4 ms·

Evacuation seems a very strange problem. You certainly can't be evacuated in under 30 mins when you're half way across the Atlantic ocean in a plane, or half wa

by RyanZAG 13y ago

Evacuation seems a very strange problem. You certainly can't be evacuated in under 30 mins when you're half way across the Atlantic ocean in a plane, or half way between SF and LA in a car. Also, max 30 mins is a very short time for medical evacuations which often run into the 2+ hour range for most transport scenarios. Toilet is a minor worry and if it really is such a big deal to you (and other crazies who can't wait 30 minutes), reducing the passenger capacity of a car by 1/3rd so that a toilet can be added is a very simple and obvious solution that just means your ticket price goes up a bit. The toilet's waste could be emptied automatically at each stop in the station. With how much people bring this issue up however, I'm incredibly surprised we have no toilets in buses! You'd think this was the biggest issue to ever hit public transport... No doubt it was left out of the original spec because nobody even considered it worth including. EDIT: Feels like a debate someone must have had when they first started riding horses. "I'm not going to ride up on that horse, what happens if I need to use the toilet? When I'm just walking I just need to bend down in the bushes! Nobody will ever want to ride horses - consider the human implications of being up in the air!"

anonymouz 13y ago
> With how much people bring this issue up however, I'm incredibly surprised we have no toilets in buses! You don't? Pretty much all long distance buses (many hours ride; very few stops, usually clustered at the beginning and the end of the journey) have had toilets on board. Where you can get away without toilets is public transport in cities, and to some degree overland if there are enough stops (though that can be a problem). With a bus there's also always the option of just asking the driver to stop for a couple of minutes if it's really urgent.
- RyanZAG 13y ago
  Sounds good. When the hyperloop starts being used for many hours long rides, we can add in toilets then. Maybe we can have an option - double ticket price with toilet, or half price without? I have a feeling the double ticket price cars will be empty.
  - subsystem 13y ago
    I'm not sure where you get double from. The tickets probably won't be cheap anyways since there is only capacity for 3360 passengers per hour each way. Of course most other high-speed travel like the TGV and the Concorde started out as business travel with high priced tickets.
    - RyanZAG 13y ago
      From the doc (I'd probably double those cost estimate though): "Transporting 7.4 million people each way every year and amortizing the co st of $6 billion over 20 years gives a ticket price of $20 for a one - way trip for the passenger version of Hyperloop. " $20-$40 doesn't seem terribly expensive.
      - tptacek 13y ago
        That price accounts only for the capex cost of building the thing, and assumes that many of the... extremely ambitious... cost estimates in the white paper will hold up. In reality, there will be high operating expenses as well, which would also need to be reflected in ticket prices.
    - gsnedders 13y ago
      For the sake of comparison, the busiest TGV line (LGV Sud-Est) is signalled for three minute headways (i.e., three minutes between the front of one train and the front of the following one), and each train can hold up to 1016 passengers — 20320 passengers per hour. (And at certain times of day, it is close to operating at that.)
- superuser2 13y ago
  Great. Have you ever seen a toilet on a bus that people ride for ~35 minutes? I haven't.
hartror 13y ago
Crazies = people with kids.
- rschmitty 13y ago
  what do people with kids do on existing methods of public transit that can take 30+ minutes where there is no toilet on board?
  - DanBC 13y ago
    Children wear diapers. Or they are toilet trained. For the year or so in between you either use "pull ups" (temporary diaper stage) or plan your travel to avoid toilet times or to include toilet breaks. Also carrying changes of clothes, wipes, plastic bags, etc is recommended.
subsystem 13y ago
A 30 minute window of operation severely limits the usefulness of the idea. I think Musk did the idea a disservice by focusing too much on SF-LA and the comparison with the California HSR project. Which made the Hyperloop come off as romantic as a 30 minute elevator ride, rather than something revolutionary.
- mcintyre1994 13y ago
  If I remember correctly he said it would be feasible for long distance (>1000miles) but fast air travel would probably be more efficient at that point. Found the quote (http://www.spacex.com/sites/spacex/files/hyperloop_alpha.pdf http://www.spacex.com/sites/spacex/files/hyperloop_alpha.pdf): "The Hyperloop (or something similar) is, in my opinion, the right solution for the specific case of high traffic city pairs that are less than about 1500 km or 900 miles apart. Around that inflection point, I suspect that supersonic air travel ends up being faster and cheaper"
- dojomouse 13y ago
  I don't think there's any sort of real limit at 30 mins. Pushing it up to an hour is still fine without having to seriously address the 'what about the bathroom!" issue. And you can go quite a way in an hour at that sort of speed. There's also the 'passenger plus' variant. If it can take 3 cars it can certainly fit a bathroom :) But again, I'm pretty sure they if we can surmount the rest of the barriers we can solve the toilet one...
mcintyre1994 13y ago
It's true that evacuation here is likely easier than the plane or car journey, solely because you're in a pipe that gets where you need to be really quickly. I wonder whether it has its own unique evacuation concerns though, a car or plane has more room for dealing with a medical emergency immediately, and travelling 800mph might have its own set of complications for an emergency.
jonkelly 13y ago
I'm also surprised by how often this issue comes up. To use an example other than buses -- many ski lifts and gondolas are designed to take 10-15 minutes, but it's not unusual to be on one for over 30 minutes when there's heavy wind or a mechanical problem. They are also quite difficult to evacuate.
DanBC 13y ago
> (and other crazies who can't wait 30 minutes) That's an unnecessarily dismissive attitude to a very common medical problem. Similar attitudes cause distress for lots of people, and contribute to excluding people from everyday life. Luckily it's probably easy enough to solve. The low-tech solution isn't very nice. (http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/english/doc/2006-01/24/content_514899.htm http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/english/doc/2006-01/24/content_...) (http://rense.com/general69/kdll.htm http://rense.com/general69/kdll.htm) > Migrant workers in south China are wearing adult diapers on packed trains heading home for the Lunar New Year holiday because they have no access to a toilet, state media said Tuesday. > About 120 million peasants from China's vast rural areas swarm the cities for work and all try to make it home for the holiday, filling all standing room on trains and making access to the toilet impossible during trips often lasting 24 hours or more.
- jfoutz 13y ago
  I'd agree "crazies" is a little insensitive. But your counter example of 1440 minute voyages vs 30 minute voyages is a little hyperbolic. That's 2 orders of magnitude!
foobarqux 13y ago
You incorrectly used "to evacuate" in a rare instance where your intended meaning is actually confusing. At first I thought you were making a clever joke. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h5d82ndui_s http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h5d82ndui_s

by RyanZAG 13y ago

anonymouz 13y ago

> With how much people bring this issue up however, I'm incredibly surprised we have no toilets in buses! You don't? Pretty much all long distance buses (many hours ride; very few stops, usually clustered at the beginning and the end of the journey) have had toilets on board. Where you can get away without toilets is public transport in cities, and to some degree overland if there are enough stops (though that can be a problem). With a bus there's also always the option of just asking the driver to stop for a couple of minutes if it's really urgent.

RyanZAG 13y ago
Sounds good. When the hyperloop starts being used for many hours long rides, we can add in toilets then. Maybe we can have an option - double ticket price with toilet, or half price without? I have a feeling the double ticket price cars will be empty.
- subsystem 13y ago
  I'm not sure where you get double from. The tickets probably won't be cheap anyways since there is only capacity for 3360 passengers per hour each way. Of course most other high-speed travel like the TGV and the Concorde started out as business travel with high priced tickets.
  - RyanZAG 13y ago
    From the doc (I'd probably double those cost estimate though): "Transporting 7.4 million people each way every year and amortizing the co st of $6 billion over 20 years gives a ticket price of $20 for a one - way trip for the passenger version of Hyperloop. " $20-$40 doesn't seem terribly expensive.
    - tptacek 13y ago
      That price accounts only for the capex cost of building the thing, and assumes that many of the... extremely ambitious... cost estimates in the white paper will hold up. In reality, there will be high operating expenses as well, which would also need to be reflected in ticket prices.
  - gsnedders 13y ago
    For the sake of comparison, the busiest TGV line (LGV Sud-Est) is signalled for three minute headways (i.e., three minutes between the front of one train and the front of the following one), and each train can hold up to 1016 passengers — 20320 passengers per hour. (And at certain times of day, it is close to operating at that.)
superuser2 13y ago
Great. Have you ever seen a toilet on a bus that people ride for ~35 minutes? I haven't.

hartror 13y ago

Crazies = people with kids.

rschmitty 13y ago
what do people with kids do on existing methods of public transit that can take 30+ minutes where there is no toilet on board?
- DanBC 13y ago
  Children wear diapers. Or they are toilet trained. For the year or so in between you either use "pull ups" (temporary diaper stage) or plan your travel to avoid toilet times or to include toilet breaks. Also carrying changes of clothes, wipes, plastic bags, etc is recommended.

subsystem 13y ago

A 30 minute window of operation severely limits the usefulness of the idea. I think Musk did the idea a disservice by focusing too much on SF-LA and the comparison with the California HSR project. Which made the Hyperloop come off as romantic as a 30 minute elevator ride, rather than something revolutionary.

mcintyre1994 13y ago
If I remember correctly he said it would be feasible for long distance (>1000miles) but fast air travel would probably be more efficient at that point. Found the quote (http://www.spacex.com/sites/spacex/files/hyperloop_alpha.pdf http://www.spacex.com/sites/spacex/files/hyperloop_alpha.pdf): "The Hyperloop (or something similar) is, in my opinion, the right solution for the specific case of high traffic city pairs that are less than about 1500 km or 900 miles apart. Around that inflection point, I suspect that supersonic air travel ends up being faster and cheaper"
dojomouse 13y ago
I don't think there's any sort of real limit at 30 mins. Pushing it up to an hour is still fine without having to seriously address the 'what about the bathroom!" issue. And you can go quite a way in an hour at that sort of speed. There's also the 'passenger plus' variant. If it can take 3 cars it can certainly fit a bathroom :) But again, I'm pretty sure they if we can surmount the rest of the barriers we can solve the toilet one...

mcintyre1994 13y ago

It's true that evacuation here is likely easier than the plane or car journey, solely because you're in a pipe that gets where you need to be really quickly. I wonder whether it has its own unique evacuation concerns though, a car or plane has more room for dealing with a medical emergency immediately, and travelling 800mph might have its own set of complications for an emergency.

jonkelly 13y ago

I'm also surprised by how often this issue comes up. To use an example other than buses -- many ski lifts and gondolas are designed to take 10-15 minutes, but it's not unusual to be on one for over 30 minutes when there's heavy wind or a mechanical problem. They are also quite difficult to evacuate.

DanBC 13y ago

> (and other crazies who can't wait 30 minutes) That's an unnecessarily dismissive attitude to a very common medical problem. Similar attitudes cause distress for lots of people, and contribute to excluding people from everyday life. Luckily it's probably easy enough to solve. The low-tech solution isn't very nice. (http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/english/doc/2006-01/24/content_514899.htm http://www.chinadaily.com.cn/english/doc/2006-01/24/content_...) (http://rense.com/general69/kdll.htm http://rense.com/general69/kdll.htm) > Migrant workers in south China are wearing adult diapers on packed trains heading home for the Lunar New Year holiday because they have no access to a toilet, state media said Tuesday. > About 120 million peasants from China's vast rural areas swarm the cities for work and all try to make it home for the holiday, filling all standing room on trains and making access to the toilet impossible during trips often lasting 24 hours or more.

jfoutz 13y ago
I'd agree "crazies" is a little insensitive. But your counter example of 1440 minute voyages vs 30 minute voyages is a little hyperbolic. That's 2 orders of magnitude!

foobarqux 13y ago

You incorrectly used "to evacuate" in a rare instance where your intended meaning is actually confusing. At first I thought you were making a clever joke. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h5d82ndui_s http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h5d82ndui_s