Copyright © 2004, Jeremiah (Jerry) R. Fass.
Permission is granted to copy, distribute and/or modify this document under the terms of the GNU Free Documentation License, Version 1.1 or any later version published by the Free Software Foundation;with no invariant sections, front-cover texts, or back-cover texts.
A copy of the license is here:http://www.gnu.org/licenses/fdl.html

For comments or if you have questions contact Jerry Fass at: J.Fass at SkyTran.net

Q. Your idea might work, but is impossible to operate because it is unmanned, and people are too horrible. Vehicles will be ruined with graffiti, vandalized, filled with urine, excrement, vomit, spit, other body fluids, half eaten food, gum, beer, booze, cigarette and cigar butts, broken glass bottles, and worse, and that's only when people are not trying to set them on fire. Some people will ride with 5 friends at once, damaging vehicles and cheating you of fares. Prostitutes will entertain clients in them. Alcoholics and drug addicts will sleep, and even live in them, turning them into moving crack parlors. Terrorists will fill them with bombs and send them to kill. No one will ever want to get near your system because it will be a filthy, smelly, stinking, diseased, squalid, grotesque, infected, fetid, festering, loathsome, debauched, disgusting, rotting, dangerous, nightmarish cesspool of horrors straight from the fiery pits of hell itself. Everyone will be too afraid to ride, especially children. And if someone gets sick, they are trapped and can't get help, and die while forced to hurtle helplessly to their destination. Too bad you didn't think of that before wasting all your time.

A. We get a surprising number of questions on these issues. Some are polite and well reasoned. Some are short and a bit rude.

We have considered these problems at great length. They result from many factors, are complex, and are not simple or easy to solve, and will be extremely difficult or impossible to solve fully, to eliminate. A complex, multi-strategy approach seems needed and useful, in two parts: Reduce. React.

Unmanned, automated systems need special considerations to compensate for the lack of direct human supervision, for many types of possible problems, of which intentional damage is only one type.

SkyTran/UniModal is far superior to alternatives (trains, busses, cars) in many traits, physical and psychological, to limit, reduce, lower incentives for, discourage, and eliminate negative (bad) behaviors: soiling, vandalism (intentional soiling is vandalism), crime (terrorism is crime). Many traits lower the time, chance, desire, and likelihood for people to offend, and keep them in better moods, happier, calmer, less angry, resentful, and hostile, increasing behaviors that are positive (good), cleaner, less violent, instead of negative, dirty. Unlike alternatives, it can be fast, fun, and luxurious; a higher value proposition. Far more people will like it. People often defend things they like, and seldom damage them.

Reduce
  1) Reduce, prevent, minimize exposure risks, design out as many problems as possible. Many traits will reduce or prevent bad behaviors, greatly. Most are passive and inherent, needing no systems or action beyond usual transport functions.

    1.1) Motion. Keep users moving always, constantly, continuously, smoothly, unlike alternatives. All motion, all the time. Lessens time to offend, aids moods.
      1.1.1) Speed. Minimizes time spent in travel. Trips are far faster for a given distance than alternatives.
      1.1.2) Time. Minimize time spent in portals, near and in vehicles, far less than in alternatives. Trips are far shorter for a given distance than alternatives.
      1.1.3) Schedules. On demand. Driven by user needs, not system needs. Vehicles always waiting, ready to go as soon as users want/need, except in some cases of surprise high demand.
      1.1.4) Waits. Schedules cause waits. No schedules means users have no waits, spend little time in portals, near vehicles. Radio frequency ID, RFID, ends stopping to pay fares. Stopping to offend slows trips, unlike alternatives, where waits allow and encourage offenses with no change in trip time.
 
   1.2) Cost. Fair fares are incremental, usually lower. Pay only for what is used. Aids moods.
  
  1.3) Value.
      1.3.1) For users, more: More speed, and lower fares. Aids moods.
      1.3.2) For offenders, less: Small size parts, no crowds, no flammables.
 
   1.4) Size. All parts are minimal, far smaller than alternatives. Far less space and area to soil, trap dirt, damage, and be vandalized, and far smaller floor areas. No part can fit a crowd. Smaller, more personal spaces are abused less than larger, more impersonal ones.

    1.5) Shaping. Most surfaces are curved, or sloped, with few corners to trap dirt, unlike alternatives. Curves are usually to improve aerodynamics. Slopes are usually to shed precipitation or biofouling. Both make it harder to vandalize.
 
   1.6) Quiet. Almost silent sound levels. Aids moods.
 
   1.7) Clean. Wash all vehicles, automatically, at least daily, or more, once or twice a day, as needed; all portals monthly, weekly, or as needed.
 
   1.8) Reinforcement. Environment strongly effects behavior. Positive (clean, quiet, personal) conditions cause good behaviors. Negative (dirty, noisy, impersonal) conditions cause bad behaviors.
 
   1.9) Vehicle interiors.
      1.9.1) Size. Are far smaller than alternatives. Small, personal spaces, floor area. People will find it hard to overload, and reach some positions (squat) and impossible to reach others (stand) needed to damage and soil many vehicle areas, and neatly, cleanly expel most body waste types. It is harder to achieve their goals, and they will likely soil themselves in trying.
      1.9.2) Restraint. For safety, users are held in seats by belts, at all times, except entry and exit. People will find it hard to overload, impossible to reach some positions needed to damage and soil most vehicle areas, and cleanly expel all body waste. It is even harder to achieve their goal, they soil themselves in trying, and must sit in their mess, until the trip ends.
      1.9.3) Covers. Shield seats with waterproof (non-porous?), non-fabric, easy-to-clean material(s).
      1.9.4) Activities. Users can choose among many types of music, comedy, news, or voice communications.

These traits reduce problems greatly. Then we need other tactics, for intentional and repeat offenders. Means that can reduce intentional vandalism can reduce other crimes, such as terrorism. Unlike alternatives, SkyTran/UniModal is not limited to passive tactics. Active tactics are easy.

React
  2) Unlike alternatives, make systems that are smart, and can sense, act, react, fight back, take action against, counterattack, oppose bad behavior, trouble, and offenders. All are active.
 
   2.1) Pre-identify all users before trips. Only registered users, or users with such, can enter vehicles and ride. Registered users are responsible for unregistered users. For more security, allow no unregistered users.
  A full registration process may be too much for some users. Some have privacy concerns about their movements being recorded. For non-residents, temporary visitors to an area (e.g., airports), it may use too much time. For foreign visitors, it may not help to have home addresses.
  One option is a prepay RFID system like the cards for cell phones. Users go to a kiosk, insert a credit card or cash, and get a RFID and account. The amount drawn on the credit card, or cash deposit, covers fares and a security deposit ($100? $500?) as a deterrent from offending. When the RFID is returned, if no offense is recorded, a kiosk releases and refunds the deposit: re-credits the account, or returns cash.
  Monitor, and record temporarily all use: identity, portal, vehicle, time, route. User presence can be exactly correlated in space and time with any soiling or damage. Automatic computer ID of offenders will aid police. Unregistered people entering portals cannot enter vehicles, and actions are sensed and recorded. For more security, use biometrics: scan voice, fingerprints, eye retina.
  Privacy: After a time delay (12 hours?), to ensure that users have not offended, records can be deleted, or moved to secure storage in government mandated national security databases, etc. Such use records are similar to those kept by telephone carriers.
  People pods are for people, only. Parcels cannot be sent in people pods. Parcels go in parcel (freight) pods. This keeps unaccompanied freight and bombs out of people pods.
 
   2.2) Users leaving one or more intentional mess (food spill, alcohol, feces, urine, graffiti), or repeat accidental messes (food, vomit, blood), are banned for some penalty period (one or more days, weeks, months, years) or fully, and can be reported to police for arrest and prosecution with name, address, fingerprint, eyescan, picture, crime video, etc. With the right sensors, reroute offenders directly to police in the same vehicle in which they offend, so all evidence is fresh and uncontaminated.  Or reroute sick users to doctors, clinics, or hospitals, far faster than ground emergency response (911, ambulance) can react.

    2.3) Use profiling to focus sensing on more likely offenders. In extant transport, most crime is by males, mostly younger, adolescents and early adults, and then by substance abusers, and the mentally ill.

    2.4) Users can always reject a vehicle, sending it for cleaning or service. Of course, doing so when unneeded gets a user ban.
 
    2.5) Current sensor technology allows cheap, powerful, extensive, multimode surveillance. Sensors, instruments, transducers: sound, image, mass, continuity, proximity, motion, chemical (fire), heat. Values too high or low can signal problems. One or more of each type of sensor(s) can be in portals, vehicles, poles, and track, inside or outside. Vehicle use often has highest payoff. In a sensor rich area, it can be easy to locate problems precisely. When problems are sensed, react. Vehicles ask user to correct problems by voice. If nothing changes, vehicle reroutes, stops, gets help.
      2.5.1) Sound. Microphones monitor and record suspect sounds: pounding, breaking, scratching, marker squeak, spray can hiss.
      2.5.2) Vision. Cameras record images before and after each trip, and compare them digitally. When differences are sensed, send and save image with user information.
      2.5.3) Mass. Sense overloads as users enter, and loads (items (bag, bomb), creatures, substances) left on floor or seats, as users exit, maybe as small as one ounce.
      2.5.4) Continuity. Sense damage to surfaces, as it occurs.
      2.5.5) Proximity. Sense presence, distance of objects: people, animals, parcels, precipitation.
      2.5.6) Motion. Sense movement: too little or much signals alarm.
      2.5.7) Chemicals. Sense aromatics/organics: urine, feces, vomit; alcohol, smoke; gasoline, kerosene, explosives.
      2.5.8) Heat/thermal. Sense fire, including burning plant matter: tobacco, marijuana.
      2.5.9) In 10 to 20 years, terahertz scans will allow cheap, fast sensing of drugs, explosives, illness, more.

  2.6) Ban smoking, on all trips. Have special smoker vehicles.
    2.6.1) If user(s) starts smoking, no-smoke vehicles automatically sense it, warn user(s), and/or reroute to the next nearest stop, expel user(s), and refuse service. Ban repeat offenders.
 
 2.7) Fast, cheap repair. All system parts are highly modular for easy replacing. Think Tinkertoys. Service centers are small, compact, quiet, inconspicuous, put wherever they are needed, as allowed by zoning, etc. They are not big and sometimes noisy like train, bus, truck, or taxi sheds. They need store no vehicles, as they can be stored in the system, where needed, on track buffers, called dwell lines.

Q. What happens to vandals?

A. Anyone who vandalizes, or intentionally soils pods will be taken directly to a police station (when possible), arrested, prosecuted, and refused service. In problem areas, all pods and portals have cameras and other sensors to record all user actions temporarily.

Q. What if there is vomit or other body fluids on the seat or floor? You want to know about it before the next paying customer sees it. How do you spot it?

A. We can rely on users. They can reject a pod, sending it for service. Cameras or other sensors can detect many problems.

Q. Many people try to crowd into a two seat pod. Together they weigh over 500 pounds. What does the pod do?

A. There is no way that many people can fit in a pod, maybe three or four can if they are very flexible. If a pod is overloaded, it says something like: "You have overloaded this pod. Please leave and reload the pod." It won't move or even shut the door until properly loaded.

Transport Vandalism: Why?

Likely everyone who lives in or visits a city in the US has noticed that mass public transport systems get vandalized and damaged. Many people, including some transit experts, assume that this is simply unavoidable, maybe due to human nature. Bad things happen, and will continue, as long as public transport and people exist. Is this is correct? If so, it would be a sad commentary on human nature.

But what if it is avoidable? In some places on Earth, public transport does not suffer vandalism. Many Asian and European countries, and wealthier neighborhoods of US cities, have little or no vandalism. Vandalism is not acausal. There are reasons that some people vandalize transport. There are things that they are angry about.

Why is vandalism more common in some places? Why do some people direct so much rage against public transport, but not against other ambient infrastructure, such as utilities: electric, telephone, sewer, water, gas? One reason is the old expression: Out of sight, out of mind. Some things are not visible, accessible, or convenient. But there is far more to it than that.

These are very complex problems, with many social, economic, and education effects in play. Many societal institutions are in transition, under stress, or failing: many religions, businesses, communities, and the family. Poverty is rising. Education is falling. Most of these problems are beyond the scope of transport designers and engineers, but some are not. Transport helps people go to education and jobs, so faster, cheaper, more common transport can help raise living standards. More directly, consider problems involving transport design and engineering.

Consider. Current public transport is mostly trains, light rail, busses. In many ways, these work against human nature, not with it. Think of all of the frustrating, irritating, aggravating things there are about such systems for people to be angry about, more so growing teens and young men, at the peak of their strength, who want to hurry and rush with their affairs and lives, and who resent slowing down, for anything; the very people who do almost all vandalism.

Fixed, inflexible schedules seldom fit user needs. Rides are usually too early or late. If users miss pick up time by even a few seconds, too bad. They must wait another 10, 20, 30, or more minutes, until the next ride.

Users must endure long, interminable, seeming unending, eternal waits, often in bad weather, no matter how they feel, or how soon they must be somewhere. And more tomorrow, again. And next week. And next month. And next year. It never ends.

And, when rides finally arrive, trips are slow. Average speeds are around 12 miles per hour. Worse, vehicles start and stop, start and stop, start and stop, start and stop, start and stop. Over and over and over and over and over. Merely reading such repetition is irritating, much less living it, every day, over and over.

With waiting, and riding, each trip can take an hour or two. Two way trips double this pain. User time vanishes forever, as if burned up, or lost down a black hole. So much forced waste time, for frustration to gather, irritation to build to anger, people to stew, for impatient, impulsive, excitable, energetic, strong young men to show off their courage and daring to their friends, and to girls, by vandalizing. Even mature, controlled, educated people get irritated, checking watches repeatedly, sighing, quietly cursing, angrily throwing away newspapers, food, cigarette butts, sometimes walking away in disgust.

While waiting and riding, unrelenting enforced inactivity, with no relief or diversion, breeds yet more boredom, more so among those who have not developed the self control and maturity needed to entertain themselves, or bring entertainment for trips.

While waiting and riding, forced grouping causes two types of problems. It enhances incentives and pressures to show off in front of peers. Adults are not tempted by this, but youths, more so males, are just learning about how to behave and conduct themselves, always experimenting, pushing boundaries, exploring, and often getting in trouble. And, sad to say, many people like people only like themselves, and dislike people who are different. Such prejudice fuels irritation.

Fixed, inflexible, unfair fares are taxing. If users go two blocks, they pay the same fare as if they go two miles, or 20 miles. It makes no difference. Users taking shorter trips subsidize those going farther. Most users go only a few miles, paying for a minority who go farther.

Adding to all of the prior insults, the ride is often uncomfortable, bumpy, bouncy, jerky, jarring; the opposite of pleasant, calming, and relaxing.

Vehicles are often dirty and noisy, not clean or quiet. Users must be ever vigilant to avoid walking or sitting in gum, spilled soda, occasional urine, vomit, and worse. Some vehicles smell oddly. Often there is a constant din of racket: engines, brakes, horns, sirens, squealing tracks, someone else's music, excited yelling, screaming and teasing by schoolchildren, occasional mentally ill people mumbling or yelling incoherently.

Large impersonal spaces and flat walls appeal to vandals, especially graffiti taggers and artists. Users feel threatened and fearful of such menacing looking places, and avoid them.

SkyTran/UniModal can avoid much user anger, maybe most. What of the rest? Until a working system is up and running for some years, no one can know for sure. Empirical, hard evidence is needed. No amount of argument or debate can fully settle very complex issues, more so those involving human behavior.