“A show of hands, who loves traffic?” Gerald Sanders, CEO of SkyTran, asked the audience gathered for his presentation during the Westchester County Association”™s recent “Westchester: County of Tomorrow” conference.
While his question was met with a few laughs, Sanders is very serious about his company”™s plans to alleviate the burden of traffic through aerial mass transit.
SkyTran is an elevated personal rapid transit system, one that Sanders said is a possible solution for the high-traffic roadways around Westchester”™s larger cities, particularly along Interstate 287 and Westchester Avenue.
SkyTran”™s system travels above regular car and foot traffic, with two- to four-person computer-controlled pods hanging on elevated guideways that travel at speeds of up to 150 mph.
This would allow riders “to go from one tip of Manhattan to the other without stopping in 5 to 6 minutes,” Sanders said.
When arriving at a commuter”™s destination, pods travel off the main line before coming to a stop, keeping each traveling pod on the main line moving to prevent any backups or delays.
SkyTran, which is based at NASA”™s Ames Research Center near Mountain View, Calif., is also environmentally friendly.
The system uses magnetic levitation instead of wheels, with both the lift and thrust needed to move the pods forward produced by electromagnets, allowing it to emit “virtually no pollution,” according to the company.
The power needed to operate the vehicles can be obtained almost entirely from clean energy like solar power, and solar panels could be mounted along the elevated guideway.
The guideway is constructed of low-cost steel and aluminum components that can be installed alongside existing roadways and would cost less than $10 million per mile, significantly below light rail”™s cost of around $100 million per mile, Sanders said.
Each pod has a life expectancy of about seven to 10 years, while the magnets would last from 40 to 50 years, he said.
The company is installing a demonstration system in Tel Aviv, Israel that is expected to be completed by the end of this year.
