Heee... I LOVE the 'Mind Tails' Sign :d

Very awesome ^_^

Heh, the fennec looks like she's hauling tail out of the university. I'm guessing she's gotta get from her classes to her work rather quick, and being only a metre tall isn't helping the length of her stride.

this is why i like the idea of public transport. I went to a community college(before ever getting a car). so i had to take the much worse public transport. even then i got out of the place faster then those who had their own car.

it was even worse when i was in highschool, i live about a mile from it. i could 'walk' home in the time it took some to get out of the place. it only had two exits and since it was the richer public high school of the city. almost all the students had cars.

Kinda surprised they are still using modern looking trams, I would think by then they would be automated and be quite different. Maybe automated kiosk-free ticketing and dynamic scheduling. *resists urge to dream up of vacuum high speed maglev that can go from new york to London in just a few hours*

They are pretty well automated, with moving block signalling and routing and stuff. But the thing is, sometimes this technology just is more efficient for its application.

Plus the operator can provide some form of security by being able to tell the control centre what's going on. In an outdoors environment there are numerous variables that computers can't take account for still.

They do have kiosk-free ticketing and "smart cards" and such by now I am sure.

If I can clone my easy pay NFC card into my Galaxy Nexus phone today, they better have something better then "smart cards" in a wallet by then. Also then wouldn't it make more sense to have the operator not be in a seprate control area and instead among the people verifying ticketing (for off-worlders with temporary passes) or other interactions then cut off in a separate compartment? The only reason we have operators anymore on trams/light rail is because most lines dont have 100% right-of-way and often share traffic with other forms of transportation which nececitates regular human intervention. I would assume if one started from scratch (like on Chakona) would wouldnt make these problems as part of their design.

On the surface, right-of-way is easily contaminated by things that machines may not be able to discern, believe it or not! It is also reassuring on some modes of transport for there to be an operator.

I do think that trams could have automatic operation, but streetcar-mode and urban trams have too many possible traffic conflicts to be fully automated. I don't think that it would be economical or even desirable to completely separate the right-of-way of a relatively low-speed urban tram, else you might as well make it a heavy rail. There's a bunch of other efficiency arguments that come into play, that'd take forever to explain, heh heh...

As an example, consider a situation where passengers have disembarked from an urban tram and some have begun to cross in front of it. An automated system generally can follow schedule commands, and once the doors close the vehicle can move (assuming the block ahead isn't filled). In a closed system such as a completely grade-separated metro system, this is not an issue (though computer downtime can necessitate manual operation). The system may not be able to adequately discern other potential conflicts, like people running into the path of the starting train. Such people would only be visible for an instant to the automated system (provided it has detectors). A living operator has extra time and could potentially do things like wait for the person to cross 'safely.'

The fare can be taken care of automatically by someone crossing the threshold I suppose, there's certainly a bunch of issues about it, but I wouldn't be surprised if there were random fare inspectors walking about and making sure everyone's fare cards and such were in working order for the ride.

Your example isn't a problem, see Google's automated autonomous car that operates (granted currently at reduced speeds) without hitting people that walk around it. I would assume in the next few hundred years such a system could be used for pulling away from designated cross walks when arriving or departing a station. We already worked around said issues, we just cant implement them because they are still undergoing verification today and most transit systems co-exist due to the expense of re-engineering and re-planing urban and suburban environments... none of these issues would exist on Chakona is all I am saying.

i love this.