single hop to any station through out the new system. They allow
carriage of considerable luggage including bikes or prams and can be used by people with walking
frames, wheel chair users and users of disability scooters. An enhanced shopping trolley is also
designed for their use.
The provision of podcars provides better transportation service to otherwise excluded people compared
to that of the microbus system. This along with appropriate subsidies, allows the system and the state
to fulfill its obligations.
The stations have little infrastructure, more like bus stops than train stations. All the vehicles they
service have low floors so there's no need for significant platforms. When users arrive, the vehicles
they'll enter will more often be there, or within a short time of being there. Most users will be seated
inside heated or air conditioned carriages while waiting so there is only minimal seating and shelter at

stations.
The stations will have consoles for users to make requests. If the type of vehicle, e.g. podcar, is not
waiting, then the user can request it through a console. Similarly, if the user wants a microbus but their
destination is different to the predestinations on the current waiting vehicles, the user can request it on a
console.
A car running on the traditional road system enters the new system through automatic gates on a special
entrance lane. Other than the large bumper bars back and front, the car looks like a relatively normal
car with traditional pneumatic tyres but the car is an electric car. The new HCORT system senses the
car and checks it out. Assuming the car passes the checks, the HCORT transportation system takes
over automatic control cutting off the ability of the driver to control the steering, brakes and
accelerator.
Under control of the HCORT transportation system, the car withdraws it's side view mirrors and
extends its trolley poles that charge its batteries. If the car is a combined electric and internal
combustion, the combustion engine would be turned off. Under system control the car accelerates into
the freeway and then gently pushes against the vehicle in front. A latch then latches the two cars
together.
Even though some of these cars would be privately owned, the drivers are able to disembark at stations.
The overall system would then be responsible for controlling this vehicle to appropriate parking and
ensure that it is fully charged. Drivers are able to use an Internet web page or similar facility from
which they can organise where they will meet up with their vehicle.
The HCORT freeways are fenced off and all crossings such as pedestrian crossings are at a different
level. Along side of the HCORT freeway at various points along it are deceleration and acceleration
lanes needed for the exits and entrances. These are enclosed within the same fences.
There are garden beds along side of the HCROT freeway at various places where deceleration and
acceleration lanes are not needed. These areas have a hopefully rarely used alternative purpose.
Malfunctioning vehicles can be pushed into these areas. This is one of the uses for the bumper bars.
There are automatic gates between the traditional streets and the various side streets being used for this
new system. Residents who still drive traditional cars will have special electronic controls fitted to
their vehicle. As well as giving them a control to open the gate to their local area, it will output a
signal that gives their vehicle's position.
It is recommended that all the feeder network is fenced off, but the feeder network may or may not be
fenced, and even if fenced, the fences used are not the strong fences used for the HCORT freeways. As
well as the thrulanes and sidings there are side lanes which some possible extensions to HCORT could
allow vehicles to travel on. When the podcars and microbuses travel on these side streets, particularly
the unfenced ones, they do so at a slow speed. Residents are meant to cross side streets at provided
lights or bridges but in some places there may be no barriers enforcing it.
The residents, who still can drive on these streets, are required to follow a set of special rules. These
rules will in general mean that the automated vehicles have right of way. Regardless of whether these

rules are followed precisely or not, there will be times when a resident's vehicle hinders the path of an
automated vehicle. The automated vehicles have the following facilities for handling this.
1) The resident's vehicles output a signal providing their position. The automated vehicles use this as
their primary means for collision avoidance.
2) Information from sensors at the front of the vehicles is combined with stored information providing
normal expected sensor response for each position of the vehicle. Divergence from expected response
is used to indicate possible obstacles.
3) Network system override control can be used for collision avoidance. This could be instigated by
any of the following:
a) Sensors in the street have detected an intrusion into the path of the automated vehicles or
b) A user of an automated vehicle has pushed an emergency button or
c) A network system control operator noticed a problem on their cameras.
The operation of the automated vehicles within the side streets is referred to as pseudo autonomous. In
some respects it looks autonomous in that they appear to mix with ordinary resident traffic but in the
early versions it is a long way from being fully autonomous. This system's automated vehicles are
following hidden electronic guideways.
Fully autonomous would mean that the vehicles can be driven driverless in streets that haven't been
modified for them. This is a very much safer alternative than autonomous.
As the currently experimental autonomous vehicle technology progresses sensors, algorithms and other
parts of those systems may be incorporated into this new system, hopefully increasing this system's
speed and safety in the feeder network and side lanes.
It's also possible for factories, warehouses, shopping centres, airports and other businesses to have a
special goods entrance and exit to the new system. Goods would be carried in automated driverless
vehicles designed for goods carriage (goodspods). The goods entrances and exits can be from and to
the lane closest to the business as the system will have U turn facilities within it.
The height and weight limitations means that it is not possible to carry intermodal containers (i.e.
shipping containers used for sea freight) but the various 'unit loads' currently being standardised
through out the supply chain can be carried. Unit loads are standardised single "units" that can be
moved easily with a pallet jack or forklift truck and are designed to pack tightly into warehouse racks,
intermodal containers, trucks, and railway goods carriages. The system can also handle the majority,
but not all, of the air cargo unit load devices (ULD). These are standard pallets or containers used to
load luggage, freight, and mail on aircraft. Similarly, the system would handle various other standard
pallets such as the Australia Standard Pallets so long as they were not stacked too high.
Station users should have access to rubbish bins, preferably different rubbish bins for different rubbish
types (recyclable etc). The system is able to have specially designed goodspods that are able to
automatically empty these rubbish bins and take the rubbish to the appropriate depots.

Stations are the most convenient places to have post boxes allowing the postage of mail and parcels.
The Post Office will be able to have automatic pick up of posted mail using specially designed
goodspods.
Stations will also have a pick up and drop off for enhanced shopping trolleys. These trolleys are
enhanced to allow large amounts of shopping to be carried over a larger distance than traditional
shopping trolleys. Users of the system can use cards they use for fares (e.g. identity smart cards) to
access the trolleys and the system senses when and to which station each one has been returned. Users
will have the ability to keep them at their residence overnight and return them to their nearest station
when they go to the station the next morning on their way to work.
The system will have specially designed goodspods to automatically pick up excess shopping trolleys
from typical drop off points and take them back to typical pick up points such as stations at
supermarkets and shopping malls.
Stations may also have shared locked goods boxes. Specially designed goodspods are able to deliver
goods into these boxes. When local residents or businesses order goods they provide information from
their identity smart cards. When the box delivery goodspod delivers goods to a spare box, it provides
that information to the lock on the box. The local resident or business is then able to access the goods
at their convenience. Using their identity smart card with the station console, tells them which box and
unlocks the box. They can then use one of the enhanced shopping trolleys to wheel the goods to their
home or business.
Electronic guideways can be extended throughout the area, through paths not required for pathways to
or from stations. This allows various types of automated goodspods to service residents and businesses
directly at their premises. Automated goodspods of different types can deliver mail, pick up various
types of rubbish, pick up and deliver goods into or from a goods box, all directly, from or to, each
individual local area business's or resident's property. Specially designed pods may also provide a
number of automated guideway or related road maintenance or roadway gardening services.
The guideway extensions could also provide parking space for podcars which was out of the to or from
station pathway. This could even be into the driveway of private properties. Consequently residents or
local businesses could order podcars or goodspods to be delivered directly to, adjacent to or close to
their properties. There may be extra charges for this, particularly when a vehicle spends excessive time
waiting for the user. Similarly, podcar or goodspod's users would be able to direct the podcars or
goodspod to one of these parking spaces to allow users and luggage to exit the vehicle.
As the system became heavily used, it is envisaged that the system's pricing structure would make it
attractive for the carriage of goods to occur in off peak or night time. As well as the earlier mentioned
height limitations there would be additional limitations on maximum axial weight to ensure that there
was far less ground vibration than occurred previous to the new system being implemented.

Appendix B: Official Positions on PRT
Regardless of earlier expensive implementation failures, along with the controversy on the concepts,
there has recently been major research studies by, or on behalf of, the transport authorities of both the
USA and Europe. As a consequence of these studies, it can be stated that the position of transport
authorities in both USA and Europe is that we should be directing research towards implementing
PRT/ATN/podcars.
Details on the findings of these studies, including a description of the main ATN/PRT/podcar concepts,
is included below
USA's Official Position:

Mineta Transportation Institute (MTI) was originally established by Congress and is funded by
Congress, California and private grants.
What has traditionally been called PRT, they call ATN. Their report published September 2015
provides the following:
"ATN – sometimes referred to as Personal Rapid Transit (PRT) or Podcars – is a unique

transportation mode that features:
• Direct origin-to-destination service with no need to transfer or stop at intermediate

stations
• Small vehicles available for the exclusive use of an individual or small group traveling
together by choice
• Service available on demand by the user rather than on fixed schedules
• Fully automated vehicles (no human drivers) that can be available for use 24 hours a
day, 7 days a week
• Vehicles captive to a guideway that is reserved for their exclusive use
• Small guideways (narrow and light relative to light rail transit or LRT and bus rapid
transit or BRT) that are usually elevated but that also can be at or near ground level or
underground
• Vehicles able to use all guideways and stations on a fully connected network
The scope of the study excludes what is called, ‘dual mode transit’, where vehicles are allowed
to enter and exit the guideway."
The study concluded that " ATN appears to have potential" ... but "More research, development, and
validation are needed" ... and that they should "Sponsor research" ...
including "Incentivize metropolitan planning organizations (MPOs) to develop concepts using ATN to
further sustainable transportation by issuing a request for proposals (RFP) for ideas." etc.

Europe's Official Position:
The EDICT project [2], sponsored by the European Union, conducted a study on the feasibility of PRT.
The study involved 12 research organizations, and concluded that PRT
• would provide future cities "a highly accessible, user-responsive, environmentally friendly
transport system which offers a sustainable and economic solution."
• could "cover its operating costs, and provide a return which could pay for most, if not all, of
its capital costs."
• would provide "a level of service which is superior to that available from conventional public
transport."
• would be "well received by the public, both public transport and car users."
The report also concluded that, despite these advantages, public authorities will not commit to building
PRT because of the risks associated with being the first public implementation!!!

Appendix C: Size Matters
Scaling designs of some things produce the result that the larger the better. For example, the larger the
office building the more space one obtains per cost of building and per unit of land. Similarly, the
power obtained from a jet engine goes up more than the square of the cost of the jet engine.
People sometimes get used to this and expect it to continue to all things, but there are some major
examples where scaling works the opposite way.
Computer Scaling Effects:
Grosch's law or Seymour Cray rule (postulated in the 1940's) postulated that:
cost of computer systems increase with the square root of their power
By the mid 1950s enough computers had been built to verify the law empirically and for a while
Grosch's law worked well. Then minicomputers, microcomputers and the personal computer came
along and the law fell apart. Now, small computers often have a price per performance ratio 100 times
better than large computers. This is the opposite to what the above law predicts.
The above is lucky for HCORT design as it will use large numbers of small computers.

Vehicle Scaling Effects:
The costs this author has [xx] are those locally in Australian dollars. An Australian dollar is roughly
worth about US$0.75 at current exchange rates.
From a $600 million purchase, cost of a local train was $16m/train

(Note: limited to 90 km/h (56 mph) due to technical issues)
$32,000 per seated passenger (at 500/train)

$20,000 per passenger standing or sitting (at 800/train - a full train)
$14,000 per passenger standing or sitting (at 1100/train - a ridiculous crush/squash)
Light Rail/Trams (streetcars) had a price of $272m for 50 trams, or about $5.5m per tram.
$85,000 per seated passenger (at 64/tram)

$25,000 per passenger standing or sitting (at 214/tram)
This needs to be compared with cars. Recently this author has hired small cars with 'unlimited
kilometres per day'. These cars were allowed to be driven out in the country including various rough
roads, so they had many advantages compared to trains and light rail which are very restricted. These
small cars provided 5 seats each. If these small cars were purchased by the hire company in the above
multi million dollar purchases, the cost would be well below $10,000 per vehicle and consequently less
than $2000 per seated passenger.
The ratio of cost for rail vehicle per cost of seat for a car is staggering. Even cost of vehicle for a
person standing on a light rail vehicle is over 12 times the cost of a seat for a small car.
Buses are approx $250,000 for a 50 seat bus. Note: I don't yet have good figures on this. This is $5,000
per seat but cost goes up above this as the bus gets bigger & can be lower than this with mini buses.
In general costs per seat go up with size of vehicle rather than the opposite way but there are major
variations to this with the smaller light rail being more expensive per seat than the larger trains.
Overall, numbers of vehicles being made in the world determines technological advancement of the
vehicle type and consequently cost per seat. Consequently buses are far cheaper than light rail, even
when they are the same size.
The above may be objected to in that the expensive vehicles will last longer than the cheaper ones.
This is more that, due to the cost we are required to carry on using and maintaining the expensive
vehicles than that they naturally last that long. We naturally replace cheaper vehicles earlier because it
is cheap to do so. Cheap cars are now being given five year unlimited kilometre warranties that trains
and light rail don't get.

Appendix D: HCORT vs Autonomous Vehicles
HCORT vehicles are not required to be "Autonomous" with the current usage of this word. Rather they
are automatic and driverless. An autonomous vehicle can be made to also be HCORT compatible
Autonomous vehicles such as the Google Car are able to operate throughout our roadway systems
without the roadway system being specially designed for it.
Autonomous control implies good performance under significant uncertainties in the environment for
extended periods of time and the ability to compensate for system failures without external
intervention.
In transportation terminology, rather than autonomous, PRT is a subset of Automated Guideway Transit
(AGT) [20]. Automated guideway transit is a fully automated, driverless, grade-separated transit
system in which vehicles are automatically guided along a "guideway".
The HCORT design has characteristics that appear similar to the concept of fully autonomous vehicles
but its main objectives are totally different.
Implementing an HCORT system is about creating new routes that carry massive amounts of traffic
separate from the original routes of roads or rail. While carrying this traffic it provides services for this
traffic such as providing power for the electric vehicles.
It happens that both the cheapest means to provide this new traffic carrying capability as well as the
means to provide this while providing the best characteristics such as speed, low pollution etc is to
utilise the principles of PRT. Since this includes driverless automated vehicles it has the appearance of
an alternative to autonomous vehicles.
Comparative Advantages of Fully Autonomous Vehicles
• Massive amounts of R&D money has been available from the military. Historically, this is the
main reason they got developed as quickly as they did.
• No modification needed to the roadways etc
• Will not cause massive loss of jobs to car industry or massive negative effect to other
industries such as insurance, oil & gas, road building etc
• Extended reach of automated vehicles (i.e. able to go out to farms etc)
• Larger vehicles such as trucks able to take advantage of it.
Comparative Advantages of PRT
• Provides additional traffic carrying capacity

• Massive decrease in time taken for trips.
• Massive decrease in energy used.

• Massive decrease in global warming gases, noise, pollution etc.
• Massive decrease in accidents and road deaths.
• Substantially fixes street congestion problems.
• Substantially fixes parking problems.
• Vehicles (private & public) recharged on journey.
• Is technically far easier.
• Potentially far cheaper.
Items 2 to 7 of the above items are touted by autonomous vehicle proponents as reasons to have
autonomous, and yes, autonomous may help these, but compared to PRT, only in a trivial way.
Major reasons PRT is able to give these:
- Additional traffic now being carried.

- Dedicated system (eg pedestrians don't walk across etc).
- Freeway/expressway guideways (Lack of stopping at stop lights etc.)
- Higher speed on dedicated guideway with all vehicles being under the same system control.
- Safer on dedicated guideway with all vehicles being under the same system control.
- More people converting to shared public transport.
- Conversion to electric motors.
Attempting to get some of the PRT advantages to Autonomous Vehicles
Minimum Requirements:
• - All vehicles converted to new autonomous system and

• - Additional network system computers used for control and
• - Most streets converted to one way traffic.
Then a significant proportion of PRT advantages could be obtained but we've lost the fully
autonomous. Interestingly, the type of network system computer control required here would make the
system less autonomous than many PRT designs.
There's not a lot of advantage to vehicles in the early stages so getting all vehicles to convert would be
very difficult. To overcome this is going to require that streets allocate specific lanes to the
autonomous traffic.
Continuing with changes to try to get more of the PRT advantages such as changing the dedicated
streets into freeways/expressways basically continues to change the autonomous system into this
HCORT system.
In many aspects of current autonomous research, the designs are heading to being less autonomous to

overcome their limitations. For example to advance Adaptive Cruise Control, research is heading
towards Cooperative Adaptive Cruise Control (CACC) [18].
The odd thing is that our technology is currently able to make safe HCORT transport systems across
our cities (due to the reserved and dedicated guideways) but is not yet able to make safe autonomous
systems (due to the 'uncertainties' requirement).

Appendix E: HCORT vs Elon Musk's Hyperloop and other
Evacuated Tube Transports
HCORT is optimised for transportation within large and medium size cities. The last item in HCORT's
recommended implementation plan is as follows:
“after several cities were implemented, HCORT freeways would be implemented between cities”.
These HCORT intercity guideways are not necessarily the optimum method of implementing such
transport although they would be far better (both faster and cheaper) than current roads. Elon Musk's
Hyperloop was designed as a fast method of transportation between cities, particularly cities that are far
apart. It is more an alternative to air travel and fast rail than an alternative to road.
Since the original version of Hyperloop, the design has changed towards being like the Evacuated Tube
Transport Technology (ET3), a transportation design that had been proposed and patented earlier
(1999). To some degree these designs embody the principles of PRT but the current ET3 proposal with
its smaller 1.5 metre tubes better embodies the principles of PRT.
The potential of each of these Hyperloop and ET3 technologies is to provide a faster method of long
distance transport than the HCORT intercity links would provide.
Where several cities had HCORT type implementations, the HCORT intercity guideways would have
the following advantages compared to Hyperloop and ET3 technologies:
• Both the HCORT guideways and the HCORT vehicles would be cheaper
• Allow intercity travel without having to transfer to another vehicle or travel out of the way to a
special intercity station or port.
• Allow intercity guideway use by dual purpose vehicles.
• Act as a handy way of transferring HCORT vehicles between those cities.
The Boring Company

Elon Musks other enterprise/hobby, sometimes referred to as 'The Boring Company' relates to the
building of underground tunnels. While there are mentions that it could include electric sleds carrying
traditional cars through the tunnels, the tunnels could be for any other transport network including his
Hyperloop. Overall, if he succeeds in making cheaper tunnels, then the tunnelling technology would
enhance the ability to make an underground HCORT network.

Appendix F: Skytran versus HCORT
As mentioned in the Introduction of this document, the only PRT system currently in development that
could also be considered High Capacity is one called Skytran

References:
1: MTI report published September 2015 entitled:
Automated Transit Networks (ATN): A Review of the State of the Industry and Prospects for the Future
http://transweb.sjsu.edu/PDFs/research/1227-automated-transit-networks.pdf
2: EDICT Final Report (PDF) from cardiff.gov.uk

http://archive.cardiff.gov.uk/traffic/internet/jondutton/edict/current/CONTENT/Del10%20-%20Final
%20Report.pdf
Christine Ehlig-Economides and Jim Longbottom: Texas A&M University

DUAL MODE VEHICLE AND INFRASTRUCTURE ALTERNATIVES ANALYSIS
http://www.advancedtransit.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/07/Ehlig-Economides-Dual-Mode-
Analysis.pdf
J. Edward Anderson, PhD, P.E.

An Intelligent Transportation Network System: Rationale, Attributes, Status, Economics, Benefits, and
Courses of Study for Engineers and Planners
http://www.advancedtransit.org/wp-content/uploads/2011/08/ITNS-11-2014.pdf
Carnegie, Jon A., Alan M. Voorhees, and Paul S. Hoffman. Viability of Personal Rapid Transit
in New Jersey, final report presented to Governor Jon S. Corzine and the New Jersey State
Legislature, NJ Transit, February 2007
http://www.nj.gov/transportation/refdata/research/reports/NJ-2007-001.pdf
A range of papers that can be directly downloaded from the site or are linked to.
http://www.advancedtransit.org/library/papers/
9: Skytran
https://www.skytran.com/
10: From 2011 Auditor-General’s report into the state’s finances (page 38) we have cost of trains and
light rail/trams in Melbourne, Australia:
http://www.audit.vic.gov.au/publications/20111109-AFR/20111109-AFR.pdf
Reuban Juster and Paul Schonfeld, "Comparative Analysis of Personal Rapid Transit as an Urban
Transportation Mode," Transportation Research Record No. 2350, 2013, pp. 128-135
https://www.researchgate.net/publication/
270208688_Comparative_Analysis_of_Personal_Rapid_Transit_as_an_Urban_Transportation_Mode
Wikipedia References:
11: PRT

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Personal_rapid_transit
12: Road Maintenance vs Axle Weight

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Road#Maintenance
13: Multilateration
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Multilateration
14: Dedicated short-range communications (DSRC)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dedicated_short-range_communications
15: IEEE 802.11p. A special version of Wi-Fi

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/IEEE_802.11p
16: V2V (short for vehicle to vehicle)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vehicular_communication_systems
17: Morgantown PRT

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Morgantown_Personal_Rapid_Transit
18:Cooperative Adaptive Cruise Control (CACC)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cooperative_Adaptive_Cruise_Control
19: Height Adjustable Suspension

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Height_adjustable_suspension
20: Automated Guideway Transit (AGT)

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Automated_guideway_transit
21: Skytran
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/SkyTran
110: Cost Estimates

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cost_estimate
111: Megaprojects and Risk

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Megaprojects_and_Risk

Notes
ride on the back of an

explosion in availability of high performance electric vehicles
Powerful vehicles.
Explosion in capabilities
Advanced capabilities
Change siding to 'feeder network'
Thrulanes and sidings can have a number of merge diverges and consequently create feeder networks.
A minimum feeder network would have one end connected to an acceleration lane and another end
connected to a deceleration lane. The deceleration lane would typically be part of an freeway running
in the opposite direction to the freeway that the acceleration lane was part of, but it can be to the same
freeway guideway.
guardrail
A share taxi
http://faculty.washington.edu/jbs/itrans/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/TEV_Project
http://tevproject.com/
Combined with Z3Jan2015-TEV-booklet.doc
http://camdek.com/index.html
The FlexiTrain system is in some ways similar to HCORT except that there are no
guideways.
The FlexiTrain system is in some ways similar to HCORT but has no guideways.
Individual vehicles collect at designated staging areas, wait for other vehicles and special lead vehicle
and then form longer trains, headed by the larger commercially operated lead vehicle.

There are a number of systems that allow vehicles to create a platoon on freeways, this particular
system is interesting in that it has developed front and rear couplings along with longitudinal springs
and dampers are used in the PowerBar to minimise jolting while coupling up, and to give a smooth ride
in the train. Once connected, the couplings are able to transmit multiplexed data as well as power
down the length of the train. Details of this coupling can be found at
http://camdek.com/page12.html
http://podcarcity.org/wp-content/uploads/2016/10/University_of_Bologna_Joerg_Schweizer.pdf
Jörg Schweizer, Univ. of Bologna, ‘How can PRT achieve higher capacities at lower costs? A concept
comparison’
Implementing Brick-Wall Stopping Criteria.

For most of this document there is an assumption that a brick-wall stopping criteria is not required for
HCORT. This brick wall stopping criteria is part of traditional train design but is not part of all other
guideway designs. For example, it is not part of Melbourne trams and light rail. It is normally only
used where the vehicles have such a poor ability to slow down that the vehicle must be so far behind
the preceding vehicle that the driver cannot observe when the proceeding vehicle slows down.
With Melbourne trams (street cars) and light rail the drivers are instructed to stay 1 lamp-post (30
metres) behind a vehicle in front if the trams are doing less than 20 km. If going faster than 20 km then
they are meant to stay 3 lamp-posts or 100 metres behind the front vehicle. These are simply observed
distances by watching the vehicle in front.
Although told to do this, the simple fact is that throughout most of the mixed traffic road situation that
these trams operator on, it is not possible for the drivers to implement this. As soon as the trams
opened up such large gaps, cars and trucks change lanes into the tram lane. The result is that the trams
are forced to follow cars and trucks quite closely.
Just as most cars come closer to cars in front in highway situations, tram drivers also often do. Tram
drivers can see when the tram in front starts to slow down and they start to slow down also.
With the brick-wall stopping criteria the document demonstrates 'compressor' and 'de-compressor'
stations internal to its freeways.

If a particular state or country wanted to apply the brick wall criteria to With this concept, vehicles
enter the freeway taking up a full time slot and are only added into platoons at the next compressor
station. Similarly, before an individual vehicle within a platoon can exit an freeway, the vehicle has to
uncouple from the platoon within a de-compressor station.
HCORT provides an alternative implementation/deployment strategy. The only addition for the design
is the provision of alternative software for where and how the platoon coupling occurs.
The HCORT design allows coupling and decoupling areas to all be implemented at stationary or very
slow speeds. These coupling and decoupling areas would be as follows:
Near the tail end of each thrulane as it is about to exit through an acceleration lane and enter onto an
freeway is a platoon coupling area. Vehicles can be directed to wait for following vehicles and as these
following vehicles arrive they are coupled onto their front vehicle to create a platoon.
At various places along freeways, coupling, decoupling or joint coupling/decoupling thrulanes will be
created. As with other thrulanes, they begin from an freeway deceleration lane and they go to an
freeway acceleration lane but in this case both the acceleration and deceleration lanes service the same
freeway guideway in the same direction of travel. Standard thrulanes and sidings as used for station or
property access can be connected to the beginning or end of these coupling decoupling lanes.
Where there are two or more coupling/decoupling lanes in parallel, they can be created next to each
other such that vehicles, platoons or parts of platoons can switch from one to the other. This allows
actions such as decoupling individual vehicles within a platoon. After decoupling the individual
vehicles shift over to the other coupling/decoupling lane, the remaining vehicles along with following
or preceding vehicles can then all be coupled back into a platoon.
‘public transport’ is also called ‘transit’ or ‘public transit’, ‘mass transit’, and ‘mass transportation’.
‘Public transport’ and ‘private transport’ are taken to be exclusive,

Frequently, public transport is simply described as a grouping of various transport modes, typically bus,
light rail, and rail, without regard to any other considerations.
Public and expert debate over public transport assumes an understanding that public transport
implies some degree of public ownership and management. Under this institutional definition,
public transport can be provided by public or private entities and, transport services provided
by taxis, hire cars, car ‘clubs’ and other similar arrangements are forms of private transport. (This
doesn't work with buses etc as these are generally owned by private companies etc.)
An alternative definition emphasises the role of public ownership and management, under
which any transport system whose funding is public and the requirements for service are
stipulated by legislation or government regulation is held to be ‘public transport’. Another
approach describes public transport as ‘collective’ transport picking up the concept of a
greater public interest in these services. Certainly, among government policy makers and
elected officials, public transport is understood as pertaining to those parts of the transport
system for which governments are held responsible and are made accountable.
Some have offered that ‘public transport’ refers to any transport system in which passengers
do not travel in their own vehicles, but this simplistic notion creates more problems than it
solves by effectively categorising all forms of mass transportation as public transport, which
includes those in corporate ownership. Another version of this service-defined approach
occurs when public transport refers to transport systems providing a service to the public that
is regular and continuing for general or specialised transport needs.
In effect, there is no unequivocal definition of ‘public transport’ that is universal for all transport
systems;
What is each of the following?:

Taxis
Hire cars
chauffeur driven limousines
Coach tours
Private School owned school buses & minibuses
For while in theory, a fully privatised transport system is not ‘public transport’, it can be perceived as
public transport by a travelling public who use their democratic rights to express their views on the
transport services that they perceive to be a government responsibility. So long as voters in liberal
democratic systems continue to perceive a transport service as the responsibility of elected officials,
then in practice, that system falls under the general fabric of ‘public transport’.
-----------------------
As of Feburary 2017 the Tesla Model S has the fastest 0-60mph time of any production car. With
the fastest 0-60mph time recorded as 2.28 seconds
On September 19, 2016, the U.S. Government issued the Federal Automated Vehicles Policy, marking
a significant milestone in the progress of autonomous vehicles. Although this is a guidance document
and does not contain official regulations, it is the first federal involvement in the United States. The
federal government recognizes that the automation of vehicles has the potential to increase safety,
improve mobility, save energy, and reduce pollution. Therefore, the U.S. Department of Transportation
has set a goal to accelerate the revolution of highly automated vehicles (HAV).
https://www.transportation.gov/sites/dot.gov/files/docs/AV%20policy%20guidance%20PDF.pdf
the SAE International (SAE) definitions for levels of automation

(SAE level 0 to SAE level 5)
At SAE Level 4, an automated system can conduct the driving task and monitor the
driving environment, and the human need not take back control, but the automated
system can operate only in certain environments and under certain conditions;

This Guidance highlights
important areas that manufacturers and other entities designing HAV systems should be
considering and addressing as they design, test, and deploy HAVs. This Guidance is not
mandatory. NHTSA may consider, in the future, proposing to make some elements of
this Guidance mandatory and binding through future regulatory actions. This Guidance
is not intended for States to codify as legal requirements for the development, design,
manufacture, testing, and operation of automated vehicles.
Similarly, as discussed in section F, manufacturers should have a fall back approach that
transitions a vehicle to a minimal risk condition when a problem is encountered with
an HAV system. …..
such that the vehicle will be placed in a safe state even when there are electri-
cal, electronic, or mechanical malfunctions or software errors.
….
An HAV is expected to meet NHTSA crashworthiness standards
In cases of higher automation where a human driver may not be present, the HAV must
be able to fall back into a minimal risk condition that may not include a driver.
DOT strongly encourages States to allow DOT alone to regulate the performance of HAV
technology and vehicles. If a State does pursue HAV performance-related regulations,
that State should consult with NHTSA and base its efforts on the Vehicle Performance
Guidance provided in this Policy.50
To guard against the possibility of such “gaming,” (which has occurred in the vehicle
emissions program),
The greater the amount of detail that is included

in testing protocols to maximize safety performance or address risks believed to be
associated with current HAVs, the greater the likelihood that detail might limit the use of
future technologies.
In proposing and establishing detailed performance metrics, thresholds and test
procedures for testing protocols, NHTSA could conduct an analysis of the potential
of such provisions to hamper future innovation
https://www.driverless.global
Looking for articles on automation !!!
Calibration of speed/position
Needed due to differences in Outer Diameter of types
Use a 'radiating cable' (sometimes called a leaky feeder or leaky coaxial cable) rather than Wifi for
communication between vehicles and the communications network. Could also use for vehicle to
vehicle communications.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Triple_modular_redundancy
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/N-version_programming
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fault_tolerance
Refers to 'dual duplex' as 'pair-and-spare'
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lockstep_(computing)

Chernobyl, where operators tested the emergency backup cooling by disabling primary and secondary
cooling. The backup failed, resulting in a core meltdown and massive release of radiation.
interacting with systems including power grids, car manufacturers, traffic control, vehicle-to-vehicle
communications, road tolls, home networks, technical services and government.
https://www.driverless.global/resources/21-tesla-autopilot-software-to-use-advanced-
radar-technology
The company’s cars, it said, will also be able to bounce the radar signal under a vehicle
it is trailing and still brake, avoiding a potential pile-up should the car in front crash.
“Perfect safety is really an impossible goal,” Musk said in discussing the update, which
was developed over the past three to four months.
“It’s about improving the probability of safety. There won’t ever be zero fatalities,
there won’t ever be zero injuries.”
radiating cable
Leaky feeder
Leaky coaxial cable
The minimum Pilot Program needed to ready ITNS for applications is a half-mile loop designed
for a maximum speed of 35 mph and includes changes in elevation. A minimum of one off-line
station and three vehicles is needed. The guideway of such a system occupies a space 942 feet
long by 566 feet wide and covers 12.23 acres.

There are many additional factors relating to safety that are factors more inherent to the installation and
deployment rather than the initial design. As accidents happening anywhere in the world will tarnish
the name or cause undue concern of this type of network, it may be better to create standards that also
cover network installation.
Examples of this include the following:
If street vehicles could collide with the guideway
posts they must be either placed on concrete pedestals
or highway barriers must protect them. If a tree large
enough to damage the guideway might fall on the
guideway, either the guideway must be relocated or
the tree must be cabled back.
High natural frequency to obtain maximum speed.

Use a minimum-weight guideway clamped to its posts
gives the highest natural frequency.
The power rails must be shielded from the winter-night
sky. On clear winter nights heat radiates to a very cold
space and as a consequence frost often forms on metallic
surfaces. In the Airtrans system, which was installed at
the Dallas-Ft. Worth Airport in 1972, it was found that
on clear winter nights enough frost formed on the power
rails that they had to be sprayed with ethylene glycol as
a temporary expedient before starting the system each
morning. Later they installed heaters in the power rails.
A similar problem was discovered in the elevated
guideway system installed at the Minnesota Zoo. In
systems such as Cabintaxi in which the power rails were
covered, frost formation was never a problem.

In areas prone
to earthquakes, structures are often designed not with rigid foundations but with foundations
that can flex and absorb horizontal shock loadings.
Speed range. Select the cruising speed to minimize cost per passenger per unit of distance.
Consider that turn radii, stopping distance, kinetic energy, and the energy needed to over-
come air drag all increase as the square of speed; and that energy use also depends on
streamlining, low road resistance, and propulsion efficiency. Consider that the maximum
operational speed for acceptable ride comfort is proportional to the guideway natural fre-
quency, which depends on guideway stiffness and the type of support.
Longitudinal Control of a Vehicle

Generally applicable formulae for the gain constants in a proportional plus integral controller required
for
stable control of the speed of any vehicle in terms of natural frequency, damping ratio, vehicle mass,
and
thruster time constant. An example, based on a simulation of the controller and vehicle, is given. The
the-
ory shows that only speed and position feedback are needed. Acceleration feedback is unnecessary.
Viability of Personal Rapid Transit In New Jersey

FINAL REPORT February 2007
Such a research and demonstration program has been
conceptually estimated to require $50-100 million over a three year period.

Open technology development: PRT technology is currently under
development by independent suppliers that are seeking to develop products that
have a competitive advantage to other suppliers. This is a normal and advisable
business practice in the early stages of product development. As the industry
matures, it will be in the interest of potential customers of PRT suppliers to
encourage the use of open technology that avoids proprietary designs and
vendor exclusivity. It will also be in the interest of potential customers to
encourage the use of commercially available components to avoid specialized
product development, unique support and maintenance requirements, higher
costs, and less flexible and responsive operating environments.
Development and application of standards: As a new technology, PRT could

benefit from the development and application of appropriate performance and
operating standards as the technology advances. Standards will be needed in
various areas including safety, security and interoperability.
Intellectual capital management: To provide for competition in the PRT

marketplace, it will be important to seek multiple vendors with the capability to
provide interoperable components and sub-systems. If patents are owned solely
by the initial system provider, that provider may monopolize the market and set
high prices for system extensions, upgrades and replacement parts. In addition
to open architectures and interface standards, it will be important to foster
sharing of key patented technology through licensing or other arrangements

between vendors, suppliers and customers.
As discussed in Section V, PRT technology development is

progressing with limited funding and without the coordinated support or endorsement of
a major public entity.
may prevent the State from capitalizing on

an opportunity to develop a new PRT industry centered in New Jersey.
Under Option 4, State officials would help build, partially fund and support a
public/private partnership to conduct a comprehensive program to develop and
operate one or more test tracks to demonstrate PRT performance. ....
This approach would establish a shared risk funding and ownership program with
other state and federal transportation agencies and various private partners. ....
with an opportunity for the State to receive return on its investment from
revenue sharing and economic development benefits.
…..
public/private partnerships are vulnerable to leadership change over time.
This could negatively impact success, especially if political support weakens, or
technology development is delayed.
PRT is an emerging and innovative transportation concept designed to offer the comfort
and convenience of the private automobile with the efficiency of public transportation.
PRT offers the theoretical potential to increase travel speed, quality of public
transportation service and mobility while potentially reducing the costs and

Current PRT development activities are proceeding with limited resources and limited public support or
guidance.
Small guideways may also allow stations to be more easily integrated into existing buildings than
conventional mass transit systems
rapid, prefabricated modular construction.
Through iterations of design involving conventional automotive and

transit designs, the system evolved into a much larger and heavier, four-
passenger vehicle that used rotary motors and
automotive-style suspension. The guideway
was then designed to accommodate this wider
and heavier vehicle. Instead of the originally
planned 39 inch by 39 inch guideway, the
demonstration system required a much larger 72
inch by 72 inch guideway that was significantly
more expensive to build (see Figure 5).
By failing to learn from previous designs and
PRT developments, and using conventional
vehicle design paradigms, the Raytheon
program significantly increased the cost,
complexity and visual intrusion of the guideway.

They also limited the ability of the system to
support short headway operations by selecting
rotary propulsion systems.
Figure 5 - Final Raytheon PRT
Design
Cost Focus: The Raytheon program was orginally conceived with a target
system cost of $15 million per mile. After the design modifications described
above that increased the guideway and vehicle costs, the target system cost was
estimated at over $40 million per mile.
vehicle/guideway interface (VGI)

The VGI will be a critical element that may set
the standard for future PRT developments. With competing VGI’s, clients will potentially
be limited to proprietary system designs and non-competitive market pricing. With a
standardized VGI, clients and deployments may be able to use multiple vehicle and
guideway suppliers. With a standardized VGI, systems could be expanded more easily
and vehicles could operate on any section of a network regardless of its original
developer, owner or manufacturer.
Systems Engineering for Intelligent Transportation Systems
An Introduction for Transportation Professionals

Late Changes Drive Project Costs
There is no such thing as a mistake-free project development. In the transportation industry,
experienced construction managers will tell you that every project has change orders. The
problem is that change orders during construction are more expensive to the project.
In systems engineering, verification and validation of the evolving project documentation is

performed early and often to maximize the chances of identifying defects as early in the
project development cycle as possible.
Delay Technology Choices

Technology is constantly changing. The choices available when
a project is initially conceived may well be replaced by better
technology by the time the project is implemented. Specifying
technology too early will result in outdated technology or
constant baseline changes as you try to keep up with technology
Advancements.
Advantages for states or countries to take part in this project:

Use of the emulation facilities and testing tracks being for project participants in preference to non
participants.
The Intellectual Property of the design of machinery for automated construction remaining the
property of the project. Although this would then be released to manufacturers without monetary
payment, the release would be with the proviso that project participants would have preference to the
machinery produced using the information ahead of non participants.

RAD-IT Version 8.0.47
the next generation Regional ITS Architecture software tool that replaces Turbo Architecture.
Windows 7 or newer is required. In order to use the tabular output functions, you must have a copy of
MS Word or MS Excel.
SET-IT
A copy of Microsoft Visio 2010 or higher (32-bit) is required for systems running Microsoft Office
2010 up to and including Microsoft Office 2013 SP1. If your system uses Microsoft Office 2016, you
must use Microsoft Visio 2016 (32-bit). In addition, make sure your system is up-to-date with the latest
Office Updates from Microsoft. In order to utilize tabular output functions, the user must have 32-bit
MS Word or MS Excel.
USDOT using the terms 'Vehicle to Vehicle' (V2V) communications and 'Vehicle to Infrastructure'
(V2I) .
Vehicle-As-A-Service (Vaas) Concept being promoted by GM

OSVehicle with an Open Source Electric Car Platform
Being rebranded as 'Open Motors'
Includes EDIT. A modular self-driving Car
Sometime it is called 'Mobility-As-A-Service' (Maas) or 'Car-As-A-Service'
https://wattev2buy.com/
Websites and email addresses suitable to promote this to etc
https://team.inria.fr/rits/
http://www.lara.prd.fr/imara
http://www.lara.prd.fr/
http://faculty.washington.edu/jbs/itrans/

getinvolved.transport.vic.gov.au Ken ken@jypes.com Mat...9
dedicated short-range communications (DSRC), which is similar to Wi-Fi.
Concepts to incorporate:
Car batteries being used by electricity network to smooth out transients from wind & solar
Diagrams/Layouts required.
Standard layout of an at grade station in the middle of a backstreet

Needs to include a pedestrian bridge over the HCORT feeder thrulane. For small stations this is best
placed on the vehicle exit end as the additional length of the siding past the platform is shorter than at
the other end.
At grade station to one side of a backstreet where there is a significant distance without property
entrances. (ie. beside parks and schools).
Requires a minimum of two near grade crossings, one at either end.
Layout of a near grade station in the middle of a backstreet

Layout of a near grade station to one side of a backstreet
Use of blocking all traditional vehicle through traffic
Blocking vehicle access to specific properties where those properties have access through back lanes
(originally designed for the use of night carts)
Having some parts of the feeder network unfenced and allowing some vehicles to cross the HCORT
paths. When this is done, it allows a back street to be converted to a one way street for the traditional
traffic.
Availability of autonomous vehicles or near autonomous vehicles
ordering/booking/commission/requisition/reservation system
Reservation system being done by an application (mobile phone app or equivalent) with the application
device staying with the client/user
This app must know where the user is
Reservation system will direct the client/users to the appropriate vehicle docking port at the appropriate

time. Equivalent with dual use vehicles.
All data needed for the journey will have been entered before the user is directed to the port
System will protect the network, ensuring appropriate loads for each part of the network are not
exceeded.
There must be enough spare capacity maintained so that if unforseen events occur causing vehicles to
continue in asynchronous mode different to that originally planned, the effects on other vehicles will
not escalate (no ripple through)
In order to maintain sufficiently low loads, the system will keep users waiting at the station without
them being directed to port. Equivalent for dual use vehicles.
Leaky coaxial cable being used for Vehicle to Vehicle (V2V) and Vehicle to Infrastructure (V2I)
communication. Same embedded in the roadway cable as being used by the vehicle guidance system,
Two leaky cables being used by each vehicle. Allows one cable to end and start each segment while
the other is used. That is, one side remains continuous while the other has a small gap disruption.
With merges and diverges, one of the leaky cables extends to each lane of the merging or diverging
lanes.
Note: Pg 107 of … discusses German system design
Problems caused by the network being too popular

Methods to overcome them
Parking restrictions
Restrictions at some stations that any user must have used public transit to get to that station or the
system won’t accept their fare. Exceptions for children.
With the brick-wall stopping criteria HCORT can be organised with platoon assemble, assembling,
assembler, assembly (constructor/builder) and dismantle, dismantling, dismantler
(disassembler/demolish) and re-organizer areas which operator at ultra low shunting speeds .
(“'compressor' and 'de-compressor' stations”) on its feeder network.
Separate shunting lanes are often needed for assembling and re-organizing but dismantling will
typically be done using only the feeder thrulanes.
Station Names: Stations, transport hubs,

Feeder Network Name: Feeder Network. Last mile access network.
Possible Names: sidings sidetracks byway thruway throughway service-road thrulanes thruguideways
Best Names: feeder thrulanes & station sidings

Feeder Network
The feeder network is composed of a network of lower speed guideways primarily used for connecting
stations and dual mode vehicle entrances and exits to the HCORT freeways. This network can also be
used for vehicle routing such as rerouting when parts of the network are down or for providing U-turns
from one direction of an HCORT freeway to its opposite direction.
The feeder network is composed of two types of guideway. These are herein named “thrulanes” and
“sidings”. The implementation of either of those within any traditional street is expected to be
predominantly one-way only.
Thrulanes are guideways that connect to the acceleration and deceleration lanes of the HCORT
freeways. Most connect through from a deceleration lane to an acceleration lane. An exception to this
is that they can connect from a dual mode vehicle entrance or exit through to an acceleration or
deceleration lane respectively. Thrulanes can connect together as a merge diverge network.
All vehicle stops for passenger embarking and disembarking are on sidings. Sidings connect to
thrulanes or other sidings. A siding often provides a through path from one point of a thrulane to
another. A siding can also be a dead end. Dead end sidings are used for parallel angle parking at some
stops. At these stops, HCORT vehicles are required to back out and turn around in a similar manner to
cars exiting parallel angle parking.
Feeder thrulanes are also used as manoeuvring or passing lanes for both station sidings and shunting
lanes. A vehicle waiting for passengers to complete their entry can detect when a person initially enters
and when the door is being shut. Using this information and perhaps collected information on
passenger’s previous habits, it can provide information to any other vehicle that is waiting for this
vehicle to exit.
Use of visual analysis to understand when a person has spewed. (been sick) or similarly left the car in
an unusable state.
(What can be done to detect that a person has urinated when there is no visual motions?) Need some
method for a passenger to decline a particular vehicle, providing information to the system and the
system providing another vehicle.
Handling people with disabilities.

Maximum vehicle height

The HCORT design is essentially a method of creating additional road traffic capacity.
Initially, the HCORT catchment network would be largely developed in places where
the roads are not able to handle the current traffic or places that didn't have roads,
such as some new suburbs. This would be combined with routes to major destinations
such as to a Central Business District (CBD) and when cities already have
metropolitan train systems the routes will often be developed alongside those train
lines.
Due to its characteristics such as higher speed, saving lives, reducing pollution etc
there may well end up being a case to use this also in places that don't need additional
capacity. There are so many areas in most cities that need additional traffic capacity
that it is unlikely to see many deployments outside of these for some time. All initial
evaluations of HCORT such as a business case or alternatives analysis needs to be
based on the needs of these areas that need this extra traffic capacity.
Adding traditional expressways/freeways using traditional road building most often

requires confiscation and compensation of large numbers of properties. The costs,
both financial and political mean that more often than not, the equivalent traditional
freeways or expressways are not planned for. In these cases the alternative is that of
continuing to put up with the road gridlock.
Notes
https://yoursay.infrastructurevictoria.com.au/

HCORT10 U

Uploaded by

Document Information

Original Title

Copyright

Available Formats

Share this document

Share or Embed Document

Sharing Options

Did you find this document useful?

Is this content inappropriate?

Copyright:

Available Formats

HCORT10 U

Uploaded by

Copyright:

Available Formats

High Capacity Optimised Rapid

Preliminary Draft Version 0.0.10u

Date: 20th Aug 2020

Page: 1 of 142 pages

Page: 2 of 142 pages

Page: 3 of 142 pages

This proposal for an international cooperative effort to define and standardise a

• costing far less than other alternatives

Page: 4 of 142 pages

In order to create a transportation network that satisfies the above objectives,

• a proposal and details for an international cooperative effort to define and

• details of a suggested transport network design.

The suggested network design has been named 'HCORT' as it is a High

This design has been particularly optimised for economical transportation of

The proposed design can be summarised as follows:

Network of dedicated expressway guideways for small high speed

HCORT attempts to ride on the back of the current explosion in availability of

Page: 5 of 142 pages

HCORT doesn't require autonomous vehicle technology to be accepted for our

Characteristics of provided design details include resilience against hacker/fire

Page: 6 of 142 pages

180,000 metres/hr / 36 metres/platoon = 5000 platoons/hr

A later ‘Throughput Calculations’ section of this document provides a number of other

Page: 7 of 142 pages

This document is intended for the following:

• Required Progression of Current Autonomous Vehicle Efforts

Page: 8 of 142 pages

HCORT can be seen as the required progression or advancement of the current

This introduction to HCORT first provides details HCORT construction cost

HCORT Construction Cost Advantages

HCORT is a grade separated road guideway network. The following requirements on

• Low maximum size of vehicles, particularly low maximum height of vehicles.

Page: 9 of 142 pages

Page: 10 of 142 pages

Public Transit and Dual Mode Private Vehicle Use

Page: 11 of 142 pages

Page: 12 of 142 pages

Problems with Current Autonomous Vehicle Efforts

4. Current autonomous designs make heavy use of optical sensors. Optical

Page: 13 of 142 pages

7. The current electromagnetic network spectrum is already overcrowded. The

Problem 1: As seen in HCORT Throughput Calculations, each HCORT roadway

Page: 14 of 142 pages

Problem 6: Vehicle to Vehicle' (V2V) communications or 'Vehicle to Infrastructure'

Vehicle to Vehicle' (V2V) communications is done by Vehicle to embedded cable

Page: 15 of 142 pages

Page: 16 of 142 pages

Public Transit being direct point to point provided by small driverless

An expanded definition of PRT is given in an Appendix entitled 'USA's Official

Ken Dawber's Demonstration Analysis of PRT's Advantages

The following is a demonstration of how the principles of Personal Rapid Transport

b) For most stops, the vehicles determine if there is a passenger or potential

Page: 17 of 142 pages

Page: 18 of 142 pages

4. Up to recently, each of these vehicles needed drivers, which would make it

Page: 19 of 142 pages

1. PRT changes the system methodology of passenger pickup. Instead of vehicles

7. As dedicated guideways for small vehicles are cheaper than dedicated

Page: 20 of 142 pages

Page: 21 of 142 pages

Current Autonomous Vehicle Dedicated Guideway Efforts.

Page: 22 of 142 pages

Details on the findings of these studies, including a description of the main