Print-version Request for international partners General Description Acronym / Short name Automatic electrical traffic system for individual transport. Abstract There are several technical solutions for driverless rail-bound vehicles, like Metro-Paris and others. The main characteristics of all these systems is the fact that they are used to transport a collective of passengers. With the current proposal the consortium wants to develop this approach further to an individualised traffic system by modifying the successful technical product car for use on a special rail system with electrical power supply. Description Computer-Taxi-Rail = Automated Individual Traffic Trough the combination of established mechanical technologies with new information technologies one can achieve a quantum leap in the development of traffic systems: Electrified and fully automated vehicles move with short distance (i.e. high density) on a specialised rail system, a miniaturised highway. Distance sensors measure the distance between the vehicle and the side limit of the roadway and steer the car accordingly. The side limit has the function of a guard rail and provides additional orientation to steer correctly along branches. A power bar is mounted directly at road surface to provide energy to the vehicle whereas the road itself functions as grounding. Within the vehicle the DC current from the power bar is converted to frequency-controlled AC and moves the AC motor. This technical solution is state-of-the-art and standard in a variety of industrial applications. The determination of the vehicle's position is realised with a high-resolution mileage counter and machine readable barcodes on the road. This information is concurrently checked by the central computer. The central computer detects the loading of the vehicle by means of a test acceleration. The path of the vehicle can additionally be stored in it's "memory". All vehicles on the road communicate one with another, commands for acceleration or to brake are given simultaneously. Additional to the implemented autonomous intelligence of each vehicle a central computer observes the overall traffic situation. For redundancy reasons the communication can also take place over the power bar, similar to internet via power line. The passengers select their target inside the vehicle. The trip from the begin until the target is reached will be done without interruption. Everything, which is performed by human beings with their sensors and actors while steering a car, can be substituted by technical equivalents like laser sensors, computers, electrical servo-actuators, but a tousand times more exactly, more effective and without fatigue. The estimated costs for one palce for passengers is about 10.000 € / passenger. It is therefore ten times cheaper than places in modern trains. The estimated costs for the specialised rails are with 4 Mio. € / km seven times lower than for modern railways. The use of this system can start with incremental steps and is highly expandable. The efforts to start the use of this system is comparatively low due to the fact, that significant parts are nowadays already produced for conventional cars. Current Stage of Development 6th European Framework Programme, Organisation that is looking for partners Type : Engineering firm Size (amount of employees): 5 Description of activities/other details: Engineering firm for automation Target partner organisation type(s) Target partner expertise sought (Erfahrung in folgenden Bereichen): Vehicle construction Vehicle-Development and Vehicle-Production, Drive-by-Wire-Technologies Electrical Control Applications Software company Steel construction Energy provider Elektrische Antriebstechnik Application Domain(s), Anwendungsbereiche: Individual-Traffic, Automation, Electrical power distribution