PROJECT TITLE :

ICVS: A Paradigm to Address Urban Traffic Gridlock and Associated Problems

ABSTRACT:

For the metropolitan setting, we tend to propose the introduction of (largely) one-seater electric vehicles and a sparse road network dedicated to them. These "intelligent commuter vehicles" (ICVs) would be bimodal: human-driven on customary roads, and pc-guided in the network (ICVN), that also charges and powers the vehicles. The commuter would drive to the nearest entry/exit terminal, from where the vehicle would be guided to the terminal closest to the destination, the trip being completed by human driving. The sparsity of the network, combined with the vehicles' narrowness and lightness means that that it will be created relatively painlessly. Network-charging both removes the need of a separate urban charging infrastructure and ends up in short vary-requirement for the vehicles, hence existing, low cost lead-acid batteries can be used; the controlled atmosphere of the network makes the guiding of the vehicles realizable with existing technology. Hence the paradigm will not need any technological breakthroughs; is backward-compatible, since existing roads are still utilized, and a partlycompleted network can be used; and forward-compatible, since the vehicles can easily be converted to be absolutely self-driving, if and once we are technologically and socially prepared. We believe that these features create the paradigm the foremost reasonable resolution to the metropolitan gridlock problem.