Digital Media Concepts/Transportation Technologies

Transportation Technologies

Transportation technologies have been essential to this world since the beginning of times and have gone through immense development throughout the times. In today’s world, they are arguably the most important part of societies being related to economic activities, environmental well-being and people’s convenience. Trains, as common as they are nowadays, were once a technology that revolutionized the world and helped win wars because of their usage. The BART system in the Bay Area and the New York Subway system is essential to the United States as it helps reduce time spent in traveling, provides access to location in times that are much reduced and helps depreciate traffic on road. It is important for technologies to keep evolving with time to make travel even more accessible, easier, and safe as times move on.

Hyperloop

Hyper loops are tunnel based trains built like tubes that can reach high speed, almost those of an aircraft. They are tubes under tunnels that are driverless and provide a high level of security and safety to the passengers. Due to its built and tunnel involvement, the chances of a physical accident are close to zero. The idea for this technology was proposed by Elon Musk back in 2013 and since then, numerous companies around the world have been working on such projects. A company called Transpods from Canada is leading in its development of the technology and expects to start the first phase of testing in 2025. It has taken a lot of time for this due to the funding issues that these projects have faced combined with the Covid-19 halt during the recent years. This technology is very similar to electric cars in terms of carbon emissions and is very beneficial for the environment while simultaneously decreasing travel times and making the entire process a lot smoother.

Maglev Trains

Maglev trains are a magnet based train system that is driverless and lets the computer guide the way with pre-loaded routes. The magnet attachment to the tracks almost entirely eliminate the accident element and the possibility of a train getting derailed. The entire process can be made a lot smoother due to there not being a need of a driver and scheduling can be more flexible. Many airports around the world use these trains and they can be a huge benefit overall in terms of safety and transportation times. Many successful implementations exist in China, Japan and South Korea.

Examples

Between Pudong International Airport and Longyang Road Station in Pudong, China

Covers 19 miles in 7 minutes 20 seconds

Driverless Cars

Cars that do not rely on a driver are bing developed by hundreds of companies around the world with the main competitors being Google, Apple and Tesla. Tesla has also had immense commercial success with it's autopilot versions that depict the market demand of such a product. Driverless cars are more convenient and accessible in terms of travel and make travel cheap as well. The main problem with such a technology is consumer trust. It is difficult to put your trust in a computer machine on the road where accidents are very common and error possibility is extremely high. Unlike other technologies, this one works on the road with the dangerous conditions that already exist which makes consumers a lot more skeptical

Cars that navigate and drive themselves and the need for a driver does not exist. Being developed my hundreds of companies around the world like Google, Apple and obviously the closest one to perfect yet being Tesla It makes travel cheaper, and easier Safety concerns exist on the road because it would be difficult to trust a computer driving at high speeds like one would trust another human brain. Mostly electric which is very beneficial for the environment.