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The speed of moving walkways are limited by the maximum safe boarding and exit speed. Otherwise, they would cause a complete pile up.
Unlike escalators, most moving walkways use a rubberised track. This means the track transition can be very abrupt.
For very long distance transport, I propose
a series of 3 tracks (slow, fast, slow) that have a slow boarding section, that feeds a faster track that feeds a slower exit track. The slower track would be long enough to allow passengers to safely spread out and transition to the stationary section.
At the interface of each track would be a flat steel plate 6 inches wide with small rollers on top. The hand rail would have a wider gap that would provide additional warning of the transition.
Walking Highways
http://www.halfbake.../walking_20highways
A similar notion, but with parallel tracks of differing speeds, rather than consecutive. [friendlyfire, Oct 17 2004]
Fast Walkway in the Paris Metro
http://news.bbc.co..../europe/3001182.stm
This has acceleration and deceleration rollers at either end. [Gordon Comstock, Oct 17 2004]
[link]
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This could also be done with one, elastic track. Made with steel ribbing like escalator steps, but with a deeper interface, the sections would slide farther apart as they accelerate and then come closer as they slow down towards the end. |
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The three tracks are end-to-end-to-end, right, not parallel? I was confused when reading this at first but maybe thats just me. |
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If they are running parallel, I think Bradbury baked this in one of his robot series books. |
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that'll be azimov, 2fries. |
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"The Roads must Roll" wasn't this here before? |
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oops, I stand corrected. (crawls back under rock) |
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See link - implemented in Paris. It uses tiny rollers to speed you up and slow you down. To my mind it doesn't go fast enough. Presumably though, you could have more than one acceleration/deceleration zone. |
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Zimmy, I think "The Roads Must Roll" was the first fictional use of multi-speed walkways, but they were parallel - you step onto the slow track, then move over to faster ones as desired. Sounds practical, except for the lack of handrails. But I don't think Heinlein ever mentioned what happens if you stay on the fast track till the end - presumably you don't just hit a brick wall - so the serial speed-up/slow-down sections seem like a useful thing even in a parallel system. |
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