Recently while searching the
Net, I came across a rather interesting web site relating to future
transportation; it caught my eye through the domain name of http://www.taxi2000.com
so obviously I had to check it out.
This web site is dedicated to a form of transport called
'Personal Rapid Transit (PRT) Systems'. I hadn't heard of it before, but
after visiting it and seeing the amount of effort and development
involved, I believe that it could actually take off.
Personal Rapid Transit (PRT) is "...a personal rapid
transit system of computer-controlled, three-passenger vehicles on slim
guideways operating on-demand and non-stop direct to any station in the
network." Dr John Edward Anderson invented it at the University
of Minnesota.
It involves thousands of driverless, three-seater vehicles
running on monorails on a grid-like circuit. So far as I can tell, this
system has not been implemented anywhere as yet, but the site does provide
a simulation of the system centred around downtown Cincinnati, Ohio and it
looks very impressive.
How To Use The PRT System
How do you use the PRT system? Here are the details: The
passenger walks to the nearest station and selects their destination, pays
the fare and gets issued with a ticket which they then insert into a
'Stanchion'. This then transfers the route details to the next available
vehicle. The passenger enters the vehicle, which in turn waits for a clear
spot to enable entry to the monorail system and away they go. Sounds so
simple...
The PRT system is very hi-tech, very futuristic and would
involve a lot of investment to get it off the ground. It offers an
extremely good transport system that could be adopted in many newer
cities, especially in a country like the USA. But in London? No, I think
not, although I could see it working in a place like Milton Keynes. Of
course, if it did catch on in London, we know a white-cabbed Dial-a-Cab
driver whose registration plate's value would go through the roof (PRT
1)...!
The http://www.taxi2000.com
site has a wealth of information and is well worth a visit if you're
interested in possible future transportation systems. |
For further references please visit the Journal of Advanced Transportation: http://www.advanced-transport.com/
or you can go to http://advancedtransit.org/
which is the Advanced Transit Association (ATRA).
Moving Home On The Net...
It's that time in my life when the wife and I have decided to sell our house
and move on, so what better way to find a new house than on the Net. It seems
all estate agents nowadays have a web site and I must say they've certainly
improved since I last looked.
My visit to estate agent web sites was mainly in search for houses
in the home counties but not London, although many of them also list London
houses. I'll only mention the sites that I found to be good or liked. All the
sites provide extensive searching facilities including, location, price (min
& max), type of house, number of bedrooms, number of receptions, etc.
For example, http://www.your-move.co.uk/
is a very well designed/developed site, but to fully appreciate the houses, you
have to register. Upon registration, you will be assigned a password that
you'll have to use to view any house interiors. Your-move.co.uk say that this
is a security feature, as many vendors do not want all and sundry viewing their
homes. Then there is http://www.rightmove.co.uk
which is another well designed/developed site providing the usual facilities.
On http://www.connells.co.uk/
I didn't quite like the animated buttons that they used, but that shouldn't
detract from the fact that it is still a good site. One that I didn't find
quite as good as the others is http://www.country-properties.co.uk/
but it is still functional with some very nice
properties.
An excellent portal site is http://www.assertahome.co.uk/
although I did find that a few of their houses had already been sold.
These are just a handful of online estate agents and there are
absolutely hundreds, but I still believe that the best way for house-hunting is
the traditional way; drive around and visit every estate agent!
Ah, well, so much for technology.....
Cya next month... Vince
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