The podcar: take a taxi to the future

I am just back from a week in Stockholm where i met Åke Åredal, inventor of the innovative Skycab project. A Skycab is a pod-shaped light railway system that is being designed to connect small communities, like university campuses and airports, with heavier mass transit infrastructure. It is a form of personal rapid transport system, which some are calling the podcar. There are several competing systems out there and each are a bit like a taxi that runs on a guideway. Skycab not only looks sleek and futuristic but its small, relatively cheap and less environmentally harmful than other transit systems.

According to Åredal, Skycab will produce only 25% of carbon emission per passenger mile (PPM) as a car and 50% of a bus. It is, moreover, far less expensive to build than a light railway. A survey by EcoTech Stockhom estimates that: “Regarding carbon dioxide (CO2) emissions SkyCab is 1800 times lower than a car and SkyCab will take 1/4 of car energy.”