4 ms·

I disagree that the spatial layout of an airport is, even theoretically, designed to distribute the flow of passengers in time - otherwise, it wouldn't involve

I disagree that the spatial layout of an airport is, even theoretically, designed to distribute the flow of passengers in time - otherwise, it wouldn't involve multiple queue/sync points, some involving all passengers of a flight. It's a historic design from the age of grass strips, that sprawled as modern airports grew to handle more and more passengers, increasing the walking and waiting required from one point to another to the current, extreme situation. We now have buses taking you to the plane, airport monorails taking you to the terminal (Frankfurt) [1], and even pods moving you around the airport (Heathrow). [2] Self driving pods are the obvious response to unify all these transport needs in a single end-to-end system that can spread the passenger load in time and massively simplify the airport construction. [1] https://www.frankfurt-airport.com/en/travel/transfer.detail.suffix.html/article/travel/terminal-transfer/terminal-transfer-via-skyline.html https://www.frankfurt-airport.com/en/travel/transfer.detail.... [2] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ULTra_(rapid_transit) https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/ULTra_(rapid_transit)

gamblor956 8y ago
Pods are just another form of queue...with their own sync points. Except now you've made the system brittle by making it dependent on a specific configuration of processes. Great when everything works...but far, far worse if any part of it breaks down.
- cornholio 8y ago
  The disembarkment from the cars to the tarmac should be almost instantaneous, and there is plenty of room there to queue if passengers are arriving faster then they can take their seats in the plane (a rare occurrence, absent other upstream sync points). There should be no traffic congestion and choke points in a properly designed airport because there is an enormous amount of horizontal space. Failures due to very specific processes are a typical situation now - I recently waited about 20 minutes when the transfer bus would no longer start, then wasted another 15-20 minutes because the replacement bus took us to the arrivals section of another terminal - while we needed to connect to another flight on the same terminal. Had to go through baggage control again, passports, had to wait for the Frankfurt monorail mentioned above, almost lost the connecting flight. Seems to me a flexible fleet could improve this situation enormously with awareness of the passenger circumstances - even to the point of taking you straight to your connecting plane without visiting the terminal. Failure should be isolated to the affected passengers, short of catastrophic events where there is no routearound.

gamblor956 8y ago

Pods are just another form of queue...with their own sync points. Except now you've made the system brittle by making it dependent on a specific configuration of processes. Great when everything works...but far, far worse if any part of it breaks down.

cornholio 8y ago
The disembarkment from the cars to the tarmac should be almost instantaneous, and there is plenty of room there to queue if passengers are arriving faster then they can take their seats in the plane (a rare occurrence, absent other upstream sync points). There should be no traffic congestion and choke points in a properly designed airport because there is an enormous amount of horizontal space. Failures due to very specific processes are a typical situation now - I recently waited about 20 minutes when the transfer bus would no longer start, then wasted another 15-20 minutes because the replacement bus took us to the arrivals section of another terminal - while we needed to connect to another flight on the same terminal. Had to go through baggage control again, passports, had to wait for the Frankfurt monorail mentioned above, almost lost the connecting flight. Seems to me a flexible fleet could improve this situation enormously with awareness of the passenger circumstances - even to the point of taking you straight to your connecting plane without visiting the terminal. Failure should be isolated to the affected passengers, short of catastrophic events where there is no routearound.