Improving Public Transportation Technology Implementations and Anticipating Emerging Technologies (2007) / Chapter Skim
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Pages 59-68
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From page 59... ...
Rather, agencies seem to expend nearly all of their available resources on dealing with the challenges associated with implementing current technologies, such as electronic fare payment, and getting the most value out of their deployed technologies, such as by integrating various systems. These findings are consistent with the experience of the project team in working directly with agencies on technology projects and technology strategic planning.
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From page 60... ...
• A wide range of industry and general interest technology periodicals and periodical features, including Passenger Transport, the annual feature stories on "10 Emerging Technologies" in MIT's Technology Review, and Wired magazine's annual "NextFest" coverage. In addition to evaluating the extent to which the emerging technologies would impact systems and functions performed by public transportation agencies, the project team evaluated the extent to which the emerging technologies might help address major transit challenges or enable hypothesized transit advances.
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From page 61... ...
Each description includes an explanation of what the technology is and how the technology relates to the major transit challenges and anticipated transit advances identified by the research team (listed in Tables 5 and 6, respectively)
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From page 62... ...
However, it is the opinion of many experts that within 10 years, hybrid-electric heavy-duty transit vehicles are the most likely fuel/propulsion technology to significantly penetrate and benefit public transportation. A few areas with truly extreme air quality concerns, namely in California, continue to move forward rapidly in the development and demonstration of fuel cell buses.90 However, in areas with less dire air quality conditions, the high cost of fuel cells and major hydrogen production challenges are likely to delay any significant penetration of public transportation by fuel cells to beyond the 10-year horizon, if ever.
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From page 63... ...
Relationship to major transit challenges and anticipated transit advances. The expected major shift to hybrid-electric buses, spurred by continuing advances in energy storage technologies, obviously relates most closely to the "major fuel/ propulsion system ‘break-through' " major advance listed in Table 6.
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From page 64... ...
In regard to anticipated major transit advances, the greatest impact of mechatronics is likely to be in enabling increasing levels of automation in vehicle operation. Among the transit problems, mechatronics' greatest potential may lie in its ability to minimize operating costs by improving maintenance effectiveness.
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From page 65... ...
Anticipated breakthroughs in speech recognition and language translation would most directly impact the anticipated major transit advances associated with ubiquitous two-way information exchange with customers and seamlessly integrated, dynamic transit services. In terms of transit problems and challenges, these technologies hold the greatest potential in the areas of meeting the needs of aging and non-English speaking customers and in reducing customer service labor costs.
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From page 66... ...
Relationship to major transit challenges and anticipated transit advances. Cognitive radio and its contribution to pervasive wireless networks have the potential to enable several of the anticipated major transit advances: ubiquitous, realtime, two-way information exchange with customers; dynamic, seamlessly integrated service; and ubiquitous, highly automated security screening, surveillance, and response.
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From page 67... ...
These employ tiny droplets of fluid inside fiber-optic channels to improve data flow, speeding transmission and improving reliability.123 Fibers are bored with microscopic channels; pumping in various tiny amounts of fluids can change the properties of the fiber, allowing for corrections to error-causing distortions and directing data flows more efficiently. This alternative is cheaper than adding more bandwidth and would allow transit agencies to get the most out of their fiber investments.
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From page 68... ...
126 D Graham-Rowe, "Taming the Terahertz," Technology Review (November 30, 2006)
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