MRMCD2026 - A Hauntology of Mobilities - A World Tour

Welcome to a world tour through the haunttology of mobilities. We are Nin and Emily orgy. I don't know whatever. Like I don't know. We both geographers and we still work as geographers. So, >> and we both like yellow. >> We both like yellow. Yeah. I'm usually just a disabled fox and do art if I'm not working on geography. But yeah, you like doing things apparently. >> Yes. [laughter] So, well, what even is a hantology? Yeah, a hantology haunts the world with like a spectre of the past. Uh, it's something some element of the past or like some some vision of the past that could also be like an envisioned future or that could influence like how we see the world. And yeah, like sometimes you find something in the world that that feels like like right like ooh this there's a zeppelin flying and you think like oh that could also have been a future where the sky is not full of planes but full of zeppelins. That's kind of what we're talking about. And for the mobilities Yeah. the the mobilities that could have been and I think the talk is way more fun if you always think about how would modern society look if this would be the dominant form of mobility in its sphere. So yeah come with us on a journey through mobilities. Let's start we we start with the micro the short ways that we travel. We have here uh La Machina. It it is very local like uh from Manheim not that far away from here. was invented and from from a guy who just was employed to invent all the stuff and who was very >> Wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait, wait. But, but we do have bikes, right? You know that we have bikes. Like a like a dandy horse is not that different from having just a bike. Like we're not talking about like pedalos here. Like no, no one is imagining the world where everyone just runs around on a pedalo like [snorts] [laughter] no we we we we seriously like right like we're talking about mobility it could have been like like kind of the dandy horse worked out we have bikes like right I mean sometimes we do still have mobility that could have been with bikes because like someone built a [ __ ] gate barrier chicane for your bike and you can't actually get where you on because like someone thought, "No, it should only be for pedestrians." [laughter] >> But, you know, sometimes the barriers are small and they still prevent you from like having the mobility you could have when we [snorts] we we all don't just have the small barriers. We sometimes have a big of the bigger ones especially when we are on the bikes like the barrier to autoland. It can be a prop. It can be the 2 m of red paint that is vanishing. [snorts] >> Where is this bike path going? [laughter] I mean we we also could just not go by bike and take the grandioso of bus that we see also on the picture. No one need needs bike lanes. We just >> just take the car. >> Yes. >> Just just take the car. This invites you to the car. Right. >> Go to autoland. Take the car. >> But also yes this is dam. This was taken like two mm cities ago by me. [laughter] But it it could be worse. I think I I have a question to the audience. Do you know where this is? But a bit more precise. You said USA. More precise. You know where [laughter] I I don't think there's any weapons. No. [laughter] Any guesses? Hm. It's Amherst, New York State. Of course. Obviously. Why did you not guess that? Come on. [laughter] [snorts] So, we're going to bit like now, right? We had the small barriers. We're going to the slightly bigger barriers. And when we don't just have the blockage in one way, we also can stuck in the car. When we joined auto land, we can land in a traffic jam and no one is moving anywhere. You can also see here the barrier uh along the green strip in the middle. So you even can't pass it this way. It's completely blocked. That's uh from Ethiopia, by the way. uh traffic jam for the wonderful but like I mean sometimes you don't just have uh cars as barrier sometimes you also have canals like I don't know I was in Venice like uh last Christmas and they have wonderful solution to like their transportation network they have vaporeti which are these wonderful like dieselrun loud as [ __ ] boats that I you probably want hearing protection depending on where you sit on them. But like they're cute. I think they're cute. I think they're cute solutions. I think more of the world's transport should be based on silly little boats that work like buses. But like I mean one thing I imagined because I was at at Leo then and I I I just saw this like there was a street and I just thought there should be a tram on this and because my tour through Italy that that winter also took me to Milano. I thought of those wonderful yellow trams Milano has. Yes, this is not an old museum tram out of Milano. No, this is how Milan runs it system. That's just the line number one of the Milano tram system built like probably in the 1910s. It still has wonderful silly little trolley pole up top. It just has like all these wooden benches. It makes like fun rattly noises. And that's just part of the tram system. Sure, you have a few more modern lines, but like a lot of lines are just these yellow little trams. Isn't that something we could have? I mean, don't think about wheelchair accessibility. Please don't don't worry. But yeah, I mean, tram systems, that's that's a common thing. People had all these great wonderful ideas of how to uh get around a city basically, right? because like you know a bit far you are in a Victorian dress like you probably don't actually want to bike and your shoes are probably also not that nice but you know how about we use what we had pneumatic mail just put some like passengers into a tube and [laughter] but you know uh so there was this one idea that was an actual line that existed that was built uh the Crystal Palace line. It was built in 1864 for like the the World's Fair in in uh in London. But like pretty much from similar time, you also have like Alfred Eli Beach's experimental primatic subway on display. This one even worse, I think it doesn't even have a closed car. You just have basically a wall that you get pushed on and the car is open. But you know, just [laughter] But yeah, that also was an experimental line. I think more subways should work like this today, don't you think? [laughter] But I mean, not every imagined thing is like all that silly. Like I mean no one thinks about Los Angeles and thinks about like nice public transit transportation systems, but like actually Los Angeles in the United States in the like 1920s had like the largest fully electrified inter urban railway system, the Pacific Electric, all these wonderful like lines like all the way to like Santa Ana and big system. but problem. Sometime in the like 1930s, the Southern California Automo Club with a bit of funding help from GM started to lobby for an interstate freeway system. And well, they didn't like the the competition from from from the like nice electric trolley so much. So, they really just kind of work towards abandoning it. And what you got is this. All the sad little cars just stacked on like Terminal Island in the 1950s in favor of a brand new bus system and a lot of roads. A lot of roads. But yeah, I don't I don't know. I think this picture kind of makes me sad. That's just sad. But but we can also do with with the train. Um, apparently the the this is the shin seepedine. As you can clearly see, it it happens when you take the idea of a zeppelin and put it on rails and think it is a safe idea to operate a huge ass propeller directly to the passengers on the platform. There was one unit built and it was uh abandoned because um it was deemed unsafe to operate a big propeller so close to the platform in favor for other high-speed uh trains. Um the one exactly that was developed as an answer to this one. You can still see at leopanhov. They still have it there. You just can go to the museum platform and look at it. But this was the attempt of the shin zeppelin. And you can also get stuck with your train ideas as the transp um about the trans transit on the capital there are billions of funding going into the project numerous countries interested in it like Iran wanted to build it but Angela Merkel didn't want to export this successful German technology. It was tried in Munich. They built 30 kilometers in China. Did Didn't he want to step in directly into the airport at Munich Hopanov or something? But like like this is stuck at Munich airport, I think. >> Yes. Yes, it is an info center. So yeah, I don't think that's going anywhere. Well, maybe time to go for the more macro. Uh you could also be stuck at the border. Like I mean that could have been rubidity. You could have just walked down that beach. You could have crossed that border. But no, someone for the last 20 year decided we should that the US should build border walls to the south here in Tijuana. Uh yeah, this is a fairly modern iteration with the like nice preserving the view and like some passage for little critters. It's it's not the the ugliest border wall. And I mean, it's kind of a [ __ ] to build because uh you see that terrain. Uh it's time for the airlifts, but like I don't know how how pe historically like cross borders and travel around the world. Ocean liners like when you had the little border of having to cross a little channel. Uh, just take take your Titanic, step on it, and go. Whoops. >> Yeah. >> Like you you can see on it. It still is a very still sea. The sea is calm. There's no tough storm going on. >> But But weren't there just not enough lifeboats? >> Oh, people always say there were not enough lifeboats. I'm sure other ships made it way better. And all the people lived on the lifeboats. No, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Um, so yeah, lifeboats had a problem. Lifeboats work when the sea was very calm, but like if there was any storm going on, you just kind of were [ __ ] Like there was the SS. Uh, yeah, they put all the the women and children onto the lifeboats, left the people on the ship, the men on the ship. uh all the lifeboats sank. The men were rescued later because the ship wasn't sunk by the time the next boat came by. Um which is also why like the general like knowledge at the time was like you don't build like like the ship is your lifeboat. You don't build lifeboats. The ship is the lifeboat and it sinks slowly and that's fine. And like I mean this is a sister ship of the Titanic. It got rammed by the Hawk, a destroyer with a ramming bit. It rammed the SS RMS Olympic and looked worse like the than the Olympic afterwards. The Olympic is just indestructible and is built the same as the Titanic. >> So maybe the Titanic would have won against the iceberg if it would hit it front. >> It probably would have. Uh, so yeah, actually these ocean liners were quite safe, but you know, >> I mean, we we still have them. >> Yeah, we do. I mean, there's still this around. That's Queen Mary, too. You could take it. It just costs too much and takes ages. Like, I mean, flying of course is like a bit more convenient. Like, you only take a day, but like they still exist. And I wish there were more of them because I actually don't like flying. Um, but yeah, I mean it's like this is not the only way. Like of course like an ocean is a big barrier, but like you also need to get around through land. And one of the fun things, the US had like a wonderful continental railroads and a wonderful passenger systems, including this picture from Milwaukee Road. We have uh the uh Olympian, that's they called their their long haul passenger train basically from like the Great Lakes to the Pacific. It's pulled by an electric locomotive in 1925. The fully electrified mainline in there in the US and there was more and more to be built, but at some point diesel was cheaper. So they said [ __ ] the capex and uh you know precision scheduled railroading time. Um but yeah so most of like bunch of these railways are just like freight railroads. Some of them are lot wonderful combination the rails to trails conversion just make a bike path or hiking path out of your railway line and wonderful serene nature long tunnels nice views no cars right because it's a rails to trails conversion it's wonderful but like there could have also been a train that brought you to Seattle don't worry don't worry don't worry but like I mean it's not like the people don't still use the mobility that's there. Like even that's from a picture from Mexico. So like people still use the trains even if they're just freight trains. I mean not that the freight train companies like it, but like what are they going to do? It's not like the train drivers really care that much. Uh but yeah, so there's still mobility even if there's like, you know, just a freight railroad left. But like okay we can also cross the the air by by by uh zeppelin of course like we can cross the land cross the sea cross both uh wonderful stately thing. I mean every like steampunk fiction has a septin roaming through the air and I mean like they they were military grade things like right this is the the the USS Los Angeles the proud the pride of the n US Navy. Uh, but like I mean, whoopsie. [laughter] It was a bit windy. I'm I'm sorry. Yeah, like unfortunately the entire ship made this. Don't worry. It's fine. [laughter] It's fine. Don't Don't worry. Don't worry. Don't worry. Uh, I don't know. I I don't see a problem. Uh, well, I mean Oh, [ __ ] Oh. Oh, the humanity. Oh, the humanity. Uh, yeah. I mean, yeah, it exploded and I don't think that helped. But like really the problem there was probably also that airplanes again are just convenient. Why are airplanes so goddamn convenient? Do you know? I don't know. I don't like them. But you know, could either use like expensive sanctioned helium that would be safe and not burn up or you use hydrogen that makes [snorts] me nah. So yeah, I mean that's that's really the competition. It's the airplanes and and they went supersonic. Great idea. Go fast. Go fast. Cross the Atlantic in 3 hours. Like I don't know why people didn't take up this. I mean Donald Trump I think recently announced like more investment again into a supersonic jet aircraft for passenger use. But like I mean US has been playing around with this concept since basically like the starting phase of Concore 2. They never got anywhere. And I don't think Concord got that far either. [sighs] In part because it also went v in [snorts] like uh 2000. Um because some part from a earlier flight just went into the engine and they made uh but I think that also was not really what killed Concord. The problem with Conquer is really just that like no one actually wanted a supersonic airplane flying over land or near like an airport because like it's loud. Uh but also if you try and fly like the Concord at like subsonic speeds, it's really inefficient because it has wonderful delta wings. They really optimize for supersonic flight. They're crap in like subsonic flight. So, this thing burnt a whole lot of fuel and didn't go that fast until it went over mid mid-Atlantic and then the travel times went about and it's loud and rickety and have you been in one? It's cramped. It's cramped as [ __ ] That's the entire cockpit. You can barely fit like two cockpit seats next to each other. I Yeah, I don't know. I don't think that was the like high society experience they were aiming for. Don't even talk about the Russian attempt. The tuple f14 [laughter] exactly as cramped I think just even louder [laughter] and [snorts] uh I guess some Soviet champagne to give you a headache [laughter] but you can see both of them not so far from here. >> Yeah, true. They two of the both of like two of them sit in zins in the technic museum. So if if you want to take a peek, [laughter] >> you can walk up at them >> and just see how count they careful. They're quite steep, so you got to be good on your feet. But yeah, so in the end, people will always find a a way to cross the barriers that we face, be it rivers, oceans or borders. So, thank you for coming to our talk about the hontology of mobilities, climb borders and have a good event. We do have a bit time for questions, right? Yeah, we have a lot of time for questions, but also we I I mean we we do have a we have a backlog too of uh things that we didn't push into this nice formatted presentations, but like maybe questions first and then we could like if there's still time intersperse a few like uh fun fun highlights. [snorts] >> Yeah. >> Where was the question? There. Here. You went past it. [snorts] >> I'm a bit confused about the tapene train thing. Um, what does it make? What makes it a separine? Is it just because it has the propeller in the front or did they put like helium in there or something? >> No, it's it's it's just a sepulin because it has a big propeller and is silver, I think. >> Why? >> And it was aerodynamically shaped like looking like a zeppelin. But I mean I mean there there's there's an entire genre of these like trains. Like there's like Russian like uh turbine trains that just have like >> just Russian >> and not just Russian but like there there's one example. There's there's this Soviet idea of like you just put like two like jet engines at the front of a train and just w there is um there's the the arrow train. That's a concept also from like the 1970s uh or the France where they kind of also put like these kind of jet engines on a train, but they also made them use it like kind of like a hovercraft. So they would like send the air down onto the track so the train would lift off. Uh yeah, there's all kinds of concepts around making like a small rail car really really fast. None of them kind of took off because like well the right thing might be slower like the steam engine might be slower but it's like really like comparatively efficient and easy to use and has the capacity to haul like you know a kil kilometer of passenger cars or whatever if you have the station for it that all these like concepts don't and like a bunch of these like I mean this is like one of the nicer one is just uses normal standard gauge track but like I mean The error train uses its own like T-shaped prefab concrete track so it can properly work with the like hover function. There's all kinds of silly trains there. I I think there was this train of thought to make uh the train go as fast as possible um to go on a distance like um coming also from the idea of the Concord to fly as fast as you can. But when you then went that fast, you figured out that it is I'm yeah this by the way is one of the prototypes of the aerot train that that's just you know it has this huge like hovercraft bit in the end and it hovers. Uh but this is what they actually built [laughter] like that's just like this is somewhere in France. Uh, and uh, but this this is like the original with a bit of restoration work. It's uh, it's their test vehicle. It's it's a bit insane. [laughter] >> Like a star troop. >> It does. It does. It It I I don't know. It looks like It looks like this weird sci-fi sci-fi monster. [laughter] So, uh, any more direct questions? You you have a question >> like, have you heard about a Caspian sea monster? like a uh a Soviet uh plane looking thing that was actually >> Yeah, it's it's it's it's an acrrono plan. Uh >> it looks impressive. >> It it looks impressive. It's also like it's it also has this like thing of like we just put like turbine engines on it. Uh like jet engines all over the front like I think eight to get it off the ground in the first place. >> Yeah. It's this idea. I mean on a small scale it like kind of works. It's like basically like you use like some aerodynamic shenanigans with like being very close to the ground and uh make flight more efficient with that. But yeah, they just scaled it up for military operations and it looks like really silly. Oh god. Probably don't have a picture immediately. >> Yeah, probably. Yeah, it's it's it's like I mean it's it's it's something. It's like kind of this mixture between a boat and and like a plane, but it's like it has these like eight silly engines to get off the ground because the ground effect of course only works once you are already flying. You need to get in there. Uh yeah. [laughter] >> And also like a second question. Um what what about space? >> What about >> Don't we all want to go to Mars soon? Yeah, I I think we kind of left that out out of the like because like it's not like something that like anyone thinks about like in terms of like getting around the earth right now and it's not a thing of the past. But like I mean there's a wonderful idea for talks in there too for like imagined space travel that there's so much ideas about how to make space travel in science fiction. Like >> maybe we should talk about this in 30 years or so. Yeah, maybe maybe maybe we can we can maybe we can have a have a laugh in 30 years. But I I think you can already have left like I mean we had this idea of having like a follow-up talk at some point which is just like all the like imagine mobilities like right where no one actually built the thing but where someone just took like I have an idea for how this could work and it goes from like right like weird like oh let's just slap a steam engine on like a a dandy horse and and make make a motorbike that way to like uh flying cars in space travel right like I think for space travel right there's also like we haven't currently solved the challenges. So like it's always a bit like easy to laugh at them and be like, "Oh yeah, isn't that silly this idea of how to like come overcome like light years of travel?" But like I mean for a lot of the other ideas, we do have solutions and we know that they kind of don't work or that there's better ideas. May maybe there should really be this uh bedroom elevator like the space elevator just built a huge ass tower and yes. Yeah. I mean that's one of the like probably more serious [laughter] proposals. I mean there on on the less silly end still probably bit silly but like less silly >> like um about ideas that didn't really turn out uh as they were hoped for. Or wasn't there like this Elon Musk idea about tunnels in the city? Um without really thinking about what is what if there's a traffic jam and a fire at the same time? >> Yeah. I mean I mean there was this whole idea. I mean I mean like there's a lot of like imagined mobility that really is just like car infrastructure >> and that has a long history like uh I'm also kind of I don't know why we dropped that from the talk but like uh so the cities of Manheim and Rudiken a bit south from here they had this wonderful idea of like in the 60s like oh like in 2030 years we got to be the big metropolis we're going to like have like more than like multi-million inhabitants and they started to think about like their public transportation system. They had a tram system already. But they were like, "Yeah, but then like if we're like have more than a million inhabitants, we probably need like a subway, right? A subway. That's that's great because then you can just build like your underground like line and then pave over the rest." And then the cars have like six lanes. I mean, there's even some remnants like Manheim has like Dalbeas, which is like one single tram stop in Manheim underground under like six lanes of traffic. But funnily enough, the sign has kind of roted away. It just says Dback ass now. But like uh it even has like it has these wonderful steps down the platform. And these steps are there because they wanted to like fill in the platform with concrete so they could have high floor subway trains in the future. >> They probably needed it for Manheim also having the subway smell at some point. >> Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. But but like like I mean Dix also has like these like layers of underground like tram tracks in in like underneath like what used to be the rat house center and it has like like help has the central station has like all these underground tracks and like tunnels that go off into nowhere because no one >> finished and bridges >> and bridges. Yeah. Yes. It the first time when I was there I was like what the [ __ ] Why did they build a highway lane over the train station? Yes, but I mean it's the most modern train station of Europe as uh like announced in 1962 by the the railway magazine of Europe. Like it's it's it's it's stellar. But but yeah, so so yeah, I going back to the loop really like the idea that Elon Musk had was basically kind of similar. How do we improve car traffic by imagining a public transit system? The first idea was even included like putting cars underground with like some elevator systems. What they built in the end is like the Las Vegas loop where they built like two small tunnels for their cars. Uh where you couldn't get have a traffic jam because if you had a traffic jam and there would be a fire, you couldn't even get out the car because the car doors wouldn't open. >> And also advertising this for the Tesla Model S which was uh frequently uh very hot. >> Yeah. I mean I mean it's it's really awesome like I he built a entire company that's called the boring company about making tunnel boring cheaper for that but like the way they made tunnel boring cheaper is making tunnel radius smaller because that always makes the tunnel cheaper >> and also fittingly advertising with flamethrowers. Yeah. >> Yeah. >> Okay. I think we think we could uh >> do this a long time but um I want to give the microphone back to I mean it's okay if if no one else has questions. >> No, >> I I will come around. [laughter] We We still have some time. I figured that's why I thought I'd maybe give this note about the Lutri Manheim tri system because there's an interesting parallel in Belgium in the city of Shalawa and I'm kind of disappointed that you forgot about that one. Uh they have the metro leger in Shalawa which has interesting similar developments as they also buried everything underground because they were like oh this tram system really needs to be a subway system and it basically got born out of we Belgian treat both Valonia and Flanders the same and give everyone something. So when an built a functional metro system they tried to do that in Shalora and then they didn't finish everything and now there's a bunch of abandoned lines that are basically done and you could be using them >> but you aren't. Oh yeah, that system also has has like these fun things like right it has like because it came from a merger of two different like sis tram system basically and one always had the door on like the right and some of the other. So, it has some weird uh contrivances to make that work, which is like it sometimes has like for like island platforms, it has like these like track crossovers to put the cars into the right side in front of an island platform because they only have doors on one side. It has like wonderful like track sections that are never used and just on concrete. It's it's wonderful. Yeah, it's it's a wonderful system, but I mean it's also I I think this is funny like I mean like some cities were a bit more successful with like burying the tram system or like killing it. Like I mean Hamburg is one of those cities like Hamburg just ripped out its entire tram lines and still doesn't have trams. I think trams would be nice. Uh London also ripped that London. London had like this entire tram system full of like double-decker trams that were like the way mo most people got around like not not taking the metro or whatever the underground. No, they were taking the trams but that system got ripped out and then like you know 50 years later they're going to start starting then to like put trams back in. And now they have [laughter] this little silly little tram system like in the south of London that just connects like they're basically like I I would say like five lines but like five lines that are just more like kind of branches of each other. But yeah, I think London could also have a wonderful tram system. Yeah, quite some cities are now trying to build back tram lines they ripped out 100 years ago or >> yeah they built from 100 years ago. >> Yeah, I mean most of the tram ripping out in Germany at least is like from the 50s and 60s. Uh fun fact also not so far from here uh there's the wonderful town of Vepan which uh if you ever have used this bus system it's uh wonderful um and [laughter] I see some eyes twitching there but uh yeah it it they also used to have a tram. They ripped that tram out and then over the last years they tried like four times to get the tram back and every time it was defeated in either some like uh like public vote or like vote of the like municipal council because uh no uh we got to have cars and buses and the buses get stuck and it's fine. What [snorts] what if we would take the idea of a bus make a bus lane and make it dedicated just to a bus? Yeah, VP has those. Well, no, they have what they call. What they what they really have is like they combine your cycle lane with the bus lane and just just just live. I I think not quite fitting the hontology, but also the trackless tram. >> Oh, yeah. >> As an idea. >> Yeah. I mean, it's it's the idea of basically having a guided bus way. I mean, there's a bunch of those around. There's one in in in the rural area, right? There's there's there's some guided bus. >> Yes. But and then you have it also that the vehicles should in some systems look like trams. >> Oh, yeah. >> Without having a tram network. >> Yeah. There's this wonderful skeomorphism on going on there. Yeah. >> So, yeah. [laughter] Any more questions? >> Then there is a question. [laughter] Do you have any opinions on the stable ban? >> Well, yes. [laughter] >> Is cute. >> Yeah, is cute. Shrippy really is cute. >> Whoopy is the official um plushy plush toy and mascot of the >> a plug. Nin maintains a list of available train plushies on uh GitHub. Uh but yeah uh is it >> it's on codeback. >> It's on codeback now. >> Yes, it is. You can see in the lightning talks from Quote last year >> the presentation about it. >> But let's get to back to the band. >> Yeah. Like I mean I think there's a reason there's only like four or so of those around, right? Like like there's not a lot of them. Um I mean they have some particular disadvantages, right? They like you have usually for them like a single track like a single track like basically like rail system that always makes like I mean this is also like kind of problem you have with transcript and any other kind of monor rail where it just is kind of complicated to build switches and do anything with it. So, it's a bit overly complicated for a lot of situations where like probably if you want the most bang for your buck, you probably build a tram or like a subway or something. It solves one particular problem in whoop very well though, going over a river. [laughter] There were also ideas to have a train track at the bottom and then a shan on top of it so you can fit more train into the space >> and then train can be one of those set believe that go really really really fast just across the stream trains. >> So you have here a separate highspeed train network on the footprint of your existing train network. >> Yes. [snorts] But like I mean like in in the end like right what the whoop banana is is just like an existing like metro train over existing infrastructure of the whooper the river in Vupertal. So you know same idea basically [laughter] [snorts] and we have two questions. One of the big advantages that things like have is that you can theoretically drive them autonomous. Why isn't this a thing that is used more? >> You can do it also with metro trains as you do for example at Nunburg. Uh they have it for years in place like not they still have a central control room >> but they steer it from their remote. You don't need drivers driving through tunnels every day. the the thing the thing you want for fully autonomous driving really is this great separation, right? You need some kind of separation like you don't want like level crossings or like ideally you don't even want passengers accessing your platform directly. I mean that's also why a bunch of like metro systems the world over have these like platform screen doors, right? So they like basically have an autonomous vehicle that just can't go there and like they will be at like very high certainty no one on the line and like right the thing is you can have this with any kind of track system. You could have this with a road like like right the Las Vegas loop also does that just with cars kind of you could have autonomous vehicles in these tunnels where they can't go anywhere and where you don't expect anything to be and I think then like right this is not a particular advantage to bar this is just an advantage to great separation how you do your grade separation is varied and like this has like the disadvantage of being a monor rail in a way in a lot of ways but like there's other system like right the transfer pet is also kind of monoral Like the aerot train would be a kind of monor rail and they all have these other problems of like as I said earlier like track switching and like kind of undesirable configurations but like people try again and again with like right like there's a bugle ban and and everything. [laughter] >> Okay. So what is the definition of monor rail? Um I mean like a monor rail is just basically like yeah definitionally it's just like a tracked vehicle that runs on a single track like on a single rail. So like it's can be like like definitionally like you first would probably think of all the like things that actually run on the track directly but like functionally I think a lot of other things like a trans repeat also function like a mon rail because they have like this one central body around which the vehicle kind of wraps. So this French uh rocket train was also a monor rail system. Then it >> it kind of works functionally like a monor rail system because you have this T-shaped track, right? And so if you have like the vehicles are kind of balanced around is supposedly balanced around this like T- shape, this like bit that sticks out. >> So every time you'd want to switch that, you'd have to switch this kind of track configuration. >> Okay. Like like uh the trans rapid. Yeah. So to speak. Okay. Thanks. Yeah, I'm terribly sorry to be doing this, but coming to the question >> monor rails is the um trans law. Is that a monor rail? It has one rail and it runs along it. >> I I mean I mean you you got to get into like like splitting hairs here. I I would say translo has like trans has is like the opposite of a monoral, right? Like for most modern racers, you have like one central bit that sticks out on the track and the vehicle kind of wraps around it. But like transverse is kind of the opposite. You have a bit in the vehicle that sticks out and fits into this groove on the on on on the track basically. So you get like this kind of functional difference of like trans you can still e more easily switch because you just have to move this tiny bit groove in the ground basically around. And also like trans has some other advantages because it can also just like run around without the rail, right? The rail is not the thing it propels itself on. It's kind of also just a guided bus. It just has a track. Like I would say transor is more of a guided bus than it is like a monor rail system. Hovercraft. Hovercraft. Yeah. I mean we should have put that in too. Like there's the entire like uh [ __ ] uh sea line I think like there was the the the hovercraft service between like uh the France and the UK which was like somewhat funded by like British whale and SNCF and wonderful wonderful vehicles wonderful service. >> There is still a hovercraft running to the aisle of white. That is why I wasn't uh didn't put it in there because I was like oh it exists. It works. No, but like like I mean I think it would have it's also a really nice ontology. It works. >> Yes. >> Come on. >> Yes. >> We we we could have added should have added. >> Yes. >> Five minutes still. Do you have anything? There's one. [laughter] Uh, well, I have a funny question that's not really that serious and then I have a serious question after that. I I start with the funny one. You talked about the monalatal. Am I allowed to take my elephant with me? >> Uh, I I mean I think Whoopal is very proud of that accident somehow. Like they you come out of the main station in Whoopertal and you just like see a statue of that accident. for context like I think in 1910s or something >> 50s. >> Yes. >> Okay. 50s. So yeah, they took like an an elephant like a circus elephant onto one of the like old varan and the elephant unfortunately panicked and uh kind of jumped out of the train into the whooper and but yeah I I mean the city is is kind of proud of that accident somehow. I don't know. I think poor elephant. But like I I guess the elephant was pretty traumatized from that. Probably I'd be [laughter] not the only elephant accident I actually know of. There's the city in Switzerland where they in the 1900s in the 1800s, sorry, they had a a circus elephant from the USA that uh kind of took a fall through the city and um as true Americans did, the circus people shot him. Um, perfect. Yes. And then the serious question, we are always talking about the problem here. Um, for myself, I just wanted to throw in one possible solution. Like in Strasburg, maybe you have been there with a car. Um, they have the so-called uh Trump parking lots where you can just uh in the at the end of the city in the outskirts, you can just park your car for like €7 for the entire evening. And that's also a tram ticket. >> Yeah. >> For seven people, I think. >> Yeah. They there's multiple things like that. Stutkat also used to have this for like ages where you basically had like at some of the like outlying like Hishar and you'd also have like these like big park and ride parking spots where like a parking ticket would also be your like public transport ticket into Stoodgard. I mean they they there's lots of solutions like that. Studg is also a funny system. Like Stud at some point in the like 90s switched track gauge from like uh their like narrow gauge like tram lines to uh broad like standard gauge for like the their strutban. Thing is though they didn't rip out all the like narrow gauge track. They still have through their modernized like standard gauge like underground stations. They still have extra platform bits where like the museum tram can actually go. So you can actually on like Sundays in summer go to like museum and but Kat in Stoodgurt and take the tram to like fancy and you just go through all of the in like the central bits of Stoutgart with that on the narrow gauge track. >> My question actually was meant differently. I actually wanted to ask if there are actually some honorable mentions for solution for the um cities as they are built as we live in them. Um for the the chaos for example in Manheim you always have uh for like like right now you have one of the two bridges over the Ryan that is closed indefinitely until they get the money to um make it drivable again. And uh yes, like people with cars that work in Manheim and for example live somewhere where the yeah prices for the cost of living are somewhat lower on the other side of the R. They have fun right now. And are there any solutions is the general question. >> I I I mean the the thing is like I mean there's like different scale solutions, right? There's like the the the really local solution of like oh like okay what is the transport people are using? How do we get people from like [sighs and snorts] their house to the grocery store? And those solutions look different than like grand solutions for like society. And like I mean like in a way like right for a lot of cities like car traffic is unsustainable in a way because they're too full of cars and cars are not that efficient in getting people around especially with the amount of people that are in cars. So like right there days I think like I mean if you look to the past like a wonderful solution would be like I mean Manheim even still has a bit of that in Vixen too of like the old like kind of like narrow gauge railways that used to span a lot of Europe like uh there's like a lot of like railway track that we lost where they were like kind of these like regional tram systems. Some of them are coming back. Um, like I mean that's kind of what the cards model is kind of modeled after is is to to have these kind of regional connections. But like I mean like none of these solutions are like a quick and easy like uh here go just just do this cheap trick and and like all all the car drivers and everyone will be happy. >> Yeah, there's a thing on different scales. you need different solutions and there's not the one size fits all solution like a car fits a lot of yeah in a lot of cases. So when you want to get people off the car you need for the mobility that they want a lot of different solutions. Yeah. >> So the time is up. >> Thank you. So, if there's like no like burning question, I would like ask for a round of applause. [applause]