Having long been concerned about the fact that walking on foot is both slow and tedious, man has adapted animals as a means of transport. Time passed, and mechanical carriages came to replace the horse. Now bicycles, motorcycles have become a common means of transportation.
But the possibilities to show imagination in transport are far from exhausted. For example, here are a dozen rather non-standard solutions.
10. Individual elevator
Back in 1867, the American inventor Charles Harvey offered New Yorkers an individual means of urban transport in the form of motorized tires, moving along the railway track laid over city streets.
For all the madness, the idea had a rational basis. Urban transport was in crisis. In the field of surface rail transport, the monopolies of the owners of the horse tram and the nascent metro fiercely competed. Charles’ proposal was not subject to licensing restrictions and aroused keen interest. Although it did not receive development – soon cars solved the issue of personal transport.
9. Bicycle monorail
Nevertheless, the curious “personal rail transport” still found application. True, purely entertaining, in a recreation park. The New Zealand Cycling Adventure Park complex, among other attractions, also contains a monorail track. Suspended individual booths with a pedal drive move along it.
Interestingly, Charles Harvey’s “personal elevator” also stopped at the stage of a manual railcar. But the “bicycle monorail” not only works, but also enjoys a stable success among the visitors of the park.
8. Armchair with a motor
Self-propelled wheelchairs are not new for a long time. But they are, nevertheless, not intended for public roads. On the other hand, since the beginning of the last century, car builders have experimented with microscopic – either cars or motorcycles with a cab.
The famous Toyota corporation got down to business thoroughly. Calling on modern materials and technologies, the engineers have designed a full-fledged individual vehicle in the form of, in fact, a chair with a motor. And this is not a “invalid”. On such a device, you can quite seriously accelerate on a park path or in a shopping mall.
7. Walking boots
It would seem that there is nowhere to reduce individual transport further. There will probably be fewer motorcycle seats, perhaps, mopeds and bicycles. But these are quite common mechanisms. But what if the fabulous idea of ”running boots” is realized?
No sooner said than done. “Anti-gravity boots” develop the idea of children’s entertainment “grasshopper” and the “jolly-jokers” that grew out of it. But this non-motorized vehicle looks exactly like boots. A cleverly designed system of springs and shock absorbers allows a “pedestrian” to develop the speed of a cyclist with about the same physical effort.
6. Jetpack
A completely spy thing that allows all sorts of jamebond to cross borders and evacuate from a special mission. They tried to do them for a long time, but they began to work out only now.
Finally, the technology for the production of miniature turbojet engines has been debugged. Modern miniature electronics help maintain balance in flight. Previously, both were “on the verge of fantasy”, but today businessmen have already begun to develop sets of “DIY jetpack”.
5. School bus on steroids
As soon as we are talking about jet engines, we can mention that they are sometimes installed on cars. It was the “jet engine on wheels” that set the speed record, exceeding the speed of sound without taking off from the ground.
Americans are very fond of the show “very, very car”. The fastest passenger car. The largest wheels. The most evil tractor. So they made the “best” school bus, throwing out almost all the seats from the passenger compartment, and placing there a turbojet engine from a fighter jet and tanks with a fair amount of fuel. Almost 600 kilometers per hour! It is unlikely that schoolchildren will be happy with such a quick arrival at school. But the viewers of the auto show are happy.
4. Floating bus
You will hardly surprise anyone with an excursion on the “river tram”. The bus excursion is even more commonplace. But the whole world is full of wonderful places in which islands alternate with backwaters, river views with fascinating journeys through parks.
The first amphibious buses appeared soon after World War II. The Americans have left “out of business” a lot of universal amphibious amphibians. And if caterpillar tracks did not find other uses, except for geological parties, then wheel ones were massively bought by entrepreneurs and converted into excursion “floating buses”. For their characteristic appearance and some awkwardness on land, they were nicknamed “lame ducks.”
Those cars are almost all outdated. But the demand has remained, and today amphibious buses are already being designed and produced specifically for the needs of tourism.
3. Private submarine
Once on the water, a tourist sometimes wants to see, “what’s under us?”. The transparent bottom of the pleasure boat partially solves the issue. But you want to get even closer.
Having looked closely at the experience of Colombian criminals, who have long and successfully operated improvised miniature submarines, enterprising shipbuilders are developing projects for individual submarines.
Unlike purely “utilitarian” Colombian boats, here the user is offered, first of all, an excellent view in all directions and the ability to dive to a couple of tens of meters. Alas, “peaceful tourists” are still showing interest in projects, but for some reason they are not in a hurry with orders.
2. Motosurfing
Great fun on the water – glide on the board! It’s fun, spectacular, and good sport. Here’s the problem: for such a slide, very specific conditions are needed. Surf does not always create sufficiently large, even and, most importantly, stable water shafts. And entertainment depends very much on the weather.
For residents of calm waters, surfing with a motor is offered. Now, to slide on the water surface, a water mountain is no longer needed. And with some skill, you can show tricks.
1. Bus tunnel
Returning to public transport: the streets are very crowded these days. Many large cities are trying to reduce tensions by imposing draconian restrictions on the presence of cars in the city. Alas, and this does not help, buses and trams are already starting to push in the streets.
The Japanese and Chinese people are particularly well aware of this problem. And if the Japanese are forced to adjust their solutions to the already established architecture of megalopolises, then the Chinese have acted decisively. With the ability to design the streets of their cities, growing by leaps and bounds, they took and designed a bus that literally hovers above the street.
No fantastic technologies, everything is within the framework of reality. The bus travels on high “legs” with wheels. It should cover the entire width of the street. At the same time, the wheels travel along specially designated paths (not at all wide and not interfering with the usual traffic flow). An extensive salon literally hovers over several lanes, letting in not only cars but also simple buses and trams under its belly. Large-scale!
