A step in the right direction to eventually remove the overhead cables and maintain the benefits + of electric trolleys.

Combination ESStor ESSUs + lithium-air batteries (cells) could run much longer runs between charges. A few charging points along their route (or at each end) would be enough. City buses & suburban trains could be equipped with similar units.

Trolleys, city buses and suburban trains can have more on-board e-storage than cars without affecting their overall performance.

Replacing the existing ICE noisy city buses with e-buses would do a lot for the environment and quality of life in our cities while reducing Oil imports and GHG.

This sounds like a good system. People on here have been talking about a way to charge the bus when it is waiting for a schedule syncronization and passengers at civic centers and the like.

Super caps and batteries are getting better all the time. I would like to see many more smaller buses making more frequent passenger pickups. If you only had to wait 5 minutes for a bus, maybe more people would use them.

I could see computer assistance for reducing stress on the driver and increasing safety. I do not think that you need a robot driver, that is a bit far fetched. How or where you come up with the $100 per ride 3 times the cost statement, I have no idea. I find that hard to believe.

What I am advocating is more effective mass transit, so more people will use it more often. So, we have to hire another 100 drivers in each city of 100,000 people and pay them, I see no problem with that.

You state your opinions and I state mine. I bet if I proposed my ideas to the average person on the street, I would get a good response. Even if I told them that bus ride will cost $2 rather than $1, but they only have to wait 5 minutes for a bus and not 1/2 hour. When you give people ALL the facts, they can usually make some pretty practical choices.

It is a very good idea.

I have been watching Parry People Movers for years and two of their vehicles are now in revenue operation. The flywheel hydraulic technology may be less costly than any ultra-cap. In fact, Flybrid is cooperating in KERS flywheel-electric systems now.

It would have been very nice to see the INNAS NOAX free piston engine pump the hydraulic system of the flywheel and Artemis motor-pumps on the flywheel and wheels of the Parry vehicles.

The CISRO super-cap-lead battery technology combined with EFFPOWER'S bipolar high current battery could likely be less costly and complicated than Siemen's system.

One system in France uses switched conductors at ground level which would be far easier and cheaper to implement with the Siements system. In any case a five KW range extender and tank of ethanol should always be available. The streetcars could run faster than walking with five KW and only emergency lights.

ZEBRA batteries are good enough to give tens if not hundreds of miles without conductors; eventually all catenarys can be eliminated with switched ground level power pickup. It has been tried for over a hundred years and France might have it working well in a few years with microcontrollers and transistors. It is much simpler to run a system when the vehicle can go miles without power with a few failed or inactive flooded segments. Charging only at stops is well within modern capabilities. The range of a ZEBRA battery is very good, but accelerating power can be assisted with super-caps or flywheels.

High performance flywheel locomotives were invented to make use of the third rail electrified multi-unit passenger systems in England with more convenience and lower cost than steam locomotives for goods traffic on those rails. The locomotives could even wait on signals for minutes without power and pull the train out of the stop. These locomotives ran through WWII, and after, until replaced by electro-diesels that used electricity when available and diesel when not.

Capstone should demonstrate their turbines with one of these vehicles on a very long non-electrified stretch.

..HG..

Our small transit buses take the handicapped but also seniors and people that need a ride. Sure it is subsidized and there are only a few people on each bus, but that can be improved.

I think driving a bus must be one of the most stressful low paying jobs that there is. Traffic, passenger complaints, road work and everything else adds up over an 8 hour shift 5 days per week.

If we can use computers, range sensing, vision systems and/or right of way to make the driver's job easier, we might get more drivers that stay on the job longer. For every passenger that rides these mini buses, there is one less on the road in a car and less fuel used per passenger mile.