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Chapter 1: the working context

Other possibilities: 39

 Novermber 1963    The Buchanan Report    Chapter 1  
Contents • Chapter 1 • Other possibilities

…a more direct challenge to the motor car, assuming the problem of noise can be overcome, is the air-cushion craft

  • Fig.34 The experimental monorail track of S.A.F.E.G.E. TRANSPORT near Paris. The car is suspended from rubber tyred bogies running inside the duct, and operation is thus silent and impervious to weather.
    Fig.34 The experimental monorail track of S.A.F.E.G.E. TRANSPORT near Paris. The car is suspended from rubber tyred bogies running inside the duct, and operation is thus silent and impervious to weather.
  • Fig.35 A vast amount of development imposed on the basis of the motor vehicle as the form of transport.
    Fig.35 A vast amount of development imposed on the basis of the motor vehicle as the form of transport.
  • Fig.36 The tracked hovercraft
    Fig.36 The tracked hovercraft
  • Fig.37 The air-cushion craft.
    Fig.37 The air-cushion craft.

Other possibilities

39

The same argument would probably apply to the development of other means of transport such as monorails (which offer the great virtue of silence), and tracked hovercraft (which offer the possibility of very high speeds). In both cases the competition would tend to be with existing forms of longer-distance public passenger transport, particularly the railways, rather than with motor transport in towns. A development which may offer a more direct challenge to the motor car, assuming the problem of noise can be overcome, is the air-cushion craft. It seems to give scope for development as a small personal machine, useable perhaps eventually on ordinary pavements as a substitute for walking. Yet it may be questioned whether it would really take this form, whether the urge to put a Perspex cover over it for weather protection, to use it at higher speeds, to add extra seats, and to affix luggage containers, would not soon convert it into a motor car in all respects but the possession of wheels,

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