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Airbus reveals the next generation of CityAirbus

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Re: Airbus reveals the next generation of CityAirbus

#51

Can I have 30? I need to get to my hyperloop pod faster. Those modern transportation 'solutions' are a sign of local maxima of current city design. A bad design that cannot scale any further. So maybe instead we start on fixing cities?

I see comments like this quite often without any suggestions for how it would happen practically. Let's talk Los Angeles, for example - where would you put light rail lines to sufficiently cover the low-density 400+ square miles of city sufficiently well to be better than cars? How would you acquire the requisite property & rights of way to run the lines? How would you fight the guaranteed NIMBY protests from local v…

https://theconversation.com/superblocks-barcelonas-car-free-...

He is an example.

Re: Airbus reveals the next generation of CityAirbus

#52

Can I have 30? I need to get to my hyperloop pod faster. Those modern transportation 'solutions' are a sign of local maxima of current city design. A bad design that cannot scale any further. So maybe instead we start on fixing cities?

I see comments like this quite often without any suggestions for how it would happen practically. Let's talk Los Angeles, for example - where would you put light rail lines to sufficiently cover the low-density 400+ square miles of city sufficiently well to be better than cars? How would you acquire the requisite property & rights of way to run the lines? How would you fight the guaranteed NIMBY protests from local v…

Rethink taxation so people living in suburbs pay proportionately to the cost of running services to them, and you'd very quickly see a denser city. Dense habitation is just way more efficient, more ecologically friendly, and more cost effective. If this was reflected in the law, you'd very quickly get a situation like you have in Germany, where you basically go from multi-storey apartments to farmland with no suburbs in between.

Re: Airbus reveals the next generation of CityAirbus

#53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

No they are not. Taxis aren't public transport either. This CityAirbus takes what, 4-6 people seated? A bus easily takes 40+, a tram 60+ and a metro 250+* - and that's just seats, they all fit hundreds of people if you include standing passengers. It would take ages and hundreds/thousands of flying taxis to clear a stadium, while it takes only tens of metro trains. * Numbers taken from public transport options in my…

Taxis are not mass transit , but they are public transport per the definition. Obviously this will not be comparable in capacity to a metro, but it can conceivably be comparable in capacity to bus lines which tend to operate at very low load factors in US cities, by virtue of being much faster to complete the same journey.

I'm not going to argue with you about the different definitions of public transportation, but for sure "taxi" isn't what comes to mind when someone mentions public transportation.

The point you're making is exactly the problem. The reason bus lines aren't used more is because they suck in a lot of cities. Improving the public transportation infrastucture (and no, not taxis), would solve this problem - as demonstrated in many European cities.

Here's a good video that compares the city planning of Houston to other cities, and explains why it sucks. It focuses more on cars vs. bikes, but the same basic point also applies to public transportation: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uxykI30fS54

Re: Airbus reveals the next generation of CityAirbus

#54

There is a business use case here in NYC. NYC to the Hamptons or out east long Island. The locals in the Hamptons are complaining about noise pollution from helicopters making trips to the Hamptons from NYC. If this makes little or no noise the current helicopter service companies will use them and people will pay $800 ( off-peak) - $2,500 ( peak) one way trip from the west side of manhattan / Chelsea area to east Ha…

I can see it replacing helo service, presuming it can take off anywhere. As a general replacement for cars, no.

Perhaps the more interesting question is whether or not it can extend helo service.

Re: Airbus reveals the next generation of CityAirbus

#55

Can I have 30? I need to get to my hyperloop pod faster. Those modern transportation 'solutions' are a sign of local maxima of current city design. A bad design that cannot scale any further. So maybe instead we start on fixing cities?

I see comments like this quite often without any suggestions for how it would happen practically. Let's talk Los Angeles, for example - where would you put light rail lines to sufficiently cover the low-density 400+ square miles of city sufficiently well to be better than cars? How would you acquire the requisite property & rights of way to run the lines? How would you fight the guaranteed NIMBY protests from local v…

ironically LA was built with public transit in mind from the beginning. many housing developments were sold with light rail to downtown as an amenity to sell the houses. once the houses were sold, the rails were dismantled for being unprofitable.

Re: Airbus reveals the next generation of CityAirbus

#56

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Charging $3 for bus riders is controversial within the public transportation sphere, nevermind the $20 a car taxi can cost. Unless there's something about flying taxis that would make them price competitive with a $3 bus trip, it's hardly public transportation.

If there were automated and electricity was cheap its easy to imagine them being cost competitive vs a bus trip of the same distance just because they're so much faster. Making them price competitive is just a matter of how much the state is willing to subsidise them.

They are only faster because we refuse to build infrastructure for public transport. A Bus rapid transit system using one dedicated lane of traffic can move up to 30k per hour. Maybe we should use automation to build efficient public transit, instead of imagining hundreds of millions of private automated cars clogging the roads and robo taxis flying over those clogged roads. Build some light rail and buses with dedicated lanes, and use automated 4 passenger vehicles for “first mile, last mile”.

Re: Airbus reveals the next generation of CityAirbus

#57
post #36
post #2

"65 dB(A) during fly-over and below 70 dB(A) during landing." So like a vacuum cleaner, yikes!

Significantly quieter than car traffic noise. Struggling to see the issue here.

i’m struggling to see how it’s physically possible. the most vapory of vaporware.

Re: Airbus reveals the next generation of CityAirbus

#58
post #20

I’m really surprised by the noise levels. They say 65db flyover and 70db landing which is quieter than just about every (personal) drone [1]. I wonder how they’re getting those numbers. Like at what distance are they measuring from? I find it hard to believe they’re able to make a flying vehicle quieter than a drone 1/100th of its size. Edited for clarity [1]: https://www.airbornedrones.co/drone-noise-levels/

The medevac helos where I live are some (meanwhile old?) Eurocopter 135/145.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eurocopter_EC135

They are really surprisingly not loud. Not silent either, but not annoyingly, or disturbingly loud. Not comparable to the much, much older Bell UH-1 which we called 'Teppichklopfer' (carpet banger?). So it seems they know something about making helos less noisy.

I say this from the experience of having seen them come down maybe 200 times in the last 15 years? Sometimes just practicing it seems, with inner city, suburban, or park and field background noise floor.

Re: Airbus reveals the next generation of CityAirbus

#59
post #35

Can I have 30? I need to get to my hyperloop pod faster. Those modern transportation 'solutions' are a sign of local maxima of current city design. A bad design that cannot scale any further. So maybe instead we start on fixing cities?

> Those modern transportation 'solutions' are a sign of local maxima of current city design. A bad design that cannot scale any further. Exactly. And for some reason the "solutions" always have the nice feature that they get those using them out of the sight of the rest of the lowly peasants living in those cities. As if it hasn't been demonstrated how public transport can do wonders for highly populated if done righ…

And with driverless cars around the corner, now is the time to integrate them correctly. The idea should not be to get in your Tesla at home and cruise on the highway and into the city to park at your office. They idea should be picked up at your house by an Auto that drops you at the lightrail station just in time to catch the next train into downtown, where you can hop in a 10 person driverless shuttle that drops you at the office after a couple other stops.

I mean, the real solution is to stop subsidizing suburbs, that are bleeding cities dry with the massive costs of infrastructure requirements and maintenance.

>“The American Society of Civil Engineers (ASCE) estimates the cost at $5 trillion — but that's just for major infrastructure, not the minor streets, curbs, walks, and pipes that serve our homes. The reason we have this gap is because the public yield from the suburban development pattern — the amount of tax revenue obtained per increment of liability assumed — is ridiculously low. Over a life cycle, a city frequently receives just a dime or two of revenue for each dollar of liability. The engineering profession will argue, as ASCE does, that we're simply not making the investments necessary to maintain this infrastructure. This is nonsense. We've simply built in a way that is not financially productive. We've done this because, as with any Ponzi scheme, new growth provides the illusion of prosperity. In the near term, revenue grows, while the corresponding maintenance obligations — which are not counted on the public balance sheet — are a generation away.” [1]

[1] https://www.strongtowns.org/the-growth-ponzi-scheme

Re: Airbus reveals the next generation of CityAirbus

#60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I see comments like this quite often without any suggestions for how it would happen practically. Let's talk Los Angeles, for example - where would you put light rail lines to sufficiently cover the low-density 400+ square miles of city sufficiently well to be better than cars? How would you acquire the requisite property & rights of way to run the lines? How would you fight the guaranteed NIMBY protests from local v…

Rethink taxation so people living in suburbs pay proportionately to the cost of running services to them, and you'd very quickly see a denser city. Dense habitation is just way more efficient, more ecologically friendly, and more cost effective. If this was reflected in the law, you'd very quickly get a situation like you have in Germany, where you basically go from multi-storey apartments to farmland with no suburbs…

Many of the suburbs in the greater LA area are actually separate cities. It doesn't cost more to run services to them. The services are right there.
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