CHALLENGE
Long Distance Transportation
$1 MILLION (Prize amount to be confirmed. Announcement expected for next year)
Transportation is the easiest way of movement of humans, animals and goods from one location to another.
Modes of long distance transportation include air, land (rail and road), water, cable, pipeline and space. The field can be divided into infrastructure, vehicles and operations. Transportation enables trade between people, which is essential for the development of civilizations.
Transportation infrastructure consists of the fixed installations, including roads, railways, airways, waterways, canals and pipelines and terminals such as airports, railway stations, bus stations, warehouses, trucking terminals, refueling depots (including fueling docks and fuel stations) and seaports. Terminals may be used both for interchange of passengers and cargo and for maintenance.
Vehicles traveling on these networks may include automobiles, bicycles, buses, trains, trucks, helicopters, watercraft, spacecraft and aircraft.
Our infrastructures and vehicles have difficulties in adapting to new requirements since they are ot sufficient to carry efficiently the high loads of traffic.
A new and advanced integrated system is needed, that could be high speed, non polluting and independently powered, utilizing minimum avalable space.
