A long belt replaces the road going over a hill. The cars going downhill stop or solw on the belt to help pull up the ones coming up behind. Managing the traffic flow would be key, as you always want a greater density of cars on the downside.
-- macrumpton, May 14 2004

Nasty prank: While on the down hill side hit the gas real hard to push the belt back up. Cars on the uphill side will slide backwards.
-- kbecker, May 14 2004


This could be done with moving sidewalks also.
-- FarmerJohn, May 15 2004


This seems too difficult to operate, good intent though
-- swimr, May 15 2004


If the cars going down weigh the same as the cars going up, it won't move, and you can't expect people to wait around until the traffic is right for them to go up or down a hill.
-- schematics, May 16 2004


You could use a regenerative braking system to recover the energy used on the downhill leg.

This is probaby impactical for cars but might work where trucks have to go over mountain range (the timber trucks in Australia's Snowy Mountaisn come to mind as an example.

You could have an overhead device that hooked up to the truck and towed it up hill using an electric motor. When it went down the other side, the engien would act as a brake instead.
-- Iangould, Sep 30 2006


If the cars going uphill used their engines to drive forwards, while those going downhill used their brakes to remain stationary relative to the belt, there would on average be more cars at any given time on the downhill side.

Or the downhill cars could drive backwards, I don't care which.
-- spidermother, Feb 16 2011



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