Arbitrary Range Immediate Dispatch Autonomous Small Article Transport System by robertdedomenico

I had an opportunity to talk to the inventor and see a prototype that he has been working on. Very impressive work!

Such a great idea to reduce transportation congestion and energy use! I can see this going over in a big way in major metropolitan centers.

- Interesting concept - Author only focused on building the vehicle. Not clear what infrastructure is used and who is going to control the vehicles. - Author should consider the interaction with other vehicles. - How would consumers pay for goods and transport service, etc? - Requires additional guideways, which makes implementation tricky. - For wider scale penetration, more thought is required. - It is not clear how large the dispatch vehicles are. If they are too small, many trips may required, and what about their carbon footprint?

My proposal was a rapidly modified copy of a specific design-build proposal submitted last year to the New York State Energy Research Development Authority, Program Oppurtunity Notice 2584. I ran out of time before I could make all the revisions it deserved to tailor it to this particular contest. I did all that I could to communicate this to Climatecolab. Author only focused on building the vehicle. Not clear what infrastructure is used and who is going to control the vehicles. The above statement is FALSE. The very first sentence in the description summary states: "Autonomous electric traction motor container cars in enclosed tubes with power supplied along the guideway..." It is clear from this first sentence that the infrastructure is a network of electrically energized pipes, and that the vehicles will have autonomous control, which means each individual vehicle has it's own CPU and program for executing it's route. That's what Autonomous means. It's not unclear. Author should consider the interaction with other vehicles. The above statement is not false, but the author has considered the interaction with other vehicles, and did communicate that. Under "major tasks to be accomplished," bullets six and eight specify two vehicle merge testing (which is a key interaction between any two vehicles,) and multi-vehicle testing. It should be clear from these statements that the interaction between vehicles is being considered. How would consumers pay for goods and transport service, etc? This question is trivial! It will be no different than ordering things over the internet today. Having service will be no different than paying for internet access. This was omitted because there were limits on word count and limits time, as the author found out about this competition less than two days before the deadline. It was completely unforseen that the judges would be so shortsighted as a reason to reject the proposal. Requires additional guideways, which makes implementation tricky. Because it needs to be built it is therefore unworthy of consideration? That is what the above statement is saying. How about that "Solar Serpent" finalist which requires building roofs over all the LA freeways? What about that 2011 pick... PRT? How hard is it to put in one more network of underground pipes? We do it for water, sewer, natural gas, electricity (mostly above ground, sometimes below,) and oil and gas transmission pipelines all over the country. For wider scale penetration, more thought is required. ??? Is the author being accused of not putting in more thought than was communicated in a word-limited format proposal? It is not clear how large the dispatch vehicles are. If they are too small, many trips may required, and what about their carbon footprint? How can it not be clear how large the dispatch vehicles are. While the exact specification was not mentioned, it was clearly communicated that these would be small article container carriers. The approximate range of scale is specified. Yes, in cases such as bringing home the groceries a number of individual vehicles will each carry their portion of the load. This is how the internet works... numerous small packets of information. This will work for small articles as well. And questioning their carbon footprint? I said that these vehicles would be using about 1% as much energy as a car over the same distance. I also said they were electric. Clearly they will have a miniscule carbon footprint compared to driving 4,000 lb cars to retrieve small payloads. None of the negatives offered as reasons for not selecting this proposal as a finalist can stand up to any reasonable scrutiny. Proposals selected as finalists in this category had much more serious questions raised. They were told in judges comments that they were not worthy of judges selection without fixing those issues, and those issues were reasonable! How much will it cost to build earthqake resistant roofing over all of LA's freeways? It's ludicrous. Several of the published, stated rules of this contest have not been followed verbatim by Climatecolab: 1. Three to six proposals per category to be chosen as finalist. In one category seven were chosen, in another nine were chosen. 2. Deadlines missed and moved after the fact, for proposal submission, judging, proposal modification, etc. 3. One category was completely dismissed. In light of these adjustments, and in consideration of how the comments against my proposal have been demonstrated to have serious flaws and appear capricious and arbitrary in comparison to the comments and outcomes of other proposals, how is it right to stick to a rigid declaration that "decisions of the judges are final." Are they're decisions infallible? I hereby petition Climatecolab to institute a policy of case by case review of rejected proposals on the basis of the merits of the petitioner's arguments, and to reserve the right to promote to finalist any such proposal as is deemed appropriate.