WHY TRAINS?

GRAPHIC SYMBOLOGY

©MTR Corporation Ltd

The MTR graphic to the left, makes a pertinent case for mass transit system (& Sustainability), one that is based on a metro system.

The potential proliferation of vehicles on future roads, with the arrival of Level 5 autonomous cars could be deeply concerning, as some are of the view that this will release the mass adoption of vehicles by just about anyone, as one will not need to drive them. Hence creating a huge carbon impact by the EV manufacturing sector.

If this happens, then the earlier chapter's discussion on modal split will be irrelevant, as there will be exponentially more cars. Couple with larger population growth, we will be in a catch-22 scenario.

Planning and designing our cities around a rail-based mass transit system, informed by Transit-Oriented Development (TOD) principles, makes much more sense for the present and future of our cities.

Reducing the future numbers of cars and changing the model split for transportation to mass transit systems makes sense.

CLASSIFICATION OF SELF DRIVING CARS

There is some time to go before every one of us can buy their own ride, our streets will be clogged, and urbanisation will need to address this new challenge. Of course there are other studies which shows our cities doing much better due to reduced human error, faster managed vehicle speed, etc.

For Comparison:

BUS RAPID TRANSIT (BRT)

The BRT is a wonderful system that has a place as an intermediate transit system for small and cities: or arguably best as gap filler in larger cities. The overall capacity of these system are much smaller, and the need for a dedicated corridor to increase its capacity is a potential urban planning nightmare.
That said, it may be possible, that by the time Level 5 vehicles are on the road, the BRT system that is integrated with the overall AI system, which manages Vehicle-to-Everything (V2X) Communication, control LoS, etc. may make such system much more effective and enable higher capacity?

Can we also make our streets less clogged and human friendly?

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