leopetr
Active Member
He's a swindler. Also check the capacity on his tech. They're aiming for 16 passengers every 30 seconds. Toronto subway does 2000 passengers every 2 minutes, or 500 every 30 seconds.
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He's a swindler. Also check the capacity on his tech. They're aiming for 16 passengers every 30 seconds. Toronto subway does 2000 passengers every 2 minutes, or 500 every 30 seconds.
Streety McCarface
Senior Member
It's actually closer to 4500 every 2 minutes, and will soon be 4500 every 90 seconds. (1 train each direction, assume full crush load).
amnesiajune
Senior Member
Elon Musk isn't the first cocky snake oil salesman in the transit industry. I'll believe that this is possible when it's actually up and running. Until then I'm assuming that he won't deliver, or it'll end up having massive cost overruns and he'll hold Chicago hostage for a bailout when it's half-finished.
In any case, Musk's technology isn't viable for mass transit. Its capacity is 2,000 passengers per hour/direction, which is less than two subway trains (even the 39 and 199 Finch East buses have a higher combined capacity than that).
CityLab has a good article on all the issues with it: https://www.citylab.com/transportat...ks-tunnel-to-ohare-would-be-a-miracle/562841/
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amnesiajune
Senior Member
That number is incredibly wrong. Current peak AM ridership is around 30,000/hour south of Bloor. With your figure of 4500 passengers per train, that would suggest one train every 9 minutes.
In reality it's one train every 2.5 minutes, and the full load is around 1200-1300 passengers. Even if you removed all the seats, the subway car wouldn't be able to hold more than around 2,200 people (based on 1.5 square feet per standing passenger).
Streety McCarface
Senior Member
They could probably outfit the TRs with these types of displays. TBH, I've never had an issue when the side screens on the TRs would give information on delays and stuff.
The assumption was based on the maximum theoretical capacity (given the fact streetcar and bus capacity is vastly overstated in practical terms) and a train going in each direction. This means 2,200 passengers per train * 2 directions = 4,400 passengers as a theoretical maximum capacity every 2 minutes (which includes both directions, not just one direction). Of course it's much less than this, but TBCs numbers are probably just as overstated as these.
amnesiajune
Senior Member
2,200 passengers per train would be the theoretical capacity if you took out every single seat and made the trains standing room only. With the seats in place capacity is 1,200-1,300.
smallspy
Senior Member
Bombardier's rated maximum capacity for a T1 subway car is about 380 people. Therefore they claim that you can in theory put almost 2,300 people into a standard 6-car train. And that number is higher still for a TR.
That said, at that rating station stops will take much longer as people fight to get onto and off of the train. That's why the TTC uses a much lower number - 1000 for a 6-car T1 train, 1100 for a TR - as it allows for service to continue in a normal manner, and still absorb short-term peaks.
Dan
Toronto, Ont.
nfitz
Superstar
Publishing numbers like that is beyond absurd. You can get 20 people in an (old) Volkswagen Beetle - but that doesn't mean you can run an Uber service based on that statistic. http://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/world-records/most-people-crammed-into-an-old-vw-beetle
mdrejhon
Senior Member
Harsh, and requires quantification.
While I criticize the low capacity of Elon's flawed transit plans -- and root for the neat Boring Tech to build proper subway/LRT tunnels faster and cheaper instead -- I need to point out that this is Elon's plan to make 16 passengers every 30 second occur in parallel.
First, cue the Version 1 Silly Publicity Concept. (Not going to bappen)
Unrealistic Draft Version 1
The "publicity" images of lifts (single vehicles appearing out of sidewalks) used in Verge
image is not what is planned for Chicago.
Reality is different. See concept image slightly closer to reality.
Version 2 Slightly Realistic Early Draft Concept
More Realistic Draft Version 2
More realistic plans will rapidly iterate. Version 3, 4, 5....
Maybe it'll even be 24 or 32 per vehicle. Maybe it'll be more like a miniaturized Montreal-style tires-in-guideway (cordlessly) except there is no couplers because it is platooning. Maybe it'll switch to Tesla-on-steel-rails system. Speeds may be slower than hoped. It'll evolve. But arguably the Version 2 image above is a much more realistic than those silly sidewalk lift publicity images.
The tunnel headways would probably be tighter than 30 seconds (except between platoons), using autopilot platooning technology, creating long virtual "trains" via platooning.
And no highway dividers to worry about to trigger an AutoPilot disaster in national news - the system will be more deterministic like an automated metro, except it could be just a glorified self-propelled-train-coach that don't need couplers because it's a platooning system.
I do not think it will be a financial success without a subsidy though.
Swindle = possibly only to investors IMHO.
It may reach roughly LRT throughput in PPPHPD (Peak People Per Hour Per Direction), but not subway throughput PPPHPD.
But might be a subsidized public transit success after a UPX-style boondoggle-and-repricing/takeover turnaround.
Texhnologically, if he pulls it off successfully, it peovides a technically-legitimate new transit option. Maybe squarish peg into a roundish hole -- initially -- but manages to become LRT train throughput despite 16 per vehicle.
Their engineers are smart.
Do not underestimate Musk, even if there almost certainly will be major cost overrun, and it almost certainly won't be profitable either - but may actually end up being feasible after proper tweakin by his smart engineers.
Major cost cutting:
- Near zero infrastructure in tunnels
- No high voltage electric wiring needed in tunnels (just enough for LED emergency lights etc)
- Simpler emergency systems in vehicles
- Faster tunnelling
- Narrow tunnels
- Mass manufacture of cheaper, smaller battery electric vehicles under Tesla experience
- Only two mega stations needed (as an airport express)
It won't cut government red tape faster (except under recognizance, like Chicago) and will likely need eventual tax subsidy but may succeed competitively to existing transit systems.
Risks could be system shutdown by lithium battery fires, escape plan, difficulty engineering easy emergency plan, safety risks of slimmed down safety plan for large number of vehicles, unexpected cost overruns, Denver International Airport Baggage System style IT complexity (its basically the same kind of pod-transport disaster), and several others.
But then again,
Musk ran 27 rocket engines simultaneously perfectly (SpaceX Falcon Heavy) where 30-engine Russia N1's kept exploding under their secret moon program that attempted to beat USA to moon in the late 1960s. And now....won his first military Falcon Heavy launch contract just today (June 21, 2018).
Yes, shame on Musk for spouting anti-transit stuff. Kudos to Brent Toderian for shaming Elon last year with the #GreatThingsThatHappenedOnTransit campaign.
But let's look at the proper truths of the Chicago plan.
It's likely somewhere in between.
On technical achievements his companies (eventually) do.
As eccentric as Musk sheninigians are, with the Boring Flamethrowers and ilk.... His companies do amazing things, and he does (eventually) learn through audacious iteration. His company's engineering may polish this 16-car turd to a jawdrop high capacity LRT throughput, when I study the plan closer. 50-50 technical success IMHO.
I am a computer programmer with engineering skills so this is my honest assessment.
Reading history textbooks of behind-the-scenes sheninigians -- even Thomas Edison also took advantage of lots of "swindle-seeming" promises (it's amazing how similar the blathering is) until successfully achieved.
History is littered with outlandish promises combined with huge risk taking and large adjustments to fit reality of breakthroughs that may be different from initial concept.
As a result, Elon Musk is no more "swindler" than Thomas Edison or Steve Jobs, if one persists in using that word, as much as one hates or likes these well known figures.
Ironically, of Tesla namesake original etmylogy, Nikola Tesla and his massive Wardenclyffe failure over a century ago - Who back in the olden days, can forget that massive "swindle" when it sensationalized the international news back then? But, Nikola Tesla still brought us AC electricity and long distance electricity transmission.
The design is iterating fast -- the Chicago system is surprisingly "mass" transit (even if not subway league, but LRT league), 16 persons per vehicle is deceiving. It mathematically works out if platooning surges is done.
It will lose money, but the engineering appears to manage to move as many people as a large LRT train.
It will not replace the need for LRTs and subway (right tool for the right job). But it may find a useful place.
However.
Never underestimate Elon Musk.
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smallspy
Senior Member
That's exaggerating, but only a bit. The fact of the matter however is that all of the manufacturers used similar metrics to declare the "maximum" capacity of their vehicles. Orion, New Flyer and even GM would claim that their 40 foot buses could hold up to 100 people - but heaven help you if you actually tried that. It's up to the various properties to then monitor and adjust what their realistic passenger loads would be. And that's where the TTC's 1000 and 1100 capacity numbers come from.
Dan
Toronto, Ont.
AlvinofDiaspar
Moderator
I am not as much a naysayer of Musk given his track record of delivering disruptive technologies (SpaceX has already upended the entire legacy launch industry), but one key weakness has to be mentioned - he almost never make deadlines. especially self-declared ones.
As to this particular scheme - I am not even sure why it has to be implemented underground necessarily. Using autonomous vehicles on an on-demand basis and running them in close proximity to maximize throughput feels like a separate problem from speeding up tunneling - and it is the latter that more out there IMO.
Also, the whole point of using numerous vehicles carrying small number of individuals is the flexibility to service multiple origins (and destinations) - one that is not taken advantage of in this scheme.
AoD
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amnesiajune
Senior Member
Not true. 229 passengers for the cab cars, 250 for the middle cars.
https://www.bombardier.com/en/transportation/projects/project.rocket-toronto-canada.html
mdrejhon
Senior Member
Bingo. And also not as cheap as he hoped. Yes, SpaceX cut costs, but not to 1/100th cost. And Musk is still struggling with Model 3 cost even if it is breaking records in cost-cutting.
At the end of the day, he and his company may very well "invent" a proper new method of transit (when forced through a pro-transit lens) -- jury is still out.
Unrealistic HyperLoop vactrain fancy concept art hype nonwithstanding -- he merits watching closely -- on the potential practical-sounding electric couplerless high speed "Mini Montreal Metro" style tire-guideway express system utilizing probable platooned chains of small high speed battery-electric bus-coaches creating virtualized trains in cheap infrastructureless tunnels. In that new concept, it may very well find a place as Musk's smart engineers reliably rein proper realisticness and practical concepts into the plan.
It does not need to change current Big Move plans, and Ford is playing with fire to scale that back too much with the "subways, subways" premise except maybe accelerating "DRL Full" (E+W+Long) and feeder enhancements (including begrudingly agreeing to LRTs).
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innsertnamehere
Superstar
Even if Musk doesn't meet the ridiculous goals he sets for his companies - anything he touches completely revolutionizes the industry. And he has a knack for picking industries that need it. space was dying 10 years ago - manned missions were fading with no real significant advances in decades. Now look at it. Automobiles have been treading water on innovation for decades, and the industry essentially collapsed in on itself in 2008. Now Musk is pushing forward the largest change in the industry in a century.
Tunnelling and subway construction costs have been skyrocketing for decades - to the point where new projects have become almost prohibitively expensive. If he can even cut costs by 30%, or create ways to build underground transit networks at a cost that is more palatable to governments, it could revolutionize public infrastructure. It doesn't need to be what he is dreaming of to majorly change the way subway and transportation infrastructure is built.
Timelines may be missed - but even then, given the ambition of the projects, the timelines are still far above what other companies seem capable of. I mean just look at how long it takes the city of Toronto to build a subway line. The DRL started design in 2013 and we are talking about a 2031 opening - 18 years! Even if Musk can build something in 10, it will be a huge improvement.
Tunnelling and subway construction costs have been skyrocketing for decades - to the point where new projects have become almost prohibitively expensive. If he can even cut costs by 30%, or create ways to build underground transit networks at a cost that is more palatable to governments, it could revolutionize public infrastructure. It doesn't need to be what he is dreaming of to majorly change the way subway and transportation infrastructure is built.
Timelines may be missed - but even then, given the ambition of the projects, the timelines are still far above what other companies seem capable of. I mean just look at how long it takes the city of Toronto to build a subway line. The DRL started design in 2013 and we are talking about a 2031 opening - 18 years! Even if Musk can build something in 10, it will be a huge improvement.
mdrejhon
Senior Member
Even if 90%+ of the cost is still sadly government red tape and other costs -- even a 5% tunnel cost savings will still make the new rapid TBM techniques valuable in the coming decades.