At all times transport has played an important role. At the stage of its importance has increased significantly. Today the existence of any state is unthinkable without powerful transport.
In the twentieth century and especially in the second half there were gigantic transformations in all parts of the world and areas of human activity. Population growth, consumption of material resources, urbanization, scientific and technological revolution, and even natural-geographical, economic, political, social and other fundamental factors have led to the fact that the world’s transport has received unprecedented development both in quantitative and qualitative terms. Along with the growth of the length of the road network, traditional modes of transport have undergone radical reconstruction: the rolling stock fleet has significantly increased, its carrying capacity has increased many times, and the speed of movement has increased. At the same time, transport problems came to the fore. These problems are mainly related to cities and are caused by excessive development of the automotive industry. The hypertrophied car fleet of large cities in Europe, Asia and America causes constant traffic jams on the streets and deprives itself of the benefits of fast maneuverable transport. It also seriously worsens the environmental situation.
Further progress of transport requires the latest, constantly updated results of science and advanced engineering and technology. The need to develop the growing freight and passenger flows, the complication of the conditions for the construction of transport lines in uninhabited, difficult topography areas and large cities. The desire to increase the speed of messages and the frequency of departure of transport units, the need to improve comfort and reduce the cost of transportation – all this requires the improvement of not only existing vehicles, but also the search for new ones that would better meet the requirements than traditional modes of transport. To date, several new types of vehicles have been developed and implemented as permanent or pilot plants and more exist as projects, patents or even ideas.
It should be remembered that most of the new modes of transport were proposed in principle many years ago, but they have been applied and are being re-proposed or revived today on a modern technical basis.
- Electric vehicle
An electric vehicle is a vehicle whose driving wheels are driven by an electric motor powered by batteries. It first appeared in England and France in the early 80s of the XIX century, that is, before cars with internal combustion engines. The taxi designed by I.V. Romanov in 1899 was also electric.
- Unmanned aerial vehicles
“Unmanned aerial vehicles” vary in weight (from devices weighing half a kilogram, comparable to a model aircraft, to 10-15-ton giants), height and duration of flight. Unmanned aerial vehicles weighing up to 5 kg (“micro” class) can take off from every smallest site and from the hand, climb to a height of 1-2 kilometers and stay in the air for a little over an hour. They are used as reconnaissance aircraft, for example, to detect terrorists’ military equipment in the forest or mountains.” Micro class drones weighing only 300-500 grams, relatively speaking, can look through the window, so it is convenient to use them in urban areas.
- Monorail roads
A modern monorail is a reinforced concrete or metal beam (rail), broken on an overpass, and rolling stock (cars) on bogies with pneumatic tires. There are hinged roads, where the cars have a lower point and sit on top of the supporting beam, and suspended systems, where the cars are suspended from bogies resting on the beam. Each of these types of roads has advantages and disadvantages. A hinged road requires a more complex running gear system to ensure the stability of the wagons. On the other hand, in adverse weather conditions, the monorail (beam) is taken by ice or snow and practically puts the system out of operation or requires laborious work on its cleaning.
- High-speed passenger pipeline
This high-speed passenger pipeline is called FTS (Fast Tube System). It was invented by the British. FTS is a network of pipes with ordinary railway rails laid in them, and even the N-th number of stations for receiving passenger traffic, which is planned to be sent through these pipes.
- Vehicles moving on rails
Among the numerous projects that should put an end to the problem of overloaded transport networks of megacities, there are more and more proposals to send urban transport, including cars, on rails.