Fastransit's Harbor Freight Animation

FASTRANSIT’s freight capacity will also revolutionize freight forwarding, by allowing specific containers to be offloaded onto individual flatcars that could then be sent directly to their destination on the freight interstate – again, no need to wait for a long trainload of containers to be loaded up one by one. This ability will vastly increase the throughput capacity at ports such as Los Angeles/Long Beach, where the Alameda rail corridor from the ports to inland freight terminals is quickly nearing capacity.

Fastransit's GRT Vehicle Animation

FASTRANSIT’s unique capability to provide electronic instantaneous switching will allow urban mass transit systems to offer better service on high-volume routes; it will also allow utilization of smaller vehicles in either Personal Rapid Transit (PRT) or Group Rapid Transit (GRT) (seen here) configurations, with dramatically shorter headways than current transit systems require. The result will be more frequent and convenient service, lower overall travel times, higher passenger volumes per hour, and lower operating costs.

Fastransit's Tabletop Demo 2

The scale model maglev train was taken from concept to working prototype in just under six months. The prototype system uses the patented Stabilized Permanent Magnet (SPM) suspension technology which is easily scaled to accommodate larger and heavier vehicles for the transport of passengers or freight.

Fastransit's Tabletop Demo in Action

The scale model maglev train was taken from concept to working prototype in just under six months. The prototype system uses the patented Stabilized Permanent Magnet (SPM) suspension technology which is easily scaled to accommodate larger and heavier vehicles for the transport of passengers or freight.

Fastransit's Tabletop Demo

The scale model maglev train was taken from concept to working prototype in just under six months. The prototype system uses the patented Stabilized Permanent Magnet (SPM) suspension technology which is easily scaled to accommodate larger and heavier vehicles for the transport of passengers or freight.

Fastransit's PRT Vehicle

FASTRANSIT’s technology will revolutionize our surface transportation system using both small and large computer-controlled maglev vehicles. Maglev PRT (Personal Rapid Transit), GRT (Group Rapid Transit) and freight systems will provide lower operating costs and greatly reduced capital investment requirements compared with conventional maglev designs or other transportation modes. Variations are suitable for industrial, intra-city, inter-city and even trans-continental passenger and freight transportation. In developing countries this could multiply the effectiveness of the huge transportation expenditures planned and needed in the coming decades.

Fastransit's Rail Retrofit

A variety of guideway designs can be employed, either below ground, at ground level, or elevated. A basic, ground-level guideway will have a cost and complexity level similar to a standard railroad track, but with lower load-bearing requirements due to the large footprint of SPM maglev skis.

Fastransit's Highway Retrofit

FASTRANSIT can exploit the tens of thousands of freeway miles by placing tracks on median strips or shoulders, frequently eliminating the need to purchase new rights of way. Vehicles are also compatible with narrow, twisting urban rights of way, allowing the use of existing or abandoned railroad rights of way or even city streets.

Fastransit's GRT Vehicle up Close

Currently, urban mass transit consists of trains of multiple cars carrying up to several hundred passengers per train and running with headways of several minutes, at best. The requirement for each train to stop at each station along the way results in longer origin-to-destination transit times. Off-peak headways are considerably longer because of the equipment and labor inefficiencies at lower ridership densities.

Fastransit's Freight Interstate

Using existing rail rights of way and space adjacent to, or within the median of, the existing interstate highway system, we can create a new, zero-emission, high-speed, “freight interstate” for long-distance freight transport without the need for massive land acquisition through eminent domain, using existing trailer-load freight distribution networks.

A Fastransit Interchange

The freight interstate will also serve as the springboard for a high-speed inter-city passenger transit network. Such a new network would likely be a hybrid of existing inter-city rail facilities and the freight interstate lines, as the interstate routes run more directly between most cities than rail lines that were laid down over 100 years ago to follow the terrain.

A Fastransit Truck Terminal on the Freight Interstate

The system will be designed to have a number of intermodal terminals along portions of the interstate highway system. For example, a local trucker could pick up a trailer from a point of origin south of Chicago destined for Secaucus, NJ, and would drive it to a nearby terminal along I-80. There the trucker would drive the trailer into a FASTRANSIT sled, unhook the tractor and drive off. Terminal operators would secure the trailer to the sled, close the end doors of the aerodynamic shell of the sled, and enter the destination into the sled’s electronic control system. The sled would then travel along Fastransit tracks in the I-80 ROW to a terminal in the New Jersey Meadowlands. There, terminal operators would drive the trailer off the sled to an interchange/holding area, where a local driver would pick it up using standard fifth-wheel operations and drive it to its destination in nearby Secaucus.