Solar electric buses, future transport for the UK?
I was walking back from town today (with my legs) and as I observed the number of cars driving towards me with only one occupant, I thought to myself, why do people feel the need to clog up the roads with their cars and why do they do this knowing full well that they are going to just sit there in a traffic jam? What's wrong with public transport, cycling and walking? There's so many adverts on TV and the radio at moment telling us we should walk or cycle rather than use the car.
It also occurred to me at this point that the particular ad I had heard this morning didn't mention public transport and I think I know why. It's too expensive for one (in my opinion) and it's also too infrequent in many parts of the country to be a really viable means transportation for many people. It's far more convenient just to jump in the car and go where you want to go. This to me, is a pretty sad state of affairs because we all know (or rather, have been told) how bad cars are for the environment. Why can't they (the government etc.) really invest in public transport. Why can't they make it dirt cheap, frequent and efficient, and then people would actually consider using it?
I then started thinking about buses and remembered all the times I'd stood at bus stops in the freezing rain waiting for a bus that was half an hour late if it turned up at all (err.. Milton Keynes anyone?). Buses are great if there's a good service and even better if it's at a reasonable price. London buses are I think a very good example of this. Also the bus service back up in Edinburgh is a very good example with buses every ten to fifteen minutes and a day pass at £3. Well this is more like it, it's just a shame that Coventry, Bedworth and Nuneaton doesn't have such a good bus service and it certainly isn't as cheap, or at least it wasn't the last time I checked. Could this be improved? How about an electric bus for example?
I've been interested in electric transportation for quite a while. In fact I've been looking at conversion kits for bicycles and dreaming if I say so, of one day owning an electric motorcycle. Whilst battery and fuel cell technology has come along in leaps and bounds over the last few years, it isn't quite good enough or cheap enough for anyone but an enthusiast. One day perhaps we'll see a great deal of electric vehicles (EV's) on the road and that can only be a good thing. In the immediate future I don't think that an electric bus would result in cheaper public transport although it would certainly be cleaner.
Perhaps it might be possible to integrate charging facilities with a kind of eco electric bus terminal whereby a vast array of solar panels on the roofs of the terminus capture energy from the sun, supplemented by some of those smaller wind turbines. Could we then cover the roofs of the bus in cells to trickle charge the batteries throughout the day? In actual fact a bus terminus in a coastal town could use wave power and wind power to completely power their bus service in this way. The fleet could be larger than the capacity required so that a number of units are on charge whilst the others are out on the circuit. Electric buses such as these could be run ultra cheap and the cost savings passed on to those passengers who right now would rather opt to sit in a traffic jam with fumes belching from their car exhaust.
And so ends another one of my half baked dreams....
