Solving Traffic
Congestion:
while coincidentally getting commuters
to their jobs more safely, more quickly, more
economically, more conveniently, more enjoyably,
and in a much more environmentally friendly manner
This chart from the U.S. Bureau of Transportation Statistics demonstrates that even doubling every other means of transportation to work will do little to solve traffic congestion.
There are two options:
1. Add more infrastructure:
2. Maximize the capacity of current road infrastructure.
The obvious reasons why less than 1% of commuters in the US choose motorcycles and bicycles combined.
Imagine a motorcycle that is safer than a car, at least in most respects, and has the following attributes
In order for major manufacturers to take the risk of a radical new design, they must be confident that it will sell at least 100,000 units per year. Following are some recommended incentives:
How to create a market-based solution to traffic and parking congestion.
CMAQ (Congestion Mitigation and Air Quality), a federal fund for dealing with it’s namesake, could support a public transit authority as NCVs would fall perfectly into their charter.
“The Boston Big Dig” cost roughly $20-billion, and took 20 years.
It merely makes way for 130,000 cars per day from one point to another and back.
100,000 Tangos with 100-mile range could be built for $2-billion and completed in 2 years.
Could be rented out for $100 per month plus battery rental
Battery rental could be:
$50 per month for 50 miles of range. $100 per month for 100 miles of range
$150 per month for 150 miles of range $200 per month for 200 miles of range.
This would be roughly cost neutral.
CMAQ funds could be used for startup and for any shortfall while program is gaining acceptance.
For the renter, if choosing a battery of double one’s commute, electricity and battery rental combined would be far cheaper than gasoline.
Car Share
Car share companies like Car2Go and ZipCar are becoming more popular. Since most of these trips are single-occupant, having a car that does single-occupant trips more conveniently than any other car, could have a great market appeal.
In order for this to come about, a fully certified Tango must be produced. Without any incentives from government, it is unlikely that auto manufacturers will have an appetite for building narrow vehicles.
Parking is a major expense for a car share company. The Tango can increase capacity by 4 to 1
Congestion costing lives
Steve Jobs got upset with his programmers over 30 seconds of extra boot-up time multiplied by the millions of Mac users which came to x number of lifetimes.
According to TTI, (Texas Transportation Institute), In 2011, congestion caused urban Americans to travel 5.5 billion hours more and to purchase an extra 2.9 billion gallons of fuel for a congestion cost of $121 billion. That’s equal to 7,500 84-yr lifetimes that are wasted per year due to traffic congestion. This is over 4 times the number of lives lost on 9/11, figuring they’d lived roughly 1/2 of an 84-year lifetime.
The fuel wasted due to congestion would fill Tank trucks lined up, end to end, from Los Angeles to New York City.
The cost of life in this analysis does not even consider the loss of life due to air pollution and excess accidents due to congestion.
The Tango is not the only narrow vehicle
The Toyota iRoad is narrower than the Tango, but uses tilting technology.
Both Nissan and Renault have single wide tilting vehicles. They are too wide to double lane capacity, or lane split, but are working on the narrow concept.
Consumer Reports’, David Champion, Director of Automotive Testing, stated at the Automotive X-Prize Summit Conference that the Tango recorded the highest speed of any car or motorcycle through the emergency lane change maneuver (Moose Test)
Although the Toyota iRoad is slightly narrower than the Tango, it has a much wider footprint when cornering.
Clay Christensen, Harvard Bus School Professor, is widely considered
to be the highest authority on disruptive innovation.
In his book “The innovator’s Dilemma” he states:
In order to disrupt the automotive industry with an EV, it must do something useful that no other car can do.
The Tango is the only EV that we can imagine that has that characteristic.
Reasons why NCVs should be able to lanesplit:
Reasons why NCVs should not be able to lanesplit:
None found
72 California police officers to date, mostly CHP, have been asked if it’s legal for a Tango to lanesplit. The answer has been a unanimous “Yes.” This includes the CHP officers at the San Francisco Auto Show where the CHP and Commuter Cars had adjacent booths where video of the Tango lanesplitting was shown.
Although a number of Tangos have been lanesplitting in California for over 10 years, we are not aware of a single time that a Tango has been pulled over or or cited for it.
https://youtu.be/HuynveXxPlk
73 California police officers to date, mostly CHP, have been asked if it’s legal for a Tango to lanesplit. The answer has been a unanimous “Yes.” This includes the CHP officers at the San Francisco Auto Show where the CHP and Commuter Cars had adjacent booths where video of the Tango lanesplitting was shown.
Although a number of Tangos have been lanesplitting in California for over 10 years, we are not aware of a single time that a Tango has been pulled over or or cited for it.
https://youtu.be/HuynveXxPlk
108 second video w/ Governor Brown
Market
Solution to Congestion
Congestion Costing Lives
Lane-Splitting
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“The significant problems we face cannot be solved by the same level of thinking that created them.”
“The formulation of the problem is often more essential than its solution, which may be
merely a matter of mathematical or experimental skill.”
“If I had an hour to solve a problem I'd spend 55 minutes thinking about the problem and 5
minutes thinking about solutions.”
― Albert Einstein
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